International terrorism.

On 11 September 2001 (9/11), global terrorism struck at the symbolic headquarters of global power and globalisation. This was followed over the next three years by equally horrific terrorist outrages in Bali, Madrid and Beslan. Iraq saw more terrorist attacks than anywhere else in 2004–5, with large-scale car bombings the preferred modus operandi but also the kidnapping and beheading of foreigners. All these examples confirm that terrorism is indeed ‘an assault on the principles of law, order, human rights and peaceful settlement of disputes on which the … [UN] was founded’. The problem pre-dates the UN. The League of Nations drafted a Convention for Prevention and Punishment of Terrorism. The twenty-first century was foreshadowed also in efforts by the Czech government to bring national laws into unison in order to cope with ‘the use of criminal violence for political ends’. UN interest in terrorism increased in the 1990s with proportionately more attacks being directed at US targets, the rise in the casualty rate per incident, the globalisation of the terrorist networks, the fear of terrorists acquiring and using weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and the role of states as sponsors and supporters of international terrorism. Sanctions regimes established in response to the rising concern with terrorism were important in stigmatising terrorism as an illegal and criminal activity, highlighting the role of international cooperation in combating the threat and raising the costs to states of supporting terrorism. But they failed to have comparable effects on non-state terrorist actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]