ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the dilemmas facing the state centric international system, organised around principles of hierarchy and territoriality, in confronting international terrorism, a non-hierarchical and largely deterritorialised phenomena. Traditional principles of sovereignty are contested as states dispute over their rights and responsibilities. The right of self-defence becomes complicated when confronting non-state, transnationally active opponents. Retaliatory actions become problematic, even more so claims of the right to pre-emptive action. In terms of responsibilities, states responsibility for actions originating from their territories becomes problematic when dealing with failed or failing states. As a result, a war on terrorism is not centred on territorial conquest and does not involve an easily locatable or identifiable enemy with realisable goals. International terrorists, by and large, are not fighting to achieve sovereignty in a traditional sense, re territory or even governance, but rather destruction of sovereignty. Their battles are temporally open-ended and often over non-negotiable, ideological demands.
