Reconceptualizing International Law After 9/11: What Role for State Responsibility in the Prevention and Suppression of Transnational Terrorism

It is clear that every state has an obligation to prevent terrorist attacks emanating from its territory and injurious to another state. This proposition stems from various multilateral agreements on the suppression of terrorism and Security Council resolutions. It also originates from the fundamental principle of sovereignty, which entails both rights and obligations. However, the current state of knowledge does not exhaustively address the scope of this obligation of prevention and the legal consequences flowing from its violation. The present study attempts to define the contents and contours of such obligation whilst placing particular critical emphasis on the mechanics of state responsibility. Whether obscured by new technologies like the Internet, the sophisticated cellular structure of terrorist organizations or convoluted political realities, the level of governmental involvement in terrorist activities is no longer readily discernible in all instances. Furthermore, the prospect of governments waging surrogate warfare through proxies also poses intractable challenges to the mechanism of attribution under state responsibility. Therefore, it is argued that new rules are required or, alternatively, that a critical reassessment of the role of the law of state responsibility in the prevention and suppression of transnational terrorism should be engaged.;In so doing, the dissertation sets out the shortcomings of the extant scheme of international responsibility whilst concurrently identifying a paradigm shift towards more indirect modes of responsibility under international law, a trend corroborated by recent state and institutional practice. This leads to the controversial question of the possible institutionalization of the implementation of state responsibility. In assessing the potential roles of United Nations organs in this setting, the study carves out a specific -- but limited -- role for the Security Council in ascertaining the commission of internationally wrongful acts. These considerations pave the way for the policy-oriented, context-sensitive reform of secondary rules of responsibility that follows. After drawing heavily on varied legal and theoretical influences, the study devises and prescriptively argues for the implementation of a strict liability-inspired model grounded in the logic of indirect responsibility with a view to enhancing state compliance with counterterrorism obligations, shifting the focus on prevention and promoting multilateralism and transnational cooperation.