On the 7th and 8th of November 2022, the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism hosted its Annual Conference (in-person and online)! This year’s conference theme was “Global power politics, Counter-terrorism, and Human rights”. Under that broad theme, explored how global geopolitics were having an impact on the global counter-terrorism agenda and to what extent Human Rights remained (or not) at the centre of that agenda. ICCT’s Director Thomas Renard chaired the Conference.
DAY ONE - PLENARY SESSION On day one, Monday the 7th of November, from 15:30 - 17:30 CET, ICCT hosted a keynote speech and a plenary panel discussion on the topic “Global Power Re-Ordering and the CT Agenda”.
Opening Remarks:
Mina Noor - Head of Division of Counter-Terrorism & National Security at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mina Noor was recently appointed as the Head of Division of Counter-Terrorism & National Security and Special Envoy for Counter-Terrorism of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mina has had a long and commendable career in the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She was Deputy Head Of Mission at the Dutch Embassy of the Kingdom in Bosnia and Herzegovina; before that, she held several policy positions focusing on the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans.
Panelists:
Naureen Chowdhury Fink - Naureen is the Executive Director of The Soufan Center and a Senior Adviser at the International Peace Institute. Previously, she was Senior Policy Adviser on Counter-Terrorism and Sanctions at the United Kingdom’s Mission to the United Nations. She also worked with UN Women, the UN Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate (CTED) and the Global Center on Cooperative Security. She has developed and implemented CT and CVE projects across the globe, in regions as diverse as West Africa and South Asia, and published widely on counter-terrorism, gender, the UN, and deradicalization efforts.
Marc Hecker - Marc is the Director of Research and Communications and the Editor-in-Chief of the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI). He is also a research fellow at the Security Studies Center. He holds a PhD in political science from University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and teaches a course on terrorism at Sciences Po. He published several books, including Intifada française? (Ellipses, 2012) and War 2.0: Irregular Warfare in the Information Age (Praeger, 2009 with Thomas Rid; translated in Chinese in 2011). His articles appeared in major journals (Policy Review, Internationale Politik, Commentaire, Etudes, etc.).
DAY TWO - PLENARY SESSION On day two, Tuesday the 8th of November, from 15:30-17:30 CET, ICCT hosted a keynote speech and a plenary panel discussion on the topic “Counter-terrorism and Human Rights”.
Keynote Speaker:
Ilkka Salmi - Director of the Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Directorate at the European Commission. Ilkka Salmi has been the EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator since July 2021. He plays a crucial role in driving forward the EU counter-terrorism priorities as agreed by EU home affairs ministers. Before that, he served as Director of the Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Directorate at the European Commission since January 2020, and Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of the Interior in Finland from 2018-2020. In addition, he was Director of Security at the European Commission from 2016-2018 and Director of the Finnish Security Intelligence Service from 2007–2011. Before joining the Ministry of the Interior, he served as Director of the EU Intelligence and Situation Centre and at the Directorate-General for Human Resources and Security of the European Commission.
Panelists:
Rashmi Singh - Rashmi is an Associate Professor at the Department of International Relations of the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais (Brazil). She is Her work mainly relates to violent groups engaged in campaigns of national independenc and to transnational terrorist groups (Al Qaeda), dedicated Islamist proxies counter-terrorism responses and issues of national security. She is an area specialist with regional expertise in both the Middle East and South Asia.
Tom Parker - Tom is the Project Coordinator for Counterterrorism Programming in Nigeria at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). He is also the author of “Avoiding the Terrorist Trap: Why Respect for Human Rights is the Key to Defeating Terrorism.” Parker is an experienced counter-terrorism practitioner, having formerly been Chief of Party of a European Union project providing assistance to the Office of the National Security Adviser in Baghdad, Iraq and also previously serving as an adviser on human rights and counter-terrorism to the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force (CTITF).
We were happy to host all attendees in-person and on-line!
