A New International Counter-terrorism Organization Makes Good Sense

By Victor Comras

John Edwards’ proposal for a new international Counterterrorism and Intelligence Treaty Organization (CITO) deserve serious consideration. Edwards has put his finger on the single most important shortcoming in the war on terrorism – the serious lack of international cooperation and coordination in efforts to grapple with terrorism on a world wide scale. The United Nations, and the various terrorism related committees established by the Security Council, have simply failed to carry out this important function. (see my numerous blogs on this topic: (1), (2), (3), (4), and (5) here, ). This has left a void that the United States and certain other countries have sought to fill by establishing various ad hoc bilateral arrangements, and this process has produced only limited, and very uneven, success.

While intelligence sharing and cooperation between the United States and certain European countries, directly, and under the auspices of the Roma-Lyon Group, has borne some fruit, other bilateral cooperative arrangements have proved sterile, and in some cases, even counter-productive. Numerous countries have complained that counter terrorism intelligence cooperation with the United States is too often a one way street, with US intelligence agencies proving overly reluctant to provide detailed intelligence to overseas agencies. Most acknowledge that the US has acted quickly to help foreign governments thwart imminent terrorist attacks, but, they complain that follow-up information upon which to base prosecution and continued incarceration, is frequently lacking. And US intelligence officers have also often complained of the spottiness and unreliability of information flowing to the US from foreign intelligence agencies. Without an ability to pool information, and compare notes, terrorist activists, including those recruiting and funding terrorists, and planning and carrying out terrorist attacks, often escape prosecution, or otherwise fall through the cracks.

The Roma-Lyon Group has proved to be the most effective international cooperative counter-terrorism effort to date. Following the 9/11 attacks, G8 Home Affairs and Justice Ministers agreed to combine the Roma group (set up by G7 countries in 1978 to foster intelligence and internal security cooperation) and the Lyon Group (established in 1996 to foster law enforcement cooperation in combating transnational crime). The combined forum was charged with developing and implementing recommendations to combat terrorism. Its work quickly extended to developing cooperative intelligence and enforcement arrangements, and to developing “best practices’ in combating terrorism that could be shared with other countries. However, it membership and scope is quite limited, it has not become an intelligence pooling organization, and intelligence, investigative, judicial and enforcement actions are still handled only on an ad hoc basis through bilateral --country to country – channels.

The UN’s failure to serve as an effective cooperative counter terrorism forum stems from several factors. At the base is the failure of the UN General Assembly and Security Council to develop a clear definition of terrorism. This reflects, in turn, a serious absence of consensus as to which groups should be labeled as terrorists. While there is a general agreement that Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization, the Organization of the Islamic Conference Countries continues to resist labeling Hamas, Hizbollah, and many other other Palestinian, North African, Kashmiri, and other so called “resistance movements” as terrorist organizations, despite the fact that they regularly employ terrorist tactics, including suicide bombings aimed at inflicting civilian casualities. This lack of a definition of terrorism has largely gutted the usefulness of the UN’s Counter-Terrorism Committee, and the effectiveness of UN Security Council Resolution 1373.

The UN’s Al Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee has also failed to carry out its mandate as originally envisaged under resolutions, 1267, 1333, 1390, and 1455. That committee was charged with imposing and policing measures to cut off al Qaeda’s finances, curb its mobility and inhibit its access to weapons and explosives. But this committee also fell short in motivating full implementation for these sanctions measures. This was due, in part, to the shear difficulty in applying these measures. And many countries simply lacked the resources necessary to enforce them. The Al Qaeda Committee did away with its most effective “name and shame” enforcement tool when it dismissed its independent monitoring group in January 2004. The Committee then constituted a new, more pliant analytical team, which, in its turn, also found that the sanctions regime imposed by the Security Council has had a limited impact.

One of the principal reasons for this limited impact is the committee's inability to update and expand its consolidated list of al Qaeda and Taliban members and supporters in a timely fashion. The UN list is now severely inadequate and out of date, and few of al Qaeda’s new members, recruiters, financial facilitators, or active supporters are included in the list. And there is no obligation on countries to take any of the UN sanctions measures against al Qaeda associated individuals or entities whose names are not included on the UN list.

This experience has shown that the UN is, in fact, quite ill-suited for a direct enforcement role. The UN Secretariat has little grounding in counter-terrorism expertise. And secretariat hiring procedures are simply not conducive to putting together the needed secure expert human resource base. UN procedures are very cumbersome and political. Diplomatic niceties and political realities hamper timely and forthright action. The UN has a poor record in coping with controversy or holding its member countries accountable. And few countries are likely to be willing to share sensitive information or intelligence on terrorism to so broad a forum.

The UN should concentrate, not on enforcement, but on putting together an appropriate international mandate to stimulate others to improve international and regional coordination in the war on terrorism. This should include spelling out clearer obligations on member states to act against terrorism and those that fund or facilitate it.

So, perhaps it really is time for those countries really committed to combating terrorism to, work together more closely in a forum and format more conducive to success. Edward’s suggestion for a Counter-terrorism and Intelligence Treaty organization could group together like-minded countries committed to the same principles and goals. It could provide a forum for pooling information and for exchanging more sensitive information on a need-to- know basis. The group might also include a cadre of counter-terrorism experts, analysts, and investigators to maintain and develop both a secure and open source data base on known international terrorists, and on those providing material support to terrorists, including recruitment and funding. Those so identified could then be designated as terrorists, creating an obligation on all member countries to take the necessary civil and prosecutorial steps they have already pledged to take under so many already existent international conventions.

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