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Tom Parker

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Tom Parker has spent the past three years as a European Union-sponsored adviser to the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) in Baghdad, Iraq, prior to which he served as a Counter-Terrorism Strategist at the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Centre (UNCCT) and as the Adviser on Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism to the United Nations Counter Terrorism Implementation Task Force (CTITF), where he co-authored the Secretary-General’s Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism. Over the past decade Tom has worked extensively as a consultant on post-conflict justice, security sector reform, and counter-terrorism projects around the world, including assignments in Chad, Colombia, Georgia, Guatemala, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Mexico, Nepal, Peru, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Uganda and Ukraine. He has also served as the Policy Director for Terrorism, Counterterrorism and Human Rights for Amnesty International USA, as the Special Adviser on Transitional Justice to the Coalition Provisional Authority, as a war crimes investigator with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in both Bosnia and Kosovo, and as an Intelligence Officer in the British Security Service (MI5).Tom has taught courses on international terrorism as an adjunct professor at Bard College, the National Defense University at Fort Bragg, Yale University, and John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He is also a member of the adjunct faculty of the Defense Institute for International Legal Studies (DIILS) and has been an occasional lecturer at the Joint Special Operations University (JSOU). He is a graduate of the London School of Economics, the University of Leiden, and Brown, and has held research fellowships at Yale and Duke universities.

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Papers by Tom Parker

Pollyannas Need Not Apply: International Justice is, to a Certain Extent, Political Justice

Contemporary Issues Facing the International Criminal Court, 2016

Why Right is Might

Insurgency and Terrorism Series, 2014

Redressing the Balance: How Human Rights Defenders Can Use Victim Narratives to Confront the Violence of Armed Groups

Human Rights Quarterly, 2011

... Within twenty-four hours of the assassination of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer in January 201... more

The Four Horsemen of Terrorism: It's Not Waves, It's Strains

by Tom Parker and Nick Sitter

Terrorism and Political Violence, 2015

Prevention of Human Rights Violations and Violations of International Humanitarian Law while Fighting Terrorism

ICCT Handbook of Terrorism Prevention and Preparedness, 2021

The 'security forces' set about their work in a manner which might have been deliberately designe... more The 'security forces' set about their work in a manner which might have been deliberately designed to drive the population into our arms. On the pretext of searching they burst into people's homes by day and night, made them stand for hours with their hands up, abused and insulted them... Anyone who protested had scant hope of getting justice." 2-EOKA commander General Georgios Grivas "Every fella who gets his head cracked open by a [policeman's] baton is a potential recruit." 3-Provisional IRA Volunteer Des Long Terrorism is a contingent political strategy. At the outset, terrorist groups are by their very nature marginal, lacking in popular support, and limited in terms of the physical force they can project. Even the weakest states are powerful in comparison, blessed with far more substantial resources in terms of men, material and treasure. Left to their own devices, terrorists will rarely possess sufficient force to successfully attain their political goals. The genius of generations of terrorist planners has been to explicitly seek to turn the state's strength to their advantage, provoking government after government to overreact to the threat they pose by introducing draconian security measures, curtailing civil liberties, and infringing established human rights protections. This in turn results in a greater polarization of the population, the radicalization of greater numbers of the terrorists' potential constituents, and the undermining of the state's legitimacy both at home and abroad. This strategy has been appositely described as "political jujitsu." Furthermore, contemporary social science research into individual processes of radicalization suggests that witnessing or experiencing abuse at the hands of state officials is a leading driver of violent extremism. Adhering to international human rights law can help prevent states from falling into the terrorists' trap, and making a bad situation commensurately worse.

