Call for Papers : Internal and External Insecurities: The EU’s Anti-Terrorism Strategy and International Cooperation

SIXTH CHALLENGE TRAINING SCHOOL

Venue: Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), Place du Congrès 1, B-1000 Brussels – Conference Room

Dates: 6 & 7 November 2008

The Centre of European Policy Studies (CEPS) is organising the Sixth CHALLENGE Training School on«Internal and External Insecurities: The EU’s Anti-Terrorism Strategy and International Cooperation».The event will take place at CEPS on the 6 & 7 November 2008. You may find below the detailed Call for Papers. This Training School will aim at covering an interdisciplinary and comparative study focusing on concepts, laws, discourses and practices related to the internal and external aspects surrounding the EU’s Anti-Terrorism Strategy, and especially in the context of international cooperation between the EU and the US and Canada.

Presentation

Seven years after the events of 11 September 2001, there is now no doubt that the European Union (EU) has developed into an important actor in the field of security. The EU’s Counter-Terrorism Strategy adopted in December 2005 counts now with numerous normative and institutional responses. Most of these instruments have deep implications for civil liberties, human rights and social cohesion, as well as the very foundations of liberal democracy. The identification of increasing global insecurities, and especially those related to acts of political violence linked with transnational networks, have led to the emergence of practices and policies in the EU and globally framed in the context of a permanent state of emergency and necessity calling for the need to develop measures inspired by the principles of exceptionalism, prevention and anticipation. The perception of a radically transformed international environment, where the internal and external security realms have become increasingly blurred, has also led to a reinvigorated engagement of the EU in the security domain both within its Member States and internationally.

The EU has become a relevant actor in the EU’s normative landscape in two main settings: first, Justice and Home Affairs (the Third Pillar), a policy framework characterized since 1999 by a democratic deficit and a weak judicial oversight, and where the role of the Member States continues to dominate that of the EU; and second, the Common Foreign and Security Policy – a part of the EU EU’s Counterterrorism Strategy provides the policy framework accompanying this Treaty-based setting.1 The former purports “to combat terrorism globally while respecting human rights, and to make Europe safer, allowing its citizens to live in an area of freedom, security and justice”. On the basis of this commitment, the strategy expressly covers the following four strands of work:

1. “To prevent people turning to terrorism by tackling the factors or root causes which can lead to radicalisation and recruitment, in Europe and internationally;

2. To protect citizens and infrastructure and reduce our vulnerability to attack, including through improved security of borders, transport and critical infrastructure;

3. To pursue and investigate terrorists across our borders and globally; to impede planning, travel, and communications; to disrupt support networks; to cut off funding and access to attack materials, and bring terrorists to justice; and

4. To prepare ourselves, in the spirit of solidarity, to manage and minimise the consequences of a terrorist attack, by improving capabilities to deal with: the aftermath; the co-ordination of the response; and the needs of victims”.

The EU’s discourse has been inspired by the metaphor of a balance between security and freedom. The metaphor entered the EU’s discourse after 11 September 2001, and became incorporated into the second five-year work programme on policies related to Freedom, Security and Justice, which commenced in 2004 – the Hague Programme. The processes of insecuritization underlying this official rhetoric have injected deep consequences in the understanding and meaning of the interplay between security and liberty in the EU, and the position that the individual is given at the heart of this intersection.

We are also witnessing increasing cooperation between the EU and its Member States, with other key international actors, such as the US and Canada. The JHA domain, and particularly its instruments related to anti-terrorism, has become in recent years one of the core strategic policies in the context of the EU’s external relations. By way of illustration, this has been evidenced by the adoption of the EU-Canada Partnership Agenda of 18 March 2004, which identified as a key priority the deepening and advancing of cooperation on JHA.2 The external dimensions of anti-terrorism measures constitute indeed a central aspect to the understanding of the transformation of the relationship between liberty and security globally. The extra-territorialization of insecurity policies by the EU outside its territory, and by the reverse process in the EU, raise a number of issues in need of reflection, in particular extraordinary renditions, PNR, exchange of information and cooperation between security agencies, etc. It is in this context that the role of the Courts and the operability of the rule of law remain very much at stake. In addition to the judiciary, the effects of other sites of resistance need to be addressed, such as those coming from civil society and NGOs, national parliaments, etc. Finally, an eventual institutional renewal as a consequence of the Treaty of Lisbon over these domains will have deep implications in need of consideration.

This two-day Training School seeks to address these and other related questions. CEPS invites the submission of Proposals for Papers covering an interdisciplinary and comparative study focusing on concepts, laws, discourses, practices and actors involved as regards the internal and external aspects surrounding the EU’s Anti-Terrorism Strategy, and especially in the context of international cooperation between the EU and the US and Canada.

CEPS invites submission of Proposals for Papers addressing the conference’s theme no later than 3 October 2008.

For more information about the JHA Section at CEPS you may visit: http://www.ceps.eu/Article.php?article_id=16

Download the Call for Papers at PDF format

Call for Papers : Internal and External Insecurities: The EU’s Anti-Terrorism Strategy and International Cooperation