Despite numerous efforts since the 1920s, the international community has failed to define or criminalize 'terrorism' in international law. This book first explores the policy reasons for defining and criminalizing terrorism, before proposing the basic elements of an international definition. Terrorism should be defined and criminalized because it seriously undermines fundamental human rights, jeopardizes the State and peaceful politics, and may threaten international peace and security. Definition would also help to distinguish political from private violence, eliminating the overreach of the many 'sectoral' anti-terrorism treaties. A definition may also help to confine the scope of UN Security Council resolutions since 11 September 2001, which have encouraged States to pursue unilateral and excessive counter-terrorism measures. Defining terrorism as a discrete international crime normatively recognizes and protects vital international community values and interests, symbolically expresses community condemnation, and stigmatizes offenders. Any definition of terrorism must also accommodate reasonable claims to political violence, particularly against repressive governments, and this book examines the range of exceptions, justifications, excuses, defences and amnesties potentially available to terrorists, as well as purported exceptions such as self-determination struggles, 'State terrorism' and armed conflicts. While this book seeks to minimize recourse to violence, it recognises that international law should not become complicit in oppression by criminalizing legitimate forms of political resistance. In the absence of an international definition, the remainder of the book explores how the international community has responded to terrorism in international and 'regional' treaties, the United Nations system, and in customary law. The final part of the book explores the distinctive prohibitions and crime of 'terrorism' in armed conflict under international humanitarian law.

Introduction: Concepts of Terrorism 1. Reasons for Defining and Criminalizing Terrorism Nature of International Crimes International Criminological Policy Terrorism as a Discrete International Crime Elements of a Definition of Terrorism 2. Defending 'Terrorism': Justifications and Excuses for Terrorist Violence Common Justifications for Terrorism Criminal Law Defences to Terrorism Circumstances Precluding Group Responsibility 'Illegal but Justifiable' Terrorism Discretion and Law: Never Negotiate with Terrorists? 3. Terrorism in International and Regional Treaty Law Transnational Criminal Law Treaties Treaties of Regional Organizations Attempts at Definition in Treaty Law 1930 - 2005 4. Terrorism in Customary International Law UN General Assembley Practice UN Security Council Practice Judicial Decisions Defining Terrorism National Terrorism Legislation 5. Terrorism in International Humanitarian Law Early Developments 1919 - 1948 Second World War and Aftermath 1939 - 1948 1949 Geneva Conventions and 1977 Protocols International Criminal Tribunals since 1993 Individual Criminal Responsibility for 'Terrorism' Customary Crimes of Terrorism in Armed Conflict US Military Commissions and 'Terrorism' No Separate Category of 'Terrorist' Conclusion: Proving Terror, Avoiding Duplication Conclusion Bibliography

Ben Saul , Director of the Sydney Centre for International Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Sydney

`a study that is highly impressive in its comprehensiveness and depth of analysis. It is this balanced approach and detail of analysis that make this study so valuable and that will undoubtedly establish it as the essential starting point for any further attempts to define terrorism in international law.' Human Rights Law Review (2007)