Is State Terrorism '?: Is State Terrorism A Valid Concept?

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Is “State terrorism” a valid concept?
The threat of global terrorism continues to rise with the total number of deaths reaching 32,685 in 2015, which is an 80 percent increase from 2014 (Global Index). With this said, terrorism remains a growing, and violent phenomenon that has dominated global debates. However, ‘terrorism’ remains a highly contested term; there is no global agreement on exactly what constitutes a terror act. An even more contested concept is whether to broaden the scope of terrorism to include non-state and state actors.
The concept of state terrorism is highly debated. The main opposition to state-terrorism declares that states have legitimate monopoly over violence, therefore, state-violence cannot be considered terrorism (Lacquer). Furthermore, conceptualizing particular properties of state-terrorism has furthered complicated the debate. For instance, should state-terrorism constitute external conflict or internal conflict; also is the normative strength of non-state violence as compelling as …show more content…

For instance, UN representatives from the Sixth Committee had collectively advocated for a legally binding definition of terrorism; however, the majority of countries had insinuated that terror acts are carried out by individuals or non-state groups – not the state (United Nations, General Assembly: GA/L/3276, 2005). The assembly had representatives from Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Algeria, Sri Lanka, China, United Arab Emirates, San Marino, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burkina Faso, Belarus, Bahrain, Kuwait, Turkey, Brazil, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, United Republic of Tanzania, Sierra Leone and Japan. Within the assembly only two countries, Sudan and Libya, had spoken against all actors of terrorism, including state-terrorism; both of which had recently experienced state led

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