Why Right is Might: How the Social Science on Radicalisation suggests that International Human Rights Norms actually help frame Effective Counterterrorism Policies

Perspectives on Terrorism, Aug 13, 2012

NGOs and the Containment Approach to Counter- Terrorism FP7 Global Re-ordering: Evolution through European Networks The Big View-May 2013 NGOs and the Containment Approach to Counter-Terrorism

by Tom Parker and Nick Sitter

GR:EEN is a global collaborative research project (16 institutions) engaged in academic research ... more

The Proportionality Principle in the War on Terror

Hague Yearbook of International Law, 2002

Fighting Fire with Water: NGO and Counter-Terrorism Policy Tools (GREEN FP7 project conference paper)

by Tom Parker and Nick Sitter

The policy tools of counter-terrorism reflect both the nature of the terrorist group in question ... more The policy tools of counter-terrorism reflect both the nature of the terrorist group in question and the strategies of the actors that engage in counterterrorism. Historically governments have perceived terrorism primarily as a crime, a threat to the state's security, or part of a broader political campaign. Accordingly, states have adopted counter-terrorism policies based on law enforcement, military or diplomatic strategies, or a combination of these. While international organisations have played a supplementary role in terms of law enforcement and diplomacy, NGOs have, until recently, played a much smaller role in this field. Over the last couple of decades, however, with the rise of 'sacred terror' and as many states have accorded more weight to the Fighting Fire with Water: NGO and

Fighting Fire with Water: NGOs and Counterterrorism Policy Tools

by Tom Parker and Nick Sitter

Global Policy, 2013

ABSTRACT The policy tools of counterterrorism reflect both the nature of the terrorist group in q... more ABSTRACT The policy tools of counterterrorism reflect both the nature of the terrorist group in question and the strategies of the actors that engage in counterterrorism. Historically governments have perceived terrorism primarily as a crime, a threat to the state&#39;s security or part of a broader political campaign. Accordingly, states have adopted counterterrorism policies based on law enforcement, military or diplomatic strategies, or a combination of these. While international organisations have played a supplementary role in terms of law enforcement and diplomacy, NGOs have, until recently, played a much smaller role in this field. Over the last couple of decades, however, with the rise of ‘sacred terror’ and as many states have accorded more weight to the propaganda element in terrorist campaigns, containment strategies that aim at managing and marginalising the threat have become more prominent. This article explores the increasing role of NGOs in this changing context, and suggests that the policy tools of NGOs are particularly well suited to combating network-type terrorist groups like al-Qa&#39;eda and its franchises because such groups depend on complicit society, a convincing narrative and information asymmetry vis-à-vis their supporters. Here NGOs have distinct advantages because of their potential to credibly challenge terrorist narratives on the ground.

Acting Ethically in the Shadows

Using Human Rights to Counter Terrorism, 2018

While recognizing the need for intelligence gathering and acknowledging that gathering such intel... more While recognizing the need for intelligence gathering and acknowledging that gathering such intelligence may require the adoption of extraordinary measures and approaches, international human rights law ascribes limits to how such extraordinary measures can be used. First and foremost, intelligence collection, by its very nature, is likely to infringe aspects of the right to privacy that all individuals enjoy under international human rights law. However, there are six accepted grounds in international law under which it may be acceptable to interfere with an individual’s or group’s privacy: National security, public safety, the economic wellbeing of the country, the prevention of disorder or crime, protection of public health or morals, and the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. All but public health and morals fall squarely within an intelligence service’s purview. While there is a growing body of jurisprudence on the use of so-called Special Investigation Techniques by law enforcement and domestic security agencies – for instance, telephone intercepts, eavesdropping devices, surveillance tools, undercover operations and human source recruitment – there is far less jurisprudence that touches upon the collection of foreign intelligence although perhaps some basic principles can be inferred from court rulings, as well as other international bodies.

NGOs and the Containment Approach to Counter- Terrorism FP7 Global Re-ordering: Evolution through European Networks The Big View-May 2013 NGOs and the Containment Approach to Counter-Terrorism

by Tom Parker and Nick Sitter

EEN is a global collaborative research project (16 institutions) engaged in academic research tha... more EEN is a global collaborative research project (16 institutions) engaged in academic research that impacts upon EU Policy and practice, seeking to define the role of the EU in the emerging global order. Terrorism, as Walter Laqueur observed in his 1997 book Terrorism – tends to come in waves. So does counter-terrorism. Each of the four waves of terrorism commonly identified in the academic literature – elaborated by David C. Rapoport in a series of articles – prompted its own response by the states that were targeted. Our recent research – forthcoming in Global Policy as "Fighting Fire with Water: NGO and Counter-Terrorism Policy Tools" – explores the link between types of terrorism, state's perception of the threat and the elaboration of counter-terrorism policy; as well as the role NGOs and international organisations can and do play in fighting terrorism. Counter-terrorism policy tools reflect both the threat itself and how government interprets it. Historically, go...

