The UN-led multilateral institutional response to Jihadist terrorism: Is a global counterterrorism body needed?

Journal of Conflict and Security Law

Volumn 11, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 399-427

  Rosand, Eric ^a  

^a Center on Global Counter Terrorism Cooperation   (United States)

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EID: 33846956088     PISSN: 14677954     EISSN: 14677962     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/jcsl/krl026     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (49)

1. Numerous leaders have made this point, including Philippines President Arroyo, who, speaking at the August 2006 ASEAN Leaders Summit, stated that '[w]e cannot deal with the [terrorist] threats alone. We must work with other countries and international institutions if we are determined to successfully address and eliminate them', 6 August 2006,
2. Kofi Annan, who has noted that 'terrorism is a threat to all States, to all people, which can strike anytime, anywhere', Secretary General's Global Strategy for Fighting Terrorism, 11 March 2005,
3. and US President George W. Bush has remarked, 'The global threat of terrorism requires a global response', The White House, 'President Bush Discusses Progress in the War on Terror', Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 12 July 2004.
4. Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 'Australian Paper: Experiences in Combating Transnational Terrorism'. Available at .
5. Anthony Cordesman, 'The Lessons of International Cooperation in Counterterrorism', address to the RUSI Conference on Transnational Terrorism 'A Global Approach', 18 January 2006.
6. Daniel Benjamin, Senior Fellow, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 'The Changing Face of Terror - A Post 9-11 Assessment', 13 June 2006. Available at .
7. Rik Coolsaet, 'Jihadi Terrorism - Where Do We Stand?', Second IRRI (Belgian Royal Institute for International Relations) Conference on International Terrorism, 13 February 2006. Available at .
8. Tony Blair, 9 July 2005. Available at .
9. Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Root Causes of Terrorism (2002). Available at .
10. Don Radlauer, 'The London Bombings and "the Root Causes" of Terrorism', Institute for Counter-Terrorism, 10 July 2005. Available at .
11. Report of the Secretary General, 'Uniting Against Terrorism: Recommendations for a Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy', 27 April 2006, at paras. 8 and 20-38.
12. Henry A. Crumpton, United States Coordinator for Counterterrorism, 'Remarks at the Royal United Services Institute Conference on Transnational Terrorism', London, England, 16 January 2006. Available at .
13. Jessica Stern, 'Jihad - A Global Fad', Boston Globe, 1 August 2006.
14. See and .
15. Rik Coolsaet, 'Jihadi Terrorism - Where Do We Stand?', Second IRRI Conference on International Terrorism, 13 February 2006, p. 7. Available at .
16. Ibid., p. 5.
17. G8 Statement on Strengthening the UN's Counter-Terrorism Programme, St. Petersburg, Russia, 16 July 2006, para 4. Available at .
18. In addition to the General Assembly and Security Council and its subsidiary bodies, the other parts of the UN involved in counterterrorism-related issues include: The Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the Department of Political Affairs, the Department of Public Information, the Department for Disarmament Affairs, the Department of Safety and Security, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the International Civil Aviation Organisation, the International Maritime Organisation, the International Monetary Fund, Interpol, the Office on Drugs and Crime, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Office of Legal Affairs, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, the World Customs Organisation, the World Bank, the World Health Organisation, the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights While Countering Terrorism and the three Security Council staff bodies: The Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate, the Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team and the 1540 Committee's Group of Experts.
19. Kendall W. Stiles, 'The Power of Procedure and the Procedures of the Powerful: Anti-Terror Law in the United Nations', (2006) 43(1) Journal of Peace Research 39-40.
20. United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, Statement at Ministerial Level Meeting of the UN Security Council. See United Nations Security Council, High-level Meeting of the Security Council: Combating Terrorism, S/PV.4688, New York, 20 January 2003.
21. The Council's adoption of Resolution 1373 (and 1540) has been questioned and criticised by some States as falling outside its mandate. The Council, they argue, was not intended to act as a 'global legislator'. They fear that such action could disrupt the balance of power between the Council and the General Assembly as set forth in the UN Charter. Moreover, they assert that having the Council, a fifteen-Member body not accountable to the other UN organs, impose obligations on all 191 Members, threatens to weaken one of the cornerstones of traditional international law, namely, the principle that international law is based on the consent of States. Others, however, argue that the UN Charter has evolved to allow the Council to act as a 'global legislator' under certain circumstances and that the Council needs to be able to use this tool to address effectively, within the State-centred UN Charter system in which it operates, the threats posed by non-state terrorists and terrorist groups. For an in-depth discussion of the Security Council's 'legislative' role, see Stephen Talmon, 'Note and Comment: The Security Council as World Legislature', (2005) 99 AJIL 175;
22. and Eric Rosand, 'The Security Council as "Global Legislator": Ultra Vires or Ultra Innovative', (2005) 28 Ford ILJ 542.
23. United Nations Security Council, SC Res. 1377 (2001), S/RES/1377, New York, 12 November 2001.
24. Quoted in United Nations Information Service, 'Vienna Symposium on Terrorism Adds More Momentum to Global Fight Against Terrorism', United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNIS/CP/413, Vienna, 6 June 2002.
25. According to the CTC's seventeenth work programme, as of 30 September 2005, it had received 613 reports from UN Member States. This includes first reports from all 191 States, 169 second reports, 130 third reports, 101 fourth reports, and twenty-two fifth reports. See Counter-Terrorism Committee, 'CTC Programme of Work'. Available online at the United Nations (accessed 7 December 2005).
