Global terrorism is an issue threatening not only the national security of the United States, but it in fact threatens the security of the entire world. Obviously the importance of managing the threat if not preventing it is critical to the future of the world itself.
This article is a summary and an analysis of “The UN Security Council’s Response to Terrorism: Before and After September 11, 2001,” an article written by Hilde Haaland Kramer and Steve A. Yetiv for Political Science Quarterly Fall 2007 issue.
Kramer and Yetiv begin their article describing the terrorist attacks of September 11 as being “horrific” actions that “shocked” the US and the world as a whole. They posit, “September 11 represented perhaps the first time in history that the action of a transnational actor so altered the course of international relations.”
The events, according to the authors, gave way to the US war on terrorism, introduced questions, “about the future of the world, about unrestrained and elusive transnational terrorism, and about how the terrorist threat to the global community could be contained.”
A question largely overlooked according to Kramer and Yetiv is the UN role in addressing terrorism. In a footnote they mention that prior to September 11 the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and its work, “drew significant attention from the international community and from scholars, but the issue of global terrorism and the Security Council’s response to it was largely ignored.”
They say in fact that there has never been a systematic comparison of the UNSC actions before 9/11 or after. They intend to provide one in this article.
Kramer is a doctoral student in International Studies at Old Dominion University and Yetiv is a professor of political science at the same institution. Yetiv has been published by the Cornell University Press and the John Hopkins University Press as a foreign policy author and has a 4th release, “The Absence of Grand Strategy”, coming out in 2008. Both Kramer and Yetiv argue, “Evidence strongly suggests that September 11 was a critical event in the UNSC’s response to global terrorism.”
Their belief is that the post-September 11 response has been “forceful and comprehensive” and indeed has “broken new ground”, a conclusion reached by reviewing the UNSC as “assessed by the standards of its past record.”
As a disclaimer Kramer and Yetiv do concede there has been a great number of what they term “significant challenges” afflicting the council, but even amongst the pestilence “an improvement in the fight against global terrorism” can be seen.
According to the article an increasing number of individuals “point to the UN bureaucracy as sclerotic; to an organization with ethical problems, including the oil-for-food problem and a questionable Human Rights Council; and to an anti-American and anti-Israeli bias in the General Assembly.”
The study also says despite the controversial nature of the UN within the US, Washington largely benefited from its post-September 11 period response to global terrorism.
Kramer and Yetiv explore the subject at hand from the late 1980s to the present with what they term a “particular emphasis on the periods immediately before and after the attacks of September 11.”
They utilize the diachronic method of comparison to scrutinize the performance of the UNSC in the light of resolutions “because they are the official and legal expression of the Security Council’s intent, power, and jurisdiction.”
The article breaks the comparison into five separate areas, including general thrust of resolutions, the number of terrorism resolutions passed, the “gravity, content and importance”, the utilization of accessible and applicable tools, and finally compliance of member states to terrorism resolutions. Kramer and Yetiv say, “The combination of indicators provides a good sense of how the UNSC responded to the attacks of September 11.”
According to the article under the background and thrust heading, “The international community’s efforts at cooperation against terrorism are long-standing,” but despite this historical fact the issue has not regularly been presented to the UN. Instead the issue of global terrorism has historically been dealt with as a local or national incident, without a clear mention within the UN Charter.
Kramer and Yetiv point out that the UNSC did not deal with the issue of terrorism until 1989, and that previously it was the job of the General Assembly (GA).
According to the article, within the GA cooperation was promoted among states with the ultimate goal of obtaining an international framework that could be employed to take on terrorism, thus the “main contributions of the General Assembly” can be found in writings and in the adoption of “several conventions that deal with different aspects of acts of terrorism—13 in all.”
A plan of action is presented in the UNSC’s “most recent achievement,” according to the article. This Global Terrorism Strategy—adopted 8 September 2006—“includes measures to address the root causes of terrorism, measures to prevent and fight terrorism, measures to build the individual state’s capacity to fight terrorism, and measures to ensure respect for human rights and the rule of law.”