The Four Horsemen of Terrorism – It’s not Waves, it’s Strains

David Rapoport’s concept of four waves of terrorism, from anarchist terrorism in the 1880s, throu... more David Rapoport’s concept of four waves of terrorism, from anarchist terrorism in the 1880s, through nationalist and Marxist waves in the early and mid-Twentieth Century, to the present religious wave, is one of the most influential concepts in terrorism studies. However, this article argues that thinking about different types of terrorism as strains rather than waves better reflects both the empirical reality and the idea that terrorists learn from and emulate each other. Whereas the notion of waves suggests distinct iterations of terrorist violence driven by successive broad historical trends, the concept of strains and contagion emphasizes how terrorist groups draw on both contemporary and historical lessons in the development of their tactics, strategies, and goals. The authors identify four distinct strains in total – socialist, nationalist, religious, and exclusionist - and contend that it is possible to trace each strain back to a ‘patient zero’ active in the 1850s.

It's A Trap: Provoking an Overreaction is Terrorism 101

RUSI Journal, May 2015

Over the past 150 years or so terrorist organizations around the world, regardless of ideological... more Over the past 150 years or so terrorist organizations around the world, regardless of ideological foundation or geographic location, have adopted a similar range of core tactics to advance their cause, which can be readily identified in the extensive literature generated by these groups. One such tactic is to provoke states into over-reacting to the threat posed by terrorism. In doing so, states fall into a deliberate trap set by the terrorists as, by their own actions, they polarize society, expend treasure and materiel, alienate key constituencies, and sacrifice deeply held values, all ultimately undermining their legitimacy to govern. Terrorist groups understand the relative weakness of their position all too well and therefore seek to turn the state’s strength against it. They have been remarkably open and consistently candid about their intentions, it’s long past due that we begin to benefit from their candor.

The Ultimate Intervention: Revitalizing the UN Trusteeship Council for the 21st Century

The Law of International Organizations: Problems and Materials (3rd Edition), Michael P. Scharf and Paul R. Williams (eds.), 2013

After forty-seven years of operation the UN Trusteeship Council successfully completed the job it... more After forty-seven years of operation the UN Trusteeship Council successfully completed the job it was created to do with the termination of the trusteeship of Palau in December 1994. In all the Trusteeship Council and its proxies shepherded eleven territories to independence or voluntary association with a State. Created to oversee the progressive development of Trust Territories towards self-government or independence the Trusteeship Council now lies dormant and awaiting termination. Meanwhile the UN paradoxically finds itself increasingly involved on an ad hoc basis in state building and governance projects around the world. As the UN struggles to meet new Post-Cold War challenges such as those posed by failed and disintegrating states and to find answers to more traditional threats to international peace and security such as territorial disputes there is a need to establish some form of framework within which to respond. The solution lies in reviving and reinvigorating the Trusteeship Council.

NGOs and the Containment Approach to Counter-Terrorism

by Tom Parker and Nick Sitter

The Big View, May 2013

Fighting Fire with Water: NGO and Counter-Terrorism Policy Tools

Global Policy

The policy tools of counterterrorism reflect both the nature of the terrorist group in question a... more The policy tools of counterterrorism reflect both the nature of the terrorist group in question and the strategies of the actors that engage in counterterrorism. Historically governments have perceived terrorism primarily as a crime, a threat to the state's security or part of a broader political campaign. Accordingly, states have adopted counterterrorism policies based on law enforcement, military or diplomatic strategies, or a combination of these. While international organisations have played a supplementary role in terms of law enforcement and diplomacy, NGOs have, until recently, played a much smaller role in this field. Over the last couple of decades, however, with the rise of 'sacred terror' and as many states have accorded more weight to the propaganda element in terrorist campaigns, containment strategies that aim at managing and marginalising the threat have become more prominent. This article explores the increasing role of NGOs in this changing context, and suggests that the policy tools of NGOs are particularly well suited to combating network-type terrorist groups like al-Qa'eda and its franchises because such groups depend on complicit society, a convincing narrative and information asymmetry vis-a-vis their supporters. Here NGOs have distinct advantages because of their potential to credibly challenge terrorist narratives on the ground.