26. The needs assessments contain two parts. The first consists of an analysis of the particular State's efforts to implement Resolution 1373. The second consists of a list of priority areas where the CTED believes the particular State needs technical assistance to enable it to implement the resolution fully. Currently, only the latter part is shared - only with the State's consent-with relevant donors.
27. On 27 April 2006, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1673 to extend the committee's mandate for a second two-year term.
28. As of October 2005, the committee has received reports from 124 States, i.e. some two-thirds of the UN Membership.
29. Christopher Cooper, 'Shunned in Sweden: How the Drive to Block Funds for Terrorism Entangled Mr. Aden', Wall Street Journal, 6 May 2002.
30. 'The 1267 (Al-Qaeda/Taliban) Committee and the 1540 (WMD) Sanctions Committee', Security Council Report, Update Report no. 5, 16 January 2006.
31. Moreover, more than forty have still not reported to the committee on steps they are taking to implement the sanctions, as called for by the Security Council in January 2003.
32. For a critical analysis of the work of the Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee, see Eric Rosand, 'Current Developments: The Security Council's Efforts to Monitor the Implementation of Al-Qaida/Taliban Sanctions', (2004) 98 AJIL 745.
33. As of January 2005, states were reported to have seized or frozen $147 million in assets belonging to 435 individuals and groups linked to al-Qaeda or the Taliban. In October 2005, the list included 140 individuals associated with the Taliban and 182 people and 117 businesses or groups linked to al-Qaeda. This number is somewhat misleading for a number of reasons. First, between 11 September 2001 and the end of 2001 alone, $112 million in alleged terrorist funds had been frozen (Chantal de Jonge Oudraat, 'Combating Terrorism', The Washington Quarterly [Autumn 2003]). Second, in the two years after that, only $24 million was frozen. Unspecified 'recently published US Treasury report' cited in UN Security Council doc. S/2003/1070, 2 December 2003, 12, fn. c. Little if any of the $24 million were linked to individuals or entities listed on the al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanction Committee's list (UN doc. S/2003/1070, 36).
34. Finally, according to a 2002 independent US expert panel on terrorist finance, 'the frequently cited total amount of terrorist-related assets blocked overstates the amount of money taken from al-Qaida and its supporters specifically, and undoubtedly represents only a small fraction of total funds available to that terrorist organization' [Maurice Greenberg, William F. Wechsler, and Lee S. Wolosky, Terrorist Financing: Independent Task Force Report (2002) 20].
35. Op. cit., fn. 9, UN doc. A/60825.
36. Op. cit., fn. 9, para. 34.
37. Associated Press, 'U.N. General Assembly adopts counter-terrorism strategy', International Herald Tribune, 9 September 2006. Available at .
38. For example, at the June 2004 G8 Summit, the G8 adopted the Secure and Facilitated International Travel Initiative (SAFTI), which included twenty-eight forward-leaning projects in multiple areas of travel security, including ensuring safe and efficient movement of passengers and cargo, enhancing travel document security and interoperability, information exchange, security co-operation and MANPADS threat reduction. Less than two years later, work on nearly all of the projects has been completed, and many have already been exported to broader international bodies such as ICAO.
39. For a detailed description of FATF's current mandate, see .
40. 'Mandating and Delivering: Analysis and Recommendations to Facilitate the Review of Mandates', A/60/733, Report of Secretary General of the United Nations, New York, 30 March 2006, paras. 122-123.
41. The 2005 Gingrich/Mitchell Task Force on UN Reform, finding the UN Security Council-led counterterrorism programme poorly co-ordinated, recommended that some of these options be explored. It highlighted the problem of lack of co-ordination in the UN counterterrorism programme: 'Among the solutions that should be explored are mandating closer coordination among the committees (including reducing unnecessary duplication in Member States' reports), combining their staffs and combining the committees themselves'. American Interests on UN Reform: Report of the Task Force on the United Nations (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, 2005), 78.
42. The United States has even suggested that such a consolidation might be necessary. See 'Statement by Nicholas Rostow, General Counsel, on the Work of the 1267 Committee, in the Security Council, July 20, 2005', USUN Press Release no. 136 (05), .
43. In addition, as recently confirmed by the Japanese Permanent Representative to the UN, consolidated site visits would enhance the effectiveness of the dialogue between the various council counterterrorism mechanisms and government officials and improve the information gathering and sharing. The 'rationalization of visits would [also] relieve the burden on visited states'. See statement by Japan (Kenzo Oshima) at the 30 May 2006, Security Council meeting to discuss the council's counterterrorism programme. A summary of the meeting is available online at .
44. For information about the IAEA's budget and staff, see the IAEA's website: and .
45. Of those counterterrorism-related bodies, only the UNODC/TPB and GPML accept voluntary contributions. Voluntary contributions are a major source of funding for most other UN organisations and programmes such as the IAEA, UNDP and the UN Environmental Programme.
46. The total 2005 budget for the Security Council counterterrorism programmes was $12.5 million; for the Al-Oaida and Taliban Monitoring Team, $3,559,300; for the CTED, $6,888,300 and for the 1540 Committee group of experts, $1,794,900. See 'Questions Relating to the Programme Budget for the Biennium 2004-2005'; 'Estimates in Respect of Special Political Missions, Good Offices and Other Political Initiatives Authorized by the General Assembly and/or the Security Council', A/59/534/Add.1, United Nations General Assembly, New York, 23 November 2004. The TPB's budget for 2005 was $3.5 million, with $1 million coming out of the UN regular budget and the rest coming from voluntary contributions and the GPML's for 2005 was $3.2 million in voluntary contributions.
47. This occurred in the latter part of 2005, for example when the council was seized with the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri.
48. For example, the US delegation to the IAEA includes representatives from the Department of Energy, its delegation to the ICAO includes representatives from the Federal Aviation Administration and its delegation to the World Customs Organisation includes representatives from the Department of Homeland Security.
49. Presumably, this could only be done via a decision of the Security Council.