Abductions of Terrorists in International Airspace and on the High Seas

The solutions for successfully defining, preventing, and punishing terrorist acts remain elusive. After decades of international, regional, and domestic conventions and drafts, resolutions, and statutes, the world community has yet to accept any single definition as universally sound. This article will describe some of these conventions which, due to the perceived and real ineffectiveness of earlier legislation, have been modified by later conventions. This article also will describe and justify incidents in which countries have had little choice but to resort to self-help measures and apprehend terrorists from the international airspace and on the high seas.

Events such as the Pan Am 103 Lockerbie bombing and the murder of CIA employees outside if the entrance of CIA Headquarters provide explicit examples of how a terrorist can literally and figuratively “get away” with murder. A nation must not only have the operational ability but also the legal authority to apprehend suspects as they make their escapes. Finally, a recommendation will be proposed for a definition of terrorism that all sovereign nations should find acceptable. The world community finds itself in a dilemma at the present time; the crux of the dilemma is finding a definition on which all nations can agree and can utilize to address incidents of terrorism as a cohesive, multilateral unit.