Terrorism is a global concern and threat to peace and security to the world at large. After the 9/11 attack, the counter-terrorism mechanism has gained prime importance in the securitization of every country, and the world community has been more united against non-state actors and adopted strict counter-terrorism mechanisms in the domestic legal formwork. Following the attacks, the Security Council took the unprecedented step of adopting strong anti-terrorism measures, including resolution 1373 (2001), by which it identified a range of universal mandatory counter-terrorism measures and established the Counter Terrorism Committee (hereinafter referred to as CTC).
In addition, various international and national organizations and centres were established to respond to new threats posed by terrorism and violent extremism. While many third-world countries and developing countries in comparison to western countries, do not have strong technology-based mechanisms to pre-detect acts of terrorism and furthermore anti-terror legislations are much criticized from a human rights perspective. However, the world is interconnected in combating terrorism which is widely believed to pose grave threat to peace and security. The threat that terrorism poses to international “peace and security” has gained global attention and is now considered a serious crime against humanity.
While the concept of Global North vs. Global South describes a grouping of countries along socio-economic and political characteristics, the former is often equated with developed countries and the latter with developing countries also termed as third worlds countries. However, there is no universal agreement as to which country falls under which category, and many scholars are critical of the idea of grouping together a large array of countries and regions into these specific categories. With geopolitical shifts, the definition of the Global South and Global North may also change in terms of which countries are considered to be part of the block.
In the case of terrorism, the Global North vs. Global South division seems different. While no specific root cause of terrorism could be found, the argument has been established that economic conditions, undemocratic society, extremism can force or attract people towards to commission of acts of terror. Though acts of terror in the Global South and from the individuals (as a terrorist) of the Global South have been always focused on combating terrorism, the impact of terrorism in the global South is explored only marginally.
The legal regime against terrorism under international law was initiated in 1937 by the League of Nations by adopting two conventions to suppress international terrorism. But unfortunately, it never came into force due to a lack of ratification. Afterwards, the United Nations (hereinafter referred to as UN), being concerned about the threat of terrorism, established an ad-hoc committee under General Assembly (hereinafter referred to as GA) resolution 3034 of 1972 to adopt a comprehensive legal framework. The state delegations however, without being able to reach a common agreement among them, the committee couldn’t forge ahead with any comprehensive legal formwork.
In the interim, the UN and other international organizations have developed 19 sector-specific “Convention and Protocols” to address certain acts of terrorism in their respective area. These conventions willfully ignored the issue of the ‘one man terrorist, one man freedom fighter’ definition of terrorism. As a result, it was unable to confront terrorism comprehensively. To fill the existing gap, an ad hoc committee has been set up by the UNGA and operating under the sixth committee (legal) has been trying to finalize the convention based on India’s proposed draft for a longer period of time, but here again, it has failed due to lack of consensus among the state delegations to determine upon whom and when the convention would apply.
The disagreement between states can be divide into Global North vs. Global South, however, this division with regards to terrorism, we may get a different notion. Here the division depended in accordance with their national interest and international politics. In accordance with the negation history of Drafting Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, members of the Organization of Islamic Co-operation countries differ from other major powers. For instance, India, which is a strong pillar of the Global South, but in the case when adopting a comprehensive legal framework holding the opposite side of OIC countries.
However, we find Global North is united among their delegation. One of the stumbling blocks of the adoption of the convention is the exclusion of certain acts in exercising right to self-determination. Self-determination denotes the legal right of the people to decide their own destiny in the international order.
By the virtue of Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948, any person can freely determine his/her political status and can pursue social, cultural and economic development. There was not much controversy when this principle was applied for the nations struggling for liberation at the time of the colonial rule. Before 1985 General Assembly, in every resolution related to terrorism reaffirmed that ‘this should not affect the inalienable right to self-determination and independence of all people under colonial and racist regimes and other forms of alien domination and the legitimacy of their struggle, in particular the struggle of national liberation movements, in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter and the relevant resolutions of the organs of the United Nations.
But after colonial the era, it seems that the international community has changed its paradigm and steps towards territorial integrity. Despite self-determination is a core principle of international law and recognized as a general principle of law in a number of international treaties, the right to self-determination is debated in the negation of the CCIT. However, State delegations are not able to come up in an agreeable position to exclude acts in accordance with exercising right of self-determination.
Hitherto the international community has not been able to come up with a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism due to lack of conciseness, nevertheless, they adopted 19 conventions and Protocols to deal international terrorism. Among these conventions, old fashioned anti-terror conventions (before 1996), for instance, International Convention Against Taking of Hostage in 1979, specifically exclude acts in perusing self-determination, the new generation (by UN GA Ad-hoc committee under Resolution 51/210 of December 17, 1996) anti-terror for instance, International Convention for Suppression of Terrorist Bombings – 1997, International Convention for Suppression of Financing of Terrorism – 1999, the International Convention for Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism – 2005, conventions skeptically avoid acts committed by groups in exercise of right to self-determination.
However, the right to self-determination falls under the category of international armed conflict is and already regulated by Additional Protocol I Article 1, Para 4. Thus the acts in excising right to self-determination should not be a point of disagreement in the adoption of Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.
Mafruza Sultana
(Mafruza Sultana, PhD Candidate in International Law at South Asian (SAARC) University, New Delhi, India and Advocate Supreme Court of Bangladesh. She holds an LLM degree in International Law from the same institution. She has completed her graduation from Northern University of Bangladesh. She also holds PGD Course on Intellectual Property Rights and ‘International Law and Diplomacy’. Her (co-authored) last contribution of Maritime Terrorism has been published by brill (Baltic Yearbook of International Law, Vol.19). She also holds publication in Asian Journal of International Law (Vol. 10.2 & Vol.12). She also worked as Research Fellow, Centre for Genocide Studies, Liberation War Museum, Bangladesh, Project Supervisor of Latvian Maritime Academy, Latvia on “International Maritime Terrorism” & “Maritime Security of Small States: From the perspective of Coast Guard Development. )
Image: www.weforum.org