1st Edition

Executive Measures, Terrorism and National Security Have the Rules of the Game Changed?

By David Bonner Copyright 2007
    388 Pages
    by Routledge

    388 Pages
    by Routledge

    David Bonner presents an historical and contemporary legal analysis of UK governmental use of executive measures, rather than criminal process, to deal with national security threats. The work examines measures of internment, deportation and restriction on movement deployed in the UK and (along with the imposition of collective punishment) also in three emergencies forming part of its withdrawal from colonial empire: Cyprus, Kenya and Malaya. These situations, along with that of Northern Ireland, are used to probe the strengths and weaknesses of ECHR supervision. It is argued that a new human rights era ushered in by a more confident Court of Human Rights and a more confident national judiciary armed with the HRA 1998, has moved us towards greater judicial scrutiny of the application of these measures - a move away from unfettered and unreviewable executive discretion.

    Part I Introduction and Overview; Chapter 1 Perspectives, Themes and Concepts; Part II Before 9/11: United Kingdom and Empire 1905–2001; Chapter 2 Dealing with the ‘Enemy at Home’ during the Two World Wars; Chapter 3 Political Violence and the Irish Question; Chapter 4 Undesirable ‘Aliens’: Immigration Control and Deportation; Chapter 5 Withdrawal from Empire: the Malayan, Cyprus and Kenyan Emergencies; Part III After 9/11: Have the Rules of the Game Changed?; Chapter 6 After 9/11: Overview and Context; Chapter 7 Executive Measures after 9/11: the Powers and their Use; Chapter 8 Challenge Mechanisms; Chapter 9 Legal Challenges and Human Rights Issues; Part IV Conclusion; Chapter 10 Retrospective and Reflective;

    Biography

    David Bonner is Professor of Law at the University of Leicester, UK. He has published widely on terrorism and human rights, and in the area of social security law.

    'By placing the state responses to 9/11 in a historical perspective Professor Bonner has convincingly refuted the claim that the ’the rules have changed’. This scholarly account shows that we have faced the danger of oppressive over-reaction to threats to national security many times before. Will we learn from history or are we doomed merely to repeat it?' Ian Leigh, University of Durham, UK 'Professor Bonner’s timely and though-provoking study of British legal approaches to terrorism and insurgency draws on a wealth of comparative and historical material. The result is a cogent challenge to official discourse that claims that the ’rules of the game’ have radically changed post 9/11. No democratic society can afford to ignore the lessons he so eloquently points to.' Colm Campbell, University of Ulster, UK 'Executive Measures, Terrorism and National Security. Have the Rules of the Game Changed? deserves more attention than all the interventions of the post 11 September experts put together.' Oxford Journal of Legal Studies '...an illuminating exploration of western liberal responses to terrorism.' Prison Service Journal