THW Revoke citizenship of individuals who participate in terrorism overseas.

(GOVERNMENT)

Context

The recent outbreak of the IS (Islamic State) has brought international attention to fighting terrorism. The war on terrorism itself is not a new concept. International communities have been trying to eradicate the act of terror, particularly after the 9.11 attack in the United States. Yet, the problem is, we are not winning this war so far. As a matter of fact, the recent incidents with ISIS show that terrorism has an even greater impact on the global community these days.

Stance

Under such a context, the stance of the team government is clear. We would argue that terrorism is different from any crimes that we can normally witness in our society. Given that terrorism is different, and that we are currently on “War against terrorism”, we argue that we need to take a harder stance.

What do we propose?

When a member of a nation participate in a terrorist activity based on a foreign soil, the government of that individual should no longer acknowledge that person as a citizen of that nation. The concept of participation should include active violence such mass murder of innocent people as well as activity that are not necessarirly violent such as actively recruiting members to join a terrorist group.

What are we going to prove in today’s debate?

1. We will prove why terrorism oversea is different in nature compared to other forms of evil activity.

2. We will also give you principle justification to revoking a citizenship.

We have prepared several constructive case to prove our stance

Constructive Case 1: What is “Citizenship” and how significant is this concept?

Analysis 1: Concept of Citizenship

The concept of having a ‘citizenship’ in a democratic nation is significant since it can be seen as a form of social contract. The ‘Social Contract’ itself is an abstract idea, but citizenship is a rather objective and tangible concept that reflects this social contract.

Why is this concept of citizenship special? Citizenship is a status recognized by the state to be a member of society. As a result of this, citizens are protected by the society under constitutional laws. This includes protection from others as well as right to property and basic freedom. Such benefits are all provided with the resources of the government, which is essentially from other citizens.

Analysis 2: Can this be breached?

According to the idea of ‘social contract’, both parties, in this case the government and individual citizens, have a mutual obligation toward each other. This is the main premise of the social contract that uphold our society. When one party of the contract does not abide by this fundamental premise, the agreement itself becomes meaningless and thus provide a justification for the other party to breach the social contract.

The best example of this can be seen during the process of democratization. If the government of a state abuses citizens even when the citizens are fulfilling their duty, this provides enough justification for them to overthrow the current government. When citizens of Egypt tried to overthrow the Mubarak administration in 2011, majority of international community supported the Egyptians. Global community did not accuse the Egyptians of “breaking the basic social contract” or being “against the duty toward the society”. This example clearly show that ‘social contract’, the very principle that ‘citizenship’ is based upon, is not an absolute value, and it can be breached one side on different circumstances.

We recognize the fact that on a normative circumstances, individuals are usually punished according to our criminal justice system rather than their citizenship being revoked.  This naturally leads to the second constructive case of team government.

 

Constructive Case 2: What is oversea terrorism and why is it special?

Analysis 1: Examine the Context of terrorism and our society

As we briefly mentioned before, the context of the status quo is that we are at a ‘war against terrorism’. This war is something we are not winning at this moment. This is particularly due to the fact that we are not fight a nation, but rather an invisible group of individuals. These terrorist groups are not usually based on a set location, making it difficult for us to eradicate. More importantly, the unique characteristic of these terrorist groups is that rather than moving as an ‘army’, they focus on posing mere ‘terror’ to our society based on individual attack against the innocent population. Considering this aspect, one member joining into this terrorist group poses significant threat to the security of other nations.

Analysis 2: Who participates in these groups?

One of the key aspect that we must consider in this debate is, we need to understand who these individuals are. Simply put, these individuals who participate in terrorist group oversea are the ones who VOLUNTARILY joined the group. Despite the global efforts to eradicate the terrorist group, and despite the governments’ efforts to persuade citizens to be against the act of terror, they have defected to the other side. They should be considered as an enemy combatant.

