Epistemic and non-epistemic modals: The key to interpreting the spirit of counter-terrorism United Nations Security Council resolutions

Abstract

The United Nations Security Council has issued forty-seven United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSCRs) on counter-terrorism since the establishment of the counter-Terrorism Committee in the wake of September 11th terrorist attacks. This stuy aims to unveil the positioning of the Security Council towards terrorism in all its forms and manifestations through the exploration of the distribution patterns, frequency and functions of nine central modal markers in the forty-seven resolutions against terrorism that have been released to date. To this end, the study follows a corpus-based methodology as well as a combined qualitative and quantitative approach. Results contribute to underlying the double postioning of the Council towards deciding on the measures to be taken against perpetrators of terrorists acts.