Terrorism
In November 2004, a Secretary-General of the United Nations report described terrorism as any act "intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act". The international community has been slow to formulate a universally agreed, legally binding definition of this crime. These difficulties arise from the fact that the term "terrorism" is politically and emotionally charged. In this regard, Angus Martyn, briefing the Australian parliament, stated,
The international community has never succeeded in developing an accepted comprehensive definition of terrorism. During the 1970s and 1980s, the United Nations attempts to define the term floundered mainly due to differences of opinion between various members about the use of violence in the context of conflicts over national liberation and self-determination.
Terrorism in Malaysia
The international community has not been able to come to a universally-accepted definition of terrorism. The difficulty in defining terrorism stem from the fact that it is politically and emotionally charged. The history of terrorism incidence in Northern Ireland, Middle East and South East Asia indicate that terrorism is perpetrated by a group of aggrieved people that see violence as the only means of achieving their political goals. The loose definition of terrorism resulted in the execution of State-sanctioned terrorism as well as acts of terror carried out by militant groups, each trying to legitimise their act of terror.