2007 Issue 1 - New York City Bar Association

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I N T E R N A T I O N A L S E C U R I T Y A F F A I R S tions, with the General Assembly continuing to negotiate a comprehensive convention on terrorism—including a definition of terrorism—and the Security Council passing resolutions aimed at strengthening member states’ anti-terrorism laws. These are discussed below. II. UNITED NATIONS ACTIVITIES ON TERRORISM (A) The Efforts to Create a Comprehensive Terrorism Convention As noted above, because most of the terrorism-related treaties were drafted in response to highly visible terrorist acts, they address only specific acts of terrorism and neglect others. A comprehensive terrorism convention would end this piecemeal response. In his survey of terrorismrelated treaties, International Terrorism: Multilateral Conventions and Documents, international law scholar M. Cherif Bassiouni observed: A comprehensive convention which combines all existing conventions pertaining to terrorism into a single updated text would significantly advance the overall objectives of these conventions. Such a comprehensive text would contribute to the elimination of overlaps, gaps and ambiguities which currently exist in the [existing] conventions. It would also eliminate the need to consult multiple legal sources in order to enforce State Party obligations. If this piecemeal subject-matter approach trend continues, there is no end to the number of conventions likely to be developed over the years to come, and there is no hope to make the legal mechanisms contained within each convention more effective. 26 International terrorism scholar John F. Murphy also concluded that a global convention to “define international terrorism, make it an international crime, subject all state parties to the ‘extradite or prosecute’ formula and provide for other forms of cooperation” would be ideal. 27 Since 1996, an ad hoc committee created by the United Nations General Assembly (“GA”) in 1996 and open to all UN members has been negotiating a draft comprehensive convention on terrorism. As elaborated by the ad hoc committee, the comprehensive convention would define terrorism and require states to criminalize terrorist acts and take measures to 26. INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM: MULTILATERAL CONVENTIONS AND DOCUMENTS 7 (M. Cherif Bassiouni, ED., 2001). 27. Murphy, supra note 19 at 92. T H E R E C O R D 30
P R E V E N T I O N A N D P R O S E C U T I O N O F T E R R O R I S T A C T S establish jurisdiction over terrorist acts. 28 Two main issues have stalled completion of the draft: (1) whether acts committed by persons engaged in the struggle against “foreign occupation” (e.g., Palestinian attacks in Israel) should be considered acts of terrorism, and (2) whether the acts of states’ armed forces, which are already subject to the law of armed conflict during wartime, should be covered by this convention, i.e., whether acts committed by armed forces may be treated as terrorist acts under this convention. 29 (B) The Definition of Terrorism The debate over the definition of terrorism, particularly whether the definition of terrorism should exclude resistance against foreign occupation, reflects the often-heard adage that one state’s terrorist is another state’s freedom fighter. It is a tension that has existed since the UN’s first attempts at addressing terrorism in the early 1970s. 30 At that time, there was a larger degree of tolerance for the position that politically motivated acts, particularly those committed in resistance to foreign occupation, did not constitute terrorism. As Professor Malvina Halberstam observes, this was demonstrated in a 1972 General Assembly (GA) resolution relating to terrorism that established an Ad Hoc Committee on Terrorism but at the same time “reaffirm[ed] the inalienable right to self-determination and independence of all peoples under colonial and racist regimes and other forms of alien domination and uph[eld] the legitimacy of their struggle, in particular the struggle of national liberation movements.” 31 28. See Report of the Ad Hoc Committee established by General Assembly Resolution 5/210 of 17 December 1996, U.N. GAOR, 57 th Sess., Supp. No. 37, Annexes I-III, U.N. Doc. A/57/ 37 (2002). 29. See Measures to eliminate international terrorism: Report of the Working Group, U.N. GAOR 6 th Comm., 59 th Sess., Annex, Agenda Item 148, p. 4, U.N. Doc. A/C.6/59/L.10 (2004). See also Jim Wurst, U.N. Deadlock Continues on Two Terrorism Treaties, U.N. WIRE, Dec. 10, 2003; Jim Wurst, Negotiations on Anti-Terrorism Treaties Yield No Progress, U.N. WIRE, February 4, 2002. Like the definition of terrorism, this issue of whether armed forces should be covered is closely related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Organization of the Islamic Conference has urged that any exclusion from the treaty’s provisions for the actions of armed forces should also cover situations of foreign occupation. 30. The goal of achieving a universal definition of terrorism dates back to the League of Nations. The Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Terrorism included a definition of terrorism, but the treaty never entered into force. See Alex Schmidt, War Crimes Research Symposium: “Terrorism on Trial”: Terrorism—The Definitional Problem, 37 CASE W. RES. J. INT’L L. 375, 385 (2005). The UN resumed the attempt to reach a definition after the terrorist attacks at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Id. at 386. 31. See G.A. Res. 27/3034, U.N. GAOR, 27th Sess., Supp. No. 30, at 119, U.N. Doc. A/RES/ 2 0 0 7 V O L. 6 2 , N O. 1 31
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2007 Issue 1 - New York City Bar Association

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