Holding states responsible for terrorism before the International Court of Justice

Abstract

State sponsored or supported terrorism has long been a feature of modern international relations, but responsibility for such activities is rarely invoked or established successfully. One reason for this is the international community's heavy reliance on a security paradigm in response to state involvement in terrorism over recent decades. The aim of this article is to examine an alternative response to State terrorism based on judicially determined legal responsibility rather than (to date unsuccessful) reliance on Article 51 of the UN Charter. This article will examine the possible bases of the ICJ's jurisdiction in cases of state terrorism and argue that the series of terrorism suppression conventions-adopted by the international community with a view to ensuring the criminal responsibility of individual terrorist actors-could also be the vehicle for securing determinations of state responsibility for terrorism before the International Court of Justice.