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Definition of terrorism

There is no consensus, scholarly or legal, on the definition of terrorism.[1][2][3]

Various legal systems and government agencies use different definitions of terrorism, and governments have been reluctant to formulate an agreed-upon legally-binding definition. Difficulties arise from the fact that the term has become politically and emotionally charged.[4][5] A simple definition proposed to the United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ) by terrorism studies scholar Alex P. Schmid in 1992, based on the already internationally accepted definition of war crimes, as "peacetime equivalents of war crimes",[6] was not accepted.[7][8]


Scholars have worked on creating various academic definitions, reaching a consensus definition published by Schmid and A. J. Jongman in 1988, with a longer revised version published by Schmid in 2011,[8] some years after he had written that "the price for consensus [had] led to a reduction of complexity".[9] The Cambridge History of Terrorism (2021), however, states that Schmid's "consensus" resembles an intersection of definitions, rather than a bona fide consensus.[10]


The United Nations General Assembly condemned terrorist acts by using the following political description of terrorism in December 1994 (GA Res. 49/60):[11]

"the deliberate killing of innocent people, at random, to spread fear through a whole population and force the hand of its political leaders" (, 2002).[18]

Michael Walzer

"the organized use of violence to attack non-combatants (‘innocents’ in a special sense) or their property for political purposes" (, 2004).[19]

C. A. J. Coady

"the deliberate use of violence, or threat of its use, against innocent people, with the aim of intimidating some other people into a course of action they otherwise would not take" (, 2004).[20]

Igor Primoratz

"the use of force or violence or the threat of force or violence to change the behavior of society as a whole through the causation of fear and the targeting of specific parts of society in order to affect the entire society" (Arthur H. Garrison, 2004).

[21]

"The premediated use or threat to use violence by individuals or subnational groups to obtain a political or social objective through the intimidation of a large audience beyond that of the immediate victims" (Todd Sandler, 2010).

[22]

"a doctrine about the presumed effectiveness of a special form or tactic of fear-generating, coercive political violence... [as well as] a conspiratorial practice of calculated, demonstrative, direct violent action without legal or moral restraints, targeting mainly civilians and non-combatants, performed for its propagandistic and psychological effects on various audiences and conflict parties" (Schmid, 2011).

[23]

Definitions include:


Bruce Hoffman notes that terrorism is "ineluctably about power".[24]

The use of violence or of the threat of violence in the pursuit of political objectives

Acts committed by (or by undercover personnel serving on the behalf of their respective governments)

non-state actors

The intentional use of lethal force against civilians, and/or destructive force against civilian areas, buildings or infrastructure.

Acts reaching more than the immediate target victims and also directed at targets consisting of a larger spectrum of society

Both

mala prohibita (i.e., crime that is made illegal by legislation) and mala in se (i.e., crime that is inherently immoral or wrong)

Terrorism has been described as:


Definitions of terrorism typically emphasize one or more of the following features:[19]


The following criteria of violence or threat of violence usually fall outside of the definition of terrorism:[25][26]


Scholar Ken Duncan argues the term terrorism has generally been used to describe violence by non-state actors rather than government violence since the 19th-century Anarchist Movement.[27][28][29]

In international law[edit]

The need to define terrorism in international criminal law[edit]

Schmid (2004) summarised many sources when he wrote: "It is widely agreed that international terrorism can only be fought by international cooperation". If states do not agree on what constitutes terrorism, the chances of cooperation between countries is reduced; for example, agreement is needed so that extradition is possible.[9]


Ben Saul has noted (2008): "A combination of pragmatic and principled arguments supports the case for defining terrorism in international law". Reasons for why terrorism needs to be defined by the international community include the need to condemn violations to human rights; to protect the state and its constitutional order, which protects rights; to differentiate public and private violence; to ensure international peace and security, and "control the operation of mandatory Security Council measures since 2001".[30]


Carlos Diaz-Paniagua, who coordinated the negotiations of the proposed United Nations Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (proposed in 1996 and not yet achieved), noted in 2008 the need to provide a precise definition of terrorist activities in international law: "Criminal law has three purposes: to declare that a conduct is forbidden, to prevent it, and to express society's condemnation for the wrongful acts. The symbolic, normative role of criminalization is of particular importance in the case of terrorism. The criminalization of terrorist acts expresses society's repugnance at them, invokes social censure and shame, and stigmatizes those who commit them. Moreover, by creating and reaffirming values, criminalization may serve, in the long run, as a deterrent to terrorism, as those values are internalized." Thus, international criminal law treaties that seek to prevent, condemn and punish terrorist activities, require precise definitions:[31]

In national law[edit]

Australia[edit]

As of April 2021, the Criminal Code Act 1995 (known as the Criminal Code), representing the federal government's criminal law and including Australia's laws against terrorism, defines "terrorist act" in Section 5.3.[78] The definition, after defining in (a) the harms that may be caused (and excluding accidental harm or various actions undertaken as advocacy) defines a terrorist act as:[79]

