ABSTRACT
The concept of human security reflects the view that international security cannot be achieved unless the peoples of the world are free from violent threats to their lives, their safety, or their rights. As suggested by Abraham Maslow, the tools that a particular counterterrorism (CT) approach uses can often reflect a particular conception of terrorism and the threat it poses. Those responsible for countering terrorism must therefore broaden their toolboxes so as to avoid narrow, truncated conceptions of the terrorist threat or exaggerated depictions of the threat as existential or evil incarnate. The criminal justice model relies on a complex bureaucracy with strict rules of governance and many interacting institutions, with their own traditions, culture, and language. It is important to cast the eyes wide in developing an effective approach to CT that can apply across a broad variety of policy domains, reflect democratic values, and outlive the electoral horizon of individual governments.
