Abstract
In 1964, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart struggled to formulate a legal definition of obscenity. He ultimately concluded, “I know it when I see it.” A similar conundrum prevails today in the realm of global security. As David Bosco, a lawyer and senior editor at Foreign Policy magazine, notes in this issue of the Bulletin, despite decades of confronting the scourge of terrorism, the international community has failed to reach consensus on what exactly a terrorist is. Attempts to craft a broad definition have foundered again and again, most recently at the United Nation's sixtieth anniversary summit. This is not merely a symbolic issue. Once states agree on a common definition of terrorism, bilateral and regional extradition treaties could enable more effective prosecution of perpetrators. Efforts like the Proliferation Security Initiative, which aims to halt nuclear proliferation at sea, could expand to cover the transport of terrorists.
Underlying this rhetorical stalemate is the insistence among many Muslim governments that a definition of terrorism exempt struggles for national liberation. A frequent refrain is that perpetrators of violence often have no other option. As Bosco writes, this reasoning should be uncomfortably familiar to the West: “On the eve of World War II, the mass bombing of cities was beyond the pale. Three years into the war, the prohibition had all but dissolved: Dresden Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki followed. In such settings, when leaders are asked to confront their actions, they pass responsibility to their opponents or simply assert that circumstances left no moral choice.” This debate is unlikely to be resolved, Bosco believes, until there is a cooling of the rhetoric of crisis that is so pervasive in many parts of the Arab and Islamic worlds.
“While the international community remains divided over the issue of terrorism, there is growing consensus on the need to prepare against the avian flu. Some believe that these efforts are lagging behind. Shane Harris, a Washington, D.C.-based reporter who covers intelligence and counterterrorism issues, profiles the “bug bloggers” in this issue of the Bulletin. These self-made experts–who ingest and analyze every online scrap of information about the avian flu–were shouting warnings from the internet's rooftops long before the virus became the media story du jour. And they've been especially effective in penetrating the Great Wall of secrecy that China has erected around its public health system. Looking ahead, the bloggers are collaborating with epidemiologists and virologists from across the globe to help local communities prepare for and cope with potential flu outbreaks.
National borders are no defense against either viruses or terrorists–and in such a world, cooperation is more crucial than ever.