Agriculture and Textile

Agriculture products and textiles have a particular importance for the trade of developing countries because these products tend to be the major export products for developing countries in the early stages of economic development. The lower labor costs of developing countries create a competitive advantage in labor-intensive products such as textile and some agricultural products. This advantage makes agricultural products and textiles competitive export items for developing countries and is reflected in the lower prices of these products. Therefore, it will be important to promote the export of these products from developing countries to facilitate their development, particularly in the initial development stages where developing countries do not typically have the technology to produce and export more sophisticated manufactured products.

Nonetheless, developed countries showed reluctance in bringing these products into the framework of the international trading system. First, agriculture had long been outside the purview of GATT disciplines. Significant political influence representing the interests of agricultural sectors in many developed countries has made it difficult for these developed countries to increase market access for agricultural imports. The UR went through difficulties due to the controversies over the treatment of agricultural products in the new trading system; a number of countries exporting agricultural products pushed for the full integration of agricultural products into the trading system, demanding market access as well as the elimination of production subsidies for agricultural products.

Argentine society has experienced terrorism from domestic and external sources since the late 1960s. Domestic terrorism appeared mainly in the 1970s, first as leftist guerrilla movements that sought to attract attention when they failed to field an organized political movement. This small band of terrorists effectively paved the way for the appearance of brutal forms of state terrorism. The repressive state practices were first justified as a necessary antidote to the guerrilla activities, but quickly expanded into a blunt and massive campaign to eliminate any dissent to military rule. Unfortunately, the extra-legal methods employed by the Argentine government for fighting terrorist violence were mostly condoned or acquiesced in by the judiciary, and the legacy of the ‘Dirty War’ waged by the military junta continues to haunt the Argentine courts.

In more recent times international terrorism appeared. A massive attack destroyed the Embassy of Israel in Buenos Aires in 1992. In 1994, the building that harboured the two most prominent Jewish organizations in Argentina was targeted with another deadly bomb. In the combined attacks, conventional explosives caused in the aggregate about one hundred deaths and hundreds of injuries. In both cases criminal investigations have been ongoing for more than ten years, although there has been little success in bringing those responsible to justice. After one president was accused of interfering with the investigations of the bombings, a new president has promised to invigorate the investigation and to make its findings public.

Introduction

This chapter provides an overview of legislative developments in Arab states following the passage of Security Council resolution 1373 (2001), focusing on definitions of ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorist’ offences. It considers the Arab Convention for the Suppression of Terrorism before proceeding to review the responses of a number of individual states. Moves towards political reform and the opening of public space for dissent and criticism are challenged by the exigencies of the ‘war on terror’. Certain practices in violation of human rights in Arab states have apparently been endorsed by the US alongside a newly stated policy focus on ‘democratization’ in the region. Dissonance between law-related word and deed of the states leading the ‘war on terrorism’ – particularly the US, but also the UK – sustains the arguments of those who seek to undermine the discourse of rights and rule of law, complicates the considerable challenges posed to local and regional human rights groups, and seriously undermines the credibility of international law in the region; the efficacy of all of which in the ‘global war on terrorism’ must surely be open to question.

Regional context

The US overview of Patterns of Global Terrorism for 2003 confirmed that ‘the Middle East continued to be the region of greatest concern in the global war on terrorism’. At the same time, it is the lives and freedoms of the populations of Arab states in the region that have probably been the most directly affected by the anti-terrorism laws and policies being implemented and promoted by the US since 9/11. Uncounted thousands of non-combatants have been killed by the US-led forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Introduction

The legal response to the threat of terrorism has been driven, in large part, by public fear about future attacks and worst-case scenarios. There are, of course, many risks that ought to be taken seriously by governments. But all too often policy responses are motivated by a widespread public misperception of risk and a heightened collective sense of fear and vulnerability that call into question our ability to think clearly about policy options. In this chapter, I reconsider the role of the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government in an emergency, first by considering how misperception of risk and public fear influence policy-makers, and then by examining the role that judicial review can play in times of crisis.