Kramer and Yetiv inform the reader that the first time the UNSC officially spoke regarding terrorism was in a unanimously passed resolution concerning plastic or sheet explosives. They cite that Chantal de Jonge Oudraat argues, “the Security Council’s attention to global terrorism in the 1990s was motivated by new developments in the activities of international terrorism: more attacks were aimed at U.S. facilities and citizens; the number of casualties per incident increased; terrorism became global, with transnational networks; the threat of terrorists using chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons seemed more real; and the role of state-sponsored terrorism became more visible.”
In Agreement the authors argue that Resolution 635 “established” the UNSC and the UN as a whole as a “venue” to deal with terrorism by asserting that the threat to international peace presented by terrorism warrants the attention of the Security Council, “and laid the groundwork for the Security Council’s future work on terrorism.” This future work was carried out “with a swiftness and decisiveness unprecedented in UN history,” according to Kramer and Yetiv, through the unanimous passage of Resolution 1368 in the first 24 hours following the devastatingly surprising attacks of 11 September 2001.
Within Resolution 1368 the article points out the Security Council reaffirmed its determination by recognizing “the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense in accordance with the Charter.” It is made clear that 1368 created the opportunity for a “new, more assertive focus” on the global terrorism issue; however, Kramer and Yetiv say the most important aspect of this particular resolution is the right of self-defense. They say the passage of 1368 epitomized—for the first time—the Security Council’s acknowledgement of self-defense “as a legitimate response to terrorism.”
Kramer and Yetiv cite Jane Boulden’s and Thomas G. Weiss’ argument that “by explicitly confirming a member state’s right to self-defense, the Security Council would ‘effectively opt out of subsequent decision-making and leave the military response to the United States.’” They say the importance of such action displays the UNSC as “a forum for debating self-defense issues,” but point out that the approval of the Security Council is not at all necessary for using force in self-defense by a member state.
Resolution 1373, according to the article, was the second “groundbreaking” resolution—also adopted unanimously, 28 September 2001—imposing binding commitments “on all member states of the United Nations.” Kramer and Yetiv say these obligations “required states to prohibit both active and passive support for terrorists, to deny terrorists financing, and to freeze the assets of terrorists and their supporters.”
The Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) was installed as a monitoring mechanism by Resolution 1373, and according to the article, serves three purposes. There is a requirement within the resolution, according to Kramer and Yetiv that “calls on all states to report to the CTC on how they are carrying out the implementation of the resolution no later than 90 days from the date of adoption, and afterward according to a CTC-mandated timetable.”
Kramer and Yetiv hypothesize that while there is a “clear difference in the prominence of action” after September 11, “more particular data also support the finding that the UN responded strongly to terrorism after September 11.” Two convictions mentioned as the “most important” by the authors—International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings (1997) and the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (1999)—have seen a boost in the number of states who have ratified the conventions after September 11, 2001.
Referring to the work of the Security Council the authors believe a difference can be seen in the quantity of resolutions regarding terrorism that have been passed before and after 11 September 2001. The statistic given and listed within a table provided in the article, 13 resolutions relating to the issue of global terrorism were passed, which according to Kramer and Yetiv, equates to approximately one resolution passed per year. Supported in Table 2 within the article is what the authors term a “marked increase in terrorism-related resolutions passed by the Security Council since 11 September 2001; by the end of 2005, it had passed 20 resolutions, an average of 4 to 5 resolutions a year.”
According to the article before 11 September 2001 only 8 of 13 resolutions had been passed unanimously, but following the attacks 19 out of 20 have been unanimously passed. While the data supports the hypothesis that UNSC action has been significant Kramer and Yetiv believe, “it is also important to explore gravity and quality of actions taken at the UN.”
Four categories for appraising the quality of resolutions have been presented: “general/technical; response to terror act; response to terror act and imposing sanctions; and terrorism a minor issue.” According to the article, two of the 13 resolutions before 11 September fall under the broad category, and Post-9/11 over half of the resolutions have been classified as general in overall content and scope.
According to Kramer and Yetiv, before 11 September 2001, “When countries supporting or harboring terrorists and their organizations have failed to comply with international pressure, the Security Council has taken the next step and enforced sanctions; six resolutions are classified as the third type.” Bomb attacks in Kenya, Madrid, and London are brought up as an illustration of 11 of 20 resolutions post-9/11 have been in response to specific terror acts.