The main activities of these individuals who defect to the other line of fire is to perform active attack on our society such as launching an attack on our soil or recruit more terrorist members. Some might be questioning the fact that some of these terrorist groups may not have direct attack on our territory. One, the very act of terrorism is against the value of humanity itself.

Secondly, even if there is no direct attack against our territory, joining the enemy during the times of war, must be considered as a hostile action on our state. Such actions should be considered as actively denying the existence of our sovereign state as well as destabilizing every aspect of our society.

 

When an individual deny the existence of the society, be actively against the value of our society, defect to the enemy during the times of war, the main premise of ‘social contract’ is breached.  In such case why should the government maintain the citizenship of a defected enemy terrorist? There is no grounds to support the idea of providing basic necessity to such individuals.

The aim of the first two constructive case of government team was to establish the principle justifications for revoking a citizenship, which is the reflection of the ‘social contract’. The last two case from our team will focus on the practical analysis of fighting terrorism.

Constructive Case 3: Maintaining citizenship hinders the ability to fight terrorism.

Analysis 1: Legal barriers

In the status quo, with the existence of the citizenship, we cannot effectively execute necessary operations to tackle down terrorist activity. Current legislations prohibit the state from capturing or wiretapping our citizens without proper warrant. This issue becomes even more complicated when jurisdictional principle is involved.The current constitution also limit our government from performing extrajudicial execution. Governments are not free from eliminating a terrorist if that terrorist is an acknowledged citizen of that state.  

Of course these values are important principles to abide by, but not under the context of war. In times of war, we often need to make quick and effective decisions solely based on the purpose of ending the conflict or war. When considering the fact that the activities of these individuals are equivalent to a terrorist’s actions, it is contradictory for the governments to maintain all the privileges of a law abiding citizen.

Analysis 2: Maintaining citizenship of a terrorist may hinder the necessary collective movement

The context of the ‘war against terrorism’ is that the international community, as a collective movement, is engaging into a war against the ACT OF TERRORISM itself. The international community is not fighting a war against the Arab terrorist or a Korean terrorist. Rather, we are engaging into military action to eradicate all forms of violence and terrorism. The moment we put a label on a terrorist based on the past nationality of terrorist, this becomes the conflict between national identities. For instance, considering the fact that the majority of ISIS members are from the Middle-East nations, it becomes easier for the world to perceive this conflict as the West versus the Middle-East. As a matter of fact, many terrorist organizations are actively using this wrong dichotomy as a propaganda in the status quo.

Why is this a problem? This reduces the incentive for the some nations, such as the Middle-East states, to actively participate in operations that require their cooperation.

On the other hand, it also hinders other states from compromising their values to effectively engage in war. For instance, if one nation decides to maintain the citizenship of a terrorist, and therefore leave some room for that terrorist to be protected under their constitution, it reduces the incentive for other nations to take a hard stance against their citizen. As we mentioned before, the war on terrorism requires a collective movement. This often means that each nations need to confirm to other nations that they are willing to compromise for the general collective movement.

Constructive Case 4: Revoking citizenship enhances the deterrence effect (Backup argument)

Most importantly, revoking citizenship increases the barriers for young and naïve Muslim teenagers to defect. It is the most striking forms of punishment. The fact that you are not going to ever be allowed comeback and always on the run by their nation government, and of course, become stateless individuals that binds your life forever are enough reasons to deter individuals from seeking radical measures.

It also motivates their communities and families to deter people go to conflict zones. In a nation, many communities are spreading the idea that you have to go to the conflict zone and then you will be proud by our people and nations. So when these people talk about their friends and community that they will go to conflict zones, families and friends do not dissuade them from going to conflict zones. But under our policy, those people will change. Families and friends will try to stop them from going to the conflict zones other than that they cannot see them anymore. And the community will change their rhetoric and culture and do not motivate these people to go to conflict zones.

