ABSTRACT
This chapter delineates the 21st Century understanding of the concept of terrorism, sketching out the need for specialist permanent counterterrorism legislation. By considering certain prominent cases, it reveals that the UK's legal definition of terrorism presents numerous shortcomings, such as the relative lack of resolute definitions for certain phrases used, which has led to malleable judicial application. The chapter focuses on the legal definition of terrorism and presents a commentary on the phrases used within the legislation. It advocates for a permanent definition of terrorism that is as shorn as practically possible from ambiguous phrasing, focusing on the wrongful nature in line with international law. The Terrorism Act 2000 was enacted specifically to provide some permanence to the counterterrorism structure and in order to combat the emerging international Islamist terror threat.