One response to public fear is to respond legislatively to popular opinion, enacting strict anti-terrorism measures. As democratic as this option might first seem, it is problematic because, as empirical research shows us, social forces amplify and distort our judgments about risk, particularly in emotionally charged situations. Only on a thin, populist conception, could democracy be seen simply as an aggregating mechanism for mere popular opinion, rather than as a sophisticated system to promote public deliberation and ensure that public decisions are fair and informed ones.

Introduction

This chapter outlines the events surrounding the resisted and, at times, frustrated attempts to enact security laws in Hong Kong from 2001 to 2004. It will be argued that the resistance was attributable to a number of factors, the most important of which was the absence of a grassroots concept of security, conceived in Hong Kong as a result of a genuine and informed public consultation process. In respect of both the anti-terrorism and national security initiatives, the misguided strategy of the government was to impose a set of proposals at the outset, adopt a defensive attitude in the consultation process, and make significant concessions at the final hour as acts of appeasement. This chapter will conclude with a discussion of ideas for developing a new implementation strategy that will take the discourse on security in Hong Kong to a new level.

Initiatives to enact security laws 2001–2004

Security regime before september 11

While under British rule, seven of the major international treaties on terrorism were extended to Hong Kong after ratification by the United Kingdom. The colonial government in turn implemented these treaties. It was never considered necessary to apply the general anti-terrorism laws enacted in the United Kingdom to Hong Kong.

Introduction

Asylum, immigration and nationality law have all been used in the ‘war against terrorism’ in, for example, the UK, the US and Canada. The heightened focus on these areas has highlighted the already draconian aspects of existing law and practice. Anti-terrorism law and policy is having a significant impact on refugees and asylum seekers. There is, however, no necessary connection between national security and asylum and what tends to be neglected is that refugee law was designed precisely to regulate the ‘exceptional situation’ of forced migration. The existence of the humanitarian institution of asylum need not raise security concerns and refugee law contains well-established mechanisms to address the issue. It is essential that the refugee regime does not become confused with, and undermined by, anti-terrorism law and policy.

Claims to the novelty of contemporary security concerns must be approached with caution. Refugee lawyers have noted for some time the ‘security discourse’ being constructed around the treatment of forced migration. In the UK, the government has woven migration policy into the narrative of providing security for citizens. In recent years concern about asylum has reached the highest political levels and extended beyond national contexts. The UN Security Council, for example, made clear after September 11 that there should be no safe havens for terrorists and that refugee status should not be ‘abused’ by ‘perpetrators, organizers or facilitators of terrorist acts’.

Introduction

It has become axiomatic that terrorists, who have no respect for international borders, can be countered only through an internationally coordinated programme. For this reason, the Security Council of the United Nations has invoked its powers under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to insist that states cooperate in regional and international anti-terrorism efforts in addition to setting up domestic anti-terrorism regimes. This chapter examines the main features of the anti-terrorism regimes of four African states, namely, South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya, all of which have had some experience of terrorism. It sets their anti-terrorism legislation in the international and regional context to establish how each state has integrated itself into the wider anti-terrorist framework. What emerges from this study is that the anti-terrorism regime in the four states has come to be dominated not only by the executive branches of government, but also by the powerful executive branches of other governments and the executive-like powers of the UN Security Council.

The international and regional anti-terrorism regime

UN Security Council Resolution 1373 of 2001, issued under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, requires all states to refrain from providing support of any kind to terrorist groups and to prevent terrorist acts through early warning systems and mutual assistance in investigation and prosecution. States must establish and prosecute a range of terrorist offences within their domestic criminal justice system and must suppress recruitment to terrorist groups. These measures must combat both terrorism stricto sensu and organized crime, which is seen to have an intimate connection to terrorism.

