British Counter-Terrorism: Globalisation of Culture and Values

 Lawmaking, Politics & Society

I am Not a Terrorist, Thank You!

 

Globalisation of law-making in British counter-terrorism legislation

 

 

© Los Angeles Times terrorist attack scene

 

 

Britain’s New Counter-Terrorism

White, Western, ‘privileged’ European citizens are being turned down or deported at the UK border. As someone who has just moved away from the UK after living 5 years there, I particularly feel threatened by the British preventive security measures. I don’t feel like visiting my friends over there anymore. Is this really the ‘taking back control over our borders?’

 

The new British counter-terrorism legislation, the Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Act (2021) lifted the minimum year imprisonment for terrorist offenses from 10 to 14 years, ended the possibility of early release and increased the surveillance of ‘potential’ terrorists. This legislation is not only ‘necessary’ – as it is argued by the British law-makers, due to globalisation and its weakening effect on border control –, but is also part of the globalisation of anti-terrorist and counter-terrorist norms, which are mostly led by the US since 9/11, as ‘the fiction of popular culture and the reality of politics are inseparable’ (Van Veeren, 2009, p. 361). 

 

Globalisation of Values…

Counter-terrorism has emerged in the US after 9/11. As with almost every American value of our globalised era (e.g., pop culture, English language, slang, fashion), this has also spread around the (Western) world. The fight against terrorism has turned into a preventive fight, replacing the traditional reactionary fight against national security threats (Hall, 2019). Even though, the UK has a well-developed border control – well beyond its borders, having border control police in foreign countries, to check those travelling to the UK before they depart (Schweiger, 2019) – the American counter-terrorism norms are on the top of British law-making agenda. 

 

The British case well-resonates Zamboni’s (2007) non-linear law-making model – meaning that law-making is not top-down nor bottom-up anymore, but is a circularity of legal discourse –, in the sense of cultural values of counter-terrorism. The globalization of law-making in terms of the politics of the law represents the implementation of foreign – particularly American – discourse of preventive fight against terror, over-ruling the traditional British reactionary measures. It is clear from the military spending on terrorism, how Britain’s line – although well below – follows the curve of the US.

 

© The Economist in Investopedia NATO members, military spending

 

 

…or the Policy of Laws?

Although, preventing terrorism is a value, the legislation around counter-terrorism also reflects the globalisation of the policy of laws, because the measures of strict sentencing and surveillance are not unique to the UK. 

First, the UK replaced its Control Orders with the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures in 2011, which act was driven by ‘that the catastrophic nature of the harms faced rendered the protections of the criminal process inappropriate because too favourable to suspects.’ (Zedner, 2014, p. 106) The American events of 9/11 supported by international counter-terrorism law-making in international organisations – such as the United Nation’s Security Council’s push for counter-terrorism (Aoláni, 2021) – and the increase in counter-terrorist measures in other Western countries (Barros-Garcia, 2011) made the British laws seem not enough. Therefore, there is a visible circularity in peer pressure on national law-making.

 

Consequently, this case well-resonates Zamboni’s (2007) non-linear law-making model of the globalised world not only cultural value-wise, but also policy of law-wise, because the UK is adapting measures of international organisations and other countries, like the US. The circulation of 'global legal categories' comes through how the events of the US and the reaction of other countries in increasing security ‘pressures’ a country to increase its own counter-terrorist measures, in this new ‘arms race’. This time not between the US and Russia, but all countries against all threat of terrorism (Hall, 2019).

National Institutions Involved

Zamboni’s (2007) non-linear model stands for the law-making analysis, arguing that today we have a new, multi-level law-making process, which does not fit the model of democracy, due to the denationalisation and over-ruling of national sovereignty. The Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Act is an example of lack of democratic national law-making, since it has been voted through parliament without any party having counter-terrorism in their political manifesto – therefore, no citizen could vote for an MP for the reason of increased counter-terrorism in the latest elections. Consequently, citizens are not represented in counter-terrorist legislation. 

 

Instead, it is the global agenda that is being implemented in national legislation. This is exactly Zamboin’s (2007) lack of linear (top-down or bottom-up) law-making, replaced by a non-linear co-influencing between international institutions (like the UN, who just established a special Counter-Terrorism Office in 2017), economically dominant countries (like the US, who has been actively applying military counter-terrorist measures in Afghanistan since 9/11 up until just last month, regardless the original target, Osama Bin Laden being executed 9 years ago) and national events of terrorist attacks.

 

Actors with Most Discretionary Power

Those formulating the new Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Act include the 2020 British government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Due to the then ongoing Brexit discussions between the European Union and the UK, Boris Johnson himself became a discretionary power in the formulation of this new counter-terrorism act. He has promised to take back control over British borders, exiting the EU. Because of the failure of this promise – as EU citizens can still enter without visas and with the simple reason of ‘looking for a job’ –, he had to show up something that reflects ‘taking back control’. The new Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Act served as a perfect tool for giving the public the promised ‘control’, although not taken back from Europeans in Brussels, but rather created against non-Brits within the UK.

 

Yet, there are other discretionary powers playing a role as well. On cultural grounds, the Americanisation that comes with globalisation made the US – and its political leaders together with their counter-terrorism decision – a key discretionary power over many national legislations, including the UK. This is due to the US being a ‘role model’ in not only culture but also law (Anubhutin, 2010).

 

Conclusion and Takeaway

As someone who just recently moved away from the UK after joyful years there, with the British security I don’t feel secure visiting my friends there anymore. The preventive measures that now target me, you, and every European citizen. It is the new Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Act that justifies these measures.

British counter-terrorist legislation has developed because of the globalisation of values (norms of fighting terrorism in a pre-emptive way), and also the globalisation on laws, which now are formulated at multiple levels, at the global, regional, national and local level, one influencing the other.

But isn’t this globalised counter-terrorism just another arms race, like that of the Cold War, against a new ‘other’? It is growing and is not stoppable until terrorism is being seen as a unique threat in Western democracies (Criado, 2015).