Among other things globalization implies an increasing tension between national sovereignty (which is the fundament of international law) and global concern (for example: prohibition of war of aggression vs. protection of human rights). The problem of the fight against international terrorism has to be seen under the aspect of this tension. It seems that neither “conducting war” nor “fighting criminality” is the appropriate characterization of this fight and its rules – rules which are not written yet, but have to be found and written down. Maybe the sociological analysis of the phenomenon of international terrorism doesn’t help much to find such rules, but is perhaps useful for avoiding some misleading mistakes.