Barriers to International Police Cooperation in the Age of Terrorism (From Understanding and Responding to Terrorism, P 42-55, 2007, Huseyin Durmaz, Bilal Sevinc, et al., eds. -- See NCJ-224814)

• NCJ Number: 224819
• Author(s): Mitchel P. Roth; Murat Sever
• Date Published: 2007
• Length: 14 pages
• Sale Source: IOS Press
• Publication Format: Book Chapter
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: Netherlands

Annotation

This paper identifies and discusses various barriers to international cooperation among police agencies involved in counterterrorism.

Abstract

Barriers to cooperation begin with a lack of consensus on the legal definition of “terrorism.” This prevents agreement on which groups should be labeled terrorist groups; however, since 1999, when the United Nations approved the Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, there has been a much greater worldwide acceptance of a terrorism definition and the activities related to it. Since 2002, the European Union (EU) has agreed to a definition of “terrorist offenses” and what is a “terrorist group.” A second barrier to international cooperation in counterterrorism efforts involves language; for example, the EU currently employs at least 4,000 interpreters. Still, it can take up to a week for information to be translated into the languages of all the member states. A third barrier to cooperation is ignorance of and insensitivity to the customs, national sovereignty, and national and political history of other nations. This results in other barriers, such as different concepts of criminality in legal traditions, diverse immigrant constituencies, and varying levels of political instability. Another barrier is the failure to agree on extradition treaties, which enables individual terrorists to find sanctuary in countries that have no extradition treaty with countries where the terrorists have been charged with crimes. Other barriers include differing legal standards for interrogation methods, mistrust of how other nations will use shared intelligence, differing levels of technological development, police corruption, abuse of diplomatic immunity, time zones, and differing policies and proficiencies regarding national borders and border control. Remaining barriers identified and discussed are geography, regional conflict and civil war, police organizational culture, interorganizational coordination, and financial barriers and limitations. 23 references