A Legal Inter-Network For Terrorism: Issues of Globalization, Fragmentation and Legitimacy

This article discusses the international legal framework on terrorism in reference to the major conventions signed between 1963 and 1997. Counter-terrorism is one area of global security and crisis management in which the contradictions between inter-governmental and supranational structures are especially evident. Existing international instruments on terrorism concentrate on unacceptable behaviours, protecting certain groups, and regulating manufacture and storage of specific types of potentially harmful materials. Their effectiveness is weakened by traditional state sovereignty, state monopoly over the use of force and criminal-judicial affairs, inter-state co-operation, and the principle of national self-determination, which is repeatedly used to justify intentional violence by private or semi-state groups against civilian or military targets outside acknowledged war zones. Rapid change in international security is now driving the development of mutual assistance, international standards and norms, and analysis as well as the formulation of global strategies and commitment of material and financial resources. The article argues that these measures recapitulate national-international tensions and constitute a possible core for an international network to manage political violence.