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A Legal Approach to International Terrorism*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2016

J. J. Lador-Lederer
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      L'internationalisation du crime terroriste ne pouvait laisser indifférents les criminalistes et les internationalistes pas plus que les gouvernements, d'autant que, souvent, des crimes d'une telle gravité restent impunis, car à l'internationalisation du terrorisme ne répond encore l'internationalisation de la répression.
      Antoine Sottile, 1938

The great upbuilding of international law which set in with the end of World War II did not overlook the penal aspects affecting the social substratum and organizational assignments of international law. Matters were no longer envisaged in the rather simplistic manner of Art. 231 of the Treaty of Versailles which had, authoritatively though not arbitrarily, decreed that “Germany accepts the responsibility … for causing all the loss and damage to which Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals had been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed on them by the aggression of Germany and her allies”, and, not less authoritatively, though more arbitrarily, decided “publicly [to] arraign William II for a supreme offence against international morality and the sanctity of treaties”. More realistically, Art. 228 postulated the “right of the Allied and Associated Powers to bring before military tribunals persons accused of having committed acts in violation of the laws and customs of war”. To the great loss of mankind, these provisions were in time eroded to the point of becoming less than meaningless.

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Israel Law Review , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , April 1974 , pp. 194 - 220
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press and The Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 1974

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References

1 “Le terrorisme international” (1938) 65 Recueil des Cours 91.

2 Art. 227 (1).

3 “The official position of Defendants, whether as Heads of State or responsible officials in Government Departments, shall not be considered as freeing them from responsibility or mitigating punishment”.

4 Cf. the Hostage case: United States v. List, indicting twelve German army leaders; cf. Taylor, Telford, “Nuremberg Trials” (1949) 450 International Conciliation.Google Scholar

5 See this writer's “The Role of Treaty Law in the Protection of Human Rights” (1972) II Israel Yearbook on Human Rights.

6 The first three are: “(a) being commanded by a person responsible for his sub ordinates, (b) having a fixed distinctive sign recognisable at a distance, (c) carrying arms openly”.

7 Until a more complete code of the laws of war has been issued, the High Contracting Parties deem it expedient to declare that in cases not included in the Regulations adopted by them the inhabitants and the belligerents remain under the protection and the rule of the principles of the law of nations, as they result from the usages established among civilized peoples, from the laws of humanity, and from the dictates of the public conscience”: Preamble to the 5th Hague Convention on the Law of War on Land.

8 See Israel's Pro Memoria to the UN on Accessories to Terror—the Responsibility of Arab Governments for the Organization of Terrorist Activities (1972) A/C. 6/L.872.

9 See telegrams of May 15, 1948 from the Egyptian Government and the Arab League: SC. OR. 3rd year, No. 66 (292nd meeting, May 15, 1948, p. 3, and Suppl. for May, 1948, p. 83); similar cable from Jordan, ib., p. 90.

10 Sottile, op. cit. at p. 105; Cordell Hull (Memoirs (1948) vol. I, pp. 242–3), writing about the assassination of Dollfuss says: “The President and I telegraphed our regrets, but there was no other move to take. Here again the Nazi mentality was revealing that any means were licit, however despicable, towards achieving its aims, however illegal”.

11 Resch, R.E., “The Employment of Terror in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe” (1973) 51 Revue de droit international 81 (Geneva).Google Scholar

12 It should be understood that the present analysis relates exclusively to the activity of agents outside any regular governmental service or establishment which might be arraigned. But there is no doubt that such activity may at the same time reflect government policy (and the jurisprudence on Nazi methods is quite explicit on this point), in which case concurrent responsibility is entailed. This is of relevance to terrorism linked with group belligerency, whether the status of the insurgents as belligerents is recognized or admits of some doubt. (Note, for instance, the post-War Yugoslav jurisprudence on the criminal wartime methods of the Chetniks). Likewise, government responsibility is involved in cases where terrorist bands act across a State boundary. Nevertheless the terrorist, like the spy, stands on his own, without the modicum—and that, too, is not great—of relying on an Act of State doctrine available to government officials.

13 Ignorance brought about situations in which papers of the standing of the London Times (March 3, 1973) carried a report under the heading “Guerrillas murder three Khartum hostages, including US ambassador”. Even if one did not know that these murders were committed by Black September, the murders themselves would be sufficient to qualify the event as terrorism. Similar ignorance was displayed by the British Broadcasting Corporation. The International Committee of the Red Cross uses the term “commandos” for terrorists!