Why Right is Might: How the Social Science on Radicalisation suggests that International Human Rights Norms actually help frame Effective Counterterrorism Policies

Perspectives on Terrorism, 2012

Many states appear to turn instinctively to hard power resources when confronted with a terrorist... more Many states appear to turn instinctively to hard power resources when confronted with a terrorist threat. Yet existing research on violent extremism and radicalisation leading to terrorism suggests that such responses might well exacerbate the problem. Terrorist groups actively seek to exploit the push-pull dynamic that drives radicalisation and violent extremism, while one case study after the other indicates that states thereby appear to play actively into their hands. Social science research suggests that international human rights norms assist compliant states to moderate responses, build legitimacy, and ultimately craft effective counterterrorism strategies. A close reading of the literature on radicalisation and terrorist group formation offers qualitative evidence to support this conclusion.

Redressing the Balance: How Human Rights Defenders Can Use Victim Narratives to Confront the Violence of Armed Groups

Human Rights Quarterly, 2011

Armed groups have distinct personalities as organizations and in an age of "franchise terrorism" ... more Armed groups have distinct personalities as organizations and in an age of "franchise terrorism" where the "brand" associated with a given terrorist group can inspire copycat violence, human rights defenders must engage narratives as well as actions if they wish to remain relevant. A precedent exists in attempts over the past decade to hold transnational corporations to human rights standards. Compelling social science theory and qualitative evidence suggests that by challenging armed group narratives of legitimacy and promise, human rights defenders can effectively erode complicit support for terrorist violence. "We are victims of terrorism because our rights have been violated; our right to life, our right to health, our right to justice and truth. Supporting victims of terrorism means, first, to acknowledge our plight and, secondly, to support us in claiming our rights so that we can rise from being victims to full-fledged right-holders again." 1

United Kingdom: Once More unto the Breach

Gary Schmitt (ed.), Safety, Liberty and Islamist Terrorism: European and American Approaches to Domestic Counterterrorism, American Enterprise Institute Press, 2010

Pollyannas Need Not Apply: International Justice is, to a Certain Extent, Political Justice

Contemporary Issues Facing the International Criminal Court, 2016

Why Right is Might

Insurgency and Terrorism Series, 2014

Redressing the Balance: How Human Rights Defenders Can Use Victim Narratives to Confront the Violence of Armed Groups

Human Rights Quarterly, 2011

... Within twenty-four hours of the assassination of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer in January 201... more

The Four Horsemen of Terrorism: It's Not Waves, It's Strains

by Tom Parker and Nick Sitter

Terrorism and Political Violence, 2015

Prevention of Human Rights Violations and Violations of International Humanitarian Law while Fighting Terrorism

ICCT Handbook of Terrorism Prevention and Preparedness, 2021

The 'security forces' set about their work in a manner which might have been deliberately designe... more The 'security forces' set about their work in a manner which might have been deliberately designed to drive the population into our arms. On the pretext of searching they burst into people's homes by day and night, made them stand for hours with their hands up, abused and insulted them... Anyone who protested had scant hope of getting justice." 2-EOKA commander General Georgios Grivas "Every fella who gets his head cracked open by a [policeman's] baton is a potential recruit." 3-Provisional IRA Volunteer Des Long Terrorism is a contingent political strategy. At the outset, terrorist groups are by their very nature marginal, lacking in popular support, and limited in terms of the physical force they can project. Even the weakest states are powerful in comparison, blessed with far more substantial resources in terms of men, material and treasure. Left to their own devices, terrorists will rarely possess sufficient force to successfully attain their political goals. The genius of generations of terrorist planners has been to explicitly seek to turn the state's strength to their advantage, provoking government after government to overreact to the threat they pose by introducing draconian security measures, curtailing civil liberties, and infringing established human rights protections. This in turn results in a greater polarization of the population, the radicalization of greater numbers of the terrorists' potential constituents, and the undermining of the state's legitimacy both at home and abroad. This strategy has been appositely described as "political jujitsu." Furthermore, contemporary social science research into individual processes of radicalization suggests that witnessing or experiencing abuse at the hands of state officials is a leading driver of violent extremism. Adhering to international human rights law can help prevent states from falling into the terrorists' trap, and making a bad situation commensurately worse.

