There is an increasing number of laws in different branches of public international law which are directly or indirectly relevant to confronting terrorism. There is also a proliferating body of 'soft law' addressing terrorism, stemming particularly from UN organs, specialised international bodies and regional organisations. International anti-terrorism measures existed long before 11 September 2001 and have increased markedly since. Legal efforts aimed at curbing terrorism stem from a wide variety of sources, over a substantial period of time, and it is timely to draw the key documents together into a single reference work. Bringing the documents together preserves them for future reference and also enables scholars, practitioners and students to more easily and quickly compare and contrast various documents.

The book is comprehensive in coverage (thematically, organisationally, geographically and temporally) and open to a balance of sources (hard and soft), but is nonetheless judicious in its selection and prioritisation of the most significant and representative documents, in a field where there are a great many repetitive and insubstantial documents to sift through. Further, the book looks beyond the traditional bias towards European, British and American sources, to also include a selection of materials from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.