Document Type : Article
Authors
1 Professor, Department of Public law, Faculty of Law and Political Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
2 Ph.D. Student, Public International Law, Faculty of Law and Political Sciences, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Today, there is no uniform obligation against terrorism, but the anti-terrorism laws at the domestic, regional, and international levels, on the one hand, and the Security Council anti-terrorism resolutions under Chapter VII, on the other, show a great reflection of the international community's public will to prohibit terrorism. This article uses descriptive-analytical methods to study the efforts to explain and prohibit terrorism in the international legal system. The findings of this study show that a number of courts, namely the Special Court for Lebanon, England Court of Appeal, and the Court of Cassation of France put forward controversial arguments to recognize the crime of international terrorism in peacetime as a customary law crime. They have even tried to link it to the basics of jus cogens. It should, however, be noted that the reasoning that erga omnes obligations of states to prohibit terrorism concerning certain terrorist acts - the actions of Daesh - cannot be baseless; because these terrorist attacks are an unprecedented threat to international peace and security, and they are indeed a threat to the values respected by the international community. However, the study of a set of counter-terrorism legal measures at the national, regional, and international levels does not reflect the legal consensus of states -the international community as a whole- on the definition of terrorism and its examples.
Keywords
- Terrorism
- the obligation of States
- erga omnes obligations
- judicial decisions
- International Law.
Main Subjects
English
- A) Books
- Andrea Bianchi & Yasmin Naqvi, (2004). Enforcing International Law Norms against Terrorism. published in North America (US and Canada) by Hart Publishing.
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- C) Thesis
- Clere, A. (2012). An Examination of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s Explosive Declaration of ‘Terrorism’ at Customary International Law. A dissertation completed in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Bachelor of Laws (Honours), University of Otago.
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