Why Right is Might: How the Social Science on Radicalisation suggests that International Human Rights Norms actually help frame Effective Counterterrorism Policies

Perspectives on Terrorism, Aug 13, 2012

NGOs and the Containment Approach to Counter- Terrorism FP7 Global Re-ordering: Evolution through European Networks The Big View-May 2013 NGOs and the Containment Approach to Counter-Terrorism

by Tom Parker and Nick Sitter

GR:EEN is a global collaborative research project (16 institutions) engaged in academic research ... more

The Proportionality Principle in the War on Terror

Hague Yearbook of International Law, 2002

Fighting Fire with Water: NGO and Counter-Terrorism Policy Tools (GREEN FP7 project conference paper)

by Tom Parker and Nick Sitter

The policy tools of counter-terrorism reflect both the nature of the terrorist group in question ... more The policy tools of counter-terrorism reflect both the nature of the terrorist group in question and the strategies of the actors that engage in counterterrorism. Historically governments have perceived terrorism primarily as a crime, a threat to the state's security, or part of a broader political campaign. Accordingly, states have adopted counter-terrorism policies based on law enforcement, military or diplomatic strategies, or a combination of these. While international organisations have played a supplementary role in terms of law enforcement and diplomacy, NGOs have, until recently, played a much smaller role in this field. Over the last couple of decades, however, with the rise of 'sacred terror' and as many states have accorded more weight to the Fighting Fire with Water: NGO and

Fighting Fire with Water: NGOs and Counterterrorism Policy Tools

by Tom Parker and Nick Sitter

Global Policy, 2013

ABSTRACT The policy tools of counterterrorism reflect both the nature of the terrorist group in q... more ABSTRACT The policy tools of counterterrorism reflect both the nature of the terrorist group in question and the strategies of the actors that engage in counterterrorism. Historically governments have perceived terrorism primarily as a crime, a threat to the state&#39;s security or part of a broader political campaign. Accordingly, states have adopted counterterrorism policies based on law enforcement, military or diplomatic strategies, or a combination of these. While international organisations have played a supplementary role in terms of law enforcement and diplomacy, NGOs have, until recently, played a much smaller role in this field. Over the last couple of decades, however, with the rise of ‘sacred terror’ and as many states have accorded more weight to the propaganda element in terrorist campaigns, containment strategies that aim at managing and marginalising the threat have become more prominent. This article explores the increasing role of NGOs in this changing context, and suggests that the policy tools of NGOs are particularly well suited to combating network-type terrorist groups like al-Qa&#39;eda and its franchises because such groups depend on complicit society, a convincing narrative and information asymmetry vis-à-vis their supporters. Here NGOs have distinct advantages because of their potential to credibly challenge terrorist narratives on the ground.

Acting Ethically in the Shadows

Using Human Rights to Counter Terrorism, 2018

While recognizing the need for intelligence gathering and acknowledging that gathering such intel... more While recognizing the need for intelligence gathering and acknowledging that gathering such intelligence may require the adoption of extraordinary measures and approaches, international human rights law ascribes limits to how such extraordinary measures can be used. First and foremost, intelligence collection, by its very nature, is likely to infringe aspects of the right to privacy that all individuals enjoy under international human rights law. However, there are six accepted grounds in international law under which it may be acceptable to interfere with an individual’s or group’s privacy: National security, public safety, the economic wellbeing of the country, the prevention of disorder or crime, protection of public health or morals, and the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. All but public health and morals fall squarely within an intelligence service’s purview. While there is a growing body of jurisprudence on the use of so-called Special Investigation Techniques by law enforcement and domestic security agencies – for instance, telephone intercepts, eavesdropping devices, surveillance tools, undercover operations and human source recruitment – there is far less jurisprudence that touches upon the collection of foreign intelligence although perhaps some basic principles can be inferred from court rulings, as well as other international bodies.

