Vienna International Centre
Symposium 3-4 June 2002
Combating International Terrorism:
The Contribution of the United Nations
Opening address by
Antonio Maria Costa
Executive Director of the
Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention
and
Under-Secretary-General, UNOV
Vienna, 3 June 2002
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
None of us will ever forget just where we were, or what we were doing the exact moment when, on September 11 last year, we heard the news of the attacks.
The wake-up call was dramatic.
In a few minutes the international community realized that a small group of well-organized people could bring the daily life of civil society to a halt.
With the dramatic television pictures still very vivid in my mind, I welcome you all to the United Nations Offices in Vienna, for this important Symposium on Combating International Terrorism. Before offering a few observations on the matter, I wish to thank the Austrian Government and the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice. Their generosity, inspiration and hard work have brought us together to reflect on how best to respond to the wake-up call.
Why this topic, why today, why here?
Because the United Nations response to the September events was swift. The General Assembly, the Security Council and the Crime Commission all took immediate, key initiatives. Resolutions were passed, committees brought into existence, and a high-level Policy Working Group set up. Some of its members are here today and I welcome them.
I wish to thank the Under-Secretary-General, my friend Hans Corell and the other senior UN colleagues for their willingness to share their thoughts and experience with us. I give a special welcome to Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Chairman of the Security Councils Counter Terrorism Committee, who since September has animated much of the collective thinking on the ways and means the fight international terrorism. I also salute Under-Secretary-General Shashi Tharoor who has just been appointed Head of the Department for Communication and Public Information; Assistant Secretary-General Michael Doyle, who is the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General; and Giandomenico Picco, Member of the Secretary-General?s High-Level Policy Working Group on the UN and Terrorism.
Why here in Vienna? We are here because terrorist acts are very serious crimes and as such fall under the purview of the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice which has its Secretariat here at the United Nations in Vienna. Furthermore, it is in Vienna that the international community has created and nurtured over time the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, which is leading the fight against illegal society.
We are meeting today because in the last nine months many initiatives have been taken to deal with terrorism. Now it is time to coordinate them. The synergy we seek is, in the first instance, within the United Nations. Secondly, it is coordination with other International Organisations, especially those which represent regions and sub-regions: we should look at the respective mandates, expertise and resources, with a view to strengthening our collaboration. Third, we hope that improved coordination will be of direct benefit to all our stakeholders, especially the Member States. Many of your representatives and experts are with us today to learn what the United Nations work is about and how we can best integrate what we are doing with ongoing national efforts. We should provide concrete, pragmatic and viable answers.
The Nature of the Challenge is Complex
Terrorism is a low budget, high yield criminal activity. The attacks in New York and Washington cost only a few thousands dollars to prepare, but they had an impact nobody could have anticipated -- in political, human, and economic terms. For reasons I will explain later, let me start with the latter.
The economic impact, which is the easy part to calculate, goes into numbers whose order of magnitude escape common comprehension.
·The clean up costs have been estimated at $15 billion
·The losses to business (especially to the tourism industry) may have been another $15 billion.
·A further $10 billion have been spent to increase security
·Worldwide the bailing out of airlines cost $8 billion.
If we factor in the higher insurance costs (another $40 billion), the direct economic impact of the September attacks may have exceeded $100 billion. Job losses in the industries affected by the event and the stock market decline are not included in these calculations. Nor are the costs of the war in Afghanistan. If we did include these factors, the economic effects of the September terrorism would be hundreds of billions of US dollars.
Economics is my field of specialization. Not surprisingly therefore, the appreciation of the cost tends to prevail in my analysis. Yet money is only a part, and of course not the most important part of the story. The major consequences of September 11 have been in terms of human hardship and suffering. I am not only thinking of those who lost their lives, or of those who lost their loved ones in New York or Washington. It was the rest of the world, especially the people in developing countries who suffered the most -- and their pains continue. The World Bank President believes that tens of thousands of children may have and/or will continue to die, and millions of people will be pushed below the poverty line (one ($1/day) because of the September tragedy. There are other human costs that will never be quantified: destroyed hopes, disrupted life patterns, the fear of fragility and uncertainty that is spreading through society.
But let me go still beyond, as even more is at stake than human sufferings or business losses.
