This thesis aims at finding a desirable direction to effectively respond to terrorism. for the purpose of this, International treaties and foreign legislations against terrorism were examined.
Since the end of the Cold War, the concept of security h...
This thesis aims at finding a desirable direction to effectively respond to terrorism. for the purpose of this, International treaties and foreign legislations against terrorism were examined.
Since the end of the Cold War, the concept of security has been broadened from the conventional military security to the comprehensive one that encompasses not only the economy, ecology, and social security issues like terror, drug and international crime, but also the cyber security. This change is pressing us to improve existing security-related laws and regulations. The new security threats mentioned above can occur anytime anywhere, and regardless of national borders. It is especially important that terrorism in the globalized world is different from that of the past in terms of its frequency, intensity and diversity.
Though it is true that threats of terrorism have been recently highlighted, the international community has continuously shown deep concerns and interests in stopping and preventing terrorism since the early 20th century, and especially the 1960s. As a result, international organizations such as the United Nations have led the conclusion of many international anti-terrorism conventions. However, theses agreements failed to succeed due to the conflict of interests among participating countries, the difficulty of defining terrorism, and the limit of implementing anti-terrorism measures.
Although there was an increasing demand to respond to terrorism, the international community did not obtain expected outcomes, and the September 11 terror broke out. September 11 terror was a ever-new type of terrorism, shocking the world and incurring unprecedented level of human and property damages. It acted as an opportunity for countries around the world such as the United States to hasten the enactment of anti-terrorism laws.
The United States, the superpower of the world hit in its core on September 11th, laid the so-called 'Patriot Act' before her Congress to provide appropriate tools to stop and prevent terrorism, only 8 days after the incident. The 'Patriot Act' passed the Congress in only a month. Many countries such as the United Kingdom that have shared anti-terrorism military line with the U.S. passed their own laws against terrorism one after another.
Overseas anti-terrorism laws such as the 'Patriot Act' in the U.S. seemed to contain strong countermeasures against terrorism in order to decrease the number of terrors in long term by imposing heavy penalty and to make the world get rid of the threats of terror. However, those anti-terrorism laws left rooms for doubt whether they could achieve the expected fruits or not.
Moreover, countermeasures in anti-terrorism laws themselves are threats to social morals of democratic nations. Also, it is true that many people concern about the violation of fundamental human rights.
This thesis looks into the process of response by international society and the main contents of anti-terrorism laws in individual governments. And by reviewing fundamental problems caused either by the legislation itself or during the execution of the laws, this thesis will gain an insight into the situation of Korea where continuous attempts to legislate anti-terrorism laws have been made since 2001.
Other countries' legislations also affected Korea, and the first anti-terrorism bill was introduced to the 16th Congress in 2001. Those in support of anti-terrorism bills such as National Intelligence Agency emphasize the fact that those regulations were not enough for the agencies to respond effectively to terrorism because there's no single consented system.
However, the bills faced a strong opposition because people in Korea have had bitter experiences of dictatorship by intelligence agencies. Moreover, anti-terrorism laws brought out serious problems such as violation of the Constitution, unclear definition of the term of "terror", excessive power given to agencies, and employment of military forces the Constitution. As a result, all the attempts to pass the law from 16th to 18th Congress for 10 years failed.
Even though many countries have a firm stand against terrorism and legislated anti-terrorism laws, terrorist activities worldwide are still increasing. So the doubt about effectiveness of such laws also rises. This is why we have difficulty passing anti-terrorism laws. But as long as terrorist threats come to a stop, especially considering no clear change in security situation between South and North Koreas, attempts to legislate the laws will be continued.
One thing I found in this study is that whatever anti-terrorism bills can not survive, since none of the treaties and legislations ever made can be free from the possibility of infringing fundamental human rights and violating the cherished constitutional principles.
Key Words: Terrorism, Anti-Terrorism Act, Anti Terrorism Convention, Patriot Act, Human Rights