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(Opposition)

Constructive Case 1: Relation between Individual and State

Analysis 1: Concept of Citizenship

The principle of social contract is that there is a mutual relationship between the two parties. Individuals in society should be promised to receive basic welfare in return they are expected to fulfill certain duties back to the society. Vice versa, governments can expect the individuals to abide by the social norms or legal duties and in return they must provide basic protection and welfare.

We believe that the concept of‘citizenship’ is the tangible result of the social contract. This means that if governments decide to revoke the citizenship of individuals, this is a clear willingness of the government to give up their basic responsibility. Considering thisprinciple we argue that the government should never give up their basic duty to take care of their citizens even though citizens are often able to alter their citizenship.

 

Analysis 2: Why GOVERNMENTS should never be able to opt out of this relationship.

1. Practical reason

If a government revokes citizenship of an individual, that individual simply cannot survive on its own. In the majority of the cases, if an individual does not have citizenship, it is impossible to obtain other nations’ citizenship. Without proper citizenship, it is most likely that an individual cannot survive.

On the other hand, state governments in most cases, have more resources and power, to the degree that they are able to survive even when a number of citizens move out to other communities.

1. Different level of responsibilities

In order to maintain a mutual relationship between two parties, both parties have particular duties they must fulfill. However there is a difference in the gravity of responsibility from both sides.

The individual citizens surely have a clear duty to abide by. They must abide by the legal system and there are numerous responsibilities an individual must perform. Yet, we believe that the duty of individuals can be postponed to the future. What do we mean by this? When individuals do not fulfill his or her responsibility to pay tax, this duty can be fulfilled after they are punished.

On the other hand, when a state fail to fulfill its basic responsibility as a government, there will not be another chance to fulfill the duty. For instance, when an individual is not protected by the government in times of necessity, there will not be a future chance to fulfill this duty.

 

Constructive Case 2: Government’s responsibility to uphold the principle of Criminal Justice System

Analysis 1: What is the main principle of the criminal justice system?

The main focus of the justice system in different parts of the world is to focus on ‘rehabilitation’. This is mainly due to the fact that governments’ main role is to make sure that all members of their community is cooperative and abiding by the social and legal regulations. In this aspect, it should always be in the interest of the government to make sure that even the individuals who have done wrong in society are rehabilitated.

The problem is, when the government decides to revoke the citizenship of a nation, this action is not simply seizing to provide protection, but also it is neglecting the governments’ duty to uphold the principle of the justice system. When considering the fact that the government is the main actor that protects the main pillars of the criminal justice system, negligence in such form should not be tolerable.

This begs the question of why it needs to be the government of the terrorist’s origin. This leads to the second point of analysis.

Analysis 2: Why should it be the responsibility of the birth nation’s government?

We have identified principles and practical reasoning for this question.

First - If a citizen of a nation have become a terrorist, that government should bear more responsibility. Why? This is because we not only expect the government to provide protection under the principle of social contract theory, be we also expect the government to educate out citizens so that we don’t become a harm to the society. This is why we allow the government to force individuals to be educated. We also expect that the government to make sure that these individuals are not persuaded by terrorist groups. In accordance to these duties the government should have fulfilled, we argue that they should bear the responsibility of punishing and rehabilitating their citizens.

Clarification: We are NOT trying to argue that these individuals who participate in terrorist activities are innocent since it’s the governments’ fault. We fully acknowledge the fact that these terrorist should take the punishment they deserve. We have no intention of pitying them.

However, we do want to establish that the duty of a government and it being neglected is something that we should consider when deciding who should be the main actor to punish orrehabilitate them.

Second -Even if we assume that some other government can punish the terrorist, this is likely to not achieve the original purpose of punishment. When an individual is born and raised in a society with its unique value, the best way to achieve rehabilitation is by executing the punishment under the same value. For instance, if a Chinese citizen is punished under the Korean legal standards, that individual is unlikely to understand the intention of the punishment. This makes it unlikely to achieve rehabilitation.

 

Constructive Case 3: Harder to conduct counter-terrorism

Analysis 1: How do we tackle down a terrorist organizations?

