Tanya Mehra

• Master of Laws
• Senior Researcher/ Programme Lead Rule of Law Responses to Terrorism at The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, The Hague.

States have been reluctant to repatriate their foreign fighters and families for a variety of reasons. One of these is of a legal nature, namely that prosecution at home would be too difficult because of a lack of evidence. After a brief overview of possible other options, this chapter will focus on the prosecution of returning foreign fighters bef...

The most prevalent hostilities in the last several decades have not been between states, but between states and organized armed non-state groups. These asymmetrical hostilities often do not resemble conventional armed conflicts, but may consist of hostile engagements of varying intensity, duration, and frequency. Forcible state responses to them ne...

Following the announcement of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban quickly seized control of the country. The seemingly rushed and chaotic nature of the US’ withdrawal also allowed the Taliban to seize large quantities of small arms and light weapons (SALW) left behind. This policy brief explores the purposes for which the Taliban use th...

The paper will explore and define different types of administrative measures, set out the limited number of exceptional cases in which the measures can be a legitimate and useful tool to curb a risk to national security, and assesses the different factors affecting the lawfulness of these measures. In doing so, consideration is given to the legal b...

In this policy brief, we will zoom in on the gender and age-sensitive considerations that need to be taking into account when assessing the impact and henceforth the adequacy, proportionality and effectiveness of the measures on the targeted individual, as well as on his or her direct social circle. We will furthermore elaborate on the importance o...

This article is based on a paper which was developed for the Global Counterterrorism Forum's Foreign Terrorist Fighters (ftf) Working Group. It takes stock of the current trends and dynamics related to the ftf phenomenon and identifies some of the gaps that still need to be addressed. The distinction between home-grown terrorists and (returning) ft...