NGOs and the Containment Approach to Counter- Terrorism FP7 Global Re-ordering: Evolution through European Networks The Big View-May 2013 NGOs and the Containment Approach to Counter-Terrorism

by Tom Parker and Nick Sitter

EEN is a global collaborative research project (16 institutions) engaged in academic research tha... more EEN is a global collaborative research project (16 institutions) engaged in academic research that impacts upon EU Policy and practice, seeking to define the role of the EU in the emerging global order. Terrorism, as Walter Laqueur observed in his 1997 book Terrorism – tends to come in waves. So does counter-terrorism. Each of the four waves of terrorism commonly identified in the academic literature – elaborated by David C. Rapoport in a series of articles – prompted its own response by the states that were targeted. Our recent research – forthcoming in Global Policy as "Fighting Fire with Water: NGO and Counter-Terrorism Policy Tools" – explores the link between types of terrorism, state's perception of the threat and the elaboration of counter-terrorism policy; as well as the role NGOs and international organisations can and do play in fighting terrorism. Counter-terrorism policy tools reflect both the threat itself and how government interprets it. Historically, go...

The Four Horsemen of Terrorism – It’s not Waves, it’s Strains

David Rapoport’s concept of four waves of terrorism, from anarchist terrorism in the 1880s, throu... more David Rapoport’s concept of four waves of terrorism, from anarchist terrorism in the 1880s, through nationalist and Marxist waves in the early and mid-Twentieth Century, to the present religious wave, is one of the most influential concepts in terrorism studies. However, this article argues that thinking about different types of terrorism as strains rather than waves better reflects both the empirical reality and the idea that terrorists learn from and emulate each other. Whereas the notion of waves suggests distinct iterations of terrorist violence driven by successive broad historical trends, the concept of strains and contagion emphasizes how terrorist groups draw on both contemporary and historical lessons in the development of their tactics, strategies, and goals. The authors identify four distinct strains in total – socialist, nationalist, religious, and exclusionist - and contend that it is possible to trace each strain back to a ‘patient zero’ active in the 1850s.

It's A Trap: Provoking an Overreaction is Terrorism 101

RUSI Journal, May 2015

Over the past 150 years or so terrorist organizations around the world, regardless of ideological... more Over the past 150 years or so terrorist organizations around the world, regardless of ideological foundation or geographic location, have adopted a similar range of core tactics to advance their cause, which can be readily identified in the extensive literature generated by these groups. One such tactic is to provoke states into over-reacting to the threat posed by terrorism. In doing so, states fall into a deliberate trap set by the terrorists as, by their own actions, they polarize society, expend treasure and materiel, alienate key constituencies, and sacrifice deeply held values, all ultimately undermining their legitimacy to govern. Terrorist groups understand the relative weakness of their position all too well and therefore seek to turn the state’s strength against it. They have been remarkably open and consistently candid about their intentions, it’s long past due that we begin to benefit from their candor.

The Ultimate Intervention: Revitalizing the UN Trusteeship Council for the 21st Century

The Law of International Organizations: Problems and Materials (3rd Edition), Michael P. Scharf and Paul R. Williams (eds.), 2013

After forty-seven years of operation the UN Trusteeship Council successfully completed the job it... more After forty-seven years of operation the UN Trusteeship Council successfully completed the job it was created to do with the termination of the trusteeship of Palau in December 1994. In all the Trusteeship Council and its proxies shepherded eleven territories to independence or voluntary association with a State. Created to oversee the progressive development of Trust Territories towards self-government or independence the Trusteeship Council now lies dormant and awaiting termination. Meanwhile the UN paradoxically finds itself increasingly involved on an ad hoc basis in state building and governance projects around the world. As the UN struggles to meet new Post-Cold War challenges such as those posed by failed and disintegrating states and to find answers to more traditional threats to international peace and security such as territorial disputes there is a need to establish some form of framework within which to respond. The solution lies in reviving and reinvigorating the Trusteeship Council.

