Oversight or Overlooked? Civil Society's Role in Monitoring and Reforming Security Systems and the Practice of Counterterrorism

A report to Cordaid from the Fourth Freedom Forum and the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame

This report considers civil society’s role in monitoring Security System Reform (SSR) and counterterrorism both in policy and in practice. The report argues that civil society engagement, particularly with local actors, is central to ensuring proper civilian oversight and the overall effectiveness of both SSR and counterterrorism efforts and examines how efforts to engage civil society may be improved.

The report begins by looking at how the concepts of both SSR and counterterrorism have evolved in recent years, tracing that evolution within the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and the United Nations. It highlights the linkages between SSR and UN mandated counterterrorism measures (CTMs) and the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy. It notes that a conceptual shift has occurred at the international level within the OECD DAC and at the United Nations, which emphasizes the need for more holistic and inclusive approaches to implementation of both SSR and CTMs and a broader and more active role for civil society.

The report notes this evolution appears to have proceeded independently, without lessons from the SSR experience informing efforts to engage civil society on counterterrorism or vice versa, and without coordination efforts at the international level aimed at addressing the linkages and overlaps in counterterrorism and SSR.

The report then examines engagement with civil society in SSR and counterterrorism in practice. It cites examples of the involvement of CSOs in the implementation of SSR on the ground but finds that the conceptual shift toward more holistic approaches is not occurring in practice at the country level, where entry points for civil society involvement in SSR and in monitoring CTMs remain limited.

The report discusses some of the main challenges to greater civil society engagement on SSR and counterterrorism and examines several best practice examples, including the African Security Sector Network, and the lessons those examples may offer for engaging civil society on counterterrorism matters. It concludes with a series of recommendations for more effectively engaging civil society in the development, implementation, and oversight of CTMs and SSR, including through the formation of regional and subregional networks to facilitate engagement and interaction between civil society and other relevant stakeholders.

Alistair Millar is president of the Fourth Freedom Forum and the director of its Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation. He also teaches graduate level courses on counterterrorism and U.S. foreign policy at The Johns Hopkins University and The George Washington University, and at the Department of Homeland Security's Center of Excellence on the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland. Millar has written numerous chapters, articles, and reports on international counterterrorism efforts, sanctions regimes, and nonproliferation, and has served as consultant to various agencies of the United Nations, the European Union, and to several European governments on sanctions and counterterrorism issues.

David Cortright is chair of the Board and Senior Fellow of the Fourth Freedom Forum in Goshen, Indiana and codirector of its Sanctions and Security Research Program. He is also director of Policy Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He has served as consultant or advisor to various agencies of the United Nations, the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, the International Peace Academy, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Along with George A. Lopez he has provided research and consulting services to the Foreign Ministry of Sweden, the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, and the Foreign Ministry of Germany. He has written widely on nuclear disarmament, nonviolent social change, and the use of incentives and sanctions as tools of international peacemaking.

Linda M. Gerber-Stellingwerf is program director of the Fourth Freedom Forum and codirector of the joint Fourth Freedom Forum/Kroc Institute Sanctions and Security Project. She received her Masters of Library Science degree from the School of Library and Information Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. Gerber-Stellingwerf has coauthored and edited various reports and books produced by the Fourth Freedom Forum. She is a member of the American Library Association.

George A. Lopez holds the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Chair in Peace Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Lopez's research interests focus primarily on the problems of state violence and coercion, especially economic sanctions, gross violations of human rights, and ethics and the use of force. For a list of publications by Lopez, please go to the Kroc Institute, Lopez, CV.