A/HRC/43/46
phenomenon.5 The prevention and countering of violent extremism is playing an increasingly
visible role in the consolidation of a globalized security regime post-11 September 2001, led
by the Security Council, Security Council resolution 1373 (2001) and subsequent Council
resolutions on the subject.6
5.
It is essential therefore that a human rights analysis not only address the stand-alone
structure of preventing and countering violent extremism, but rather engage in a contextual
way the broader production of such policy and practice with the wider landscape of counterterrorism regulation, recognizing what feminist political scientists call “nested
institutionalism”.7 Although policy aimed at preventing and countering violent extremism
may appear as entirely new, it is not. The outlines of legal, policy and institutional responses
to preventing and countering violent extremism are pathways that have been well trodden by
traditional counter-terrorism law, and tracing those pathways and overlaps will be a subject
of the present report.
II. Definition and legal basis of violent extremism
6.
Although the language of preventing and countering violent extremism is relatively
new, the genesis of addressing violent extremism results in part from seeking broad and
strategic responses to address the social consequences and violent manifestations of violent
extremist groups and disrupting them. 8 Early programmes and policy interventions were
aimed at preventing and containing the expansion of certain extreme ideologies and finding
social and broadly progressive integration strategies, as opposed to carceral ones, to contain
violence and positively evolve hate-based ideologies. 9 Preventing and countering violent
extremism has roots in the “deradicalization” programmes that sprang up in Germany,
Norway and Sweden (known as “exit programmes”) in the middle to late 1990s to tackle
growing far-right extremist groups.10
7.
The link between those early ventures and present-day preventing and countering
violent extremism policies is found in the following areas: the evolution of the United Nations
Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy among States; the impetus of the Security Council by its
resolution 2178 (2014); the articulation of the Secretary-General’s Plan of Action to Prevent
Violent Extremism; and the development, over the past decade, of prevention strategies at
the national level that are primarily focused on the containment of terrorism associated with
certain Islamic armed groups. As the prevention and countering of violent extremism evolved
after 11 September 2001, it was recognized that the enabling environments in which violent
extremism flourished required close attention and that exclusively security and military
counter-terrorism measures11 appeared to be failing and were counter-productive.
8.
The contemporary language of violent extremism made its way into the international
policy agenda from the mid-2000s, driven by the policy imperatives of the United States of
America, drawing on earlier British and French models developed primarily, but not
exclusively, in conflict contexts.12 Governmental endeavours arose from efforts to reframe
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Including but not limited to the Group of Friends of preventing violent extremism and through
General Assembly resolution 70/262 and Security Council resolution 2282 (2016).
Following 11 September 2001, the Security Council adopted resolutions 1368 (2001) and 1373 (2001)
and expanded the targeted sanctions regime set up under resolution 1267 (1999).
Referring to the embedded aspects of certain kinds of policies and practices making revision or
reform difficult. See Louise Chappell and Georgina Waylen, “Gender and the hidden life of
institutions”, Public Administration, vol. 91, No. 3.
Neo-Nazi rehabilitation and root cause types of approaches.
Jessie Blackbourn and others, “Understanding and responding to right-wing terrorism”, Journal of
Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism, vol. 14, No. 3.
Liz Fekete, “Exit from white supremacism: the accountability gap within Europe’s de-radicalization
programmes”, Briefing No. 8, September 2014, Institute of Race Relations.
Naureen Chowdhury Fink, “Countering violent extremism: what are the key challenges for UN?”, 3
November 2015, International Peace Institute Global Observatory.
See David H. Petraeus and James F. Amos, The U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency
Field Manual (Washington, D.C., 2006).
3
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