The United Nations and Terrorism: Successes, Failures and Ways Forward

The United Nations and Terrorism:

Successes, Failures, and Ways Forward

Lori A. Silcox

30 September 2009

The United Nations and Terrorism: Successes, Failures, and Ways Forward

Lori A. Silcox 1050949

American Military University

Terrorism: Assessing the Past to Forecast the Future

Course INTL652 (Summer)

30 September 2009

"The passing of the resolution on the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy with its annexed Plan of Action by 192 Member States represents a common testament that we, the United Nations, will face terrorism head on and that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, committed by whomever, wherever, and for whatever purposes, must be condemned and shall not be tolerated."

-Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa,

President of the 61st session of the General Assembly Launching the

UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, 19 September 2006

(United Nations 2009, 1)

Introduction

The United Nations (UN) has had the issue of terrorism on its agenda since 1972, yet it took nearly 34 years and the tragic events of September 11 before all of the Member States of the UN would join together in uniting against terrorism. Although the issue of terrorism has been addressed on a number of occasions from the early 1970's to 2001, it was the tragic events of September 11 that would spur the overwhelming support of each Member State of the UN to come together with the common goal of defeating terror.

Immediately following the attacks of September 11, the UN passed Resolution 1373 which "…imposed sweeping legal obligations on all 191 UN Member States," requiring every country to freeze the financial assets of terrorists, deny them travel and safe haven, prevent recruitment and weapons supply, and "cooperate with other countries in information sharing and criminal prosecution." (Cortright 2005, 1) Resolution 1373 created the Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) and mobilized states for a non-military cooperative effort of enforcing a number of measures to counter terror. Since 2001, a number of additional measures have been passed strengthening the objectives of the UN in countering terrorism, such as Resolution 1540 in 2004, which added provisions giving the CTC additional resources