Definition of terrorism

'', an early appearance in English. The excerpt reads: "There exists more than one system to overthrow our liberty. Fanaticism has raised every passion; Royalism has not yet given up its hopes, and Terrorism feels bolder than ever." The term "terrorism" comes from French , from , "great fear", "dread", related to the Latin verb , "to frighten". The French National Convention declared in September 1793 that "terror is the order of the day". The period 1793–94 is referred to as (Reign of Terror). Maximilien Robespierre, a leader in the French Revolution proclaimed in 1794 that "Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible." The Committee of Public Safety agents that enforced the policies of "The Terror" were referred to as "Terrorists". The word "terrorism" was first recorded in English-language dictionaries in 1798 as meaning "systematic use of terror as a policy". Although the Reign of Terror was imposed by the French government, in modern times "terrorism" usually refers to the killing of people by non-governmental political activists for political reasons, often as a public statement. This meaning originated with Russian radicals in the 1870s. Sergey Nechayev, who founded the ''People's Reprisal'' (Народная расправа) in 1869, described himself as a "terrorist". German radicalist writer Johann Most helped popularize the modern sense of the word by dispensing "advice for terrorists" in the 1880s. According to Myra Williamson (2009): "The meaning of 'terrorism' has undergone a transformation. During the reign of terror a regime or system of terrorism was used as an instrument of governance, wielded by a recently established revolutionary state against the enemies of the people. Now the term 'terrorism' is commonly used to describe terrorist acts committed by non-state or subnational entities against a state". ==Notable definitions of terrorism==

Definitions include: • "the deliberate killing of innocent people, at random, to spread fear through a whole population and force the hand of its political leaders" (Michael Walzer, 2002). • "the organized use of violence to attack non-combatants ('innocents' in a special sense) or their property for political purposes" (C. A. J. Coady, 2004). • "The premeditated 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). • "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). Bruce Hoffman notes that terrorism is "ineluctably about power". ==General criteria==

Terrorism has been described as: • The use of violence or of the threat of violence in the pursuit of political objectives • Acts committed by non-state actors (or by undercover personnel serving on the behalf of their respective governments) • 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) Definitions of terrorism typically emphasize one or more of the following features: • Its effect of extreme fear • Whether it targeted the state from within • Its strategic goals • Its random or indiscriminate nature • Who it targeted • Whether it was planned and prepared in secret The following criteria of violence or threat of violence usually fall outside of the definition of terrorism: • Wartime (including a declared war) or peacetime acts of violence committed by a nation state against another nation state regardless of legality or illegality and are carried out by properly uniformed forces or legal combatants of such nation states • Reasonable acts of self-defense, such as the use of force to kill, apprehend, or punish criminals who pose a threat to the lives of humans or property • Legitimate targets in war, such as enemy combatants and strategic infrastructure that form an integral part of the enemy's war effort such as defense industries and ports • Collateral damage, including the infliction of incidental damage to non-combatant targets during an attack on or attempting to attack legitimate targets in war 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. ==In international law==

The need to define terrorism in international criminal law 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. 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: Saul noted in this sense that, missing a generally agreed, all-encompassing, definition of the term: More recently the 1977 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, which applies in situations Article 1. Paragraph 4 "... in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes...", contains many ambiguities that cloud the issue of who is or is not a legitimate combatant. In a briefing paper for the Australian Parliament in 2002, Angus Martyn stated: The international community has never succeeded in developing an accepted comprehensive definition of terrorism. During the 1970s and 1980s, the United Nations attempts to define the term floundered mainly due to differences of opinion between various members about the use of violence in the context of conflicts over national liberation and self-determination. Nonetheless, due to major divergences at the international level on the question of the legitimacy of the use of violence for political purposes, either by states or by self-determination and revolutionary groups, this has not yet been possible." The term has been depicted as carrying racist, xenophobic and ethnocentric connotations when used as an ethnic slur aimed at Arabs or Middle Easterners, or at