In Australia, the Terrorism Insurance Act 2003 created a scheme to administer scheme for insurance, relating to commercial properties and enterprises, but excluding residential properties, travel insurance, vehicles, and others.[105] This legislation uses the same definition as specified in the Criminal Code (see above).[107] The act's definition has as of April 2021 only been applied once, when in 2015 the Federal Treasurer declared the 2014 Lindt Café siege as a "declared terrorist incident" under the act,[105] although there was some debate about the classification of this incident.[108][109] Twenty insurers made 92 claims, for a total of A$2.3 million, for various losses caused by the siege.[106]

reinsurance

In the U.S., the (2002) provides a government reinsurance backstop in case of large-scale terrorist attacks, requiring that commercial insurers offer terrorism coverage for the types of insurance included in the act. This Act includes a definition of terrorism (see above).[104]

Terrorism Risk Insurance Act

After the September 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., many insurers made specific exclusions for terrorism in their policies, after global reinsurers withdrew from covering terrorism. Some governments introduced legislation to provide support for insurers in various ways.[105][106]


Some insurance companies exclude terrorism from general property insurance. An insurance company may include a specific definition of terrorism as part of its policy, for the purpose of excluding at least some loss or damage caused by terrorism. For example, RAC Insurance in Western Australia defines terrorism thus:[110]


It is noted the term Stochastic terrorism began as a method to corelate measurements of violent rhetoric to probability of a terrorists attack.[111][112] While this term is still used in the technical sense in risk management and insurance assessments, a more populist connotation has developed that is used to characterize the nature of certain terrorist acts in the context of social media influence.[113]

1795. "Government intimidation during the Reign of Terror in France." The general sense of "systematic use of terror as a policy" was first recorded in English in 1798.

[114]

1916. : "Terrorization has always been employed by revolutionaries no less than by kings, as a means of impressing their enemies, and as an example to those who were doubtful about submitting to them...."[115]

Gustave LeBon

1937. League of Nations convention language: "All criminal acts directed against a State and intended or calculated to create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons or a group of persons or the general public."

[116]

1972, after the . UN General Assembly passed a resolution entitiled "Measures to prevent international terrorism which endangers or takes innocent human lives or jeopardises fundamental freedoms, and study of the underlying causes of those forms of terrorism and acts ofviolence which lie in misery, frustration, grievance and despair, and which cause some people to sacrifice human lives, including their own, in anattempt to effect radical changes". No consensus was reached.[9]

terrorist attack at the Olympic Games in Munich

1987. A definition proposed by Iran at an international Islamic conference on terrorism: "Terrorism is an act carried out to achieve an inhuman and corrupt (mufsid) objective, and involving [a] threat to security of any kind, and violation of rights acknowledged by religion and mankind."

[117]

1989. : premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents.[118]

United States

1992. A definition proposed by to the United Nations Crime Branch: "Act of Terrorism = Peacetime Equivalent of War Crime."[116]

Alex P. Schmid

1994/1996 's 1994 Declaration on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism,[9] and 1996 Supplement, Paragraph 3:[119]

United Nations General Assembly

Listed below are some of the historically important understandings of terror and terrorism, and enacted but non-universal definitions of the term:

-ism

Bandenbekämpfung

Bockstette, Carsten (December 2008). , George C. Marshall Center for European Security Studies no 20, p. 1-28 ISSN 1863-6039

Jihadist Terrorist Use of Strategic Communication Management Techniques

Burgess, Mark. , Center for Defense Information.

A Brief History of Terrorism

(2002), International Law, Oxford University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-19-925939-9

Cassese, A.

Crenshaw, Martha, Terrorism in Context

Gardam, Judith Gail (1993). Non-combatant Immunity as a Norm of International Humanitarian, Martinus Nijhoff  0-7923-2245-2.

ISBN

Griset, Pamala L. & Mahan, Sue (2003). Terrorism in perspective, SAGE, 2003,  0-7619-2404-3, ISBN 978-0-7619-2404-3

ISBN

Hoffman, Bruce (1998). "Inside Terrorism" Columbia University Press 1998  0-231-11468-0.

ISBN

Hoffman, Bruce (2006). Inside Terrorism (2nd ed.). Columbia University Press.  978-0-231-12699-1.

ISBN

Khan, Ali ( - School of Law. 1987). A Theory of International Terrorism, Connecticut Law Review, Vol. 19, p. 945, 1987

Washburn University

Novotny, Daniel D. (2007). "What is Terrorism?" in: Linden, Edward V., ed. Focus on Terrorism 8, ch. 2, pp. 23–32. ( 1-60021-315-4).

ISBN

Primoratz, Igor (2004). Terrorism: The Philosophical Issues. Palgrave Macmillan.

Primoratz, Igor (2007/2011). . The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).

"Terrorism"

Record, Jeffrey (December 2003). , December 1, 2003 ISBN 1-58487-146-6.

Bounding the Global War on Terrorism

Smelser, Neil J.; et al. (2002). Terrorism: perspectives from the behavioral and social sciences, National Academies Press, 2002,  0-309-08612-4, ISBN 978-0-309-08612-7

ISBN

Ticehurst, Rupert. 30 April 1997, International Review of the Red Cross no 317, p. 125-134 ISSN 1560-7755

The Martens Clause and the Laws of Armed Conflict

Trapp, K. N. (2023). "The ICJ and International Terrorism". Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law Online. 26 (1): 534–576. :10.1163/18757413_02601022 (inactive January 31, 2024).{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of January 2024 (link)

doi

by A. Rohan Perera and procedural history note on the Declaration on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism and the 1996 Supplementary Declaration thereto in the Historic Archives of the United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law

Introductory note