Dealing with Terrorism at the United Nations

Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton, NB] Times & Transcript

There is no universally accepted definition of terrorism, but Yonah Alexander, Director of the International Center for Terrorism Studies at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in Arlington, VA, has a useful one.

He defines it as the use of violence against random civilian targets in order to intimidate or create general pervasive fear for the purpose of achieving political goals.

Transnational terrorism is difficult to eradicate because it is so cheap and effective in capturing the world’s attention.

The United Nations has always had an ambivalent relationship with the entire idea of terrorism. But the attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001, have changed the context of UN activities. 

After 9/11, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1368 which unequivocally condemned the terrorist attacks and called on all states to “work together urgently to bring to justice the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors.”

Resolution 1373 followed shortly afterwards, when the Council decided to impose a number of binding obligations on states, requiring that they prohibit both active and passive support for terrorists. 

As a result, not only are states required to punish financial transactions on behalf of terrorists and freeze the asset of terrorists and their supporters, but they must tighten their border controls, increase their vigilance against passport and identification forgery, deny safe haven to terrorists, and work toward enhancing international cooperation against terrorism. 

In 2004, Security Council Resolution 1566 condemned terrorist acts as “criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons.”

The Council also formed a Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC), to bolster the ability of UN member states to prevent terrorist acts both within their borders and across regions. It is assisted by the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED), which carries out the policy decisions of the Committee, and facilitates counter-terrorism technical assistance to countries.

In 2006 the UN General Assembly adopted the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, an instrument to enhance national, regional and international efforts to counter terrorism. All member states subscribed for the first time to a common strategic and operational approach to fighting terrorism. 

The General Assembly reviews the strategy every two years. It also followed up by creating the Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) in 2017, providing member states with policy support.

Finally, in 2018 the General Assembly launched the Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact to prevent and counter terrorism and the underlying spread of violent extremism. This brings together 43 entities as members or observers. 

UNOCT, headed by Under-Secretary-General Vladimir Voronkov, serves as the Secretariat of the Global Compact. By helping countries implement measures intended to enhance their legal and institutional ability to counter terrorist activities, the Counter-Terrorism Committee has an important role to play in operationalizing the strategy.

Over the past few years, Islamic State and Al-Qaida terrorist fighters have posed an “unprecedented threat to international peace and security,” Voronkov stated Feb. 12, at the close of a joint UN- Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) regional conference in Vienna that addressed the challenges posed by terrorists who have gone to fight overseas.

Voronkov, along with Assistant Secretary-General Michèle Coninsx, Executive Director of the CTED, conducted joint high-level consultations with Indonesia in Jakarta Feb. 27-28 and the Philippines in Manila March 1-3, to learn about the current and evolving terrorist threats in those countries.

The visits were conducted in accordance with Security Council resolution 2395 of 2017, in which the Council underscored the need for CTED and UNOCT to work closely together. 

Voronkov has also emphasized that cheap and easily accessible small arms are increasingly becoming the “weapon of choice” for many terrorist groups around the world, posing a serious threat to international peace and security.

He pointed out on Feb. 19 that “illicit weapons originating from Libya were finding their way into the Lake Chad Basin and the Sahel.”

The first UN High-Level Conference of Heads of Counter-Terrorism Agencies of Member States was held in June 2018 at UN headquarters in New York. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a Virtual Counter-Terrorism Week will be held this coming July 6-10.