INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM

What is terrorism?

The central feature of terrorism is that it is a form of political violence that aims to achieve its objectives through creating a climate of fear and apprehension.  As such, it uses violence in a very particular way: not primarily to bring about death and destruction, but to create unease and anxiety about possible future acts of death and destruction. Terrorist violence is therefore clandestine and involves an element of surprise, if not arbitrariness, designed to create uncertainty and widening apprehension. Terrorism, therefore, often takes the form of seemingly indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets, although attacks on symbols of power and prestige and the kidnapping or murder of prominent businessmen, senior government officials and political leaders are usually also viewed as acts of terrorism. Nevertheless, the concept of terrorism remains deeply problematical. This applies, in part, because of confusion about the basis on which terrorism should be defined.

DEFINING TERRORISM:

 It can be defined by the nature of:

1. The act itself: clandestine violence that has a seemingly indiscriminate character. However, the nature of terrorism is not inherent in the violent act itself, because it rests, crucially, on intentions, specifically the desire to intimidate or terrify. Not only does this mean that terrorism is always a social fact rather than a brutal fact, but the intentions behind acts of terrorism may be complex or uncertain.
2. Its victims: innocent civilians. However, does this mean that attacks on military targets and personnel or the assassination of political leaders cannot be described as terrorism? Some terrorists, moreover, have viewed civilians as ‘guilty’, on the grounds that they are implicated in, and benefit from, structural oppression that takes place on a national or even global level.
3. Its perpetrators: non-state bodies/ACTORS that are intent on influencing the actions of governments or international organizations. However, such a focus on what Laqueur (1977) called ‘terrorism from below’ risks ignoring the much more extensive killing of unarmed civilians through ‘terrorism from above’, sometimes classified as state terrorism or ‘state-sponsored’ terrorism.

DISTINCTION WITH OTHER FORMS OF VIOLENCE:

Terrorism, however, is only a meaningful term if it can reliably be distinguished from other forms of political violence. Terrorism differs from conventional warfare in that, as a ‘weapon of the weak’, it is most often embraced by those who have no realistic possibility of prevailing against their opponents in a conventional armed contest.

Lacking the organizational strength or destructive capacity to engage in open conflict, terrorists rely on strategies of provocation and polarization. Indeed, terrorism can even be thought of as the negation of combat, as its targets are attacked in such a way as to make self-defence difficult or perhaps impossible.

Terrorism and guerrilla warfare:  SIMILARITIES

 Terrorism, nevertheless, shares more in common with guerrilla warfare. Both are examples of asymmetrical warfare, in which tactics and strategies are adopted specifically to compensate for an enemy’s greater technological, economic and (conventional) military strength. In addition, both terrorism and guerrilla warfare place an emphasis on corroding an enemy’s will to resist by drawing it into a protracted armed struggle. The similarities, indeed, may go further, in that terrorism is often used as part of a guerrilla or insurrectionary war, as demonstrated, for instance, by the Taliban in Afghanistan. In this light, terrorism can perhaps be thought of as either a special kind of ‘new’ war or a strategy characteristically employed in ‘new’ wars.

DISTINCTION: Nevertheless, terrorism can also be distinguished from guerrilla warfare. In the first place, terrorism is characterized by the disproportionate weight it places on highly publicized atrocities as a mechanism for shaping the consciousness and behaviour of target audiences. This reflects the extent to which terrorists rely on ‘propaganda by the deed’, high visibility and conscience- shocking acts of violence that are designed to dramatize the impotence of government, to intimidate rival ethnic or religious communities or the public in general, or, in its classic form, to mobilize popular support and stimulate political activism.

 Second, the essentially covert nature of terrorist activity usually restricts the extent to which terrorists are able to engage in popular activism, by contrast with guerrilla armies which typically rely heavily on a mass base of popular support.

TERRORISM- A CONTESTED CONCEPT:

There is no doubt in the fact that terrorism has been such a contested concept that a lot of controversies have emerged over the concept of terrorism. The term terrorism is ideologically contested and emotionally charged; some even refuse to use it on the grounds that it is either hopelessly vague or carries unhelpful pejorative implications. Its negative associations mean that the word is almost always applied to the acts of one’s opponents, and almost never to similar acts carried out by one’s own group or a group one supports. Terrorism thus tends to be used as a political tool, a means of determining the legitimacy, or illegitimacy, of a group or political movement under consideration. This also raises questions about whether terrorism is evil in itself and beyond moral justification.

