The Legal Nature of Al Qaeda

Abstract:     
In this article we analyse the legal nature of al Qaeda, its proxies organizations and their leadership. The underlying motivation for this work is to provide a basis for the eventual criminal prosecution both of the legal persons and the individuals who make up the leadership, before an international or domestic jurisdiction. The recognition of a legal standing for al Qaeda and the network of radical Islamic organizations becomes crucial to make them accountable for violations of the core human rights recognized by international human rights law. Their leadership should also need to be legally characterised in order to standardize the type of treatment and penalties these individuals deserve once captured. We review different possibilities of characterising al Qaeda, its network and their leadership, taking into account the progressive evolution of international law and its subsystems of international humanitarian, human rights and criminal law.

Keywords: international terrorism, legality, criminal law

JEL Classification: K14, K33

working papers series