Difficulties of Defining Terrorism - Assignment Example

 Difficulties of Defining Terrorism Terrorism is certainly one of the greatest worries of 21st centuries taking into account the 9/11 terror attack in United States, as well as previous attacks in US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Most nations, if not all, have risen up in arms condemning acts of terrorism while at the same time instituting crucial countermeasure policies and procedures. However, a trend worth noting is the definitional ambiguity of terrorism in the recent years that has been enhanced by the rhetorical power of the term “terrorist,” and which has driven governments and organizations to have glaring discrepancies in its definition. No country wishes to admit to terrorism or to be seen to offer support to organizations perceived by other countries to be terrorists. Cynics have added weight to definitional ambiguity of terrorism by stating that one person’s terrorist is the other person’s freedom fighter. This paper discusses the various definition of terrorism. On December 9, 1994, the UN General Assembly came up with Resolution 49/60 entitled “Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism”, and which contained a provision that sought to define terrorism. According to the Assembly, terrorism is a criminal act aimed or purposed to create a state of terror among the general public, or a specified group of persons for political reasons. The provision goes further to state that such acts remain unjustifiable in any circumstances-whether political, philosophical, religious, ideological, ethnic, racial, or any other reason that may be cited to justify them (Elegab, 2007). On the other hand, the Council of Arab Ministers of the Interior and the Council of Arab Ministers of Justice, following a meeting held in Cairo, Egypt in 1998, adopted the Arab Convention for the Suppression of Terrorism. Here, terrorism was defined as any act or threat of violence, whatever its motives or purposes, that takes place in advancing individualistic or collective criminal agenda, and which seeks to inculcate panic among people, inducing fear by harming them, or seek to destroy public or private infrastructure or taking over property, or seek to endanger national resources (Malik, O., & Royal Institute of International Affairs., 2000). Another definition of terrorism is that by the European Union. For the interest of legal purposes, the EU came up with Art.1 of the Framework Decision on Combating Terrorism (2002) that describes terrorism in form of a list comprising of majorly serious offenses against persons and property and which, given their nature or context, may direly destroy a nation or an international organization. This is especially so when the act of terror is committed with the purpose of intimidating a population; or unduly force a government or international organization to meet certain selfish demands, or seriously destroying the basic political, social, and economic structures of a country or international organization (Cryer, 2010). The last definition of terrorism for this case is that according to the Federal Criminal Code of the United States. Title 18 of this code defines terrorism and list those crimes that warrant to be labelled as acts of terror. In Section 2331 of Chapter 113(B), terrorism is described as activities that entail violent or life threatening acts, that violate the criminal laws of a state, and appear to be aimed at intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policy of a government through coercion, and to affect the conduct of the government through mass destruction, assassination, and kidnapping (Purpura, 2007). A radical analysis of the above definitions indicate that the definitions were much influenced by the nature and circumstances of the respective governments. For instance, the definition of terrorism based on Federal Criminal Code of the US insists on “coercion” as a significant terminology on its definition of terror. On the other hand, the Arab Convention for the Suppression of Terrorism hardly mention aspects of coercion in its definition. Instead, it mainly focusses on the aspect of causing harm to people, property, and instilling fear among the people. Arguably though, United States is the world’s superpower and has been regarded for long time as the untouchable. Some nations especially those from Arabic regions perceive US as a nation that always uses its “superpower” connotation to drive forth its selfish agendas in foreign economies. It is because of this that some individuals from this “aggrieved” Arabic nations have sought to use “acts of terror”, this connotation based on Federal Criminal Code, to “flash out” United States from their economies. Therefore, United States definition of terror insists on coercion bit in the definition of terror as they have been coerced to reduce their influence on foreign economies through the acts they have enlisted as “acts of terror”. While all of the above definitions significantly point out to what terrorism actually is, I find the definition by the Federal Criminal Code of the United States to be more comprehensive. Like all the rest combined, this definition contains the four important element in the definition of terrorism that include: (1) the threat or use of violence; (2) a political objective; and the desire to alter the status quo; (3) the intention to instil fear among the public; and (4) targeting innocent civilians. Nevertheless, I find the definition to be more one-sided as it does not take into account that countermeasures to terrorism can also reach a level where they could be labelled as terrorism. For instance, US invasion of Afghanistan to flash out Al-Qaeda ended up instilling much fear to the civilians, destroyed property, and ended up in the death of many people. In my view therefore, this definition should be also be made to label countermeasure operations as terrorism if they violate some conditions of the aforementioned conditions. In conclusion, I define terrorism as serious offense against person and property and which, basing on their type and context, seek to cause destruction, loss of lives, and destroy social, economic and political structure of a nation. This is especially so when the act of terror is committed with the purpose of intimidating a population; or unduly force a government or international organization to meet certain selfish demands, or seriously destroying the basic political, social, and economic structures of a country or international organization. The critical elements in his definition are threat of violence, seeking political objective, intention of instilling fear, and targeting innocent people. In spite of the above definitions, the UN Members States, for instance, are still contending on whether the terrorism definition in the provision contained in Resolution 49/60 is well representative of majority states’ perspective; a situation that has served as a great hindrance to reasonable international countermeasures. Undoubtedly, terminology consensus would be indispensable for a favorable convention on terrorism, which a significant number of states have shown their outright preference to the 12 piecemeal conventions and protocols. References Elegab, O.Y. (2007). International Law Documents Relating to Terrorism. New York, NY: Routledge. Cryer, R. (2010). An introduction to international criminal law and procedure. Cambridge [UK: Cambridge University Press. Malik, O., & Royal Institute of International Affairs. (2000). Enough of the definition of terrorism. London: Royal Institute of International Affairs. Purpura, P. P. (2007). Terrorism and homeland security: An introduction with applications. Amsterdam: Butterworth-Heinemann. Read More