The article says, “only one resolution involving sanctions has been passed since 11 September 2001—Resolution 1526 (2004), which extends and expands sanctions against the Taliban and al Qaeda organizations.” In sum the authors believe the ‘quality’ of the resolutions to be changing for the best. They classify 69% of resolutions before 9/11 as reactive in nature and 55% in the post-9/11 period. Prior to 9/11 the majority of cases were selectively separated, but in the post-9/11 period the Council has been more “even handed and inclusive.”
Kramer and Yetiv citing Rostow, “Before and After,” say, “The post-9/11 resolutions carry more significance and clout, frame the work of the UN organs on terrorism, and provide a framework and guide for action for most of the member states of the UN.” Before 9/11 sanctions remained the “ultimate” tool of the Security Council, and since then according to the article there has been a drastic increase in the tools available to combat terrorism.
Sanctions, according to Kramer and Yetiv, were used “three times during the 1990s, against Libya, Sudan and Afghanistan.” After 11 September 2001 no sanctions have been used as a response to terrorism except for the “continuing sanction regime against Osama Bin Laden, members of the al Qaeda and Taliban organizations and associated individuals and groups.”
Transnational terrorist networks offer a harder target for sanctions considering they are constantly on the go in search of somewhere find shelter and possibly hideout. Kramer and Yetiv are of the opinion that strengthening the CTC may in fact be more “effective” than sanctions. The authors have not given up on the success of sanctions, only admitted they could still be a beneficial tool in the future, while citing Oudraat who points out, “that sanctions regimes paved the way for a military approach to terrorism.”
This confusion of the value of sanctions against transnational terrorism is therefore somewhat in doubt, but the authors say the use of other tools, “namely the use of military force as well as general and financial counter-terrorism obligations monitored by the CTC,” have at least emerged and are there as alternatives, leading us to compliance by member states of the UN.
Kramer and Yetiv begin by saying, “unfortunately, there is not an easy comparison, because compliance was not requested prior to September 11.” The article says not one state was ordered to take action against terrorism prior to 9/11 simply because compliance was not viewed as anything to be concerned with. Resolution 1535 was adopted in March 2004 establishing a new Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate (CTED), making available more resources and authority.
Kramer and Yetiv say “The CTC/CTED is the UN’s first institutionalized attempt at a coordinated and global counter-terrorism scheme.” The authors, and the UNSC, believe that even though the 13 counter-terror conventions “carry no compliance or enforcement mechanism” that compliance is encouraged through the openness of the process. The CTC, according to the article, “established legitimacy and political authority for the global counterterrorism effort . . . it has promoted the creation of specialized systems for coordinating global efforts to combat terrorist threats. . . .[and it] has helped to develop and strengthen international arms.”
Upon concluding the five part analysis of resolutions, Kramer and Yetiv then move into a discussion which, “argues that the UN Security Council’s response to terrorism became much stronger after September 11.” Kramer and Yetiv go on to say that “several issues” still stain the work of the United Nations as a whole.
Imperfections, in the authors’ opinion, “include the lack of a universal definition of terrorism, lack of enforcement mechanisms, concerns about American dominance, human rights issues, and the importance of root causes.” The “foremost” issue according to the article is the willingness for member states to accept ambiguity when it comes to a solid definition of what exactly constitutes terrorism.
The reason—according to Kramer and Yetiv—is a flexible environment allows for member states to form the definition in ways that suit their policy objectives. Even so, they believe the “practical work” of the UNSC is not harmed by disagreements on the definition of terrorism. This concern turns out to be more of “a normative, moral and human rights concern,” according to their argument.
A question is emerging say Kramer and Yetiv announcing that “preponderance of American power may lead to difficult choices of whether to maximize the fight against terrorism or attempt to balance against U.S. power and dominance.” Any instance where the UN would take over and fulfill larger roles within the fight against terrorism would open the door for authoritarian regimes to utilize “counter-terrorism cooperation” as “cover for repressing their already-limited commitments to human rights and the rule of law,” according to Kramer and Yetiv.
The article cites Daniel Benjamin as saying the root causes of “authoritarian rule, the disintegration of public education, the culture of incitement, economic stagnation, and the demographic explosion,” must be addressed before any success on the eradication of terrorism will be reached. Before concluding their argument Kramer and Yetiv express their belief that “building and sustaining the peace should always be the main priority,” of the UNSC.
Part two Tomorrow (Analysis)
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