This book is a unique and innovative study of the status, powers, and activities of MI5 during the Cold War. It contends that MI5 was subject neither to effective political nor legal scrutiny, and examines the operations of the Security Service for civil liberties, and the contemporary relevance of Cold War practices.

By using informers to provide intelligence on terrorism, the security and intelligence agencies who handle them gain knowledge of their offences. Charges may then be brought against them, provided evidence supports this course of action. But if imprisoned, an informer no longer has access to the time-sensitive, potentially life-saving intelligence they once had. There is therefore a tension between continuing to use an informer to provide intelligence on terrorism and upholding the law. This tension is at the heart of this book. Terrorist Informers in Northern Ireland analyses prominent terrorist informers such as Agent Stakeknife, and lesser-known examples, who collectively were active throughout Northern Ireland from the 1970s to the present. It looks at both those involved with republican groups and with loyalist groups, and also those working for the police, the armed forces, and MI5. Valuable pieces of the puzzle are unearthed in sources such as court judgments, official reports, and in interviews conducted by the author. The book also analyses the way successive governments, the police, the armed forces, and MI5 have addressed the regulation of terrorist informers' involvement in criminality, as well as allegations of 'collusion' between informers on one hand and the security and intelligence agencies on the other. Accordingly, the book also assesses the varied retrospective investigations into the use of terrorist informers, and therefore the competing needs for secrecy and transparency. As Samantha Newbery's research here shows, although there is a tension between intelligence and the law, this can be successfully navigated.

This book explores the powers, activities, and accountability of MI5 from the end of the Second World War to 1964. It argues that MI5 acted with neither statutory authority nor statutory powers, and with no obvious forms of statutory accountability. It was established as a counter-espionage agency, yet was beset by espionage scandals on a frequency that suggested if not high levels of incompetence, then high levels of distraction and the squandering of resources. The book addresses the evolution of MI5's mandate after the Second World War which set out its role and functions, and to a limited extent the lines of accountability, the surveillance targets of MI5 and the surveillance methods that it used for this purpose, with a focus in two chapters on MPs and lawyers respectively; the purposes for which this information was used, principally to exclude people from certain forms of employment; and the accountability of MI5 or the lack thereof for the way in which it discharged its responsibilities under the mandate. As lawyers the authors' concern is to consider these questions within the context of the rule of law, one of the core principles of the British constitution, the values of which it was the duty of the Security Service to uphold. Based on extensive archival research, it suggests that MI5 operated without legal authority or exceeded the legal authority it did have.

This book is based upon the papers written by a group of leading international scholars on the 'constitution of social democracy', delivered at a conference to celebrate Professor Keith Ewing's scholarly legacy in labour law, constitutional law, human rights and the law of democracy. The chapters explore the development of social democracy and democratic socialism in theory and political practice from a variety of comparative, legal, and disciplinary perspectives. These developments have occurred against a backdrop of fragmenting 'traditional' political parties, declining collective bargaining, concerns about 'juristocracy' and the displacement of popular sovereignty, the emergence of populist political movements, austerity, and fundamental questions about the future of the European project. With this context in mind, this collection considers whether legal norms can and should contribute to the constitution of social democracy. It could not be more timely in addressing these fundamental constitutional questions at the intersection of law, democracy, and political economy.

Political elites in liberal democracies are showing heightened concern about threats to national security from the overseas political activities of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its supporters. This Whitehall Paper argues that an effective liberal democratic policy response requires careful disaggregation of distinct sets of risks: to national security; civil liberties; and academic freedom. Although widely cited as a model to follow, Australia’s response to these issues illustrates how aggregation of these diverse risks into a singular national security threat – commonly labelled ‘Chinese influence’ – can produce alarmist public policy discourse, legislative overreach and mismatched institutional responsibilities. The Paper suggests a set of measures for liberal democracies to manage their engagement with China’s powerful and increasingly authoritarian party-state.

From the spymaster and inspiration for the movie Argo, discover the "real-life spy thriller" of the brilliant but under-supported CIA operatives who developed breakthrough spy tactics that helped turn the tide of the Cold War (Malcolm Nance). Antonio Mendez and his future wife Jonna were CIA operatives working to spy on Moscow in the late 1970s, at one of the most dangerous moments in the Cold War. Soviets kept files on all foreigners, studied their patterns, and tapped their phones. Intelligence work was effectively impossible. The Soviet threat loomed larger than ever. The Moscow Rules tells the story of the intelligence breakthroughs that turned the odds in America's favor. As experts in disguise, Antonio and Jonna were instrumental in developing a series of tactics -- Hollywood-inspired identity swaps, ingenious evasion techniques, and an armory of James Bond-style gadgets -- that allowed CIA officers to outmaneuver the KGB. As Russia again rises in opposition to America, this remarkable story is a tribute to those who risked everything for their country, and to the ingenuity that allowed them to succeed.

This is the first book to examine in detail the relationship between the Cold War and International Law.

This book adopts a critical lens to look at the workings of Western intelligence and intelligence oversight over time and space. Largely confined to the sub-field of intelligence studies, scholarly engagements with intelligence oversight have typically downplayed the violence carried out by secretive agencies. These studies have often served to justify weak oversight structures and promoted only marginal adaptations of policy frameworks in the wake of intelligence scandals. The essays gathered in this volume challenge the prevailing doxa in the academic field, adopting a critical lens to look at the workings of intelligence oversight in Europe and North America. Through chapters spanning across multiple disciplines – political sociology, history, and law – the book aims to recast intelligence oversight as acting in symbiosis with the legitimisation of the state’s secret violence and the enactment of impunity, showing how intelligence actors practically navigate the legal and political constraints created by oversight frameworks and practices, for instance by developing transnational networks of interdependence. The book also explores inventive legal steps and human rights mechanisms aimed at bridging some of the most serious gaps in existing frameworks, drawing inspiration from recent policy developments in the international struggle against torture. This book will be of much interest to students of intelligence studies, sociology, security studies, and international relations.

The Cold War has been researched in minute detail and written about at great length but it remains one of the most elusive and enigmatic conflicts of modern times. With the ending of the Cold War, it is now possible to review the entire post-war period, to examine the Cold War as history. The Middle East occupies a special place in the history of the Cold War. It was critical to its birth, its life and its demise. In the aftermath of the Second World War, it became one of the major theatres of the Cold War on account of its strategic importance and its oil resources. The key to the international politics of the Middle East during the Cold War era is the relationship between external powers and local powers. Most of the existing literature on the subject focuses on the policies of the Great Powers towards the local region. The Cold War and the Middle East redresses the balance by concentrating on the policies of the local actors. It looks at the politics of the region not just from the outside in but from the inside out. The contributors to this volume are leading scholars in the field whose interests combine International Relations and Middle Eastern Studies.