Walking the Line between the “War on Terror” and the Defense of Human Rights

Abstract

This chapter focuses on authoritative knowledge on terrorism and counterterrorism, its production and possible consequences for the application of internationally agreed human rights standards. Although terrorism is never an acceptable practice, there is a very wide margin of appreciation left for governments to decide what kinds of acts actually constitute terrorism. As its center of inquiry, this chapter takes the process by which counterterrorism mechanisms become a “validation” for the violation of human rights. Within this constellation, “othering” (Said 1991; Hall 2003; Toivanen 2004) emerges as a vital topic: the mechanism of othering is utilized to make both potential terrorists, as well as actual terrorists, as foreign and as strange as possible. This kind of othering is clearly helpful in legitimating governmental acts, even such acts that constitute a violation of basic human rights (e.g., the right to life, the right to a fair trial, the right to privacy).