Any person commits an offence within the meaning of this Convention if that person, by any means, unlawfully and intentionally causes: (a) (b) (c) death or serious bodily injury to any person; or serious damage to public or private property, including a place of public use, a state or government facility, a public transportation system, an infrastructure facility, or the environment; or damage to property, places, facilities or systems referred to in paragraph 1(b) of this article, resulting or likely to result in major economic loss, when the purpose of the conduct, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act. Although this definition is contained in a draft convention, it has been used in counterterrorism laws in the region and may therefore be gaining acceptance as an appropriate definition. We will take this definition of terrorism as our working definition for this paper as it represents the current state of evolution of international thinking. One of the major issues with any general definition of terrorism is ensuring that it achieves sufficient precision so as not to offend against the universally recognised principles of nullum crimen sine lege (literally, no crime without a law) and nulla poena sine lege (no penalty without a law) which require that definitions of criminal offences must be precise and unambiguous. States must ensure that any definitions used in domestic counter-terrorism legislation comply with these requirements. Such definitions cannot be applied retroactively to create offences. Another major issue is to ensure that any definition of terrorism and related offences is not so wide that it captures legitimate political dissent and protest. Otherwise the right to freedom of association,10 freedom of expression,11 freedom of assembly,12 and in some cases freedom of movement,13 freedom of thought, conscience and religion14 and the freedom to hold opinions without interference15 will be compromised. One particular difficulty arises where States create offences relating to the membership of terrorist organisations and/or where States 10 Article 22, ICCPR. Article 19(2), ICCPR. 12 Article 21, ICCPR. 13 Article 12, ICCPR. 14 Article 18(1), ICCPR. 15 Article 19(1), ICCPR. 11 34