COMMENTARY
United Nations has worked to halt terrorism
By Carolyn M. Stephenson
The United Nations came into being 59 years ago today "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war" and "to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties ... and international law can be maintained."
AP library photo
Some question whether the United Nations is relevant today, whether it can play an effective role in combating terrorism. The replacement of force by the rule of law was important to the United States when it wrote the draft of the U.N. Charter, and remains so.
The United Nations Security Council met to hear the report of chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix on March 7, 2003.
A viable strategy against terrorism involves both working against the root causes of terrorism and working to prevent immediate acts of terrorism.
Protection of our borders, airplanes, ports, ships and cargoes is important, and needs to be further developed, while keeping in mind the protection of our civil liberties. Intelligence is also important, as is the capture of terrorist leaders.
The nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction is essential. The United Nations has long been active in this area, creating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1970, and treaties on biological weapons in 1972 and chemical weapons in 1993. Current negotiation on a fissile materials cutoff treaty is key, and verification — which the Bush administration opposes — would be the crux of such a treaty.
There is no finite universe of terrorists. If we capture 75 percent of the terrorists who carried out the last disaster, but so alienate large parts of the populations of the world that it is easier for new terrorists to be recruited, then we have made the problem worse.
The United Nations recognized the dangers of terrorism long before 9/11 and took important steps to develop an international infrastructure to combat terrorism. It began doing so as early as 1963, when it passed a convention relating to aircraft hijackings. In the 1970s four conventions were signed dealing with the seizure of aircraft, crimes against diplomats, and hostage-taking.
In the 1980s, conventions were passed on the physical protection of nuclear materials, on violence at airports and against maritime navigation. In the 1990s, conventions on the making of plastic explosives for the purpose of detection, on the suppression of terrorist bombing, and on the suppression of the financing of terrorism were signed.
In all, 12 conventions were signed. Without these, it would have been much more difficult to capture terrorists and stop their financing.
The General Assembly Sixth Committee continues to work on a "comprehensive legal framework of conventions dealing with international terrorism."
After 9/11, the U.N. Security Council acted immediately to pass Resolution 1373, which declared terrorism a threat to international peace and security and obligated states to take measures to stop and punish it.
This resolution created the Counter-Terrorism Committee which, in cooperation with the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, works to provide technical and legal assistance to countries to improve their counterterrorism work, and to develop the international cooperation necessary to stop terrorists.
The establishment of the rule of law and mechanisms to conquer international terrorism are in the interest of all states. When states violate the rule of law they have created, as the United States has in the invasion of Iraq, they undermine the very foundation they created to reduce the amount of violence in the system.
This use of force was not only illegal under the U.N. Charter, but also increased the risk of terrorism. Let us hope that the United States will return to its tradition of the support of the rule of law instead of the rule of force.
Carolyn M. Stephenson is associate professor of political science at the University of Ha-wai'i-Manoa and director of the Hawai'i Model U.N.
