On the definition of terrorism according to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon
The definition of terrorism applied by the STL. Does a customary definition of the crime of terrorism exist?
Judicial Creativity at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon: Is There a Crime of Terrorism Under International Law?
On 21 January 2011, the pre-trial judge of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (hereinafter ‘STL’) posed several questions to the Appeals Chamber (‘Chamber’) pursuant to Rule 68(G) of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence. Three of these questions dealt with the crime of terrorism. Should the Tribunal take into account international notions on terrorism even though Article 2 of the Statute only refers to the Lebanese Criminal Code (‘LCC’)? If so, is there an international definition of ‘terrorism’ and how should it be applied? If not, how is the Lebanese definition of ‘terrorism’ to be interpreted by the Chamber? Both the prosecution and defense submitted extensive briefs dealing, inter alia, with these questions. Additionally, two amicus curiae briefs were submitted. On 16 February 2011, the Chamber issued its (interlocutory) decision pursuant to Rule 176 bis (A). The Chamber argues, in a nutshell, that terrorism has become a crime under international law and that the respective international definition influences the (applicable) Lebanese law. In the first part of this paper, I will argue that the Chamber’s considerations, albeit innovative and creative, are essentially obiter, since the applicable terrorism definition can be found, without further ado, in the Lebanese law. There is no need to internationalize or reinterpret this law; it should be applied before the STL as understood in Lebanese practice. As to the Chamber’s affirmation that there is a crime of terrorism under international law, I will argue, in the second part of the paper, that the available sources indicate, at best, that terrorism is a particularly serious transnational, treaty-based crime that comes close to a ‘true’ international crime but has not yet reached this status.Notwithstanding, the general elements of this crime can be inferred from the relevant sources of international law.
The Problem of Disagreement in Legal Ethics Theory
Legal ethics theories give competing and exclusive accounts of the ethical foundations of the lawyer’s role. They disagree about the relationship between morality and law, about the content of the lawyer’s central ethical duties and about how specific ethical problems should be resolved. Each theoretical account asserts that the others are mistaken in some fundamental way. Yet all legal ethics theories are theories of action; legal ethics theorists do not seek merely to enlighten, they also seek to influence how lawyers and the legal profession respond to ethical issues. This creates a problem of disagreement: the problem created by the divergent but exclusive claims made by different ethical theories at the point when those theories are to be translated into action. This paper considers how, given the problem of disagreement, legal ethics theories can have any impact on individual ethical decision-making or public policy. Specifically, it considers how theories can have any impact given a) that they fundamentally disagree; and b) what experimental psychology tells us about how people make ethical decisions in fact, and the nature of lawyer regulation.