Introductory Remarks by Vincent-Joël Proulx

In recent years, individuals have increasingly travelled from their respective countries to join the ranks of armed opposition groups and terrorist networks, oftentimes in zones of ongoing armed conflict. One must look no further than recent newspaper headlines to realize that the “foreign fighters” phenomenon is as pervasive across borders as it is challenging, both from policy and legal standpoints. While the prospect of individuals travelling abroad to join ongoing hostilities is far from novel, the number of such foreign fighters lending support to terrorist organizations has been unprecedented in recent years, posing considerable threats to domestic, regional, and international peace and security. Hence, domestic, regional, transnational, and international actors have adopted measures to counteract terrorism, more broadly, and have begun to address the problem of foreign (terrorist) fighters. The contributions of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) are particularly noteworthy and, indeed, there has been growing interest in that organ's “quasi-legislative” activities.