14 The revised Palestine Covenant of 1968 maintains that “Jews are not a nation” (para. 20) and that only the Palestinians have a right to self-determination (paras. 2 and 21). It rejects any solution short of “a complete liberation of the land … The only way to achieve this objective is military, not political” (paras. 9 and 21). According to the Moroccan paper Al Anba (August 19, 1969) Yasser Arafat expanded these views in an interview: “The objective of our war … is to do away with the social, economic and political fortress of Israel—in a long and protracted war which must of necessity end in success. The Tartars ruled this country for 70 years and the Crusaders for nearly 200—but in the end they were defeated and nothing was left of them”.

15 Cf. supra n. 8.

16 South Tyrol, the Middle East, and Northern Ireland are examples of terrorist activities where the bomb is termed a means of “last resort” only because the first resort—negotiations—was and is shunned. In South Tyrol at least it is clear that not terrorism but negotiations settled the problem.

17 Between 1948 and 1972, 28 successful revolts and at least 47 (recorded) unsuccessful revolts took place in Arab countries. Twenty-two political leaders were murdered in that period. With the exception of Abd al-Nasser, no revolutionary president has remained in power in any Arab country for more than six years. The shortest period—a couple of weeks—was that of Colonel Abd al-Razzaq Naef in Iraq, 1968.

18 The anarchists' formula for it was “propagation by activity”: Woodcock, G., Anarchism (1962).Google Scholar

19 Sottile, op. cit., is at pains to point out why he, like all the other jurists quoted by him, has had to tolerate the tautology of defining terrorism by reference to intimidation. It is easier to substitute “hostility by crime” for the oversimplified “terrorism”.

20 Between July 1968 and April 1973 65 Arab terrorist operations took place abroad, a series of letter bombs in various countries (September-October 1972 and February 1973, with several victims) counting as one. After infiltration into Israel became difficult, a new pattern of mass media propaganda was devised: whenever a public mishap occurred somewhere in Israel—a bus overturned, or a fire broke out as the result of a short circuit—a terrorist gang claimed the credit.

21 This is one more reason why it would stultify the Genocide Convention were one to read it as meaning that the intention must be to destroy “any en tire … group” and that the act must be such “as to affect a substantial portion of the group concerned” (“understandings” formulated in 1950 by a Sub-Committee of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee). It is well-known that the Hitler Government was about to do away with all Gypsies within the Reich—but did Hitler have in view the “entire group” and “affect a substantial portion of the group”? Or, conversely, should one absolve him from the act of genocide?

22 An Argentinian statement of 1959 reads: “Since its 1937 proposal Argentine has been advocating the exclusion of terrorists from the benefits of asylum. In Caracas we held that the terrorist is an antisocial element and political assassin, killing without hesitation or discrimination, driven by a destructive passion, having no concern or respect for human life, and displaying an absolutely merciless and unfeeling attitude. The terrorist may have a political objective, but his means are so vile that they override the altruism and desire for the common good that motivate the true political offender” (restated as a prise de position in Committee I of the Inter-American Council of Jurists, 4th meeting, Acts & Docs, May 1960, vol. I, p. 69 et seq. reproduced in OAS/Off. Rec, Series P. AG/Ooc. 16, p. 28).

23 Reuter reports from Khartum that one of the terrorists arraigned for the murder of the US ambassador and his friends, declared that the terrorists “had not been personally interested in them” and that the dead men “were symbols of an institution which conspired against us” (sc. Black September); Jerusalem Post, Nov. 20, 1973. This kind of symbolism can be evidenced by innumerable quotations.

24 After a particularly serious incident, the Jerusalem correspondent of the New York Times reported on October 15, 1938 that “extremist Arab followers of the Mufti … are rapidly achieving their aims by eliminating political opponents in Palestine who are inclined towards moderation. More than 90 percent of the total casualties in the past few days have been inflicted by Arab terrorists on Arabs”. Similarly, since the Six Day War, in the Gaza area far more Arabs have been killed by Arab terrorists than in clashes with Israel forces.

25 In Athens, in 1973, several persons were killed in the ‘wrong’, westbound, queue of TWA passengers, when the east bound queue was the terrorists' planned target. In essence, however, there is no difference: the intention was to strike at any group of TWA passengers having any connection with Israel. The same would hold good—as Irish terrorism in Great Britain abundantly shows—for any other terrorist conduct of hostilities.