someone of Arab or Greater Middle Eastern descent or when used by white supremacists. These difficulties led Pamala Griset (2003) to conclude that: "the meaning of terrorism is embedded in a person's or nation's philosophy. Thus, the determination of the 'right' definition of terrorism is subjective". While discussing the definitional and ethical difficulties of terrorism, philosopher Jenny Teichman argues that "it ought not to be impossible to find an agreed definition, and then ask whether one wants to condemn or applaud all or some of the things that fall under that description". Experts disagree on "whether terrorism is wrong by definition or just wrong as a matter of fact; they disagree about whether terrorism should be defined in terms of its aims, or its methods, or both, or neither; they disagree about whether states can perpetrate terrorism; they even disagree about the importance or otherwise of terror for a definition of terrorism". The sectoral approach To elaborate an effective legal regime to prevent and punish international terrorism—rather than only working on a single, all-encompassing, comprehensive definition of terrorism—the international community has also adopted a "...'sectoral' approach aimed at identifying offences seen as belonging to the activities of terrorists and working out treaties in order to deal with specific categories thereof". The treaties that follow this approach focus on the wrongful nature of terrorist activities rather than on their intent: Following this approach, the international community adopted 12 sectoral counter-terrorism conventions, open to the ratification of all states, between 1963 and 2005 (see below), relating to types of acts (such as aboard an aircraft, taking hostages, bombings, nuclear terrorism, etc.). Byrnes notes that "this act-specific approach to addressing problems of terrorism in binding international treaties has continued up until relatively recently. Although political denunciation of terrorism in all its forms had continued apace, there had been no successful attempt to define 'terrorism' as such in a broad sense that was satisfactory for legal purposes. There was also some scepticism as to the necessity, desirability and feasibility of producing an agreed and workable general definition." Nonetheless, the same committee of the United Nations General Assembly which authored the 1997 Bombing Convention and the 1999 Financing Convention has been working on a proposed Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, given renewed impetus by the September 11 attacks in 2001. These articles never entered into force, owing to lack of support. In 1996 an Ad Hoc Committee on Terrorism was set up, with the remit of drafting several conventions condemning various aspects of terrorism, with the intention of producing a final Comprehensive Convention which would either supplement or replace the series of sectoral conventions.): Among the negotiators, the 1996/7 definition is not controversial in itself; the deadlock in the negotiations arises instead from the opposing views on whether such a definition would be applicable to the armed forces of a state and to self-determination movements. Thalif Deen described the situation as follows: "The key sticking points in the draft treaty revolve around several controversial yet basic issues, including the definition of ´terrorism´. For example, what distinguishes a "terrorist organisation" from a 'liberation movement'? And do you exclude activities of national armed forces, even if they are perceived to commit acts of terrorism? If not, how much of this constitutes 'state terrorism'?" In 2002, the coordinator of the negotiations, supported by most western delegations, proposed the following exceptions to address those issues: In November 2004, a Secretary-General of the United Nations report described terrorism as any act "intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act". The state members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference proposed instead the following exceptions: Sectoral conventions (1963–2005) The various sectoral counter-terrorism conventions, or treaties, define as terrorist particular categories of activities. These include: Antonio Cassese has argued that the language of this and other similar UN declarations "sets out an acceptable definition of terrorism." Each year, a legal committee of the General Assembly meets to discuss international cooperation to counter terrorism, and in 2019 the committee "reaffirmed the importance of the negotiations on and successful conclusion of the draft comprehensive convention on international terrorism" and the need for consensus for this and in particular stressed "the importance of negotiating an internationally agreed definition of terrorism". UN Security Council (1999, 2004) In 1999, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1269 unanimously, which "unequivocally condemn[ed] all acts, methods and practices of terrorism as criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation". In 2004, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1566 condemned terrorist acts as: High-Level Panel (2004) Also in 2004, a High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change composed of independent experts and convened by the Secretary-General of the United Nations called states to set aside their