Who should lead our anti-terrorism efforts?

• Author: McMahon, Edward
• Position: UN Conventional: A Point of View

In his address to the United Nations General Assembly on 12 September 2002, President George Bush of the United States challenged the world Organization to prove its relevancy. One way to do this would be to ratchet up immediately its response to the terror threat. A small cluster of Security Council resolutions followed the horrific devastation at "Ground Zero", aimed at embodying a new global spirit of anti-terrorism. As resolution 1373 (2001) set up the Counter-Terrorism Committee, another--1390 (2002)--imposed sanctions on Usama bin Laden's organization and its financial backers. A UN policy-working group issued recommendations on dealing with terrorism, which were limited in number and scope.

While noble in intent, these UN initiatives have clearly fallen short of addressing the world community's huge need for collective response to global terrorism. The Security Council Committee has resulted in a rather benign bureaucracy, collecting routine progress reports from Member States on their anti-terrorism campaigns, including several States suspected of harbouring or promoting terrorism. At the same time, UN monitors of anti-terror sanctions have limited themselves to the occasional addition of names of individuals and organizations to their pro-terrorist list--an effort which even the United Nations has admitted in a draft report has been insufficient. As a global multilateral organization formally charged with the management of international peace and security, the United Nations antiterrorism role may be doomed to flabbiness by the limits of its capability, not to mention the increased diversity and heterogeneity of interests bedevilling UN politics.

For some UN watchers, a more robust anti-terrorism role for the Organization may seem fanciful, given the post-cold-war divergent threat perceptions among its Member States. Yet, it is not fanciful to imagine a more developed UN response that embodies the moral unification of the world after the slaughter of thousands from some eighty nations on 11 September 2001.

The United Nations should be able to assume a more direct role, resembling that of collective global security as specified in its Charter. To this end, it should take the next logical step of centralizing its anti-terrorism efforts by appointing a high commissioner on terrorism, much like for human rights or refugees.

A key role of this commissioner would be to specify the steps necessary to ensure States' compliance with the UN...