TORONTO, January 14, 2002 -- Despite the failure of the international community to arrive at a mutually acceptable definition of the term terrorism, conflict specialist Michael Dartnell says existing international conventions on terrorism can still serve as a basis for global counter-terrorism laws if they focus on behaviours, persons and materials, rather than terrorism.
A political scientist and research associate at the York University Centre for International and Security Studies (YCISS), Dartnell will present his analysis on Tuesday, Jan. 15 at 12:30 p.m. in a seminar entitled, The Problem of Terrorism in International Law: Fragmentation, Globalization, Legitimacy. Dartnell is a specialist in new forms of conflict and has written extensively on French terrorism, the Northern Ireland conflict, international legal counter-terrorism, and how the Internet is changing political conflict.
He says "terrorism" is a misleading term as it suggests a single phenomenon that can be addressed in a straight forward manner through specific actions or policy. "The complex behaviours referred to by the term ‘terrorism’ include bombings, assassinations or machine-gun attacks; a constellation of behaviours rather than coherent ideas and objectives," says Dartnell.
He says issues of legitimacy of governments and justifications for political violence have hampered international attempts to define terrorism, and this failure can give rise to abuse in either direction. He notes that even democratic societies such as Canada and France have difficulty defining, isolating and criminalizing the sets of behaviours called terrorism.
Dartnell points out that the need for an international legal response to terrorism has emerged at the very time that globalization is reshaping the role of the state and the nature of international political action by governments and private citizens alike. Given this complexity, he says a variety of international, regional and national legal responses will be required. He argues that international conventions on terrorism could embody "positive globalization" by developing mechanisms to address issues raised by those groups that use physical force to secure national, religious or other ends where other forms of political action are not available.
Dartnell’s seminar will take place at 12:30 p.m. in room 305 York Lanes, York University, Keele Campus, 4700 Keele St.
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