Professor Conor Gearty CKK.6.10

This course is available on the LLM (extended part-time), LLM (full-time), MSc in Human Rights and University of Pennsylvania Law School LLM Visiting Students. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course has a limited number of places and demand is typically high. This may mean that you’re not able to get a place on this course.

This course will provide a theoretical and historical introduction to the concept of terrorism, and of the evolution of counter-terrorism law. It will critically consider definitions of terrorism, and analyse the relationship between terrorism and the right to rebel, and the right to engage in civil disobedience. The historical development of the idea of 'terrorism' from the late eighteenth century through to the present will then be traced, with the emphasis on locating the practice of political terror in its political and military/quasi-military context. The role of international law generally and international human rights law in particular in the context of terrorism and anti-terrorism action will be considered in detail. A particular interest, based on the teacher’s recent work, will be on the evolution of anti-terrorism law. The course will teach the material in context, so the subject will be analysed by reference to particular situations where necessary, eg Northern Ireland, the Palestine/Israel conflict and the post 11 September 'war on terror'. The recent widespread extension of state controls from terrorism to ‘extremism’ will be analysed. The aim of the course is to give the student a good critical understanding of this most controversial of subjects, and also to impart an understanding of the role of law in shaping the fields of terrorism and of counter-terrorism.

This course will have two hours of teaching content each week in Autumn Term. There will be a Reading Week in Week 6. 

One 2,000 word essay.

The course will require students to read and engage with the teacher’s lastest book, Conor Gearty, Homeland Insecurity. The Rise and Rise of Global Anti-Terrorism Law (Polity, May 2024). There is no other set text though reliance is made on the work of authors such as Richard English, Adrian Guelke, Lawrence Freedman, Igor Primoratz, Paul Wilkinson and other works by the course teacher Conor Gearty. Students will receive a detailed reading list for each topic, which will include legal cases from time to time, particularly in the second half of the course. Two other recommended texts are Gearty, Liberty and Security (Polity Press, February 2013) and English, Terrorism How to respond (Oxford 2009).

Exam (100%, duration: 2 hours and 30 minutes) in the spring exam period.

This subject is examined by one unseen two-hour paper, composed of at least six questions of which two must be attempted. There will be a fifteen-minute reading time during which the exam paper may be written on. The exam is closed book.