Terror, terrorizing, terrorism: instilling fear as a crime in the cases of Radovan Karadzic and Charles Taylor

This chapter examines recent instances of the prosecution of the crime of ‘spreading terror’ or ‘acts of terrorism’ by international criminal courts and relates its introduction to changing legal and political understandings of the nature of war. It discusses emerging jurisprudence on ‘terror’ as a crime before zooming in on two high-profile trials, that of Radovan Karadzic before the Yugoslavia Tribunal and that of Charles Taylor before the Special Court for Sierra Leone. By means of discourse analysis and interview materials, the chapter demonstrates how the prosecution promotes and the defence contests; how the judges grapple with; and how war-affected elite observers in Liberia have understood the introduction of ‘terror’ and ‘terrorism’ into the courtroom. The chapter places the recent judicial appetite for taking interpretive risks in the context of changing understandings of war and measures to prevent or civilize war.