BANGLADESH INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AND STRATEGIC STUDIES

TERRORISM: A NEW FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS

Author: Zohra Akhter

DOI Link: https://www.doi.org/10.56888/BIISSj2010v31n1a3

ABSTRACT

In post 9/11 period, terrorism has emerged as a major challenge to international peace and security. Realizing the significance of the threat, international community has agreed to fight terrorism on a global scale. Paradoxically enough, the international community has been constantly failing in reaching an agreed definition of terrorism. The disagreement over the definition of terrorism makes the counter terrorism efforts more complicated. It is in this backdrop that the paper made an attempt to explore the major difficulties in reaching an agreed definition. It has identified the “definitional politics” which has created a “rightwrong quagmire” to be the single most important impediment. In order to address the “definitional politics” and to provide a scope for objective analysis, this paper has used the Right-Based Approach (RBA). With its main focus on human rights, the RBA has helped develop a new model for defining terrorism by analyzing the context and causes of violence. Further, the paper has applied the Right-based Model in the context of Bangladesh with special reference to the activities of the Jamaat-Ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) to measure the applicability of the new model.