This essay explores how the ideas of natural law and natural rights could impact the international refugee protection regime. The need for such an assessment stems from states looking for ways to narrow their obligation to protect those fleeing persecution either by shifting responsibility to others or by placing more hurdles to make the claim of asylum more challenging or by changing the rules. Evidently when determining whether to allow entry or win refugee status, states increasingly assess a person’s worthiness and deservingness. Such an approach involves a rejection of states' moral obligations to valuing all human life. Consequently, the current state of international refugee law, at least phenomenologically, is affected by a constant need to balance natural law obligations with legal positivist realism as Western states no longer see a utility in an international refugee protection system. The problem with this shift is the loss of morality. The paper therefore looks to encourage a return to a moral approach to refugee protection, which is what it was intended to do the international refugee protection was meant to do.

Ahmed Hashim’s book the Caliphate at War has two principal objectives: understand the Islamic State (IS), specifically in respect of ideology, organization, war-fighting and state buildings, and to examine the factors that facilitated the rise of IS. Neither objective is particularly novel, as there are plenty of excellent studies exploring these issues such as Will McCants’ The ISIS Apocalypse (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2015), Jessica Stern and J. M Berger’s ISIS: The State of Terror (New York: HarperCollins, 2016). Hashim begins (ch. 1) with an effort to explain the Islamic State. He argues that what makes the movement unique is that from the get-go, it had the specific objective of setting up an Islamic state (caliphate). Therefore, its ideology, organization, war-fighting were all designed and dedicated to achieve this goal. In ch. 2 (‘the Unlucky Country’) Hashim’s stated intention is to explore the ideology of the group. However, the chapter is, for the most part, a compact overview of Iraq’s history, with references to Islam. He examines the role of the Ottoman Empire in empowering Mesopotamia’s Sunni minority at the expense of the Shiʿa majority, which the British continued when they assumed the mandate in 1919. The issue is relevant especially as Hashim asserts that ‘Iraq’s recent history did not cause the rise of IS; rather, it has provided the fertile group within which IS emerged and thrived’ (p. 8, italics in text).

The purpose of this chapter is to describe Israel’s approach to counter-terrorism (CT), beginning with the threat that the state and its people have faced. The intention is to focus on the post-9/11 period, but that still demands a look at how the approach has evolved since the establishment of the state in 1948. It is also important to emphasize that terrorism is constantly evolving, and with it, Israel’s response to it, which is why the first section reviews Palestinian-led terrorist attacks over a 60-year period. When the First Intifada broke out, Israel has no effective response because its security apparatus – the Israel Defense Force (IDF) – was ill-suited to a popular uprising that demanded a more nuanced, police-style response as opposed to hard military power. Notably over the decade, the IDF has drastically changed because Israeli policymakers recognize that the threat to Israel is less from conventional forces and more from non-state actors and proxies, which has meant that the principal unit that is involved in countering terrorism is the IDF soldier. The second section looks at some of the specialist measures taken by the Israeli military and the police. Both these entities have adapted their techniques in lieu of the Second Intifada to address the threat posed by Palestinian suicide terrorism. The latest threat has come from knife attacks carried out by Arab-Israelis, including many teenagers. This trend has posed a major challenge to the Israelis because these individuals live within Israel or within the ‘Green Line’ and carry Israeli identity cards. The third section looks at Israel’s involvement in cyber and what role cyber plays in CT.

This paper examines the understudied area of innovation and terrorism as it pertains to the post-Caliphate Salafi-jihadi groups. It begins by distinguishing between creativity and innovation, emphasising that hierarchical terrorist organisation are not creative by nature. In part two, the paper reviews a typology of terrorist innovation and of the law of unintended consequences. The third section explores how these entities have moved onto the online gaming world because counterterrorist policies have limited their ability to communicate with potential recruits. The move underscores why de-platforming and many of the counternarrative initiatives have failed to curtail the messaging of violent extremist groups who know that they must find new avenues to communicate with supporters and potential recruits, which is why they innovate.

