On Tuesday 28 and Wednesday 29 May, the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) organised the Annual Conference, under the overarching theme: “Houston we have a problem”: Counter-Terrorism in the Age of Uncertainty. The Conference will take place at Beeld and Geluid in The Hague.
Within the last years, the world has witnessed increasingly diversifying patterns of extremism and terrorism. In order to develop durable counter-measures, we ask which of these current trends and phenomena will stay or become even more relevant within the next electoral cycle. Painting scenarios of how these trends and phenomena will develop within the next few years can help to identify strategies to counter them while upholding the rule of law. By bringing together a mix of key CT and P/CVE practitioners, policy-makers, and international scholars, we hope to explore these pressing developments in depth throughout the two-day conference.
The Introductory Remarks and the Plenary Sessions on Day 1 were open to a public audience (both in-person and online) to encourage the conversation and address questions of public interest. The workshop sessions on day 2 were invitation only for a select group of researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners. They will take place behind closed doors, under the Chatham House Rule.
Programme
Day 1, Tuesday 28 May, 13:30-18:00
13:00-13:30 Registration guests
13:30-13:40 Welcome Note by Thomas Renard, ICCT Director
13:40-13:50 Introductory Remarks
14:00-15:15 Campfire Session + Q&A
This panel will kick off the discussion under the overarching theme of the Annual Conference.
Speakers:
Hans-Jakob Schindler has wide international experience in diplomacy, intelligence and security. He is the Senior Director of the Counter Extremism Project, former Coordinator of the ISIL, al-Qaida and Taliban Monitoring Team, UN Security Council.
Jonathan Hall is an independent barrister based in London, appointed by the Home Secretary as the UK’s fourth Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation in 2019. In 2024, he was also appointed as the UK’s first Independent Reviewer of State Threats Legislation.
Liesbeth van der Heide works at the Municipality of The Hague, coordinating the approach to Prevention, Polarisation and Radicalisation. Additionally, she is an assistant professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA), Leiden University and an Associate Research Fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT).
Jakub Janda is the Executive Director of the European Values Center for Security Policy. He specialises in European policy to Russia and China, also specifically to the response of democratic states to hostile influence operations.
15:15-15:45 Coffee break
15:45-16:45 Second Plenary Session on AI and Disinfo - New Technologies in (Counter-)Terrorism+ Q&A
This panel will focus on the field of AI, misinformation and their potential impacts and implications for terrorism and counter-terrorism in the coming five years. What are the key threats from AI, and misinformation in this regard? What opportunities may AI provide in relation to these issues? How/can we already prepare for or mitigate key implications from these developments? Panelists from diverse disciplines and industries will offer their perspectives.
Speakers:
Jannis Jost is a research associate in the Department of Terrorism and Radicalization Research at the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University (ISPK). He works on in-depth analyses of terrorist radicalization and the relationship between terrorist groups and their surrounding environment, both in Europe and abroad.
Stephane Baele is a Professor of International Relations at UCLouvain (Belgium) and Honorary Associate Professor of Security and Political Violence at the University of Exeter (UK). His multidisciplinary research, which focuses on violent political actors' communications, has been published in leading journals such as the Journal of Conflict Resolution & Political Violence, Political Psychology, or the Journal of Language & Social Psychology.
Blyth Crawford is a Project Manager at Moonshot, where she works on projects focused on generating insights into violent extremism across the ideological spectrum. She is also a PhD Student at King's College London where she specialises in far-right online social movements, with a focus on radicalisation and alt-tech platforms.
16:45-17:00 Closing remarks
17:00-18:00 Networking Drinks
Day 2, Wednesday 29 May, 9:00-18:00
We hosted four workshops on distinct but related topics, namely the Rising Threat of State-Terrorism emanating from outside European Borders, Monitoring and Evaluation of Counter-Terrorism Programmes, Shrinking Support for P/CVE, and Transnational Repression.
For more info contact ICCT at events@icct.nl.
