Combating terrorism by constraining charities? Charity and counter-terrorism legislation before and after 9/11

How does counter-terrorism legislation - enacted in democratic states - impact upon charities, Intentionally or unintentionally? To address this question, we present a new analytical framework that allows us to compare, across established democracies, how charity legislation and counter-terrorism legislation are connected, enabling us to assess how charities' legal environments have changed since 9/11. Comparing legislation across six long-lived democracies (the UK, US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland), we distinguish between three types of legislative connection: overlap, direct intersection and indirect intersection. These categories differ in terms of the visibility of the connection established between the two areas of law. As high-profile reform exercises, both overlap and direct intersections have been predominantly introduced post-9/11. But it is through indirect intersections that intensified post-9/11 which are most vague and difficult to manoeuvre, that the day-to-day activities of charities are most likely to be affected, with important empirical and normative repercussions.