The Regulation of Intelligence Activities under International Law

Rezensionen / Stimmen

'The Regulation of Intelligence Activities under International Law represents a considerable achievement. In it, Sophie Duroy deftly undertakes a forensic examination of contemporary intelligence practices through the lenses of human rights, international law, and national security.' -- 2024 Polly Corrigan Book Prize Committee 'Based on exemplary research, rich in evidence and argument, and addressing an intelligence issue of enduring importance, this book challenges our understanding of how best to respond to evolving national security threats and remain on the right side of the law.' -- 2024 Polly Corrigan Book Prize Committee 'This exceptionally rich book deals with important and topical issues of international law and human rights, namely the international law governing intelligence agencies and their oversight, as well as accountability for the phenomenon of secret detention and torture in the so-called war on terror. It manages to combine the treatment of these two themes into a single coherent line of research. But the study does much more than that. It is methodologically highly diverse and advanced, combining doctrinal legal analysis with behavioural approaches concerning state compliance and developing models of semi-quantification and network analysis to explain why and how accountability matters for whether states choose to comply with international law. On the basis of these different but intertwined lines of research, it then argues that compliance with international law serves the national security interests of states. The outcome is highly impressive, signalling the author's emergence as a prominent scholar, an innovative and original thinker, and a theorist.' -- Martin Scheinin, University of Oxford, UK 'International regulation of the second oldest profession was long characterised by hypocrisy: states denounced what they routinely (if clandestinely) did themselves. In this book, Sophie Duroy argues that the years after September 11, 2001, put enormous pressure on the nascent norms regulating intelligence activities - and, counter-intuitively, strengthened those norms as a result.' -- Simon Chesterman, National University of Singapore 'Dr Duroy's book provides a sophisticated analysis of the application of international law to the work of the intelligence community. But more than that, it explores how states can be held accountable for their unlawful intelligence activities. By focusing on issues of accountability and compliance, this book brings new research to the debate and should be widely read by security studies scholars, international lawyers, practitioners, and policymakers.' -- Russell Buchan, University of Sheffield, UK