Governmental Terrorism in International Law; With Perspective to the Assassination of Sardar Qassem Soleimani

One of the important challenges of international law and the universal community is increasing development of terrorism. Terrorism comes in many forms, including the division into governmental and non-governmental terrorism. The main difference between state terrorism and non-state terrorism is its perpetrator. This means that the perpetrators and planners of non-state terrorist acts are individuals, groups and parties, and the perpetrators and planners of state terrorist acts are one or more specific states.The present article seeks to study the concept of governmental terrorism, survey international law approach on this issue and finally explain the assassination of Sardar Qassem Soleimani from the perspective of international law. The results of this investigation indicate that actions of US forces in targeting Sardar Soleimani doesn’t fit in the scope of Article 51 of the UN Charter in the form of self-defense and has no legal justification and contrary to the principles of international law and it is in sense of governmental terrorism.