Terrorism still eludes definition at the United Nations. This week’s discussions about such a definition at the UN General Assembly’s Sixth (Legal) Committee appear to be near failure.
Analysis: There are presently 12 international conventions addressing various elements of terrorism, yet a comprehensive convention on terrorism, which includes a definition of terrorism, remains to be formulated.
In the six weeks since the attacks in the United States, the issue of terrorism has arisen in several UN fora: UNESCO’s General Conference in Paris, the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, the General Assembly’s Third (Economic, Political and Social) Committee and Sixth (Legal) Committee hearings in New York. The lack of an agreed definition marred each of these discussions.
These meetings followed the General Assembly’s week-long special debate on terrorism in early October. All delegates called for a comprehensive definition on terrorism, yet no consensus was achieved. The impasse resulted largely from the 22-member Arab Group, which abused the forum to attack Israel without regard for the purpose of the meeting.
The Libyan ambassador, Abuzed Omar Dorda, delivering an address on behalf of the Arab Group, declared:
“[F]oreign occupation is the ugliest form of terrorism, and that [sic] the most brutal terrorist occupation is that which is practiced against the Palestinian people…[A]n objective definition can be used as a criterion by all of us in determining what terrorism is, and who terrorists are. Occupation must be on top of the terrorist acts that the world should decide to confront and eliminate…[T]he Arab Group stresses its determination to confront any attempt to classify resistance to occupation as an act of terrorism.”
The idea of political justification for terrorism is not new. The July 1999 meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, held in Burkina Faso, passed a resolution which declared:
“Peoples’ struggle including armed struggle against foreign occupation, aggression, colonialism, and hegemony aimed at liberation and self-determination in accordance with the principles of international law shall not be considered a terrorist crime.”
At the opening of the General Assembly special debate, Secretary General Kofi Annan condemned “the killing of civilian life, regardless of case or grievance.” A successful conclusion to the longstanding debate on the definition of terrorism is likely only when Annan’s calls for “moral clarity” are heeded by all member states.