differences and to adopt, in the text of a proposed Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, the following political "description of terrorism": The following year, Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan endorsed the High Level Panel's definition of terrorism and asked states to set aside their differences and to adopt that definition within the proposed comprehensive terrorism convention before the end of that year. He said: The suggestion of incorporating this definition of terrorism into the comprehensive convention was rejected. Some United Nations' member states contended that a definition such as the one proposed by the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, and endorsed by the Secretary General, lacked the necessary requirements to be incorporated in a criminal law instrument. Diaz-Paniagua stated that a comprehensive definition of terrorism to be included in a criminal law treaty must have "legal precision, certainty, and fair-labeling of the criminal conduct - all of which emanate from the basic human rights obligation to observe due process". European Union The European Union defines terrorism for legal/official purposes in Art. 1 of the Framework Decision on Combating Terrorism (2002). This provides that terrorist offences are certain criminal offences set out in a list consisting largely of serious offences against persons and property that: North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO defines terrorism in the AAP-06 NATO Glossary of Terms and Definitions, Edition 2019 as "The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence, instilling fear and terror, against individuals or property in an attempt to coerce or intimidate governments or societies, or to gain control over a population, to achieve political, religious or ideological objectives". ==In national law==

Australia , 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. 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: {{blockquote|{{ubl Within the Criminal Code, a variety of offences are defined with reference to the definition of a terrorist act, for example financing terrorism, activities which advocate violent terrorist acts, etc. Shortly after the creation of the law, Federal Police's Operation Hashtag arrested eleven suspects of planning a terrorist attack in the run-up to the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Canada In Canada, section 83.01 of the Criminal Code defines terrorism as an act committed "in whole or in part for a political, religious or ideological purpose, objective or cause" with the objective of intimidating the public "with regard to its security, including its economic security, or compelling a person, a government or a domestic or an international organization to do or to refrain from doing any act." France In 1986, France adopted its first "anti-terrorism" law. The French legal definition of "acts of terrorism" as in force since 2016 is to be found in the French criminal code, article 421. The article starts with: India The Supreme Court of India quoted Alex P. Schmid's definition of terrorism in a 2003 ruling (Madan Singh vs. State of Bihar), "defin[ing] acts of terrorism veritably as 'peacetime equivalents of war crimes.'" The now lapsed Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act specified the following definition of terrorism: Mexico The Mexican Federal Criminal Code, in its article 139, defines terrorists as as well as anyone who agrees to carry out such act or assists in its preparation. Reduced penalties are also defined for anyone who knowingly harbors terrorists or threatens to carry out acts of terrorism. Pakistan The Pakistan Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Ordinance, 1999 states: A person is said to commit a terrorist act if he, (a) in order to, or if the effect of his actions will be to, strike terror or create a sense of fear and insecurity in the people, or any section of the people, does any act or thing by using bombs, dynamite or other explosive or inflammable substances, or such fire-arms or other lethal weapons as may be notified, or poisons or noxious gases or chemicals, in such a manner as to cause, or be likely to cause, the death of, or injury to, any person or persons, or damage to, or destruction of, property on a large scale, or a widespread disruption of supplies of services essential to the life of the community, or threatens with the use of force public servants in order to prevent them from discharging their lawful duties; or (b) commits a scheduled offence, the effect of which will be, or be likely to be, to strike terror, or create a sense of fear and insecurity in the people, or any section of the people, or to adversely affect harmony among different sections of the people; or (c) commits an act of gang rape, child molestation, or robbery coupled with rape as specified in the Schedule to this Act; or (d) commits an act of civil commotion as specified in section &A." Philippines The Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, officially designated as Republic Act No. 11479, is a counter-terrorism law intended to prevent, prohibit, and penalize terrorism in the Philippines. The law was passed by the 18th Congress and signed by President Rodrigo Duterte on 3 July 2020, effectively replacing the Human Security Act of 2007 on 18 July 2020. The Act defines