Terrorism is a highly topical issue, mobilizing not only political players, but also the various fields of social science. The historical section, whose aim was to identify the shifts and diversity of forms of political violence over time, focused on a historical typology of terrorism, based on the construction of nation-states and forms of political protest. The legal section, for its part, aimed to identify transformations, from criminal repression to the war on terrorism, in the light of the emergence of a global community of values. Current definitions of terrorism, as given by different branches of law, reveal the inadequacy of both domestic and international law in dealing with the multifaceted realities of terrorism in a globalized world. The solutions proposed have led to the formulation of an alternative: either to recognize the weaknesses of the concept of terrorism and advocate the use of other criminal qualifications such as ordinary crimes or crimes against humanity, as appropriate; or to arrive at a global definition of terrorism. Each option requires compliance with conditions of both substance (proportionality of the response to the attack, respect for fundamental values of the international community such as human dignity, etc.) and form (finding an arbitrator who can make up for the absence of a world court of human rights).
Seminar