Whereas mainstream approaches to terrorism usually view it as an attack on civilized or humanitarian values, even as an example of nihilism, radical scholars sometimes argue that terrorism and other forms of political violence may advance the cause of political justice and counter other, more widespread forms of violence or abuse, suggesting that they are justifiable.

Terrorism goes global?

There is nothing new about the idea that terrorism has an international, transnational or even global dimension. Late nineteenth-century anarchists, for example, saw themselves as part of an international movement and operated, in Western Europe at least, across national borders. The extreme Leftist groups of the 1960s and 1970s, such as the Baader-Meinhof Group, The Japanese Red Army and the Italian Red Brigades, believed that they were engaged in a global struggle, both to overthrow the capitalist system and to expel the US military presence from Western Europe and elsewhere. The birth of what is sometimes classified as ‘international’ terrorism is often traced back to the advent of aero- plane hijackings in the late 1960s, carried out by groups such as the PLO.

 However, the development of terrorism into a genuinely transnational, if not global, phenomenon is generally associated with the advance of globalization.

 Modern terrorism is sometimes, therefore, portrayed as a child of globalization. This has happened for a number of reasons.

 First, increased cross- border flows of people, goods, money, technology and ideas have generally benefited non-state actors at the expense of states, and terrorist groups have proved to be particularly adept at exploiting this hyper-mobility.

Second, increased international migration flows have often helped to sustain terrorist campaigns, as diaspora communities can become an important source of funding, as occurred, for instance, with the Tamil Tigers.

 Third, globalization has generated pressures that have contributed to a growth in political militancy generally. This has either occurred as a backlash against cultural globalization  and the spread of western goods, ideas and values, or it has been a consequence of imbalances within the global capitalist system that have impoverished and destabilized parts of the global South.

Globalization may have provided a backdrop against which terrorism acquired an increasingly transnational character, but it does not in itself explain the emergence of transnational or global terrorism. This is evident in the case of the form of terrorism that appears to be most clearly transnational: Islamist, or jihadist, terrorism. Although Islamist terrorism has been portrayed as a nihilistic movement or as a manifestation of religious revivalism, it is better understood as a violent response to political conditions and crises that have found expression in a politico-religious ideology.

Rise of ISLAMIC TERRORISM:  It emerged from the late 1970s onwards, and was shaped by three major developments.

 In the first place, a growing number of Muslim states experienced crises of governmental legitimacy, as popular frustrations mounted against corrupt and autocratic regimes that were thought to have failed to meet their citizens’ economic and political aspirations. In the light of the defeat of Arab nationalism, this led to a growing religiously based movement to overthrow what were dubbed ‘apostate’ (a person who forsakes his or her religion) Muslim leaders in countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Pakistan. These leaders and their regimes came to be seen as Islamism’s ‘near enemy’.

 Second, coinciding with this, US influence in the Middle East expanded, filling the power vacuum that had been created by the UK’s post-1968 withdrawal from military bases to the east of the Suez Canal. The USA thus came to be seen as the ‘far enemy’, as policies such as implacable support for Israel, the siting of US troops in the Muslim ‘holy ground’ of Saudi Arabia, and support for ‘apostate’ Muslim leaders across the region made the USA appear to be a threat to Islam.

Third, there was a growth in politically engaged forms of religious fundamentalism in many parts of the Islamic world, a trend that was radically accelerated by the 1979 Iranian ‘Islamic Revolution’.

As far as Islamist terrorism is concerned, however, domestic jihad predominated over global jihad during the 1970s and 1980s, as hostility to the USA and the idea of a larger struggle against the West provided merely a backdrop for attempts to achieve power on a national level. This only changed from the mid- 1990s onwards, and it did so largely through the failure of political Islam to achieve its domestic goals. ‘Apostate’ regimes often proved to be more stable and enduring that had been anticipated, and, in cases such as Egypt and Algeria, military repression was used successfully to quell Islamist insurgents. In this context, jihad went global, as growing elements within the Islamist movement realigned their strategies around the ‘far enemy’: western, and particularly US, policy in the Middle East and across the Islamic world. In that sense, the rise of global jihad was a mark of Islamism’s decline, not of its resurgence. The war in Afghanistan to expel Soviet troops, 1979–89, nevertheless played an important role in facilitating the shift to globalism. The emergence of a transnational Mujahedeen resistance against the Russians helped to forge a ‘corporate’ sense of belonging among Islamist groups that often had different backgrounds and sometimes different doctrinal beliefs, strengthening also the belief that domestic struggles are part of a wider global struggle.