NGOs and the Containment Approach to Counter-Terrorism

by Tom Parker and Nick Sitter

The Big View, May 2013

Fighting Fire with Water: NGO and Counter-Terrorism Policy Tools

Global Policy

The policy tools of counterterrorism reflect both the nature of the terrorist group in question a... more The policy tools of counterterrorism reflect both the nature of the terrorist group in question and the strategies of the actors that engage in counterterrorism. Historically governments have perceived terrorism primarily as a crime, a threat to the state's security or part of a broader political campaign. Accordingly, states have adopted counterterrorism policies based on law enforcement, military or diplomatic strategies, or a combination of these. While international organisations have played a supplementary role in terms of law enforcement and diplomacy, NGOs have, until recently, played a much smaller role in this field. Over the last couple of decades, however, with the rise of 'sacred terror' and as many states have accorded more weight to the propaganda element in terrorist campaigns, containment strategies that aim at managing and marginalising the threat have become more prominent. This article explores the increasing role of NGOs in this changing context, and suggests that the policy tools of NGOs are particularly well suited to combating network-type terrorist groups like al-Qa'eda and its franchises because such groups depend on complicit society, a convincing narrative and information asymmetry vis-a-vis their supporters. Here NGOs have distinct advantages because of their potential to credibly challenge terrorist narratives on the ground.

Why Right is Might: How the Social Science on Radicalisation suggests that International Human Rights Norms actually help frame Effective Counterterrorism Policies

Perspectives on Terrorism, 2012

Many states appear to turn instinctively to hard power resources when confronted with a terrorist... more Many states appear to turn instinctively to hard power resources when confronted with a terrorist threat. Yet existing research on violent extremism and radicalisation leading to terrorism suggests that such responses might well exacerbate the problem. Terrorist groups actively seek to exploit the push-pull dynamic that drives radicalisation and violent extremism, while one case study after the other indicates that states thereby appear to play actively into their hands. Social science research suggests that international human rights norms assist compliant states to moderate responses, build legitimacy, and ultimately craft effective counterterrorism strategies. A close reading of the literature on radicalisation and terrorist group formation offers qualitative evidence to support this conclusion.

Redressing the Balance: How Human Rights Defenders Can Use Victim Narratives to Confront the Violence of Armed Groups

Human Rights Quarterly, 2011

Armed groups have distinct personalities as organizations and in an age of "franchise terrorism" ... more Armed groups have distinct personalities as organizations and in an age of "franchise terrorism" where the "brand" associated with a given terrorist group can inspire copycat violence, human rights defenders must engage narratives as well as actions if they wish to remain relevant. A precedent exists in attempts over the past decade to hold transnational corporations to human rights standards. Compelling social science theory and qualitative evidence suggests that by challenging armed group narratives of legitimacy and promise, human rights defenders can effectively erode complicit support for terrorist violence. "We are victims of terrorism because our rights have been violated; our right to life, our right to health, our right to justice and truth. Supporting victims of terrorism means, first, to acknowledge our plight and, secondly, to support us in claiming our rights so that we can rise from being victims to full-fledged right-holders again." 1

United Kingdom: Once More unto the Breach

Gary Schmitt (ed.), Safety, Liberty and Islamist Terrorism: European and American Approaches to Domestic Counterterrorism, American Enterprise Institute Press, 2010

Avoiding the Terrorism Trap: Why Respect for Human Rights is the Key to Defeating Terrorism

World Scientific Press, 2019

For more than 150 years, nationalist, populist, Marxist and religious terrorists have all been re... more For more than 150 years, nationalist, populist, Marxist and religious terrorists have all been remarkably consistent and explicit about their aims: provoke states into over-reacting to the threat they pose, and then take advantage of the divisions in society that result. Yet, state after state falls into the trap that terrorists have set for them. Faced with a major terrorist threat, governments seem to reach instinctively for the most coercive tools at their disposal and, in doing so, risk exacerbating the situation. This policy response seems to be driven in equal parts by a lack of understanding of the true nature of the threat, an exaggerated faith in the use of force, and a lack of faith that democratic values are sufficiently flexible to allow for an effective counter-terrorism response. Drawing on a wealth of data from both historical and contemporary sources, Avoiding the Terrorist Trap addresses the most common misconceptions underpinning flawed counter-terrorist policies, identifies the core strategies that guide terrorist operations, consolidates the latest research on the underlying drivers of terrorist violence, and then demonstrates why a counter-terrorism strategy grounded in respect for human rights and the rule of law is the most effective approach to defeating terrorism.