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San Diego International Law Journal

Document Type

Article

Abstract

This Article aims to evaluate the international legal perspectives attendant to U.S. counter-terrorism measures and policy and the attendant strictures an implications. Part II commences by grappling with the uneasy relationship that legal and political complexities have foisted on the UN's ability to address terrorism and the difficult issue of the definition of terrorism. Within the context of this part, the Article also addresses the two dominant counter-terrorism paradigms-law enforcement and conflict management. Part III oves on to evaluate the law enforcement paradigm which treats terrorism as a crime engaging domestic law enforcement. This part offers a discussion of the "extradite or prosecute" mechanism that lies at the heart of multilateral anti-terrorism conventions and a iscussion of the bases of international criminal jurisdiction that provide a framework for domestic anti-terrorism statutes. It concludes with an analysis of the practice of apprehension of terrorists in international space, of which the United States has been a leading proponent, and offers a discussion of the complex legalities attendant to this controversial means. In Part IV, the article tackles the complexities and technicalities of the conflict management paradigm. It commences by examining the international legal uncertainties inherent in treating terrorists as combatants.

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