These were the circumstances in which al-Qaeda emerged, usually viewed as the clearest example of global terrorism. In what sense does al-Qaeda represent the global face of Islamist terrorism?

 Al-Qaeda’s goals are transnational, if not civilizational: it seeks to purify and regenerate Muslim society at large, both by overthrowing ‘apostate’ Muslim leaders and by expelling western, and particularly US, influence, and in engaging in a larger struggle against the moral corruption of what it sees as western ‘crusaders’. Moreover, it has been associated with terrorist attacks in states as disparate as Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, the USA, Spain and the UK, and has cells or affiliate organizations across the world. The emergence of transnational or global terrorism therefore appears to be a particularly alarming development. Not only does it seem to be a form of terrorism that may strike anywhere, any time, but, by defining its goals in civilizational terms (the overthrow of secular, liberal society), it appears massively to increase its potential targets.

However, the global character of modern terrorism may be over-stated in at least three respects. First, the Islamist or jihadist movement is by no means a single, cohesive entity but encompasses groups with often very different beliefs and goals. Many of them, indeed, are better thought of as religious nationalists, or perhaps panIslamic nationalists, rather than as global revolutionaries. To treat attacks such as September 11, the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings, the 2004 Madrid bombing and the 2008 Mumbai bombings as linked events, especially as events with a common inspiration and unified purpose, may therefore be seriously to misunderstand them.

Second, although terrorism has affected a broad range of countries, the vast majority of terrorist attacks take place in a relatively small number of the countries that are beset by intense political conflict – such as Israel and the occupied territories, Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia and particularly Chechnya, Pakistan, Kashmir, Algeria and Colombia – leaving much of the world relatively unaffected by terrorism. Third, the image of Islamist terrorism as global terrorism may stem less from its own intrinsic character and more from how others have responded to it. In this view, the establishment of a global ‘war on terror’ may have done much to create and sustain the idea that there is such a thing as global terrorism.

STATE SPONSORED TERRORISM:

What it is? State-sponsored terrorism is terrorist violence carried out with the active support of national governments provided to violent non-state actors. States can sponsor terrorist groups in several ways, including but not limited to funding terrorist organizations, providing training, supplying weapons, providing other logistical and intelligence assistance, and hosting groups within their borders. Because of the pejorative nature of the word, the identification of particular examples are often subject to political dispute and different definitions of terrorism.

A wide variety of states in both developed and developing areas of the world have engaged in sponsoring terrorism. During the 1970s and 1980s, state sponsorship of terrorism was a frequent feature of international conflict. From that time to the 2010s there was a steady pattern of decline in the prevalence and magnitude of state support. Nevertheless, because of the increasing consequent level of violence that it could potentially facilitate, it remains an issue of highly salient international concern.

Definition of state sponsored TERRORISM:

There are at least 250 definitions of "terrorism" available in academic literature and government and intergovernmental sources, several of which include mention of state sponsorship. In a review of primary documents on international law governing armed conflict, Reisman and Antoniou identify that:

“Terrorism has come to mean the intentional use of violence against civilian and military targets generally outside of an acknowledged war zone by private groups or groups that appear to be private but have some measure of covert state sponsorship.”

The Gilmore Commission of the U.S. Congress gave the following definition of state-sponsored terrorism:

“the active involvement of a foreign government in training, arming, and providing other logistical and intelligence assistance as well as sanctuary to an otherwise autonomous terrorist group for the purpose of carrying out violent acts on behalf of that government against its enemies.”.

Background of state sponsored terrorism:

The use of terrorist organizations as proxies in armed conflicts between state actors became more attractive in the mid-20th century as a result of post-World War II developments like the increasing costs of traditional warfare and the risk of nuclear war. Speaking about the effect of nuclear capability on traditional military conflict KGB agent Alexander Sakharovsky said that "In today's world, when nuclear arms have made military force obsolete, terrorism should become our main weapon." Though state-sponsored terrorism persists in the post-9/11 era, some scholars have argued that it has become less significant in the age of global jihadism. On the other hand, Daniel Byman believes its importance has increased.

Organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are heavily dependent on state support. According to the US Counter-Terrorism Coordinator's Office this support can include "funds, weapons, materials and the secure areas" that organizations use for "planning and conducting operations"

The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law notes that international legal institutions currently lack a mechanism to prosecute terrorist leaders who "instruct, support or succor" terrorism. At the conclusion of the Lockerbie trial, some commentators continued to harbor doubts about the legitimacy of the only conviction secured during the trial, and thus also about Libya's involvement. The domestic trial proved to be insufficient to identify those who had given the instructions.

THE CASE OF India as a state sponsorer of terrorism:

India's Research and Analysis Wing(RAW), trained and armed the Sri Lankan Tamil group LTTE which want an independent country for Tamils of Sri Lanka, due to the continuous discrimination and violent persecution against Sri Lankan Tamils by the Sinhalese dominated Sri Lankan Government during the 1970s, but it later withdrew its support in the late 1980s when the terrorist activities of LTTE became serious and it formed alliances with separatist groups in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. From August 1983 to May 1987, India, through its intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), provided arms, training and monetary support to six Sri Lankan Tamil insurgent groups including the LTTE. During that period, 32 terror training camps were set up in India to train these 495 LTTE insurgents, including 90 women who were trained in 10 batches. The first batch of Tigers were trained in Establishment 22 based in Chakrata, Uttarakhand. The second batch, including LTTE intelligence chief Pottu Amman, trained in Himachal Pradesh. Prabakaran visited the first and the second batch of Tamil Tigers to see them training.

 Eight other batches of LTTE were trained in Tamil Nadu. Thenmozhi Rajaratnam alias Dhanu, who carried out the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and Sivarasan—the key conspirator were among the militants trained by R&AW, in Nainital, India.

 In April 1984, the LTTE formally joined a common militant front, the Eelam National Liberation Front (ENLF), a union between LTTE, the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO), the Eelam Revolutionary Organization of Students (EROS), the People's Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) and the Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF). On 4 June 1987, when the Tamil Tiger-held Jaffna Peninsula was under siege by the Sri Lankan army, India provided airdrop of relief supplies to LTTE.

India has been accused by Pakistan of supporting terrorism and carrying out "economic sabotage". According to it, in 2017, Kulbhushan Jadhav, an Indian naval officer arrested in March 2016 in Balochistan and charged with espionage and sabotage was sentenced to death. He was accused of operating a covert terror network within Baluchistan. Jadhav had confessed that he was tasked by India’s intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), “to plan and organize espionage and sabotage activities” in Balochistan and Karachi.

In November 2020, the Foreign Office of Pakistan made public a dossier containing 'irrefutable proofs' of the alleged Indian sponsorship of terrorism in Pakistan. It contained proof of India's alleged financial and material sponsorship of multiple terrorist organizations, including UN-designated terrorist organizations Balochistan Liberation Army, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. The dossier was shared with the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.

Pakistan has also accused Indian consulates in Kandahar and Jalalabad, Afghanistan, of providing arms, training and financial aid to the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) in an attempt to destabilize Pakistan. Pakistan has repeatedly accused India of supporting Baloch rebels, A leaked diplomatic cable sent on December 31, 2009, from the U.S. consulate in Karachi said it was "plausible" that Indian intelligence was helping the Baluch insurgents. A leaked diplomatic cable dating back to 2009 showed that UAE officials believed India was secretly supporting Tehrik-e-Taliban insurgents and separatists in northwest Pakistan

Case of Iran:

Former United States President George W. Bush accused the Iranian government of being the "world's primary state sponsor of terror.”

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was instrumental in founding, training, and supplying Hezbollah, a group designated a "Foreign Terrorist Organization" by the United States Department of State, and likewise, labeled a terrorist organization by Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Gulf Cooperation Council. This view is not universal, however; for example, the European Union differentiates between the political, social, and military wings of Hezbollah, designating only its military wing as a terrorist organization, while various other countries maintain relations with Hezbollah. Yemen country.