Terrorism has challenged the monopoly of legitimate power that rests with the modern, accountable state. If a democratic government loses its right and its power to impose the will of the people upon violent actors, we are back to the dawn of humankind.
In Afghanistan, it was not just a question of a state offering safe haven to international terrorists. Rather, in the country there was a violent informal state, an evil structure largely dependent on foreign money and foreign mercenaries. We have seen this happening on a smaller scale, in other countries and other continents.
Weak, failing or corrupt states run the risk to be hijacked by terrorists. As warlords make raids across borders -- even across continents, societies suffer, development stalls, and neighbouring countries carry the burden of refugees. The national economy becomes dependent on illicit activities and black markets.
Warlords create their own enclaves where the state is virtually absent. The resulting feeling of exclusion and frustration make people susceptible to nationalistic, ethnic and extremist calls. Simple solutions to complex problems become treacherously attractive. In the course of this Symposium, interesting views will be heard about what the international community can do to help the countries that may not yet be strong enough to prevent the birth of terrorist cells within their borders.
Terrorism is however not synonymous, not even a symptom of under-development. Even in strong and healthy states the terrorist challenge needs to be addressed seriously. At times the terrorist threat is imported from abroad; at times it has domestic origins. Still it can be a serious menace to all modern open societies. Despite their economic and military might, industrially advanced societies which depend on sophisticated technological infrastructures are more vulnerable to disruptive attacks than they were in earlier times. They are, of course, more vulnerable than the societies of less developed countries.
The impact of such attacks is magnified by the ubiquity of mass media which broadcast terrorist events live into our living rooms, making us instant witnesses. While guerrilla fighters try to occupy their claimed territory, terrorists occupy our mind with their provocative punctuated assaults, instilling terror. With such massive coverage as we saw on and after 11 September, there is the risk that our media are turned from instruments of information into unintentional instruments of mass hysteria. Terrorists want to impress, want to strike fear and want to coerce us: we know that they count on the media. Luckily, in democratic countries media is aware of this risk, and is actively fighting it. We salute their fight. While the number of victims of terrorism might, at times, be relatively low when compared to the casualties of other man-made or natural disasters, it is the brazenness of their attacks, their cruelty and their deliberate violation of basic human rights that make terrorist crimes a matter of grave concern and great media interest.
If a few suicidal hijackers, armed only of their bare hands, can turn civilian aircrafts into missiles that destroy thousands of lives; if the mail distribution system can spread death right across our offices, then even strong and healthy states face a radically new situation. High-tech achievements can be turned against us all. The conventional-type of attack that took place in North America a few months ago, could be the precursor of worse to come. The threat of biological, chemical, even nuclear attack is serious, and the fears of the worse moments of the Cold War are back. This time, however, the enemy has no ideology, no insignia, and no head quarters. Ho can we identify or catch it?
One of the Symposiums starting point is that terrorism is a challenge to all states and all societies. Therefore, no single state or single society can hope to cope with it alone. Todays terrorists have a global reach: while their breeding ground may be in the remote areas of one continent, their targets may be the urban centres in another one. The targeting of innocent civilians must be seen as an attack against humanity as a whole, an act that requires a response from the concert of nations as a whole. As the Secretary-General noted "there is no alternative to international cooperation".
The United Nations as the Front-Runner
Over and over again we have learned that society needs a crisis to prod itself into action: this bitter lesson should not be forgotten either. Much of the international community failed to anticipate even the remote eventuality of the September events. The response has been good, but in a reactive mode. Not so for the United Nations.
The UN for its part had started to work on ways and means to address the terrorist threat well before things got out of hand, as in the recent crisis. The first defining moments for the international community were the hijackings of international airliners, at the beginning of the 1970s, the assault on the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972 and the kidnapping of OPEC Ministers. It was around that time that the United Nations had began to work on ways and means to address the terrorist threat. Therefore, the Organizations concern with terrorism goes back more than three decades, involving the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council and the UN specialized agencies like ICAO, IMO, and IAEA.
Especially important have been the 5-year Congresses on Crime Prevention, starting from the one held in Kyoto in 1970 that focused on airplane hi-jacking. In 1985, the Milan Plan of Action -- later adopted as a General Assembly resolution gave priority to terrorism and spelled out law enforcement measures, extradition procedures and the arrangements for legal assistance to be implemented is cases of offences of a terrorist nature.
