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Top1. Introduction
Terrorism remains a major threat to national, regional, and international peace and security. According to the Global Terrorism Index (2016), there has been a continuing rise of terrorism in the world, which is a cause for serious concern today. In the United States of America (USA), the federal government has adopted a series of counter-terrorism (CT) measures since September 11, 2001, when the Twin Towers in York and Pentagon Building in Washington DC were attacked by terrorists. The United States of America (USA) Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (PATRIOT) enhanced the capacity of police and other security agencies to redefine terrorism, conduct surveillance, gather intelligence and determine crimes and penalties (Chang, 2003). USA also created the Office of Homeland security, which aims to develop and coordinate the implementation of a comprehensive national strategy to secure the USA from terrorist threats or attacks (Kuto, 2004).
Before the September 11 attack, the European Commission (EU) had created a special CT preparatory group in 1997 to formulate European police (Europol) (Mathieu, 2006). The Treaty of Amsterdam extended Europol mandate to include CT tasks (Rauchs and Koenig, 2006). Europol’s CT mandate was further expanded to gain the authority to ask police forces of EU to launch investigations and to share information with the USA Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) (Ratzel, 2007) and other third parties, including Interpol and other professional police organizations, as well as police of non-EU states (John, 2009).
In India, instruction of the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance broadens the definition of terrorism and empowers law enforcement agencies to investigate and punish terrorist activities (Kalhan, 2006). In Africa, continental efforts in preventing and combating terrorism have a long history. In 1992, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) (now Africa Union -AU), meeting at its 28th Ordinary Session, held in Dakar, Senegal, adopted a Resolution on the Strengthening of Cooperation and Coordination among African States in which the Union pledged to fight the phenomena of extremism and terrorism (Cilliers and Sturman, 2004). At its 30th Ordinary Session held in Tunis, Tunisia, on June 1994, the OAU adopted the Declaration on the Code of Conduct for Inter-African Relations in which it rejected all forms of extremism and terrorism, whether under the pretext of sectarianism, tribalism, ethnicity or religion. The declaration also condemned, as criminal, all terrorist acts, methods and practices, and expressed its resolve to enhance cooperation to combat such acts.
These efforts culminated in the1999 OAU Convention on the Prevention and Combating of Terrorism adopted by the 35th Ordinary Session of the OAU Summit, held in Algiers, Algeria, on July 1999. The Convention requires that States Parties criminalize terrorist acts under their national laws as defined in the Convention. It defines areas of cooperation among states, establishes state jurisdiction over terrorist acts, and provides a legal framework for extradition as well as extra-territorial investigations and mutual legal assistance. The Convention entered into force in December 2002 and to date, 40 Member States have ratified it (AU, 2002).
As part of the implementation of the 2002 Plan of Action, the African Centre for the Study and Research on Terrorism(ACSRT), was established in 2004 in Algiers to serve as a structure for centralizing information, studies and analyses on terrorism and terrorist groups and to develop Counter-Terrorism capacity building programmes (Makinda,2003). The ACSRT also provides a forum for interaction and cooperation between the Member States and Regional Mechanisms. The Centre plays an important role in guiding the AU’s CT efforts and works in collaboration with a number of regional and international partners to ensure coherent and coordinated CT efforts in the continent (Cilliers and Sturman, 2004).