Law and terror

It is odd to conceive of anti-terrorism law in Malaysia and Singapore as if it were something exceptional or extraordinary. The truth is that for as long as independent Malaysia and Singapore have existed, and for some time before, there has been in coexistence a formidable phalanx of anti-terrorism legislation. Not only has this network of laws been retained, it has gone from strength to strength, enjoying the occasional patch to remedy governmentally perceived flaws. Measures, once thought of as temporary and confined to narrow situations, have defied temporal and contextual boundaries. Legislative and (subsequently) constitutional entrenchment of anti-terrorism law provided the framework for a pattern of executive use in contexts as varied as the post-War armed communist, and substantially Chinese, insurrection to the recent efforts of the Islamic, and substantially Malay, Jemaah Islamiyah to retaliate against the United States and its allies. It is perhaps inevitable that individuals who were adversely affected by the use of anti-terrorism legislation should call upon the courts for relief. The result is, on occasion, a heroic attempt by the judges to be faithful to governmental intent, and at the same time to demonstrate a degree of independence from the government. This, in turn, has provoked the government to respond through legislative and constitutional amendments, setting up a tense dialogue between these great institutions of state.

Introduction

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks the European Union (EU) has increasingly emerged as an actor in its own right in the fight against international terrorism, providing a framework for collective action both inside the EU and on the international level. Based on the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1999, the scope of EU anti-terrorism law and policy has expanded significantly since 2001, and the Madrid terrorist attacks of 11 March 2004 have given a new impetus to this process.

This chapter analyses the role of the EU in the fight against international terrorism by first looking at the legal, structural and political bases of the EU, and then by analyzing the Union's response to 9/11 and the 11 March 2004 attacks. It will provide an overall evaluation of the Union's potential and limits as a political and legal actor in this field, taking into account reform proposals of the European Convention's Draft Constitution for the EU.

The bases for EU action

Legal bases

At the time of 9/11 EU Member States could already look back to a quarter of a century of cooperation against terrorism. The TREVI cooperation, which had come into operation in 1976 and can be regarded as the ancestor of the ‘third pillar’ of the 1990s, had originally focused entirely on the cross-border fight against the terrorist groups which were trying to destabilize several of the EC Member States at that time, especially Germany, Italy and the UK. Yet TREVI had remained a loose inter-governmental structure without legal bases, competences, permanent institutions and financial means, largely limited to information exchange.

Overview

Before 11 September 2001 aviation security concerns revolved primarily around preventing aircraft hijacking and sabotage, and apprehending the perpetrators of such acts. In this regard, any risk to lives was largely confined to passengers and crew on board aircraft. In response to such long-held concerns several international conventions adopted under the auspices of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) had sought to establish universal jurisdiction over the perpetrators of violence against aircraft and to provide for states to prosecute or extradite these individuals.

Since 9/11, however, the bigger concern has been the use of aircraft as weapons of destruction, aimed at causing massive loss of lives and property on the ground. Consequently, the aviation industry has had to face a plethora of new security measures designed to prevent the occurrence of not only conventional hijacking and sabotage, but more ominously, the use of aircraft as suicide weapons against interests on land. This shift in emphasis toward preventing the use of aircraft as weapons has introduced unprecedented challenges for civil liberties as well as heightened costs and inconvenience for the air travel industry and travellers alike. This chapter assesses some of these concerns and outlines the new measures that have been adopted to deal with the post-9/11 aviation security environment. It also analyzes the prospect of harmonizing security measures among countries with different perceptions of terrorism risks and the varying capacities to comply with the requisite measures.

Introduction

In the aftermath of 9/11 many facets of counter-terrorism legislation have come under intensive scrutiny. Provisions granting state officials enhanced investigative powers, greater authority to withhold information from the public and broader powers to detain people without trial have all been hotly debated around the world. In contrast, relatively little attention has been paid to the provisions aimed at controlling the financing of terrorism. Yet these provisions have the potential to affect an extremely broad range of economic activity, both legitimate and illegitimate, and for that reason are worthy of scrutiny.

This chapter is designed to provide an introduction to the legal instruments designed to counter financing of terrorism and the policy concerns that they raise. Part I describes three main types of legal provisions designed to combat the financing of terrorism (prohibitions, provisions authorizing deprivations of property and monitoring provisions), different approaches that have been taken to the design of those provisions, and the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. The central objective of this Part is to discuss the range of actors and transactions that are likely to be affected by the various legal initiatives, with particular attention to the degree of proximity to actual terrorist activity that is required and whether legitimate commercial activity is likely to be affected.