Again, fifteen years later, the last Congress, held in April 2000, adopted the Vienna Declaration - also endorsed by the General Assembly - from which a Plan of Action for its implementation has recently been approved. This Plan of Action contains detailed provisions concerning both national and international actions for the prevention and control of terrorism.
The most important achievement of the past decades in the United Nations has, however, been the gradual establishment of a common legal framework, to which we all adhere, consisting of a dozen Conventions and Protocols which are now in force. They offer the legal infrastructure to address serious crimes committed by terrorists acts such as hijackings, hostage-taking, terrorist bombings and the financing of terrorism.
These conventions and protocols are all based on the premise that perpetrators of terrorist crimes must either brought to trial by their national governments, or be extradited to a country willing to bring them to trial. The simple principle of "aut dedere, aut iudicare", "punish or extradite" is meant to make the world inhospitable to terrorists and to deny them safe havens.
Unfortunately, implementation of these international conventions has been uneven. No systematic monitoring has been done; no implementation machinery has been established to evaluate national measures that would turn the conventions into effective laws in each contracting party.
Looking back over more than thirty years of UN initiatives, we have to be honest with ourselves: they have not or not sufficiently reduced the danger, nor the manifestations or the consequences of international terrorism. While part of the reason for this can be attributed to the stalemate caused by the Cold War, and while considerable progress has been made in the 1990s, unanimity on what could be labeled as terrorism has not yet been reached though we are now closer to a consensus than ever. The Secretary-Generals call for "moral clarity" in the wake of the attacks of 11 September has been widely heard, but not fully complied with.
In short, while looking forward for the finalization of the Comprehensive Convention, we have to be determined to fight all manifestations of terrorism. Under international humanitarian law terrorist crimes would be war crimes, if a state of war existed. In peacetime, most of them would be gross violations of human rights. Under national penal law these are very serious crimes. The category of serious crimes also plays an important role in the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. When in force, this Convention will be of considerable use for dealing with certain terrorist crimes, since its provisions might be applied to criminal activities of terrorist groups. While the Palermo Convention is not intended to cover terrorism as such, it can be an important tool for international cooperation, also against terrorist groups which engage in the same sort of activities as organized criminal groups.
Terrorism is one of the threats against which States must protect their citizens. They have not only the right, but the duty to do so. The murder of innocents is a crime in all civilizations. It distinguishes civilization from barbarism. The terrorists are the new barbarians. We are therefore not talking about a clash of civilizations, but about a war between civilization and barbarism.
Five Themes of the Symposium
The Symposium programme rests upon a wide range of issues.
The first panel will deal with the international conventions and protocols related to the prevention and control of terrorism. The piecemeal nature of earlier legislative texts has brought about calls for a Comprehensive Convention against International Terrorism. However, finalization of such a Convention has been hampered by the lack of consensus on the definition of terrorism.
The definitional problems faced in all such legal documents are well known, but they can be overcome. There were problems, for example, when the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime was negotiated. Yet in the end, a solution was reached by defining "the organized crime group" rather than "organized crime" as such.
What we need, in the final instance, is an operational approach. One that will empower nations to fight the murdering of innocent people, the destruction of property and the taking of civilian hostages for goals that are only remotely, if at all, connected to the victims.
The second panel addresses the most important part of the UN response to terrorism: Security Council resolution 1373 of 28 September 2001 that has had far-reaching implications for the international legal system and for financial oversight.
Prominent representatives of the Member Countries that initiated or took part in drafting of the Resolution will address the Symposium. We will also hear a report on the work of the Chairman of the Counter Terrorism Committee, the UN system leading body when it comes to promoting collective action against international terrorism.
Since Resolution 1373 also called on all member States to become parties as soon as possible to the relevant international conventions and protocols relating to terrorism, its operational implications are far-reaching. For this reason I welcome the third panel discussion which will focus on this topic.
In order to bring all Member States to a minimum level of compliance with the terrorist conventions and protocols, much legal and technical assistance will be needed. Promoting ratification means that guidelines need to be developed and roadmaps for steering appropriate laws through national Parliaments need to be designed. Once these new laws are in place, the national administrations responsible for their implementation have to be enhanced. Also, international cooperation among law enforcement agencies (for instance in the field of extradition) needs to be reinforced. The ODCCP Office in Vienna has already received requests for legal help in all these aspects of the anti-terrorist conventions.
