CIAO DATE: 04/05

Democratic Control of Security and Intelligence Services: A Legal Framework

Abstract

This paper is a contribution to a continuing project of the Geneva Centre for Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF): to provide a map or 'matrix' of legal norms to govern security sector reform. Previous contributions have addressed civil-military relations and work remains to be done on policing. The focus here is on the implications of this approach for the norms governing security and intelligence agencies.

Clear thinking on these issues is especially necessary in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11 2001. Those events have had several notable consequences for the discussion of the legal framework in this paper. The phenomenon described as 'Superterrorism' has led to a range of novel legal and administrative responses.

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