Examining the interaction between family law and counter-terrorism in the UK in recent years

Ahdash, Fatima (2020) Examining the interaction between family law and counter-terrorism in the UK in recent years. PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Abstract

Over the last years, the family courts of England and Wales have heard a growing number of cases, known as the radicalisation cases, where concerns about terrorism, extremism and radicalisation, and their impact on children, have been raised. The radicalisation cases are an important legal development, facilitating an unprecedented interaction between previously unrelated areas of law and policy: family and counter-terrorism. This thesis subjects the radicalisation cases to a close and critical analysis, examining the nature of, the reasons behind and the implications of the interaction between family law and counter-terrorism that they have engendered. It raises a number of questions including: why is this political problem- terrorismbeing dealt with by the family courts? Why is the law only now interested in the terrorist and/or extremist as a parent? What are the implications of establishing the home as a new frontier in the fight against terrorism? The thesis argues that the radicalisation cases have facilitated an extensive and far-reaching interaction between family law and counter-terrorism. It challenges simplistic official narratives which understand the radicalisation cases as an inevitable response to obvious childprotection risks arising out of recent developments within international terrorism. Rather, it maintains that the interaction between family law and counter-terrorism must be understood by reference to wider, significant changes in both family law and policy and counter-terrorism law, policy and discourse over the last years. It demonstrates how these changes, or conditions of possibility, which have opened up the family to increasing amounts of intervention, reconceptualised terrorism from a method of political violence to a family problem and expanded the reach of counter-terrorism are reflected and reinforced in the radicalisation cases themselves. It argues that the interaction between family law and counter-terrorism is a dangerous legal development that poses a number of worrying implications for human rights, the rule of law and open justice.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Additional Information:	© 2020 Fatima Ahdash
Library of Congress subject classification:	K Law > K Law (General) K Law > KD England and Wales
Sets:	Departments > Law
Supervisor:	Gearty, Conor and Jackson, Emily and Ramsay, Peter
URI:	http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/4306

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