Criminalizing peace: anti-terrorism law and its impact on peacemaking in the Basque Country and Northern Ireland

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper investigates anti-terrorism law’s impact on peace-making efforts of the nonviolent allies of Basque Homeland and Freedom (ETA) and the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). Drawing on debates concerning ‘enemy criminal law’, I argue that anti-terrorism law is actor-focused and thus directed at juridically labelled ‘terrorist organisations’. Variation in the juridical construction of terrorist organisations is critical to understanding the divergence in the political capacities of non-violent Basque separatists and Irish republicans as peace-makers. In Spain, the judiciary developed a broad definition of the ‘terrorist organisation ETA’, resulting in the identification of non-violent Basque separatist groups as ‘integral components’ of ETA and hindering their capacity to engage in peace-making. In contrast, British anti-terrorism law was grounded in a narrow definition of ‘proscribed organisations’ focused on the IRA’s rank-and-file, which facilitated the involvement of the broader republican movement in the successful peace process of the nineties.