Does the law on terrorism reflect a tendency in the UK to pass authoritarian laws with little regards for human rights without giving thought to whether such laws are needed? Is this problem peculiar to Britain?

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Crime, Law and Different Societies: assessed essay.

Does the law on terrorism reflect a tendency in the UK to pass authoritarian laws with little regards for human rights without giving thought to whether such laws are needed? Is this problem peculiar to Britain?

Introduction:

Terrorism is a notion difficult to define. A perfect illustration of this fact is to be found in the differences between the definitions given by the doctrine or the Law. For example, according to the section 1 of the United Kingdom Terrorism Act 2000, terrorism is “the use or threat of serious violence against persons or serious damage to property, designed to influence the government or intimidate the public or a section of the public…for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause”. Amongst the remarks arose by the letter of this extract, one is that all the crimes listed (“use or threat of serious violence against persons…” or “serious damage to property…”, etc…) are already subject to legislation. What is then the purpose of the law on terrorism?

This purpose might be strongly linked to the very nature of terrorism, which is to be found far beyond the diverse definitions. The notion of terrorism is at the intersection of political violence, moral justifications, and fight for a “just” cause (“one man terrorist is another man freedom fighter”). It is also powered by the great opportunities our complex and utterly vulnerable societies offers to violent disruption. All those considerations are at the origin of the special legal regime governing the fight against terrorism: it seems difficult to oppose the moral or ideological support such actions can trigger as well as to oppose a proper prevention to the great damages that can result.

According to Clive Walker, “special laws against terrorism have provided a constant feature of political and legal life in the United Kingdom throughout most of the past century or more”. Indeed, Great Britain had to face numerous tides of terrorism, mostly linked with the struggle of nationalists in Northern Ireland. Endemic since the first part of the 20th century (hence the Prevention of the Violence Act 1939), these troubles reached their peak during the seventies, especially with famous bombings, like the two bomb explosions on the 21 November 1974 in Birmingham (21 death). This omnipresence of violence was used as a justification for the elaboration of emergency measures as the already quoted Prevention of the Violence Act 1939, the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1974 or The Northern Ireland Acts 1973, 1996 to 1998. Despised by the terrorist factions, denounced by the association fighting for the defence of civil liberties (like the National Council for Civil Liberties) and constantly pinpointed by the Non Governmental Organisations for the defence of Human Rights (as Amnesty International) as abusive; this set of regulation experiences a second youth after the events of the 11 September 2001. Indeed, the Terrorism Acts 2000 and 2001 are often reported as not being “a clean break with the past”, their contents being “traceable to the legislation they replace”.

This, despite the fact that British practices have commonly been criticised in the light of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) and the related British Human Rights Act 1998.

Nevertheless, it seems that this tendency to pass authoritarian laws is not a British speciality. In France, during periods of terrorist strikes, the government has the power to launch the Plan Vigipirate, a consequent extension of the powers of the police added to an armed military presence in the cities, amongst the civilian population. In America, the trauma of the 11 September (or 9/11, as these terrorist actions are there called) leaded to the unconditional support of the legislative body to George W. Bush obsession of the War on terror. Whether the set of decisions powered by the event is of little regards for the basic Human Rights is indubitable as demonstrated by the condition of detention of the arrested potential responsibles in the prison facility of Guantanamo Bay or the threat of death penalty lying on the shoulders of the defendants.

Since, according to Peter Chalk, “the basic task [of the liberal democracies] is to defend the community’s liberal democratic way of life, it is essential that that the manner of that defence does not undermine those very standards and traditions which make such an existence possible in the first place”; it is important to analyse thoroughly what circumstances brought the United Kingdom to take such legislation. It is also a major issue to stress out to what extent those laws are authoritarian and regardless of Human Rights, and why they can be regarded as an attempt (successful or not of over compensating the threat of terrorist action. To end with, a brief study of the situation in other countries will allow reckoning whether the problem is specifically British or not.

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  1. The experience of terrorism in the United Kingdom:

I against my brother

  I and my brother against our cousin

  I, my brother and our cousin against the neighbours

  All of us against the foreigner.

The experience of terrorism in the United Kingdom is mostly (in fact nearly exclusively) linked with the Catholic claims for independence in Northern Ireland. These claims are in majority upheld by the Irish Republican Army (IRA), also responsible for the birth of the Irish nationalist feelings in Ulster. In 1922, out the independence of Ireland, 6 counties in the ...

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