Considering the unique characteristics of the ‘war on terrorism’, we need more than simply killing the foreign operatives. This is particularly due to the fact that we are not fighting a nation, but rather an invisible group of individuals. These terrorist groups are not usually based on a set location, making it difficult for us to eradicate. More importantly, the unique characteristic of these terrorist groups is that rather than moving as an ‘army’, they focus on posing mere ‘terror’ to our society based on the individual attacks against the innocent population.

Therefore, fighting terrorism should be emphasizing on extracting information, intimidate their operations and stop their Jihad rather than simply revoking their identity.

 

This leads to the question of how ‘citizenship’ helps to achieve this goal.

Analysis 2: Why do we need citizenship?

Two problems are likely to occur without proper citizenship.

[1] The first problem of punishing stateless individuals is that we lack the legal ground to be prosecuted, to begin with. It becomes harder for governments to hold them for treason charges (as the government has characterized) because they are not our citizens. In the same logic, we cannot charge them under domestic laws as they are not our citizens. Without proper citizenship, a legitimate procedure to decide the punishment for the terrorist becomes nearly impossible. This is why most governments are against the idea of extrajudicial punishment. Of course, we do have international courts in the status quo, but given the past precedents, the effectiveness of this is questionable.

[2] The second reason is –in the status quo, stateless individuals are protected under the UN Convention on Stateless. We recognize the fact that some nations such as the United States is not a signatory member of this treaty. We also recognize that this treaty does not have a strong binding power as domestic laws.  Nevertheless, considering the fact that other US-allies have signed the international document binding their action to protect the interest of stateless individuals, non-member states are not entirely free from executing extra judiciary punishments. For instance, when the United States simply ignored the concept of citizenship and established Guantanamo bay prison massive criticism was targeted toward the Obama administration.

This results in three critical outcomes.

Number one- Due to lack of legal justification, terrorists can be left unpunished but more importantly un-interrogated. As we mentioned before, it’s not enough to simply kill them or stop them from entering into our nations since they are based on unexpected attacks such as suicide bombs. This makes it critical for us to extract enough information in the process of prosecuting and punishing them.

Number two- Even if some governments decide to execute extrajudicial interrogation such as illegal capturing and torturing of individuals, often the terrorist groups actually use this fact as propaganda to increase hatred toward the international community. This creates more conflict and more likelihood of a terrorist attack. Terrorist organizations have often used the technique of using propaganda in the past. By allowing them the room to characterize the anti-terrorist nations as evil and unjust nations, we gain absolutely no benefit.

Number three- States that engage in extrajudicial activities are also likely to lose the necessary support we need to fight terrorism. For instance, along with the Guantanamo Bay incident we have already mentioned, in 2004, the international community has found out about the illegal interrogation and violence commuted by United States soldiers in Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq. This lead to the United States losing a significant amount of international support as well as domestic supports that was critical in eradicating terrorist organizations.

Conclusion: The conclusion we can draw from this argument is that it’s going to be harder for us to effectively fight terrorism. Rather we are likely to suffer from more terrorist attacks. This is something that we’ve witnessed in the past. We should learn from our past mistakes.

Constructive Case 4: Prevent abuse of governmental operations (Backup argument)

As much as we honor the hard work of our government to make our nation safe, we need some form of legal barriers to prevent government abuses in conducting counter-terrorism operations. Since the government is so focused on eliminating the threat they often do not become objective in the issue. Just as Bush was blind-sided in believing that WMD existed in Iraq, the government is not a superman. That is why we have courts pressuring governments to request for warrants or congress checking the government constantly. This is also a part of the case. By making government ponder once again by having our citizens be the relevant factor of whether to conduct operations or not, we make the government really consider the consequences of their action. But more than that, we think that there are many possibilities, the government makes mistakes. The government cannot fully understand why people join the conflict since they cannot have 100% information about them. This is why; it is the unfair government just revoke citizenships without any court process. This mistake is going to be crucial to the government obligation.