SayUncle’s resident troublemaker Hellbent links to this article which notes that the legal structure used in the past to address piracy can be adapted to the terror war:

INTERNATIONAL LAW LACKS A DEFINITION FOR TERRORISM as a crime. According to Secretary General Kofi Annan, this lack has hampered “the moral authority of the United Nations and its strength in condemning” the scourge.

But attempts to provide a definition have failed because of terrorists’ strangely hybrid status in the law. They are neither ordinary criminals nor recognized state actors, so there is almost no international or domestic law dealing with them. This gives an out to countries that harbor terrorists and declare them “freedom fighters.” It also lets the United States flout its own constitutional safeguards by holding suspects captive indefinitely at Guantánamo Bay. The overall situation is, in a word, anarchic.

Interesting read.

Posted in uncategorized on June 28th, 2005 by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |