[Recording] Asser live webinar ‘Counter-terrorism & the law: A forever and anywhere war’

Published 19 May 2020

On Monday May 18, T.M.C. Asser Instituut hosted its first online live discussion, in which Asser Institute counterterrorism experts Dr Rumyana van Ark and Rebecca Mignot-Mahdavi provided a legal perspective on current affairs. In the session Counterterrorism & the law: A forever and anywhere war, the researchers explored the ever- growing confusion between times and spaces of war and peace in the context of counter-terrorism, and discussed the role that legal norms and legislative practices have in this. 

Anticipating threats
With case studies on the United States, the United Kingdom and France, Rumyana and Rebecca illustrated how counterterrorism security practices increasingly revolve around anticipating threats and identifying individuals who may pose a future threat, rather than only responding to hostile or criminal acts that have taken or are taking place. This focus on anticipating threats, combined with existing legal ‘grey zones’ has resulted, Rumyana and Rebecca argued,  in a potential ‘forever and anywhere’ war on terrorism. 

The event was moderated by Asser researcher Dr León Castellanos-Jankiewicz.

Watch the full brief in the video below:

This counter-terrorism brief is part of the Asser research strand Human Dignity and Human Security in International and European Law which adopts as its normative framework a human rights approach to contemporary global challenges, inter alia in the fields of counter-terrorism, especially with regard to the topic of foreign (terrorist) fighters, international and transnational crimes, new technologies and artificial intelligence, and historical memory.

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