"A Proposal for a Kantian Definition of Terrorism: Leading the World Requires Cosmopolitan Ethos Martin Scheinin Introduction While the UN Security Council has generally been at center stage in directing responses to 21st century international terrorism, including through its questionable expansion of its own legislative powers,1 its role in defining terrorism has remained limited. This primarily passive approach has not been without problems. By requiring states to take decisive action against "terrorism" while not making clear what terrorism is, the Security Council has in fact encouraged abusive and human-rights-hostile policies where individual states may use whatever means they have to go after political opposition, trade unions, or religious, ethnic, separatist or indigenous minorities, by stigmatizing them as terrorists. These abusive policies have thereby been shielded by the political clout provided by the Security Council. Fifteen years ago, this was a central tenet in this author's very first substantive report as the first United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism:"