HIJACKING;

December 24, 1999, an Indian airlines flight IC-814 hijacked by five members of HUM (Harkat –ul-Mujahideen). The passenger flight en route from Kathmandu to Delhi, was taken over shortly after it entered the Indian Airspace at about 16;53 IST. The aircraft carried 190 occupants which included 179 passengers and 11 crew members. The hijacked plane was taken to Kandahar, Afghanistan then under the rule of Taliban. The plane remained in Kandahar between 24 Dec 1999 to 31 December 1999.  

Watch Hollywood classic, THE AIRFORCE ONE TO KNOW WHY HIJACKING IS COMMITTED.

What it is? Aircraft hijacking (also known as airplane hijacking, skyjacking, plane hijacking, plane jacking, air robbery, air piracy, or aircraft piracy, with the last term used within the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States) is the unlawful seizure of an aircraft by an individual or a group.

 Dating from the earliest of hijackings, most cases involve the pilot being forced to fly according to the hijacker's demands. There have also been incidents where the hijackers have overpowered the flight crew, made unauthorized entry into the cockpit and flown them into buildings – most notably in the September 11 attacks – and in some cases, planes have been hijacked by the official pilot or co-pilot, such as with Ethiopian Airlines Flight.

THE MOTIVES: Unlike carjacking or sea piracy, an aircraft hijacking is not usually committed for robbery or theft. Individuals driven by personal gain often divert planes to destinations where they are not planning to go themselves. Some hijackers intend to use passengers or crew as hostages, either for monetary ransom or for some political or administrative concession by authorities. Various motives have driven such occurrences, such as demanding the release of certain high-profile individuals (for example, the hijacking of Indian airlines flight IC-814 in 1999), or for the right of political asylum (notably Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961), but sometimes a hijacking may have been affected by a failed private life or financial distress, as in the case of Aarno Lamminparras in Finnair Flight 405.  Hijackings involving hostages have produced violent confrontations between hijackers and the authorities, during negotiation and settlement. In several cases – most famously Air France Flight 139, Lufthansa Flight 181, and Air France Flight 8969 – the hijackers were not satisfied and showed no inclination to surrender, resulting in the deployment of counterterrorist police tactical units or special forces to rescue the passengers.

In most jurisdictions of the world, aircraft hijacking is punishable by life imprisonment or a long prison sentence. In most jurisdictions where the death penalty is a legal punishment, aircraft hijacking is a capital crime, including in China, India, Liberia, and the U.S. states of Georgia and Mississippi.

INTERNATIONAL EFFORTS AT TACKLING THE MENANCE OF HIGHJACKING:

According to international civil aviation organization (ICAO), hijacking is a universal phenomenon and is not isolated to one nation or one region, but a worldwide issue to the safe growth of international civil aviation. Incidents also became notorious – in 1971, a man known as D. B. Cooper hijacked a plane and extorted US$200,000 in ransom before parachuting over Oregon. He was never identified. On August 20, 1971, a Pakistan Air Force T-33 military plane was hijacked prior the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971 in Karachi. Lieutenant Matiur Rahman attacked Officer Rashid Minhas and attempted to land in India. Minhas deliberately crashed the plane into the ground near Thatta to prevent the diversion.

Countries around the world continued their efforts to tackle crimes committed on-board planes. The Tokyo Convention, drafted in 1958, established an agreement between signatories that the "state in which the aircraft is registered is competent to exercise jurisdiction over crimes committed on board that aircraft while it is in flight”. While the Convention does not make hijacking an international crime, it does contain provisions which obligate the country in which a hijacked aircraft lands to restore the aircraft to its responsible owner, and allow the passengers and crew to continue their journey. The Convention came into force in December 1969.

A year later, in December 1970, The Hague Convention was drafted which punishes hijackers, enabling each state to prosecute a hijacker if that state does not extradite them, and to deprive them from asylum from prosecution.

On December 5, 1972, the FAA issued emergency rules requiring all passengers and their carry-on baggage to be screened. Airports slowly implemented walk-through metal detectors, hand-searches and X-ray machines, to prohibit weapons and explosive devices. These rules came into effect on January 5, 1973, and were welcomed by most of the public. In 1974, Congress enacted a statute which provided for the death penalty for acts of aircraft piracy resulting in death. Between 1968 and 1977, there were approximately 41 hijackings per year.