terrorism as: • Engaging in acts intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to any person or endangers a person's life; • Engaging in acts intended to cause extensive damage or destruction to a government or public facility, public place, or private property; • Engaging in acts intended to cause extensive interference with, damage, or destruction to critical infrastructure; • Developing, manufacturing, possessing, acquiring, transporting, supplying, or using weapons; and • Releasing dangerous substances or causing fire, floods or explosions when the purpose is to intimidate the general public, create an atmosphere to spread a message of fear, provoke or influence by intimidation the government or any international organization, seriously destabilize or destroy the fundamental political, economic, or social structures in the country, or create a public emergency or seriously undermine public safety. References to atheism were absent from Saudi Arabia's public draft of Law on Combating the Financing of Terrorism as of October 2023. Syria After the United States attack on Abu Kamal, the Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem defined terrorism as "Killing civilians in international law means a terrorist aggression." Turkey The definition of "Terrorism" in Article 1 of Anti-Terror Law 3713 is: "Terrorism is any kind of act done by one or more persons belonging to an organization with the aim of changing the characteristics of the Republic as specified in the Constitution, its political, legal, social, secular and economic system, damaging the indivisible unity of the State with its territory and nation, endangering the existence of the Turkish State and Republic, weakening or destroying or seizing the authority of the State, eliminating fundamental rights and freedoms, or damaging the internal and external security of the State, public order or general health by means of pressure, force and violence, terror, intimidation, oppression or threat." United Kingdom The United Kingdom's Terrorism Act 2000 defined terrorism as follows: Section 34 of the Terrorism Act 2006 amended sections 1(1)(b) and 113(1)(c) of Terrorism Act 2000 to include "international governmental organisations" in addition to "government". Successive Independent Reviewers of Terrorism Legislation (most recently in a report of July 2014) have commented on the UK's definition of terrorism. United States U.S. Code (U.S.C.) Title 22, Chapter 38, Section 2656f, of the United States Code (regarding the Department of State) contains a definition of terrorism in its requirement that annual country reports on terrorism be submitted by the Secretary of State to Congress every year. It reads: Title 18 of the United States Code (regarding criminal acts and criminal procedure) defines international terrorism as: Commenting on the genesis of this provision, Edward Peck, former U.S. Chief of Mission in Iraq (under Jimmy Carter) and former ambassador to Mauritania said: U.S. Code of Federal Regulations The U.S. Code of Federal Regulations defines terrorism as "the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives" (28 C.F.R. Section 0.85). U.S. Department of Defense The U.S. Department of Defense issued a definition of terrorism in 2010. Per Joint Pub 3-07.2, Antiterrorism, (24 November 2010), the Department of Defense defines it as "the unlawful use of violence or threat of violence to instill fear and coerce governments or societies. Terrorism is often motivated by religious, political, or other ideological beliefs and committed in the pursuit of goals that are usually political." The definition distinguishes between motivations for terrorism (religion, ideology, etc.) and goals of terrorism ("usually political"). This is in contrast to the previous definition which stated that the goals could be religious in nature. U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency In 2014, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said that: FEMA further said that: FEMA's description does not require that the act needs to be politically motivated. FEMA also said that terrorism "include threats of terrorism; assassinations; kidnappings; hijackings; bomb scares and bombings; cyber attacks (computer-based); and the use of chemical, biological, nuclear and radiological weapons" and also that "[h]igh-risk targets for acts of terrorism include military and civilian government facilities, international airports, large cities, and high-profile landmarks. Terrorists might also target large public gatherings, water and food supplies, utilities, and corporate centers. Further, terrorists are capable of spreading fear by sending explosives or chemical and biological agents through the mail." U.S. National Counterterrorism Center The U.S. National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) define terrorism the same as United States Code 22 USC § 2656f(d)(2). The Center also defines a terrorist act as a "premeditated; perpetrated by a sub-national or clandestine agent; politically motivated, potentially including religious, philosophical, or culturally symbolic motivations; violent; and perpetrated against a non-combatant target." U.S. national security strategy In September 2002, the U.S. national security strategy defined terrorism as "premeditated, politically motivated violence against innocents." This definition