ABSTRACT

Chapter 7 is critical of a dangerous dimension of dynamic global governance: the trend of managerial de-escalation. This is the tendency to monitor international counter-terrorism rules through a de-legalized context and a state-empowerment approach. An examination of the working practices of the UN Security Council system on terrorism and the Financial Action Task Force shows that the bulk of the monitoring is undertaken through the friendly nudging and collaborative capacity-building of states, with careful avoidance of the legal notions of obligations and responsibility. The chapter argues that these strategies are deployed to incentivize states for enhanced counter-terrorism action, but that this risks shrinking the space for contestation and accountability of the relevant global institutions.