In the 1970s, in pursuit of their demands for Croatia's independence from the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, Croatian nationalists hijacked several civilian airliners, such as Scandinavian Airlines System Flight 130 and TWA Flight.

RECENT INCIDENTS:

On September 11, 2001, four airliners were hijacked by 19 Al-Qaeda extremists: American Airlines Flight 11, United Airlines Flight 175, American Airlines Flight 77 and United Airlines Flight 93. The first two planes were deliberately crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the third was crashed into The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia. The fourth crashed in a field in Stonycreek Township near Shanksville, Pennsylvania after crew and passengers attempted to overpower the hijackers. Authorities believe that the intended target was the U.S. Capitol or the White House in Washington DC. In total, 2,996 people (2,977 if excluding the perpetrators) perished and more than 6,000 were injured in the attacks, making the hijackings the deadliest in modern history.

Following the attacks, the U.S. government formed the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to handle airport screening at U.S. airports. Government agencies around the world tightened their airport security, procedures and intelligence gathering. Until the September 11 attacks, there had never been an incident whereby a passenger aircraft was used as a weapon of mass destruction. The 9/11 Commission report stated that it was always assumed that a "hijacking would take the traditional form”; therefore, airline crews never had a contingency plan for a suicide-hijacking. As Patrick Smith, an airline pilot, summarizes:

“One of the big ironies here is the success of the 2001 attacks had nothing to do with airport security in the first place. It was a failure of national security. What the men actually exploited was a weakness in our mind-set – a set of presumptions based on decades-long track record of hijackings. In years past, a hijacking meant a diversion, with hostage negotiations and standoffs. The only weapon that mattered was the intangible one: the element of surprise.”

Throughout the mid-2000s, hijackings still occurred but there were much fewer incidents and casualties. The number of incidents had been declining, even before the September 11 attacks. One notable incident in 2006 was the hijacking of Turkish Airlines Flight 1476, flying from Tirana to Istanbul, which was seized by a man named Hakan Ekinci. The aircraft, with 107 passengers and 6 crew, made distress calls to air traffic control and the plane was escorted by military aircraft before landing safely at Brindisi, Italy. In 2007, several incidents occurred in the Middle East and Northern Africa; hijackers in one of these incidents claimed to be affiliated with Al-Qaeda. Towards the end of the decade, AeroMexico experienced its first terror incident when Flight 576 was hijacked by a man demanding to speak with President Calderón. In 2007, a man failed to hijack a 737-200 with 103 people on board over Chad.

Between 2010 and 2019, the Aviation Safety Network estimates there have been 15 hijackings worldwide with three fatalities. This is a considerably lower figure than in previous decades which can be attributed to greater security enhancements and awareness of September 11–style attacks. On June 29, 2012, an attempt was made to hijack Tianjin Airlines Flight GS7554 from Hotan to Ürümqi in China. More recently was the 2016 hijacking of Egypt Air Flight MS181, involving an Egyptian man who claimed to have a bomb and ordered the plane to land in Cyprus. He surrendered several hours later, after freeing the passengers and crew.

Measures taken by India to counter high jacking:

India published its anti-hijacking policy in August 2005.The policy came into force after approval from the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS). The main points of the policy are:

1. Any attempt to hijack will be considered an act of aggression against the country and will prompt a response fit for an aggressor.
2. Hijackers, if captured alive, will be put on trial, convicted, and sentenced to death.
3. Hijackers will be engaged in negotiations only to bring the incident to an end, to comfort passengers and to prevent loss of lives.
4. The hijacked plane will be shot down if it is deemed to become a missile heading for strategic targets.
5. The hijacked plane will be escorted by armed fighter aircraft and will be forced to land.
6. A hijacked grounded plane will not be allowed to take off under any circumstance.

INTERNATIONAL LAW ON HIGHJACKING:

Tokyo Convention:

The Convention on Offences and Certain Other Acts Committed on Board Aircraft, known as the Tokyo Convention, is an international treaty which entered force on December 4, 1969. As of 2015, it has been ratified by 186 parties.

Article 11 of the Tokyo Convention states the following:

1. When a person on board has unlawfully committed by force or threat thereof an act of interference, seizure, or other wrongful exercise of control of an aircraft in flight or when such an act is about to be committed, Contracting States shall take all appropriate measures to restore control of the aircraft to its lawful commander or to preserve his control of the aircraft.

