The quiddity of terrorism and its impact on human rights: France and Britain as a case study

Abstract

Terrorism is considered one of the most dangerous phenomena that have a negative impact on societies around the world especially in the human side. Its danger has increased in our time after it has become a global phenomenon that affects all fields of life, as terrorism no longer belongs to a certain state or people, but includes everyone, regardless of its causes, forms, objectives, and even the nature of those who support it. It seems that this fact has been realized by the international community since the beginning of the twentieth century, which sought to fight and reduce its destructive impact on human,cultural, economic and even political life. This has been done by placing a number of means and legal measures toend terrorism seriously. Despite of that,it is found that the international community is unable to achieve concrete results in fighting terrorism, and the reason behind this is due to its inability till this day to unite global efforts and find a united international formula to reduce the risk of terrorism. At the same time, international community has to find ways to eliminate it through international cooperation and coordination between States and peoples that are in a direct contact with terrorism becauseweak coordination, regulation, and international cooperation were the most prominent reasons behind the weakness of international efforts in eliminating terrorism and reducing its effects as their efforts remained limited on self-efforts. Perhaps the failure to resolve the problem of terrorism refers to the intellectual, political, economic, social, and religious differences ofeach State.Also the intersection between the states about the quiddity of terrorism has led these states to adopt different actions and means towards terrorism. As a result, these differences weaken international efforts to fight terrorism and increase its danger.It seems that theseindividual means taken by some countries, including Western Europe countries, in fighting terrorism may achieve certain goals behind, nevertheless, the majority has violated laws and international standards of human rights, because those meansbecome the main causes of human rights violations in Western Europe.Accordingly, a number of concernshave been raised, most notably the number of legislations to fight terrorism in the countries of Western Europe, especially France and Britain, which have significantly influenced human rights, because applying these laws has become the main reason behind the violation of human rights and the lack of respect, a matter which is considered a violation of international standards and measures of those rights. On these bases, the research has been divided into three major chapters. First chapter deals with the conceptual framework of terrorism and is divided into two sections: the first section reviews the definition of terrorism in linguistic, conventional, and legal terms. While the second deals with the goals of terrorism. Second chapter deals with the motives and forms of terrorism. It is also divided into two sections: the first addresses the motivations behind terrorism and its practice. The second section identifies forms of terrorism and is divided into two first parts: the first reviews the classical forms of terrorism and the second deals with its modern forms. Chapter threeshows the nature of the legal measures to fight terrorism and its impact on human rights as it addresses the situation of France and Britain as cases for the study. This chapter isalso divided into two sections: in the first section we review the historical roots of the phenomenon of terrorism in Western Europe and how it developed through ages. The second section deals with the national legislation to fight terrorism in France and Britain and how these laws developed, especially after the events of September and the events of the London bombings, and the impact of these events on the nature of those laws. Then the conclusion comes to confirm the validity of the hypothesis of this research.The research concludes that the national legislation to fight terrorism in France and Britain has violated and exceeded international standards of respecting and protecting human rights. It is true that these laws have been developed in order to reduce the phenomenon of terrorism, but they have become the main source of exceeding and violating those rights for all, without exception, under the pretext of so-called application of fighting terrorism.