Preparing Bomb Attacks by Exploiting Professional User Status

Abstract

This paper examines an area of law that has received little research so far: the regulation of explosives and explosives precursors in EU and Austrian law. It demonstrates the important role of chemicals law and administrative security law in the prevention of bomb attacks. While the acquisition of explosives can be limited to a few legitimate use cases of professional work, explosives precursors can be found in everyday products, such as fertilisers, which makes it more difficult to restrict their trade. Perpetrators use explosives precursors to manufacture homemade explosives (HMEs). A comparative analysis of the legal frameworks reveals that the regulation of explosives precursors includes loopholes, which allow members of the public to claim being a “professional user”. The analysis is based on the author’s contribution to the research project ‘ODYSSEUS’, which received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101021857.