Thursday, April 18, 2013

Dorsey & Paulussen: Boundaries of the Battlefield: A Critical Look at the Legal Paradigms and Rules in Countering Terrorism

Jessica Dorsey (T.M.C. Asser Instituut) & Christophe Paulussen (T.M.C. Asser Instituut) have posted Boundaries of the Battlefield: A Critical Look at the Legal Paradigms and Rules in Countering Terrorism. Here's the abstract:
On 10 and 11 January 2013, the T.M.C. Asser Instituut and the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague (ICCT), in cooperation with the International Humanitarian and Criminal Law Platform, the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, the Municipality of The Hague and the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs organised a two-day symposium entitled The Boundaries of the Battlefield: A Critical Look at the Legal Paradigms and Rules in Countering Terrorism. During the symposium, twenty-seven top panellists and moderators from academia, civil society, governments, the military and multilateral organisations discussed the contours of various approaches states take against non-state actors with the goal of countering terrorism. Specifically, the symposium addressed issues related to uses of force and how these may affect and define the geographic and temporal scope and limitations of the laws of armed conflict in relation to counter-terrorism. Besides this main theme, which operates within the armed conflict paradigm, the symposium also discussed and assessed the law-enforcement paradigm. This research paper aims to highlight the main issues that were addressed during the symposium and in doing so, will follow the titles of the six panels: a) Whenever War?: Temporal Limitations to Armed Conflict; b) Wherever War?: Geographic Limitations to Armed Conflict; c) International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law: Menu à la Carte?; d) A Case Study on Targeted Killings and Drones; e) Law Enforcement Approach in Counter-Terrorism; and f) The Way Forward: The Need for a New Framework for Counter-Terrorism?