A preliminary definition of international terrorism was agreed by the world community in 1937. Since then, a World War and the Cold War have made any such modern consensus impossible. In particular, the UN principles of equal rights and self-determination of Peoples' have caused political and juridical confusion, in that liberation fighters who utilize terror methods as one tactic in an overall political strategy to achieve self-determination are frequently termed terrorists', and are prosecuted as such.
In order to regulate wars of self-determination under international law, and to...