26 Georges Habash explained to Life Magazine in June, 1970 that “to kill a Jew far from the battleground has more of an effect than killing one hundred of them in battle”.

27 Nasser's declaration in May, 1967 that he had mined the Straits of Tiran, had the effect of an aggression—and one generally accepted as a casus belli—because of the state of mind which it created, independently of any other test; that is, it needed no actual blowing up of a ship for it to be reckoned as a military reality.

28 Art. 4 of the Third Geneva Convention, 1949. For a well-researched refutation of the applicability of the Convention to Arab terrorists see Dr. Theodor Meron's paper “Some Legal Aspects of Arab Terrorists' Claims to Privileged Combatancy” in Of Law and Man, Festschrift in honour of Justice Haim Cohn (Tel Aviv, 1971, in Hebrew).

29 There is no obstacle to adding a provision that terrorism does not include acts “committed either by or against a member of the armed forces of a State in the course of military hostilities”—”military hostilities” meaning exclusively actions undertaken in conformity with international treaties in force and in particular with Art. 4–A(2)(d) of the Third Geneva Convention (UN TS, vol. 75) which provides that the persons concerned conduct “their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war”. It would be intolerable were a rule banning terrorism to permit groups of terrorists to engage in a type of ‘warfare’ which a codification of basic human rights has advisedly denied them.

30 Not only does terrorism not differ at all in this regard from several other international crimes which have since long been brought under normative regulation (piracy, the slave trade, drugs, the ‘white slave’ trade) but the international element of the crimes and international competence is underlined.

31 Note the extremely slow and hesitant response on part of ICAO, an Organization giving the same voting rights to initiator and victim States. Only as late as 1972 did the General Assembly of Interpol at Frankfurt, find that Arts. 2 and 3 of its Constitution (1923) enabled its services to be utilized in matters of “certain aspects of modern international criminality, such as the holding of hostages with the intention of perpetrating blackmail or other form of extortion”.

32 In the summer 1973 the Israel Defence Minister accused certain airlines of paying ransom to terrorist gangs. Some airlines denied this categorically, but not all denials were convincing.

33 E.g., the payment of $ 5 million for a Lufthansa plane in Aden, 1972.

34 (1948) 25 British Year Book of International Law 310, quoted with approval by Draper, G., “The Implementation of the Modern Law of Armed Conflicts” (1973) 8 Is.L.R. 8.Google Scholar

35 CP/Res.5(7/70) (OAS/Off. Rec. Ser. P. AG. doc. 16, p. 18).

36 This is, indeed, what happened at Zerqa when several European Governments freed a number of convicted terrorists. After Munich, 1972, the German Government, and after Marchegg, 1973, the Austrian Government, made deals with the terrorist gangs concerned, and although the deals never acquired the force of valid agreements (see Arts. 52 and 53 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969) they were adhered to. The only exception appears to have been the decision of Spain to thwart a hijacking by Croat terrorists against the Swedish authorities who held several Croat terrorists for murder of the Yugoslav Ambassador Rolović.

37 This has been the crux of Israel's indictment of Lebanon in abetting terrorist activities from its territory, a point which has come up in all definitions of aggression since 1933.

38 In addition, the method itself of collecting such funds not infrequently consists of criminal acts, such as extortion, sale of drugs and the like. Even the contributions made by the “reactionary” Arab oil Sheikhdoms to the “Palestinian cause” may be a form of ransom for refraining from fostering local rebellions.

39 G.A. Res. 2625 (XXV) and Annex, the “Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in Accordance with the Charter of the U.N.”. In elaborating the principle “that States shall refrain … from the threat or use of force”, the following is said: “Every State has the duty to refrain from organizing or encouraging the organization of irregular forces or armed bands, including mercenaries, for incursion into the territory of another State. Every State has the duty to refrain from organizing, instigating, assisting or participating in acts of civil strife or terrorist acts in another State or acquiescing in organized activities within its territory directed towards the commission of such acts, when the acts referred to in the present paragraph involve a threat or use of force” (Emphasis added).

40 A group of five Arab terrorists was arrested in 1973 in Rome while in possession of two Soviet-made portable land-to-air rockets of the “Strela” type as supplied to the Egyptian, Syrian and Iraqi armies. The three Governments in question gave no explanation how this highly sensitive war implement could have passed from their arsenals to private custody in Rome. They contented themselves with the bland refutation “that no evidence whatsoever is adduced for these [Israeli] alle gations” A/9173–S/11003, p. 4.

