What Is 'Terrorism'? Problems of Legal Definition
![handle is hein.journals/swales27 and id is 280 raw text is: UNSW Law Journal
WHAT IS 'TERRORISM'? PROBLEMS OF LEGAL DEFINITION
BEN GOLDER* AND GEORGE WILLIAMS**
I INTRODUCTION
Violence aimed at inspiring fear and intimidating populations is not a new
phenomenon. Nevertheless, references to 'terrorism' in law and politics can only
be found in more recent times. The word 'terror' was first used to describe the
Jacobin 'Reign of Terror' that followed the French Revolution in 1789.' The first
legal responses to terrorism and attempts to define the word can be traced to the
20th century. One commentator dates 'the first organized international legal
attempt to grapple with the problem of defining terrorism' to the International
Conferences for the Unification of Penal Law, a series of events convened in
various European capitals throughout the 1920s and 1930s.2 Since then lawyers,
academics, national legislatures, regional organisations and international bodies,
such as the United Nations, have produced a bewildering array of definitions.
One 1988 study identified a total of 109 different definitions,3 and the number
would be far higher today. Despite decades of effort, with even greater focus
after September 11, attempts to develop a generally accepted legal definition of
terrorism have failed.
Some have likened 'the search for the legal definition of terrorism ... [to] the
quest for the Holy Grail'.4 Others such as Judge Richard Baxter, formerly of the
International Court of Justice, writing in 1974, have questioned the utility of a
legal definition, stating: 'We have cause to regret that a legal concept of terrorism
was ever inflicted upon us. The term is imprecise; it is ambiguous; and, above all,
* Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales; Research Assistant, Gilbert + Tobin Centre of
Public Law, Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales.
** Anthony Mason Professor and Director, Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, Faculty of Law,
University of New South Wales; Barrister, New South Wales Bar. The authors thank the anonymous
reviewer for their helpful comments.
I John F Murphy, 'Defining International Terrorism: A Way Out of the Quagmire' (1989) 19 Israel
Yearbook on Human Rights 13, 14.
2 Geoffrey Levitt, 'Is Terrorism Worth Defining?' (1986) 13 Ohio Northern University Law Review 97,
97.
3 Alex P Schmid and Albert J Jongman, Political Terrorism: A New Guide to Actors, Authors, Concepts,
Databases, Theories, and Literature (1988) 5.
4 Levitt, above n 2, 97.
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What Is 'Terrorism'? Problems of Legal Definition
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