 2. In the cases contemplated in the preceding paragraph, the Contracting State in which the aircraft lands shall permit its passengers and crew to continue their journey as soon as practicable, and shall return the aircraft and its cargo to the persons lawfully entitled to possession.

The signatories agree that if there is unlawful takeover of an aircraft, or a threat of it on their territory, then they will take all necessary measures to regain or keep control over an aircraft. The captain can also disembark a suspected person on the territory of any country, where the aircraft lands, and that country must agree to it, as stated in Articles 8 and 12 of the convention.

Hague Convention: or HAGUE HIJACKING CONVENTION

Known as the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation.

The Hague Hijacking Convention (formally the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft) is a multilateral treaty by which states agree to prohibit and punish aircraft hijacking. The convention does not apply to customs, law enforcement or military aircraft, thus it applies exclusively to civilian aircraft. The convention only addresses situations in which an aircraft takes off or lands in a place different from its country of registration. The convention sets out the principle of aut dedere aut judicare—that a party to the treaty must prosecute an aircraft hijacker if no other state requests his or her extradition for prosecution of the same crime.

The convention was adopted by the International Conference on Air Law at The Hague on 16 December 1970. It came into force on 14 October 1971[1] after it had been ratified by 10 states. As of 2013, the convention has 185 state parties.

In 2010 in Beijing, the Protocol Supplementary to the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft was adopted. The Protocol makes amendments and additions to the original convention. As September 2018, the Protocol has been ratified by 27 states. It entered into force on 1 January 2018.

Montreal Convention:

The Montreal Convention is a multilateral treaty adopted by a diplomatic meeting of ICAO member states in 1999. It amended important provisions of the Warsaw Convention's regime concerning compensation for the victims of air disasters.

INDIAN LAW ON HIJACKING; anti-hijacking Act-2016

The Parliament of India enacted in 2016 an Act to suppress an unlawful seizure of an aircraft. It extends to the whole of India and, save as otherwise provided in this Act, it applies also to any offence thereunder committed outside India by any person.

Section 3 of the Act defines hijacking as follows:

“(1) Whoever unlawfully and intentionally seizes or exercises control of an aircraft in service by force or threat thereof, or by coercion, or by any other form of intimidation, or by any technological means, commits the offence of hijacking.

(2) A person shall also be deemed to have committed the offence of hijacking specified in sub-section (1), if, such person--

(a) makes a threat to commit such offence or unlawfully and intentionally causes any person to receive such threat under circumstances which indicate that the threat is credible; or

(b) attempts to commit or abets the commission of such offence; or

(c) organises or directs others to commit such offence or the offence specified in clause (a) or clause (b) above;

(d) participates as an accomplice in such offence or the offence specified in clause (a) or clause (b) above;

(e) unlawfully and intentionally assists another person to evade investigation, prosecution or punishment, knowing that such person has committed any such offence or the offence specified in clause (a) or clause (b) or clause (c) or clause (d) above, or that such person is wanted for criminal prosecution by law enforcement authorities for such an offence or has been sentenced for such an offence.

(3) A person also commits the offence of hijacking, when committed intentionally, whether or not any of the offences specified in sub-section (1) or in clause (a) of sub-section (2) is actually committed or attempted, either or both of the following: --

(a) agreeing with one or more other persons to commit an offence specified in sub-section (1) or in clause (a) of sub-section (2), involving an act undertaken by one of the participants in furtherance of the agreement; or

(b) contributing in any manner to the commission of an offence specified in sub-section (1) or in clause (a) of sub-section (2) by a group of persons acting with a common purpose and such contribution shall either--

(i) be made with the aim of furthering the general criminal activity or purpose of the group, where such activity or purpose involves the commission of such an offence; or

(ii) be made in the knowledge of the intention of the group to commit such offence.

(4) For the purposes of this Act, an aircraft shall be considered to be 'in service" from the beginning of the pre-flight preparation of the aircraft by ground personnel or by the crew for a specific flight until twenty-four hours after any landing and in the case of a forced landing, the flight shall be deemed to continue until the competent authorities take over the responsibility for the aircraft and for persons and property on board.