did not exclude actions by the United States government and it was qualified some months later with "premeditated, politically motivated violence against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents". USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 The USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 defines domestic terrorism as "activities that (A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the U.S. or of any state; (B) appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S." Terrorism Risk Insurance Act Section 102(1)(a) of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act contains a definition of terrorism in order for insurance companies to provide coverage to all prospective policy holders at time of purchase and to all current policyholders at renewal and requires that the federal government pay 90 percent of covered terrorism losses exceeding the statutorily established deductible paid by the insurance company providing the coverage. It reads: ==Insurance coverage==

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. • In Australia, the Terrorism Insurance Act 2003 created a scheme to administer reinsurance scheme for insurance, relating to commercial properties and enterprises, but excluding residential properties, travel insurance, vehicles, and others. The act's definition has only been applied once, when in 2015 the Federal Treasurer declared the 2014 Lindt Café siege as a "declared terrorist incident" under the act, Twenty insurers made 92 claims, for a total of , for various losses caused by the siege. It is noted the term Stochastic terrorism began as a method to corelate measurements of violent rhetoric to probability of a terrorists attack. 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. ==Timeline of political definitions==

Listed below are some of the historically important understandings of terror and terrorism, and enacted but non-universal definitions of the term: • 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. • 1916. Gustave LeBon: "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...." • 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." • 1989. United States: premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents. • 1992. A definition proposed by Alex P. Schmid to the United Nations Crime Branch: "Act of Terrorism = Peacetime Equivalent of War Crime." • 1996. UN General Assembly sets up an Ad Hoc Committee with the responsibility of drafting several conventions condemning various aspects of terrorism, as well as a final Comprehensive Convention to either supplement or replace the series of sectoral conventions. • 2016. Brazilian anti-terrorism law: Terrorism consists in the practice, by one or more individuals, of the acts listed in this article for reasons of xenophobia, discrimination or prejudice of race, color, ethnicity and religion, when committed with the objective of provoking social or generalized terror, exposing people, property, the public peace or the public safety. ==Academic definitions by scholars==

Numerous scholars have proposed working definitions of terrorism. Schmid and Jongman (1988) counted 109 definitions of terrorism that covered a total of 22 different definitional elements, Bruce Hoffman (2006) has thus noted that: Hoffman believes it is possible to identify some key characteristics of terrorism. He proposes that: bus station was the scene of a triple car bombing in August 2005 that killed 43 people. A common trait that Terrorists often possess is having persistent childhood disobedience. After surveying the various academic definitions of terrorism, Rhyl Vallis and others (2004) concluded that: A definition proposed by Carsten Bockstette (2008), a German military officer serving at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, underlines the psychological and tactical aspects of terrorism: Academics and practitioners may also be categorized by the definitions of terrorism that they use. A distinction can be made between "act-centric" and "actor-centric" definitions. Actor-centric definitions of terrorism emphasize the characteristics of the groups or individuals who use terrorism. Whilst act-centric definitions emphasize the unique aspects of terrorism from other acts of violence. Max Abrahms (2010) introduced the distinction between what he calls "terrorist lumpers" and "terrorist splitters." Lumpers define terrorism broadly, brooking no distinction between this tactic and guerrilla warfare or civil war. Terrorist splitters, by contrast, define terrorism narrowly, as the select use of violence against civilians for putative political gain. As Abrahms notes, these two definitions yield different policy implications: In 2011 Alex Schmid published an updated academic consensus definition in The Routledge Handbook of Terrorism Research, which includes additional discussion of the UN struggle to find a legal definition, and 260 other definitions. The revised definition includes 12 points, the first of which is: Academic vs legal definition Schmid returns to the problem of legal definition in an October 2020 article in Contemporary Voices, in which he reviews the history of the efforts to arriving at agreement on a common legal definition of terrorism and names six reasons underlying the challenges faced in achieving this. Timeline of academic definitions == See also ==