When it comes to the prevention and control of international terrorism, various regional and sub-regional organisations have been taking new initiatives in the past few months. They often possess their own legal instruments and engage in initiatives that should be better known. The fourth panel will familiarize us all with efforts ongoing in many different corners of the world.
Terrorism is a criminal activity that needs to interact with, and be supported by other criminal activities. In Resolution 1373, the Security Council recognized and expressed its concern about the links between terrorism and illicit drugs production, manufacturing and trade; and with money laundering and arms trafficking. The illegal movement of nuclear, chemical, biological and other potentially deadly materials has become another priority.
The fifth panel will review these interconnections. It will especially examine the actual and potential work of the Vienna-based UN institutions that for years have dealt with the issues of counter-narcotics and organized crime.
Analyzing the links between terrorism and related crime is no academic exercise but serves to discover vulnerabilities of terrorist groups and thus help in dismantling them. Some of the experience developed in Vienna over the years to combat drug trafficking and conventional crime can be utilized to fight terrorists. While terrorists often have a political agenda, they always engage in conspiracy and gain money illegally. Their acts of violence are first and foremost serious violation of the law that can, at least in part, be dealt with by the instrument of the Convention against Trans-national Organized Crime.
Five Propositions for the Period Ahead
Let me now summarize the few points I had in mind with this introduction.
First, the September 11 terrorist attack caught us all by surprise. But retrospectively, werent there many signs of imminent initiatives of this sort? Wasnt the worrisome situation in Afghanistan thoroughly described in so many articles and books? Clearly, the prevention of terrorist activities must be based on greater awareness and better understanding of their origins.
So, why not help countries to develop domestic systems of early warnings? By this I do not mean intelligence and covert activities. Although I do not know much about these spying activities, the impression is that they are being strengthened everywhere in the world. Rather, I mean research efforts, for example university and civil society-based assessments, that could help authorities monitor, measure, and explain potentially troubling social trends. Governments with weak administrative structures especially need technical assistance to understand better what is going on within their boundaries.
My second point concerns the role the United Nations can play, based on its comparative advantage. As the only truly global organisation, it has the authority to establish international laws and norms second to none. The United Nations is also uniquely placed to foster international and regional cooperation, together with regional organisations which have been working for years in this field, or have been taking new initiatives since September 11. For example, the UN has been cooperating closely with the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Third, international efforts to combat terrorism must be based on good governance, democracy and rule of law. In other words, counter-terrorism should not be an exercise in reaction to events. It should be rooted in a positive approach to development, and in support to it.
When governance is bad, resistance against corrupt rule gains legitimacy. When unpopular rulers cannot be voted away, advocates of political violence gain a following. When individuals stand above the law or use it as a political instrument against non-violent opponents, the law loses its credibility. In such circumstances, people with evil intentions may strike, with good chances of success.
Fourth, in the fight against terrorism we must never give up the moral high ground for which the United Nations was created. The defence of human rights is the institutions core value. It is the strongest mean to unmask the false promises of those who spread and practice violence, as a panacea to the problems of this world.
The international communitys determination to resolve conflicts, combat discrimination, alleviate poverty and improve the human condition can drain away the murky waters where terrorists and criminals spawn.
Ladies and gentlemen,
We live in a vulnerable world. Our defence against those who commit evil requires vision, strategy and means.
The vision was nurtured during many debates in New York, following the September events. The strategy is under development, and this Symposium will hopefully also contribute to it. I believe the needed means -- human and financial -- will come: those present here possess a wealth of expertise we should all capitalize upon. A number of countries have demonstrated willingness to help gathering a critical mass of resources.
More importantly, the international community needs to coordinate it activities better, to see who can do what best, and then do it in a way that can make a decisive difference. If the Symposium produces such a road map it will be a success. The UN Vienna Office (ODCCP) stands ready to help in this regard as well.
My fifth and final point is of a different nature. You may recall the ancient Greek writer who once noted that, from a distance, the silhouette cut out against the sky by a sleepy-head standing on a beach is not different from the silhouette of a fisherman. Let us hope the September 11 brutal wake-up call will indeed mark the beginning of a productive period ahead, turning yesterdays dreamers standing leisurely on the shores into busy catchers of deadly predators in the near-by waters.
Thank you for your attention and good luck in your deliberations.