The editors of The Boko Haram Reader are to be congratulated for undertaking a herculean task of collecting and translating a plethora of primary documents from Arabic and Kanuri to English from Boko Haram (Jamaʿat ahl al-sunna li-daʿwa wa-l-qital). Over the last few years, Boko Haram has attracted a lot of interest as the group is responsible for the death of over 20,000 people and the displacement of millions. Studies have examined its history (Alexander Thurston), ideology (Jacob Zenn), the threat it poses and the military response to it (Virginia Comolli), or the economic and social drivers that aid the group’s recruitment (Atta Barkindo), etc. Some of the studies have not used primary sources in their assessments as such material is hard to come by. Thus, the book is an invaluable tool for researchers interested in Boko Haram and Salafi-jihadism in Nigeria and West Africa. Studies on Boko Haram and Salafi-jihadism have become highly polarized. Scholars debate how one should interpret the evidence, which is always challenging when looking at groups such as Boko Haram, as well as on how evidence is collected and presented (see for example the debate between Jacob Zenn and Adam Higazi, Brandon Kendhammer, Kyari Mohammed, Marc-Antoine Pérouse de Montclos, and Alex Thurston that took place in Perspective on Terrorism in 2017).

Lauzière in this remarkable study examines the historical process that surrounds Salafism by first identifying two paradigmatic strands, the modernist Salafist and the purist Salafist, and then deconstructing them. Key to Lauzière’s work is the need to challenge contemporary Salafists whose ‘preconceived notion of Salafism … does not seem to have existed in the medieval period’ (p. 17). This observation leads Lauzière to argue that Salafism is, in fact, a modern creation, a product of the twentieth-century, which is linked to the decolonization process and the quest of nation-statehood. The modernist strand Lauzière argues refers to a multifaceted movement that emerged in the nineteenth-century which draws on the works of Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī, Muḥammad ʿAbduh and even Rashīd Riḍā, a rather surprising inclusion by Lauzière. The goal of the modern Salafists was to ‘reconcile Islam with the social, political and intellectual ideals of the Enlightenment’ (p. 5). These individuals emphasized the use of reason to show that Islam was in tune with the modern era and could therefore adapt. These individuals were modern in how they approach social, legal and political issues, while their creed was Salafi. The purists who are more difficult to define, as they are numerous and because their interpretation of Islam stems from a unique reading not only of the pious ancestors (al-salaf al-ṣāliḥ) but more specifically on the vicious ancestors (al-salaf al-ṭāliḥ). The purist, in other words, is both Salafi in creed and thought.

The Sahel region is home to several groups that profess to be jihadi in orientation. To raise funds, these groups rely on criminal activity that nets them millions of dollars, and helps them embed within local communities. As worrying as the presence of these entities is, what is of greater concern is the way the United States and France have militarized the region. The argument made in this article is twofold. First, the appeal of the Sahel jihadi-criminal groups is based in pervasive human insecurity and not theological affinity with radical Islam. Second, the counterterrorism and counterinsurgency policies promoted by the United States and France militarize the region and are likely to cause more instability. It is imperative to rethink interventionist policy in the region.

This article argues that because the EU is more concerned with Turkey serving as a barrier to those seeking refuge in Europe, it has empowered the Erdoğan regime to continue to adopt and implement measures that undermine Turkish democracy. Such a myopic approach has allowed Erdoğan to usurp more power, which has had dire consequences for European security as it means that Europe would share a border a with a nondemocratic state. It also makes it harder for the EU to work with Ankara, because if the EU criticizes or imposes sanctions it makes it more likely that Erdoğan would gravitate toward Russia and Iran, thus further undermining European security, as the EU has a complex relationship with these two countries, particularly Russia. It is only by taking some tough decisions on migration that the EU could solve the insecurity challenge that Turkey poses.

