Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- PART ONE Theoretical Perspectives on Anti-Terrorism Law and Policy
- PART TWO A Comparative Study of Anti-Terrorism Measures
- PART THREE Anti-Terrorism Law and Policy in Asia
- 13 Law and terror: Singapore stories and Malaysian dilemmas
- 14 Indonesia's Anti-Terrorism Law
- 15 The Philippines: the weakest link in the fight against terrorism?
- 16 Japan's response to terrorism post-9/11
- 17 Legal and institutional responses to terrorism in India
- 18 Enacting security laws in Hong Kong
- PART FOUR Regional Cooperation
- PART FIVE Anti-Terrorism Law and Policy in the West
- PART SIX Anti-Terrorism Measures in Africa, the Middle East and Argentina
- Index
16 - Japan's response to terrorism post-9/11
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- PART ONE Theoretical Perspectives on Anti-Terrorism Law and Policy
- PART TWO A Comparative Study of Anti-Terrorism Measures
- PART THREE Anti-Terrorism Law and Policy in Asia
- 13 Law and terror: Singapore stories and Malaysian dilemmas
- 14 Indonesia's Anti-Terrorism Law
- 15 The Philippines: the weakest link in the fight against terrorism?
- 16 Japan's response to terrorism post-9/11
- 17 Legal and institutional responses to terrorism in India
- 18 Enacting security laws in Hong Kong
- PART FOUR Regional Cooperation
- PART FIVE Anti-Terrorism Law and Policy in the West
- PART SIX Anti-Terrorism Measures in Africa, the Middle East and Argentina
- Index
Summary
Formulating an appropriate response to terrorism presents all governments with an acute political dilemma. On the one hand, by failing to act decisively a government runs the risk of providing terrorist groups with the opportunity to consolidate in order to launch further and even more devastating attacks. On the other hand, there is the opposite danger of over-reacting. After all, one of the key objectives of terrorism is to provoke states into adopting security policies that expose the commitment to constitutional rule as being shallow, hypocritical and contingent upon circumstances. By inviting a ‘terror against terror’, the terrorist hypothesis is that violent attacks can cause governments to derogate from key constitutional principles, and that such a suspension of norms exposes the limits of the rule of law and undermines the moral authority of the state. Striking an appropriate balance between the need for action and the danger of over-reaction has, post-9/11, become a pressing issue for all governments as they formulate counter-terrorism policy.
This chapter will examine some of the key issues raised by Japan's response to the 9/11 attacks and the global ‘war on terrorism’ that has followed. In responding to 9/11, many liberal democracies substantively expanded the coercive powers of the criminal law as well as the investigative powers of state agencies.
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- Global Anti-Terrorism Law and Policy , pp. 327 - 350Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005
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