ABSTRACT
The term ‘terrorism’ is commonly and widely used in everyday parlance with varying political and criminal connotations,1 but at the same time it remains a designation which is elusive and one that has never been singly defined under international law,2 at least at the global level. The first ever international attempt at codification was made in 1937 through the League of Nations by the adoption of a Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Terrorism.3 Article 1(2) of that Convention, which required merely three ratifications to come into force, but received only one and was subsequently abandoned, defined:
. . . acts of terrorism [as] criminal acts directed against a State and intended or calculated to create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons, or groups of persons or the general public.4