torical analysis of how Islamism came to be. However, Mozaffari’s efforts to argue that Islamism, Marxism, communism and Nazism should all be studied and treated the same way, because all of them are totalitarianisms, feels like an oversimplification. It is a dubious historical claim that fails to consider contextual variables in the equation. Another weakness of the arguments is expressed again in Mozafarri’s statement that a totalitarian version of Catholicism could not happened, like it did for Islam, in part because Catholics have a central institution -the Vaticanthat Muslims lack. The history of the Catholic Church and its ramifications during the twentieth century in Western Europe, South America and North Africa can easily be used to prove quite the opposite. It is not until the final chapters of the book that the author offers some analysis about the differences between Islamism and other Western totalitarianisms. Indeed, towards the end of the volume, Mozaffari argues that Islamism should be separately categorized within these heinous groups, since “Islamism is a religiously inspired ideology, whereas Western totalitarianism is secular in character, despite the fact that among Western thinkers and scholars, there has been a tendency to attribute a kind of religious aura to nonreligious ideologies” (267). In Islamism, the reader will find a good introduction to a topic that begs to be discussed at length, but it needs to be aware of the comparative limitations and the elasticity with which Mozaffari constructs his theoretical framework. The author seeks to educate us about the history of the radicalization of Islam, and it does. But it fails to present the connections between the claims and evidence for placing Marxism, communism and Islamism all in one sack. Future editions of this volume would benefit from including a more critical look at those political movements that Mozaffari so freely lumps together. Yet, in a teaching environment, Mozaffari’s work can be used as a strong basis to motivate student discussions. Indeed, every sentence of this book can and should be used to spark off an intense debate on comparative studies regarding politics and religion.

This paper uses social identity group theory and the concept of human insecurity to explain the initial allure of Boko Haram and its durability. The Boko Haram insurgency and the military’s strong-arm tactics have wreaked havoc on a region where insecurity is pervasive due to decades of neglect and abuse. The current situation in Northern has effectively meant that people have a binary choice: join Boko Haram or work with the military, neither is ideal. The EU has recognized the importance of Nigeria and the threat that Boko Haram poses to its own security, providing enormous financial support to address humanitarian needs, but without an end to the pervasive sense of mutual suspicion, northeast Nigeria will continue to suffer from the Boko Haram insurgency, which therefore requires the Nigerian government to invest more in capacity building and local empowerment and not only relying on hard military power.

It would be easy to describe this book as just another anti-Iraq, anti–United States book, which is part of the cottage industry that has emerged in the post–United States occupation of Iraq. However, to do so would be an injustice to the book and its authors. Drawing from the sociology of law, as well as Critical Legal Studies, Iraq and the Crimes of Aggressive War empirically examines and theorizes about the American involvement, activities, and consequences of the intervention in Iraq. One of the key premises is that “the American war in Iraq was an unjust form of criminal militarism that constituted a war of aggression” (3). This, in turn, the authors argue, should impact potential decisions as to criminal prosecution and conviction of those responsible for engaging in an aggressive war (3). In developing their case that the war in Iraq meets the aggressive war paradigm, the authors draw, rather weakly, on the Rome Statute definition of the crime of aggression, and on two concepts that they largely develop: legal cynicism and criminal militarism. The former is defined as a “normless condition of skepticism in which rules of law are not regarded as binding” (4). Legal cynicism also encapsulates a cultural frame where a population comes to view the law as “illegitimate, unresponsive, and ineffectual in providing security” (4). The second theme of Iraq and the Crimes of Aggressive War is to note how legal cynicism left a culture of impunity and disregard to the rule of law in Iraq that had adverse effects on the country’s ability to develop as a fully-fledged democracy, as the Bush administration had sought. In other words, as realpolitik engineered the war and governed its conduct, the reconstruction process was based on cynicism, which led constructors (Iraqis and Americans) to make political deals that ensured that the country would not have strong democratic roots.