41 The work of a Committee of Experts set up under a League of Nations Council Resolution of December 10, 1934 (L.O.N., Off. Journal, 1934, pp. 1759–60, 1939) after the assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia and French Foreign Minister Barthou. The Convention was signed by 13 States, 12 of them members of the UN today; India subsequently signed and ratified. See Hudson, , ed., International Legislation, vol. 7, p. 862et seq.Google Scholar

42 See para. 18 of the Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on International Terrorism, 1973: Gen. Ass. Off. Records, 28th Session, Suppl. No. 28; A/9028.

43 Harkabi, Y., The Problems of the Palestinians (Jerusalem, 1972) 6–7.Google Scholar

44 In 1968, the Syrian Minister of Education, Suleyman al-Khash, put it as follows, in a letter to Director-General of UNESCO: “The hatred which we indoctrinate into the minds of our children from their birth, is sacred”. The letter was published in A-Thaura, the Ba'ath party organ, Damascus, May 3, 1968.

45 According to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary the very word ‘assassin’ means “a hashish-eater … Certain Moslem fanatics in the time of the Crusades, who were sent forth by their Sheikh … to murder the Christian leaders … The assassins … before they attacked an enemy, would intoxicate themselves with … hashish”.

46 Smith, H.A., Great Britain and the Law of Nations (1932) vol. 1, p. 35 ff.Google Scholar

47 See Lador-Lederer, , “An International Human Rights Committee for Slavery?” (1968) 3 Is.L.R. 245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar There are deep sociological grounds for these features and having once been projected into a more ordered world, International Law cannot continue showing an aloofness which, in truth, is nothing but escapism. The relevance of group hatred and terrorism as a central problem of human rights is reflected in the request, by the Director of the UN Secretariat's Division of Human Rights (2049th meeting of the 3rd Committee of the General Assembly's XXVIIIth Session) to discuss an agenda item entitled “Measures to be taken against ideologies and practices based on terror or on incitement to racial discrimination or any other form of group hatred”. Consideration of the item had been twice postponed by the Commission of Human Rights (A/9077) but the 3rd Committee was not luckier; A/9397. Similarly the 6th Committee recommended that the question of terrorism be deferred until the XIXth Session (A/9410), a move sharply criticized by Israel.

48 Woodcock, op. cit at pp. 278–80.

49 But it has a lot to do with Sorel's, GeorgesRéflexions sur la violence (1910)Google Scholar and accords a kind of paternity even to contemporary dinamiteros who are hardly presentable as leftist revolutionaries.

50 Baxter, R.R., “So called ‘Unprivileged Belligerency’: Spies, Guerrilleros, and Saboteurs” (1951) 28 British Yearbook of International Law.Google Scholar Two judicial pronouncements seem to be relevant in the present connection—Ex parte Quirin, 63 US Supreme Court Reporter 1, (1943) 37 A.J.I.L. 152; 10 I.L.R. 564, the case of German soldiers who landed secretly in the US and changed into civilian clothes in order to carry out sabotage (no terrorist activity is on record) and were denied POW status and treated as spies (six were executed, one sentenced to life, one to 30 years imprisonment); and Muhamed Ali v. Public Prosecutor [1968] 3 All E.R. 489, 42 I.L.R. 458, the case of two Indonesian terrorists who having perpetrated a terrorist act in a non-military building in Singapore, causing three civilian deaths were caught in civilian clothes; they were denied POW status and were sentenced to death.

51 Wortley, B.A.: “Political Crime in English Law and in International Law” (1971) 45 British Yearbook of International Law 219.Google Scholar

52 Which is not the case of the revolutionary, or some other type of political offender, who generally acts out of political conviction or even under a kind of Natural Law.

53 One such coordinate might be the law of resistance. But, la 7èrne Conférence Internationale de la Résistance et de la Déportation a déjà pris position à l'égard des commandos arabes qui prétendent qu'ils agissent comme le fit la Résistance dans les territoires occupés par les armées nazies au cours de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale. Or, la Résistance n'a jamais attenté à la vie de femmes, d'hommes et d'enfants innocents”.

54 The spy is in a similar position. “An alien enemy engaging in espionage, although divesting himself of the protection he might otherwise enjoy as a prisoner of war, is in turn protected by the safeguards of domestic law, which, by way of securing the liberties of loyal citizens, make even active enemies benefit from the law's protection”. Baxter, op. cit., at p. 332. See also para. 28 of the Pro Memoria on Terrorism, presented by the Government of Israel to the UN: A/AC. 160/1/add.1.

