Individual Criminal Responsibility for Terrorism as a Crime against Humanity: An Appropriate Expansive Adaptation of the Subject Matter of Core International Crimes?

Acts of terrorism — for example, the terrorist attacks of September 11^th, 2001 in the USA, the October 12^th, 2002 Bali attacks, the March 11^th, 2004 Madrid train bombings and the July 7^th, 2005 bombings in London — increasingly afflict our world, and generate much legal debate, including a consideration of the legal remedies which can be found in international criminal law to impose individual criminal responsibility for such acts.

The principal aim of this chapter is to consider the concept of the imposition of individual criminal responsibility for terrorism as a crime against humanity, a core international crime, which novel assertion, came to prominence in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks.1 Such assertion, if accurate, would, arguably, amount to an expansive adaptation of the subject matter of core international crimes, which warrants serious consideration. This chapter also briefly considers the imposition of individual criminal responsibility for terrorism inter alia as a war crime and as an act of genocide, both of which are also core international crimes.