Abstract
The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 have resulted in the expansion of anti-terrorism laws throughout the globe. The international and domestic reaction to these attacks constitute a type of horrible natural experiment in the migration of constitutional and anti-constitutional ideas. In this chapter, I will attempt to provide insight into the complexity of the migration of constitutional ideas with respect to antiterrorism laws by examining the influence of the definition of terrorism in Britain's Terrorism Act 2000 on the post-9/11 development of antiterrorism laws in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Indonesia, South Africa, and the United States, as well as the role that domestic law, politics, and history played in producing variations in the definition of terrorism in each country.The countries examined in this chapter provide some evidence of the complex and contradictory effects of the interaction of local agendas and the new international mandate to criminalize terrorism. These variations in antiterrorism law suggest that migration of anti-constitutional ideas about how terrorism should be defined was not inevitable or unstoppable. Each country had some freedom to make choices about its own definition of terrorism. Each country examined in this chapter, however, did not start from scratch when it came to the difficult task of defining terrorism. The definition of terrorism in the Terrorism Act 2000 played an important role.This chapter will demonstrate not only the important influence of the Terrorism Act 2000, but also the lack of influence of the US Patriot Act. In other words 'other People's Patriot Acts' reflected much more the British than the US example. This may suggest that the bonds of Britain's former but formal empire may still be significant when it comes to the transmission of constitutional ideas. It may also be another example of US exceptionalism, in this case US law that defined terrorism in a very legalistic and complex manner.
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