No New Counter-Terrorism Initiatives at This Year’s G8 Summit

By Victor Comras

The war on terrorism was not one of the “hot topics” at this year’s G8 summit at Heiligendamm, Germany. Terrorism didn’t constitute a separate agenda item, although it reportedly came up during the discussion of several agenda items, and in sidebars. And, the G8 members did issue a counter-terrorism statement reviewing G8 counter-terrorism work underway. There were no new specific counter-terrorism initiatives. Rather, the group used their counter-terrorism statement to highlight several areas where further work was indicated. This includes expanding efforts to deal with the root causes of terrorism, and more particularly with indoctrination and recruitment for terrorist purposes. It also includes strengthening the protection of key energy, transportation and other infrastructure, responding to the widespread abuse of the internet and other communication channels by terrorist and criminal groups, stemming the illicit flow of funds to terrorists, protecting human rights and civil liberties, and better engaging the private sector in these counter-terrorism efforts. There was also a special call for the UN to beef up its own counter-terrorism activities. Chairwomen Merkel summed up the G8’s work on terrorism as follows

“We condemned all acts of terrorism, whatever their alleged motivation, in the strongest terms and reaffirmed that there could be no justification for such acts. We pledged to work closely together to react efficiently to new and continuing threats stemming from terrorist activities. We defined specific areas of further joint work to counter terrorism including, among others, responding to the terrorist and criminal abuse of modern communication and information technology, protecting critical energy infrastructures, improving transportation security, countering terrorist recruitment and preventing nuclear terrorism. We reaffirmed our support for the central role of the United Nations in the international fight against terrorism”

Interestingly, The United Nation’s counter-terrorism efforts were made the subject of a separate G8 Report. It was as if the G8 were trying, on the one hand, to reassure the United Nations about its role, while castigating it, on the other hand, for accomplishing so little. Despite the lack of meaningful initiatives or results from the UN’s various counter-terrorism committees, the inaction of CTED (whose Director is resigning June 30th) and the continuing lack of consensus on the text of a Comprehensive Anti-Terrorism Convention or on a definition of terrorism, the G8 indicated that it still had full confidence in the United Nations as “the sole organization with the stature and reach to achieve universal agreement on the condemnation of terrorism and to effectively address key aspects of the terrorist threat in a comprehensive manner.” The message here is clear: The G8 really wants the UN to step up its counter-terrorism role and to begin showing some results. Perhaps, it also signals the G8 countries intention to take a more active role within the United Nations in this regard.

The most valuable G8 counter-terrorism work still goes on behind closed doors. This includes the efforts of the Roma/Lyons group established under G8 auspices. Some 300 experts from the Interior, Justice, Foreign and other ministries and the police and intelligence services of the G8 and other cooperating countries meet three times a year in this group to facilitate cooperation and information sharing, and to prepare for ministerial and summit meetings. The SAFTI transportation security initiative has also been an important endeavor. The G8 statement indicates that the SAFTI group has completed work on its 28 previously assigned projects (which remain largely unidentified) and that further work will now be done to ‘improve passenger screening programs and techniques, port facility security audits, security management systems and transportation security clearance programs.” This year’s summit statement makes no reference to CTAG and its work to identify international weaknesses in the counter-terrorism system and to provide countries needed technical and other assistance to beef up their counter-terrorism programs. However, the Report on Cooperation with the United Nations does call for developing better synergies between CTED and CTAG.

The G8 Counter-Terrorism Statement should be considered a valuable document over the next several months, and into the future, as we gauge, what still needs urgently to be done to fight the scourge of terrorism. And, if the United Nations is truly to serve as "the sole organization with the stature and reach to achieve universal agreement on the condemnation of terrorism and to effectively address key aspects of the terrorist threat," it truly has to get its own act together.

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