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13 Ohio N.U. L. Rev. 97 (1986)
Is Terrorism Worth Defining

handle is hein.journals/onulr13 and id is 107 raw text is: Is Terrorism Worth Defining? GEOFFREY LEVITT* The search for a legal definition of terrorism in some ways resem- bles the quest for the Holy Grail: periodically, eager souls set out, full of purpose, energy and self-confidence, to succeed where so many others before have tried and failed. Some, daunted by the difficulties and dangers along the way, give up, often declaring the quest mean- ingless. Others return claiming victory, proudly bearing an object they insist is the real thing but which to everyone else looks more like the same old used cup, perhaps re-decorated in a slightly original way. Still others, soberly assessing the risks, costs and benefits attendant upon the attempt, never set out at all, preferring to devote their energies to humbler but possibly more practical tasks. But the long record of frustrations and failures often seems to spur further efforts; the 99th Congress, for example, saw a dozen bills containing various attempts at legislative definitions of terrorism.' All those who have sought to define terrorism legally, in both the international and U.S. settings, have taken one of two paths. One path leads toward the elaboration of an analytical, generic definition, complete within itself, into which all terrorist acts would then fit- a top-down or deductive approach. The other path carves out a series of narrow, self-contained, sharply defined categories of acts that together compose an open-ended framework for defining (often impli- citly) and suppressing terrorism - a ground-up or inductive approach. In order to assess the relative efficacy of these two methods in providing a definitional foundation for the construction of legal mechanisms to suppress terrorism, this discussion will survey and analyze selected international and U.S. efforts to define terrorism in a legally operative context. I. INTERNATIONAL EFFORTS The first organized international legal attempt to grapple with the problem of defining terrorism came in the series of conferences collectively known as the International Conferences for the Unifica- tion of Penal Law, which were held in various European capitals during the 1920s and 1930s. Most notably, the Sixth (Copenhagen) Conference in 1935 adopted a model penal provision on terrorism, the key articles of which covered a series of acts including wilful acts directed against the life, physical integrity, health or freedom of * International Affairs Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations; Office of the Legal Adviser, U.S. Department of State. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Council on Foreign Relations or the U.S. Department of State. 1. See infra Part II.

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