THE UNITED STATES VS THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY: ARE THEIR TWO APPROACHES TOWARDS THE ERADICTION OF TERRORISM COMPATIBLE?

Abstract

Since September 11 much attention has been devoted to the notion of ‘terrorism’. By reading the press, watching television, one has the impression that, all of a sudden, the world has discovered terrorism and has been so shocked by its effects that the “international community” cannot tolerate acts of terrorism. In quasi-unanimity, the world leaders expressed their condolences to the American population. “The international community has not seen such a coalition since the struggle against slavery and the defeat of fascism.”1 The unanimity behind this condemnation, however, seems to corrode with time passing by. There certainly is an increasing divergence of opinions about responding to terrorism. “Is the fracture line over globalisation actually a division not between the West and the Rest but between the United States and the Rest?”2 Some argue that it is the result of the United States policy as a leader of this fight against terrorism, that the United States, by its behaviour, has created a front against the “war on terrorism”. This paper shows that it may be possible to reconcile the different approaches if the international community agrees on the definition of terrorism and on the means to suppress it and if the United States does not blatantly act against the interests and wishes of the international community. It is argued that, in the fight against international terrorism, States need to stand united if they wish their efforts to be fruitful and international terrorism to be eradicated.