Anti-terrorism law and policy is a rapidly evolving field, and since the chapters in this book were last revised, between September and November 2004, there have been numerous developments in the various jurisdictions and areas of law covered in this book. We could not, in the late stages of production, provide a comprehensive update of all of these developments, but some of them were sufficiently important and relevant to the chapters in this book as to warrant a brief mention in a postscript.

United Kingdom: the House of Lords rules on indefinite detention of non-nationals

On 16 December 2004, the House of Lords released its landmark decision in A. v. Secretary of State for the Home Department. The question in this case was whether the provisions in Part 4 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 (ATCSA), which effectively permitted the indefinite detention of non-nationals of the United Kingdom who were suspected of being involved with international terrorism but who could not be deported, since they might be tortured in the receiving country, were inconsistent with the UK's obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. The UK had formally derogated from Article 5(1)(f) of the Convention, which permitted the detention of foreign citizens only when ‘action is being taken with a view to deportation’.

Canada's response to terrorism has been dramatically affected by 9/11. Canadians died in the horrific attacks on the World Trade Center, but so did the citizens of many other countries. What was unique about Canada's response to 9/11 was the border it shares with the United States. The border meant that Canada felt the repercussions of the swift American response to the attacks in an immediate and profound manner. For example, when the United States closed its air space that terrible day, it was Canada that accepted over 200 airplanes destined for the United States, including one plane that was erroneously believed to have been hijacked. Canada also was affected by erroneous claims that some of the terrorists had entered the United States through Canada, as indeed had occurred before and may likely occur again given the millions who cross the border each day. Canada was also singled out in the USA Patriot Act which contained a whole section entitled ‘Defending the Northern Border’ providing for increased border guards and scrutiny of those entering the United States. Important components of Canada's anti-terrorism and immigration policies have been established in border agreements with the United States. Canada has drafted broad new anti-terrorism laws and developed a new public safety department of government with an eye to American perceptions that Canada might provide a safe haven for terrorists.

Global anti-terrorism law and policy

The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 and subsequent attacks in many other parts of the world have resulted in an increased emphasis at the international, regional and national levels on anti-terrorism efforts. All indications are that the prevention of terrorism will be one of the major tasks of domestic governments and regional and international organizations for some time. Anti-terrorism law and policy has become a matter of global concern.

It is important that academics bring their critical and comparative insights to the global development of anti-terrorism law and policy. This will be a challenging task because anti-terrorism law crosses boundaries between states and between domestic, regional and international law. It also crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries between administrative, constitutional, criminal, immigration, military law and the law of war. In addition, insights from a broad range of disciplines including history, international affairs, military studies, philosophy, religion and politics will assist in understanding the development of anti-terrorism law and policy.

This book is designed to contribute to the growing field of comparative and international studies of anti-terrorism law and policy. The chapters in this book are revised versions of papers presented at a major international research symposium in Singapore in June 2004 that brought together leading legal academics from around the world to examine and compare anti-terrorism laws and policies in many of the major jurisdictions.

Introduction

Some have seen Southeast Asia as a potential ‘second front’ in the US-led war on terrorism. The sharpest evidence of this was the 2002 Bali bombings. Problems in Aceh (Indonesia), Mindanao (the Philippines) and in southern Thailand have been linked with Muslim groups that have differences with their respective capitals. They have resorted to action that has been described as ‘terrorist’. Member states in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have responded differently to issues within their own borders, as well as to US-led action in other arenas. Public opinion in much of the region has grown in opposition to the US-led war on terrorism, especially the decision to intervene in Iraq.

Generally, however, ASEAN states have sought to cooperate with the US or at least to limit their disagreement. The US has largely acted on a bilateral basis with the different governments. This draws from and reinforces the dominant security architecture in the region that existed pre-9/11 and since the end of World War II. The US has been anchored to Asia by a number of bilateral alliances and agreements, as the centre of a hub-and-spoke arrangement. Each Southeast Asian state has often more to do with the US than with each other. The points on the hub do not coalesce. While this has been the dominant structure of security arrangements in Southeast Asia, it is not the only one.