Beyond Radicalization: Towards an Integrated Anti-Violence Rule of Law Strategy

The chapter begins with a critique of some influential anti-terrorist legal discourses. It then sets out an alternative socio-legal model of law’s role in situations of insurgency and terrorism in the state ideologically committed to the ‘rule of law’ (the ‘rechtsstaat’). This explores not only the state’s engagement with law in its attempt to deal with its enemies (a ‘top-down’ perspective), but also law’s operation within the civilian population from whom violent actors spring (‘bottom-up’). This model is then employed to analyse four conflict sites separated widely by geography and types of legal system (South Africa, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Northern Ireland and the Federal Republic of Germany). Comparisons facilitate identification of cross-jurisdictional patterns; using these as reference points, elements of an alternative anti-violence, rule of law strategy are suggested.