Combating Terrorism by Constraining Charities? Charity and Counterterrorism Legislation Before and After 9/11

Abstract

How does counter-terrorism legislation – enacted in democratic states – impact upon charities, intentionally or unintentionally? To address this question, we present a new analytical framework that allows us to compare, across established democracies, how charity and counterterrorism legislation are connected, enabling us to assess how charities’ legal environments have changed since 9/11. Comparing legislation across six long-lived democracies (UK, US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland), we distinguish between three types of legislative connection: overlap, direct intersection and indirect intersection. These categories differ in terms of the visibility of the connection established between the two areas of law. As high profile reform exercises, both overlap and direct intersections have been predominantly introduced post-9/11. But it is through indirect intersections that intensified post 9/11 which are most vague and difficult to manoeuvre, that the day-to-day activities of charities are most likely to be affected, with important empirical and normative repercussions.