Brings together the basic documents in international law relating to terrorism, extracts from judicial decisions and the relevant UK material. The text covers such areas as terrorism and hostage-taking, maritime terrorism, the control of State terrorism, and extradition. Each document is selectively reproduced and introduced with a brief comment on its history and current normative value.

For over thirty years, modern Italy was plagued by ransom kidnappings perpetrated by bandits and organized crime syndicates. Nearly 700 men, women, and children were abducted from across the country between the late 1960s and the late 1990s, held hostage by members of the Sardinian banditry, Cosa Nostra, and the ’Ndrangheta. Subjected to harsh captivities and psychological abuse, the victims spent months and even years in isolation while law enforcement and the state struggled to find them. Ransom Kidnapping in Italy examines this Italian criminal phenomenon. Alessandra Montalbano argues that abduction is a key vantage point from which to understand modern Italy: it troubled the law, terrified society, ignited juridical and parliamentary debates, and mobilized citizens. Bringing together archival and media materials with the victims’ accounts and diverse forms of cultural response, the book examines ransom kidnapping through the lenses of historiography, law, literary criticism, trauma studies, phenomenology, and political philosophy. Ransom Kidnapping in Italy traces how and at what price Italians became aware of living in a country that was being blackmailed by criminal organizations that arguably jeoparded the nation even more than terrorism.

The recent series of diplomatic kidnappings has produced some serious thinking not only in Washington but in most of the foreign offices and embassies throughout the diplomatic world. The kidnappings-and how to deal with them-have been the subject of Congressional committee hearings, State Department deliberations, and international debate and action by the Organization of American States. It is the purpose of this study to analyze them within the context of urban guerilla terrorism, international legal norms, and world diplomatic practice. Selected examples of diplomatic kidnappings, particularly those in Latin America and Canada, strikingly illustrate the new revolutionary strategy of utilizing terrorism as a political tactic to achieve long-range political· goals. As with its kindred phenomenon-the airplane hijack ings-the kidnappings of foreign diplomats seize upon and exploit innocent victims as hostage pawns; a bargaining situation is thus created in which the revolutionary minority can achieve a diplomatic leverage which is far greater than in proportion to its numbers, military strength, or popular appeal. Through terrorism the urban guerillas hope to achieve tactical advances within the general strategy of political revolu tion; even temporary governmental repression if it occurs in reprisal becomes part of that strategy. Chapter I in particular and the entire manuscript in general examine the kidnappings within the parameters of revolutionary terrorism. The kidnappings have also had serious legal and political ramifications in the realm of world diplomacy.

The European Yearbook promotes the scientific study of European organisations & the Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development. Each volume contains a detailed survey of the history, structure & yearly activities of each organisation & an up-to-date chart providing a clear overview of the member states of each organisation. In addition, a number of articles on topics of general interest are included in each volume. A general index by subject & name, & a cumulative index of all the articles which have appeared in the Yearbook , are included in every volume & provide direct access to the Yearbook 's subject matter. Each volume contains a comprehensive bibliography covering the year's relevant publications. This is an indispensable work of reference for anyone dealing with the European institutions.