Section 4 Punishment for hijacking and accordingly states that

Whoever commits the offence of hijacking shall be punished--

(a) with death where such offence results in the death of a hostage or of a security personnel or of any person not involved in the offence, as a direct consequence of the office of hijacking; or

(b) with imprisonment for life which shall mean imprisonment for the remainder of that person's natural life and with fine, and the movable and immovable property of such person shall also be liable to be confiscated.

Section 5 prescribes Punishment for acts of violence connected with hijacking and accordingly provides that “whoever, being a person committing the offence of hijacking of an aircraft, commits, in connection with such offence, any act of violence against any passenger or member of the crew of such aircraft, shall be punished with the same punishment with which he would have been punishable under any law for the time being in force in India if such act had been committed in India.”

INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT

The ICC has codified norms and principles of international humanitarian law that have been widely accepted since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials, in the process providing the most authoritative and detailed definitions of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes currently available. By comparison with the system of ad hoc tribunals like ICTY, the ICC brings a much needed coherence to the process of enforcement, and also, by keeping Security Council interference to a minimum, (potentially) prevents the P-5 from exempting themselves from their responsibilities.

The GENESIS: In 1998, delegates from 160 countries, 33 international organizations and a coalition of NGOs met in Rome to draft the Statute of the ICC. The Rome Statute established the ICC as a ‘court of last resort’, exercising jurisdiction only when national courts are unwilling or unable to investigate or prosecute. The ICC, which came into being in 2002, has broad-ranging powers to prosecute acts of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and, potentially, aggression (a decision on crimes of aggression was reserved to a later date, but its inclusion is now highly unlikely).

Although the ICC, like the ICJ, is located in The Hague, Netherlands, it is an independent international organization and not part of the UN system. However, the ICC’s relationship with the UN Security Council has been particularly significant and controversial. The USA, an early and enthusiastic supporter of the idea of an international criminal court, had proposed that the Security Council act as the court’s gatekeeper, reflecting Security Council’s primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. But this proposal was rejected at Rome, on the grounds that it would have given the USA and other permanent members of the Security Council (the P-5) the ability to prevent the ICC from hearing cases in which their citizens were accused of human rights violations by using their veto powers. Instead, under the so-called ‘Singapore compromise’, the Rome conference allowed the Security Council to delay a prosecution for twelve months if it believes that the ICC would interfere with the Council’s efforts to further international peace and security. However, as the Security Council must do this by passing a resolution requesting the Court not to proceed, this effectively prevents any P-5 country from blocking an investigation simply by exercising its veto.

The controversial nature of the ICC was apparent from the outset. Although 120 states voted in favour of the Rome Statute, 21 abstained, including India and a range of Arab and Caribbean states, and 7 voted against. It is widely believed that the states which voted against the Statute were the USA, China, Israel, Libya, Iraq, Qatar and Yemen (although the states were not formally identified). As of May 2010, 111 countries were members of the Court and a further 37 countries have signed but not ratified the Rome Statute. Non-member states include China, India, Russia and the USA, which significantly reduces the scope of the ICC’s jurisdiction and threatens its international credibility, perhaps in a way that is reminiscent of the League of Nations. Only two permanent members of the P-5 – the UK and France, its least powerful members – have ratified the Rome Statute. Not one of the nuclear powers outside Europe has ratified the treaty, meaning that the ICC is dominated by European, Latin-American and African states. The opposition of the USA to the ICC has been particularly damaging. President Clinton signed the Rome Statute on his final day in office in 2000, but stated that, as the treaty was fundamentally flawed, it would not be forwarded to the US Senate for ratification.

The Bush administration effectively ‘unsigned’ the treaty in 2002, and took concerted steps to reduce the USA’s exposure to ICC jurisdiction. It did this by negotiating bilateral immunity agreements (BIAs), sometimes called ‘Article 98’ agreements, with as many countries as possible, under which neither party would transfer citizens of the other country to the jurisdiction of the ICC. Over 100 BIAs have been negotiated, even though their legal status is unclear. The Obama administration’s shift towards multilateralism has certainly modified the Bush administration’s implacable hostility towards the ICC, but this has yet to produce a clear commitment to ‘re- sign’ the Rome Statute and press ahead with ratification. Nevertheless, opinion is divided on the extent to which the reservations expressed by the USA and other states about the ICC have been based on pragmatism and self-interest, and the extent to which they have been based on principle.

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