Terrorism violates the basic human rights of its victims

The argument

Terrorism constitutes a threat to the enjoyment of human rights, regardless of whether the victims were guilty or responsible for the oppression of the people engaging in terrorism. This very fact can be found in a United Nations resolution where terrorism is defined as “activities aimed at the destruction of human rights, fundamental freedoms, and democracy…”. As human rights thinking and jurisprudence have evolved, not only states but also non-state actors such as rebel groups or multi-national corporations can be held responsible for human rights violations. For example, al Qaeda falls into this category as an organization. Its terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, was condemned by the United Nations as a “horrific violation of human rights." The above-mentioned human rights include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, and many more. These fundamental rights are ensured through various legal documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights. Considering that terrorist acts include deliberate killings, torture, and abduction, terrorism violates all of the rights mentioned above. Some terrorist acts can even violate the right to education. For example, terrorism threatens education in Afganistan. Taliban closed or burned many schools, and many teachers died during the attacks. Overall, terrorism is never justified because it violates the human rights of its victims.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The classical interpretation of human rights argues that only states can violate human rights. Human rights treaties bind only states and not individuals, non-state actors like rebel groups or others since the signatories are only states. Many states support this view. For instance, the Argentinian Government has stated the following in one of their United Nations submissions: “The Government does not accept the argument that the acts of international terrorism constitute a human rights violation, since, by definition, only states are capable of violating human rights.” Official statements by governments are not enough to create international human rights obligations for terrorists. Additionally, human rights obligations for terrorists may allow states to use the fight against terrorism as an excuse to violate human rights themselves. While terrorist groups may engage in human trafficking and organized crime, which violate human rights to support their activities, the main aim of their existence is usually not to engage in these crimes. In cases where terrorism functions as the weapon of the weak (such as for the Kurds in Iraq), the human rights violations are justifiable. In fact, terrorism occurs mainly in states where there are gross human rights violations. If a civilian population is at risk because of brutal state behavior, terrorism can be used to ensure the human rights of the oppressed population. For example, the Constitutive Act of the African Union goes further to provide for the right of intervention (through acts of violence) in case of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The definitional move is the weak point. Citing a resolution that defines terrorism as aimed at the destruction of human rights makes the conclusion true by stipulation, since anything that turned out to be justified would simply not be counted as terrorism. There is also no agreed international legal definition of terrorism, which is why that language cannot do the work assigned to it. [Rejecting P2] Establishing that terrorism violates rights does not establish that it is never justified, because the same is true of war — and almost every tradition of thought about war accepts that such violations can in principle be weighed against ends. To reach "never", the argument needs an absolute prohibition on the intentional killing of non-combatants, which is available in the doctrine of non-combatant immunity but which it never states. Without it the comparison stays open. [Rejecting P3] The example is powerful but incidental: it adds another right to the list rather than strengthening the inference from "violates rights" to "never justified". The counter raises a separate and genuine dispute about whether non-state actors can violate human rights in the technical sense, which the argument treats as settled — though the conduct in question is in any case prohibited by international humanitarian and criminal law, which does bind individuals.