Dr Ameed Asem Khasawneh
Assistant Professor of Public International Law
College of Law, Lusail University
State of Qatar

Abstract:

The aim of this study is to consider the provisions of international law related to the concepts of “terrorism” and “legitimate resistance” and to clarify the differences between them, in an attempt to remove the confusion between them, based on the international instruments of international agreements and resolutions, and on the opinions of legal experts and specialists in this field. Although terrorism and legitimate armed resistance represent important topics in the international arena and that each has been dealt with in many international legal texts, there is still a tendency in some countries to confuse them, not because of the difficulty of distinguishing between these two concepts legally, but because of those countries’ desire to exploit the absence of a single, internationally agreed definition of terrorism in order to stigmatize legitimate acts of resistance and label them as acts of terrorism, in accordance with their own interests.
Therefore, this research deals first with the concept of terrorism as a criminal act, by addressing the relevant provisions in the various legal texts, and secondly, the concept of legitimate resistance in terms of the legal provisions on which it is based. The research concluded that these two concepts are indeed different and distinguishable, in the sense that acts of terrorism are crimes punishable by law, while national resistance is a legitimate matter for a people under foreign occupation, with the aim of attaining freedom and exercising its right to self-determination on its national soil, a right that is stipulated in international legitimacy and affirmed in many of its texts.
Keywords: terrorism, fighting terrorism, war on terrorism, legitimate resistance, international law, and international humanitarian law.

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