Towards an Interpretation of the Phenomenon of Terrorism: The Influence of the Legacy of the Nuremberg Tribunal

Terrorism is most often understood as the term used to describe the method by which a political organization (organized group) seeks to achieve its definite goals, mainly by intimidating a large part of society by means of systematic extreme indiscriminate violence against civilians, or selective violence against symbolic targets, to influence the government.

All the already known and possible future concepts of terrorism, as well as the official strategies for countering it, are politically preconditioned. These concepts are the result of a combination of actions or alleged intentions of terrorists, and, subsequently, the reactions of states to these manifestations of terrorism. Accordingly, any definition of terrorism known to us is determined only by the capacity of states to counteract and to prevent threats.

As for the definition of «state terrorism», the main expected competence of a state is to ensure security and stability (predictability) not only for individuals who delegated their powers to it but for other states also. That is why in a broader sense the «sovereignty» of a state should be understood as a measure of the consent of other international actors with the content and ways that given state does implement its authority.

Crimes are always committed only by people, and although it is perfectly permissible to use a fiction about State responsibility to establish collective responsibility for crimes, it seems unacceptable to use such a formal interpretation of the law for the personal impunity of perpetrators of terrorist acts. Therefore, in the modern international discourse, the term «terrorist state» is not used. Since the Nuremberg trial, the criminal responsibility for the use of government apparatus to commit crimes was individualized. 

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