In March 2016, the European Union (EU) and Turkey reached an agreement aimed at preventing millions of people from seeking refuge in various European countries. Under the deal, the EU would resettle some Syrian refugees living in Turkey, while those seeking asylum after the date of the agreement would be sent back to Turkey. This paper argues that because the EU is more concerned with Turkey serving as a barrier to those seeking refuge in Europe, it is willing to permit the Erdoğan regime to continue to adopt and implement measures that undermine Turkish democracy. Such a myopic approach allows Erdoğan to continue to usurp more power, which would have dire consequences for European security as it means that Europe would a border a with a non-democratic state, which may lead to more as opposed to fewer asylum seekers. Additionally, as the EU would struggle to work with Ankara, Erdoğan would increasingly gravitate towards Russia and Iran, thus further undermining European security.

Reviewing Towards a Refugee Oriented Right to Asylum is exceedingly challenging as the book, at least through its title, promises so much especially as it is authored by such eminent scholars as Laura Westra and Satvinder Juss who have helped shape the field of refugee studies (Westra in the context of climate refugees and Juss the intersection between refugee law and human rights). Nevertheless, despite its authors’ reputation, the book has many shortcomings ranging from a non-existent methodology to a propensity to engage in polemics and diatribe against the state system, in which Westra is the most prone to engage. This flaw undermines the academic contribution that the book strives to make. Towards a Refugee Oriented Right to Asylum strives to explore the key factors that lead individuals to flee their homes in search of asylum and by extension security. Its second aim is to place the blame for the current crisis that the protection regime is in at the feet of the state system, particularly Western states. The authors accuse many of those states of ‘total disinterest’ in ‘producing any effort to discover the causes for the flights, or to ensure more desirable conditions in the refugees’ country of origin’ (p 1). They further claim that the ‘presence of migrants and asylum seekers put the very existence of human rights in question as so-called democratic countries have erected barriers both physical and bureaucratic against them, an unwarranted demonstration of hostility’ (p 233). These are valid criticisms, and there is evidence to support many of the authors’ accusations against Western states and companies, but this is missing from Towards a Refugee Oriented Right to Asylum as too often the authors prefer to engage in a diatribe against the Westphalia state system.

Evidently, terrorist activity in Africa is on the rise, spawning a cottage industry of academic assessments of varied quality, which raises serious concerns, as far too often poorly designed and ex...

Journal Article The Arabs at War in Afghanistan By Mustafa Hamid and Leah Farrall in conversation Get access The Arabs at War in Afghanistan By Mustafa Hamid and Leah Farrall in conversation (London: Hurst & Company, 2015), xxxi + 355 pp. Price HB £20.00. EAN 978–1849044202. Isaac Kfir Isaac Kfir Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Islamic Studies, Volume 27, Issue 3, September 2016, Pages 419–422, https://doi.org/10.1093/jis/etw010 Published: 22 February 2016

In 1987, Saddam Hussein launched, as a part of what was known as the Anfal Operation, which was a brutal military operation on the Kurdish population in northern Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. The key actors responsible for the Anfal Operation were tried and executed by the Iraqi High Tribunal in what came to be known as the Anfal Trial. Nonetheless, questions remain as to whether justice was served, specifically in relation to the Kurdish population in the city of Halabja which in 1988 endured a horrific chemical attack that left countless dead. The purpose of this essay is two-fold. Firstly, place the Anfal Operation in the context of postconflict justice, showing the role played by retributive justice and how it failed to provide justice for the people of Halabja. This view stems from a key premise of this contribution, which is that the Anfal and Dujail trials were not really designed to provide justice for Iraq’s Kurdish population. This resulted in the continued alienation of the Kurdish Iraqi population. Secondly, this paper argues that in the reconciliatory justice approach that involves communitybased reparation, which is more attuned to transformative justice is bettered suited to address Kurdish dissatisfaction with the wat the Iraqi States has treated them. A transformative justice approach would not only ensure not only that such crimes are unlikely to happen again but that the victims of Halabja will not be forgotten.