MI5, the Cold War, and the Rule of Law

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Ewing ◽  
Joan Mahoney ◽  
Andrew Moretta
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Limited Extent ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Statutory Authority ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Way

This title is concerned with the powers, activities, and accountability of MI5 principally in the period from 1945 to 1964. It was a body without statutory authority, with no statutory powers, and with no obvious forms of statutory accountability. It was established as a counter-espionage agency, yet was beset by espionage scandals on a frequency that suggested if not high levels of incompetence, then high levels of distraction and the squandering of resources. The book addresses the evolution of MI5’s mandate which set out its role and functions and to a limited extent the lines of accountability, the surveillance targets of MI5, and the surveillance methods that it used for this purpose, with a focus in two chapters on MPs and lawyers, respectively; the purposes for which this information was used, principally to exclude people from certain forms of employment; and the accountability of MI5 or the lack thereof for the way in which it discharged its responsibilities under the mandate.

The Council of Europe: 50 years of European cooperation

1999 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 497-505
Author(s):  
Daniel Tarschys
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
European Identity ◽  
Council Of Europe ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
European Cooperation ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Fundamental Values

The post-war European credo – never again a Europe given over to totalitarian terror and war, but a Europe of peace and freedom – led to the creation in May 1949 of the Council of Europe with the clear political and ideological alignment to build a Europe of common values (democracy, human rights and the Rule of Law), to which the practice of market economy was added. The promotion of those fundamental values constituted the Council's specific mandate and raison d'être together with ever-increasing cooperation patterns. After the end of the Cold War, the organization became the pre-eminent European political institution welcoming, on an equal footing and in permanent structures, the democracies of Europe freed from communist oppression. The Kosovo conflict calls for a hardening of the European resolve to base its future on the defence of human dignity, respect for the individual, the Rule of Law and pluralist democracy, indispensable in fostering a common European identity. Setting-up of regional and European cooperation and integration structures has been an important step forward, but must be complemented by the conviction and determination to forge a common European destiny.

Epilogue

2019 ◽  
pp. 241-244
Author(s):  
John Mulqueen
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Us ◽  
Revolutionary Party ◽  
The Cold War

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War caused ructions in the WP; the party split in 1992 when ‘reformers’ broke away to create Democratic Left. The ‘reformers’ contended that the WP should become ‘a reconstituted party affirming its adherence to the rule of law’. The ‘reformers’, or ‘liquidators’, who included six of its seven parliamentary deputies, were accused of attempting to destroy the WP. What was left of the ‘revolutionary’ party retained its Cold War assumptions, pointing the finger at the CIA, no less, claiming that it might have had a role in fomenting the split. Drawing a global picture, the WP highlighted the ‘counter-revolutionary’ role of the US in such countries as Cuba, Vietnam, Angola, and Grenada. The reformers highlighted the WP’s ‘historical baggage’ and association with ‘criminality’ – the Official IRA.

How Policy Fields Are Born: The Rise of Democratic Security in Argentina

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillermina Seri ◽  
Mary Rose Kubal
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Security Measures ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Authoritarian Government ◽  
Policy Fields ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
Democratic Life ◽  
The Cold War

AbstractThis essay maps the transformation of security from a symbol of authoritarian government under the Cold War paradigm of National Security into a public good and a policy field acknowledged as legitimate and democratic by politicians and policy experts. Using present-day Argentina as an example, we show how security ideas gain dominance across the political spectrum, displacing and subordinating democratic politics conceived in terms of rights. As institutions increasingly accept security measures and pre-emptive risk management, a securitising discourse – despite its claims to advocate for the ‘citizen’ – trumps governance and the rule of law. Appealing to citizens’ concerns and rights, the new forms of securitisation may yet undermine democratic life.