55 Art. II defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethical, racial or religious group as such: (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily harm to members of the group”. (78 UN TS).

56 The Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe declared in May, 1973, that it was “condemning international terrorist acts which, regardless of their cause, should be punished as serious criminal offences” (emphasis added), 25th Ord. Sess., Recommendation 703/1973; for preparatory material, see Report of the Political Affairs Committee, doc. 3285.

57 Pro Memoria … see supra, n. 54, para. 27. Condemnation of aggression by means of terrorist violations of State territory figures in every definition of aggression since the two USSR-initiated Conventions of 1933. Acts of indirect aggression have been condemned by the UN General Assembly since 1947.

58 Uncontroversial as to principle, the point appears difficult in fact. Because terrorism directs itself to the mind of the victims, there is no equivalence either in self-defence against the physical act or in any reprisal against single acts. There is only active preventive intervention in the planning stage—forceful interference with a policy rather than with single acts.

59 Thus, any group of terrorists has it in its power to generate a threat to global peace. Indeed, George Habash in Life magazine, replying to the question whether prospects of triggering a Third World War did not bother him said, “To be frank, it does not” (June, 1970).

60 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft, 1970; entered into force on Oct. 14, 1971.

61 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation, 1971.

62 Hague Convention: Arts. 2, 7, 8, 9; Montreal Convention: Arts. 3, 7, 8, 9. A number of States have passed the required legislation, e.g., Israel (Air Navigation (Offences and Jurisdiction) Act, 1971) and German Federal Republic (11th Amendment to the Penal Code: sec. 316c for the crime, and sec. 4(3) for jurisdiction). Municipal penal provisions have developed into a specific branch of ancillary international activity, comparable to that dealing with drug traffic, by itself conclusive evidence of the internationality of terrorism as crime. Its isolation, however, as a crime against air communications is a negation of the essential point, the penal relevance of the offence as part of the continuous, un-discriminating, cooperative, plurivalent propagandistic crime of terrorism, with an accentuated genocidal ingredient. The fact that hostages have been taken should be considered not so much as an aggravation but as a qualification of the crime.

63 Whilst penalization of terrorist attacks on other means of transportation will probably have to rest on different foundations, it will still not be possible to argue that they became punishable only after a sanction for terrorism was imposed. In Calder v. Bull (1798) 3 Dall. 386, 390: the US Supreme Court explained that ex post facto law is only such law which made criminal something “which was innocent when done”. The same principle appears in Art. 11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, and was adopted in 1950 by the Council of Europe in the European Human Rights Convention: prosecution is lawful “for any act or omission which, at the time when it was committed, was criminal according to the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations” (Art. 7 (2)).

64 The ICAO Air Law Conference at Rome in August, 1973 which was intended to complete the pattern of protection, was frustrated by politization of the subject.

65 For full documentation, see (1970) 54 Bulletin des Presses—und Informationamtes der Bundesregierung 501 et seq.

66 These developments occasioned the adoption in Washington by the OAS of a Convention to Prevent and Punish Acts of Terrorism in 1971 (OAS Doc. AG-doc. 88, rev. 1, corr. 1; text in X, ILM, pp. 225), relating to persons to whom special protection is due. While providing for extradition, the position is reserved for States parties to treaties on asylum (in fact, on diplomatic asylum, as practised between Latin American States). An analogous provision is found in Art. 12 of the 1973 Convention infra n. 68.

67 Whilst the 1961 Convention provides sanctions against coercion for the purpose of obtaining consent to a treaty, Art. 2 of the 1973 Convention limits itself to penalizing “a threat to commit any such attack … upon the person or liberty … [or] the official premises”, etc.—as if intimidation, coercion, harassment (either of the internationally protected person himself or of a member of his nearest family) for whatever terrorist purpose were irrelevant.

68 Text in A/9407.

69 See the drastically limited catalogue of offences in Art. 2—murder, kidnapping, or other attack, violent attacks on premises, as well as threats, attempts and participation as an accomplice.

70 “The State Party in whose territory the alleged offender is present shall, if it does not extradite him, submit, without exception whatsoever and without undue delay, the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution, through proceedings in accordance with the law of that State”. Nevertheless, and most unusually—and with a very doubtful validity—a reservation was introduced into the covering UN Resolution to the effect that “the provisions of the annexed Convention could not in any way prejudice the exercise of the legitimate right to self-determination and independence … by peoples struggling against colonialism, alien domination, foreign occupation, racial discrimination and apartheid”.

