Terrorism in the international criminal law

TERRORISM IN THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW

T.V. Evseeva, II course, Law Department,

Vladivostok state university of economics and service

V.V. Sonin – scientific advisor, d. h. s., professor of law

“At the beginning of the 21^st century, we face a world of extraordinary challenges – and the extraordinary interconnectedness. We are all vulnerable to new security threats…Terrorism is not new. What is new is the range, scale and intensity of the threat”[1], - declared Kofi Annan, the secretary-general of the United Nations then and a recipient of the Nobel peace prize. It is a reasonable estimate of the present day because today’s challenges and security threat are unprecedented. The danger urges the states for collaboration to take measures for preventing, combating and eliminating terrorism.

In the investigation we were guided by the international legislation. The research was based on the treatises of Lyakhov E.G. and Popov A.V.[2], Getman-Pavlova I.V.[3], Ustinov V.[4], on the book of Kushner W. Harvey[5].

The first universal agreement on combating terrorism was the League of Nations Convention on Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism, 1937. Twenty-four states signed the document but only one ratified it, which is why the Convention did not come into force. The document does not have any practical value but it contains solutions of law technique questions that are taking into consideration while preparing agreements on this issue nowadays.

Nowadays combating terrorism exists in two legal fields: international and national. The body of international law settling state cooperation on combating terrorism constitutes international level.

The General Assembly Declaration on measures eliminating terrorism accepted in 1994 considers terrorism to be a phenomenon embracing its various manifestations prohibited by great amount of conventions.

There are a number of universal international conventions on the prevention and suppression of terrorism: The Convention on Offences and Certain Acts Committed on Board Aircraft, 1963; the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft, 1970; the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation, 1971, including the Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts of violence at Airports Serving International Civil Aviation, Supplementary to it, 1988; the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons, 1973; the International Convention against the Taking of Hostages, 1979; the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, 1980; the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation, 1988; the Convention the Marking of Plastic Explosives for the Purpose of Detection, 1991; the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombing, 1998; the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, 2002, and others.

National statutory acts are considered to be the national level legal base on combating terrorism. There are such documents as the Washington Convention on Prevention and Punishment of Terrorism Acts, signed on February, 2, 1971; the European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism, 1977; the 1979 Dublin Agreement on Application of the European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism, and others.

There are also bilateral treaties containing international standards on combating terrorism.

Terrorism can be defined as a crime in two meanings: a danger to life, freedom and health of the people, and a danger to international nomocracy. International documents distinguish the international terrorism’s comprehensive and vast nature. Different legally defined international crimes such as financing terrorism, taking of hostages, unlawful taking of aircraft and other criminal actions constitute international terrorism itself.