The Non-Interventionary Norm Prevails: an Analysis of the Western Sahara

1995 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Von Hippel
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
International Peace ◽  
Western Sahara ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
International Commitments ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Governmental Institutions ◽  
Domestic Affairs ◽  
The Cold War

Fears that the supposedly sacred norm of non-intervention in the domestic affairs of other states has eroded in the last few years are not entirely groundless. Excuses to intervene, that now receive sanction by the Security Council of the United Nations, include humanitarian concerns, as in Somalia and Rwanda, international peace and security, as in Kuwait and Bosnia, and the denial of democracy, as in Haiti, all of which differ from the interventions of the cold war years. As Thomas Buergenthal has pointed out, ‘Once the rule of law, human rights and democratic pluralism are made the subject of international commitments, there is little left in terms of governmental institutions that is domestic.’

scholarly journals The Clash within a Civilisation

2014 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 51-63
Author(s):  
Jan Erik Lane
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Institutional Innovation ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
Peaceful Settlement ◽  
Clash Of Civilisations ◽  
The Cold War

At the end of the last century, there was much talk about a future clash of civilisations, replacing the Cold War confrontation. However, the development of events in the early 21rst century has turned the focus upon the clash within one of the largest civilisations of the World: Islam and the Muslim countries. The outcome of the political violence from the civil wars and Salafist terrorism is deaths and casualties beyond imagination. Why cannot the Moslem countries regulate their religious tensions - Sunni-Shia, Salafist jihadism - through institutional innovation, allowing for peaceful settlement and the rule of law?

The Rule of Law under Surveillance

2020 ◽  
pp. 168-204
Author(s):  
Ewing Mahoney
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal Advice ◽  
Legitimate Reason ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Radical Movements

This chapter addresses the surveillance of lawyers. Lawyers had no immunity from MI5 surveillance during the Cold War, and progressive lawyers had even less. However, just as the surveillance of MPs was an affront to the principles of parliamentary democracy that MI5 was under a mandate to defend, the surveillance of lawyers was just as great an affront to the Rule of Law, another core liberal value that the Service was bound to respect and sustain, albeit that it did neither convincingly. There is no legitimate reason why lawyers should be targeted, unless there was reason to believe that they were involved in espionage or subversion, of which there is evidence of neither. In the absence of any such suspicion, radical movements are entitled to confidential legal advice, as are radical individuals involved in litigation, while lawyers who provide support for unpopular causes are entitled to expect freedom from harassment by the State.

The Unassailable Self: Freud's Image Among Post-war American Intellectuals

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Jenness
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
External Force ◽  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Human Being ◽  
World War ◽  
The Us ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Way

This paper explores the way American intellectuals depicted Sigmund Freud during the peak of popularity and prestige of psychoanalysis in the US, roughly the decade and a half following World War II. These intellectuals insisted upon the unassailability of Freud's mind and personality. He was depicted as unsusceptible to any external force or influence, a trait which was thought to account for Freud's admirable comportment as a scientist, colleague and human being. This post-war image of Freud was shaped in part by the Cold War anxiety that modern individuality was imperilled by totalitarian forces, which could only be resisted by the most rugged of selves. It was also shaped by the unique situation of the intellectuals themselves, who were eager to position themselves, like the Freud they imagined, as steadfastly independent and critical thinkers who would, through the very clarity of their thought, lead America to a more robust democracy.

The Futurists. Experts in World Futures

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Andersson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Other ◽  
Futures Studies ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Status ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Images Of The Future ◽  
The Way

Alvin Toffler’s writings encapsulated many of the tensions of futurism: the way that futurology and futures studies oscillated between forms of utopianism and technocracy with global ambitions, and between new forms of activism, on the one hand, and emerging forms of consultancy and paid advice on the other. Paradoxically, in their desire to create new images of the future capable of providing exits from the status quo of the Cold War world, futurists reinvented the technologies of prediction that they had initially rejected, and put them at the basis of a new activity of futures advice. Consultancy was central to the field of futures studies from its inception. For futurists, consultancy was a form of militancy—a potentially world altering expertise that could bypass politics and also escaped the boring halls of academia.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document