71 See the ILC Report on its 2nd Session, in (1950) II I.L.C. Yearbook.

72 (1950) Res. 488 (V).

73 The Soviet Union tried, unsuccessfully, to move the Rome International Conference on Air Law, 1973, to adopt a simplified rule according to which “Each Contracting State undertakes to return offenders to the State of registration of the aircraft when so requested by it, except where the persons concerned are nationals of the State in the territory of which the offender is present”; cf. ICAO docs. CAS, doc. No. 5.

74 Art. 3 of the Argentinian Project of 1937. The Argentino-Peruvian “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Terrorism” of 1933 follows the same line but with a rather evasive definition in Art. 1: “Any individual of foreign nationality whose continued presence would endanger the social order”.

75 The Inter-American Council of Jurists adopted in 1959 a Draft Convention on Diplomatic Asylum, Art. 1 of which (following a Cuban proposal) reads: “It shall not be lawful to grant asylum to persons responsible for genocide and in general for offences against humanity, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war” (OAS/Off. Rec. Ser. P. AG. doc. 16, 1970, p. 47).

76 Arts. 3 and 5.

77 According to the Inter-American Juridical Committee, 1960 in dealing with asylum: “It is evident that the benefits of an institution created to safeguard man in difficult times, cannot be awarded with impunity to those who, without pity, disdain human dignity” (CIJ. 54J. OAS/Off. Rec. Ser. P. AG. doc. 16, p. 82).

78 ICAO doc. A 20-WP/7; July 7, 1973.

79 The most vocal in claiming international protection was the personnel engaged in such services, particularly air pilots, and certain other groups of transportation workers. Cf. Shepard, I.M.: “Air Piracy; the Role of the International Federation of Air Pilots Associations” (1969) 3 Cornell Int'l. L.J. 79.Google Scholar

80 “[T]he soundness of the League approach … was thorough and coherent”: Grossin, Leo, (1973) 67 A.J.I.L. 508.Google Scholar

81 Text in UN doc. A/C.6/L.850. This casuistic approach contents itself with the presence of internationality, such as “foreign” territory in the double sense that the act “is committed or takes effect outside the territory of the State of which the alleged offender is a national” and that “the act must be committed or takes effect outside the territory of the State against which the act is directed” or “foreign” personnel, such as the kidnapping of foreign diplomats as a means of pressure on the local Government.

82 This multiplicity (and at times, plurivalence) of forms of hostility is the political way of adaptation to the restrictive provisions of the Charter on aggression. Both the efforts to define aggression and the elaboration of the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States were of a decisive influence here.

83 In this context nation embraces the State, its organs, its nationals, its interests or property, including means of transport. Its strict limitation to State interests, as in the 1937 Convention, gives rise to divergent views. It may also stand for national group in the sense in which the term group is understood in the Genocide Convention. Hence our doubts as to the way in which Sottile, explaining the 1937 Convention, wrote that “une bombe lancée contre un autobus n'est pas un acte terroriste s'il ne s'agit pas d'un service public exploité par l'Etat”. This view can hardly be accepted, since governmental services also are concerned when they fail to give protection to private services. If in Cyprus a bomb is thrown into a private bus transporting Greek passengers through a Turkish area, or vice versa, the act is definitely relevant as an act of terrorism, in the sense of the present paper.

84 Up to this point the definition would reflect what Quintiliano Saldaña defined as the “subjective element” of the definition of terrorism; cf. Sottile's reference to this definition, unfortunately without bibliographical reference.

85 Brehm, B., Der Weg zum Roten (October, 1967) 161Google Scholar, recalls the case of the Chodinskoye Field, where a popular feast was held on the occasion of Tsar Nicholas II's marriage. Farmers were given as a souvenir a teacup with the picture of the young couple, but rumours spread that each would also get a cow. Bedlam ensued and near to two thousand people were trampled to death.

86 This would reflect Saldaña's “objective element” of the definition, formulated as “Par l'emploi de moyens capables de créer un état de danger commun”. Vespasian Pella goes so far as to dissect the definition in two parts: intimidation as a purpose is part of the ‘subjective’, while the ‘Objective’ is the element of public danger. Thus, counterfeiting of currency constitutes a “forme nouvelle de manifestation du terrorisme”: Pella, , “La répression des crimes contre la personnalité de l'Etat” 33 (1930) Recueil des Cours, 702–3, 791.Google Scholar