Legal Affairs magazine has an interesting article by Douglas R. Burgess Jr. called The Dread Pirate Bin Laden. It's a good read about how defining terrorism using the established laws of piracy might help in the War on Terror.
There are some interesting similarities. Piracy started as a state sponsored (via formal Letters of Marque and Reprisal) form to attack other states. Same with state sponsored terrorism. International law defines piracy and encourages all states to combat it (and it was largely succesful). Doing the same for terrorism would seems to be wise. Pirates were individuals that basically declared war against other states and their citizens, that seems to apply to terrorists as well.
I'm not completely sure but I think he proposes defining terrorism in part, as citizens from one state attacking citizens from another. I'm not sure if it's good that terrorist acts within a nation would be defined as a different (domestic) crime, but it would provide a distinction between terrorists and freedom fighters. One advantage is that states couldn't crack down on freedom fighters by treating them as terorists. Terrorists would be properly defined as enemies of all nations and universal jurisdiction would apply. That means they could be captured anywhere by anyone that found them. Also states wouldn't harbor terrorists. Finally, terrorism would be defined as an international crime that could be prosecuted before the International Criminal Court, and therefore other nations might assist us more.
Mr. Burgess doesn't claim to have all the answers, nor does he think this would be a complete solution, but it does seem to be an interesting avenue to explore.
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