The UN and Global Security: Is It Able To Tackle New Threats?

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Table of Contents

Introduction
The UN’s response to Terrorism
The UN’s response to Nuclear Proliferation
Weaknesses of the UN in addressing terrorism
Weaknesses of the UN in addressing Nuclear Proliferation
Recommendations
Conclusion
References

Introduction

The United Nations (U.N.) was born on June 26, 1945 after fifty nations from around the world including the U.S., U.K., USSR, France and China signed the Charter of the United Nations in San Francisco.

Official ratification by the five states which were also permanent members of the U.N. Security Council occurred on the 24^th of October, 1945 and this marked the official formation of the U.N. The League of Nations which had previously held the mantle of ‘world peacekeeper’ subsequently dissolved itself to pave way for the newly created body.

From the UN Charter, we draw conclusions that the intention of the founder members of the U.N. was to form a body that could effectively address all global issues related to peace and security.

However, from 1945 to date, the world has never been completely at peace with all manner of strife and conflict beginning from the cold war to the current Middle East versus the West conflict. New threats such as terrorism and civil strife keep the U.N. occupied and sometimes overwhelmed such that some conflicts have received less attention than they deserved.

The UN Charter mandates the Security Council to be the sole decision making body on all matters concerning peace and security around the world. Article 24 of the Charter states that the signatories grant the Security Council power to act on their behalf on all matters regarding global peace and security.

It further mandates the council to act within the U.N.’s powers and principles and to submit annual reports to the U.N. General Assembly on the progress made in terms of its mandate.

The Council, according to Article 24 should consist of fifteen members, five of which are the veto-wielding countries- France, UK, US, USSR and the People’s Republic of China. The other ten non-permanent members are to be elected by the General Assembly for a term of two years (Norman 2005, 6).

The Charter in Article 39 envisages that “the Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of peace, or act of aggression… and shall decide what measures shall be taken….(UN Charter)”.

Article 42 then gives the council the green light to “… take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and operations by land, sea, or air forces of Members of the United Nations.”

In addition to the Security Council, the U.N., with the aid of ‘specialized agencies’ such as the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has come up with several pieces of legislation in the form of conventions that deal with particular threats to international peace and security such as terrorism and nuclear proliferation.

These treaties are twelve in number and they all relate to acts that aid or are closely connected to terrorism. Interestingly, all the above protocols and conventions were completed before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S. (Norman 2005, 5).

The Security Council, together with these U.N. bodies and affiliates together form the U.N.‘ collective’ security system. The emphasis on collectiveness is based on the fact that all member states are expected to participate in the security apparatus.

Despite, the collective security and the provisions of the UN Charter, the reaction of the U.N. to transnational threats has been lukewarm at best. The U.N. seems to be plagued by numerous problems that have prevented its ability to counter new threats such as nuclear proliferation.

Part of its weaknesses is caused by its inability to adjust to the changing global arena, which has seen a bust of globalization, centralization of trade and increased diplomatic ties between member states. In the words of Sir Robert Jackson in 1969,

The [U.N.] machine as a whole has become unmanageable in the strictest sense of the word. As a result, it is becoming slower and more unwieldy like some prehistoric monster. The lumbering dinosaur is now 40 years older and certainly not better adapted to the climate of the twenty-first century (Weiss 147).

This paper shall look into these new threats, what the U.N. is doing about them and how it should be dealing with them.

The UN’s response to Terrorism

Since the September 11 attacks, there has been an increased focus on the threat of terrorism and the access of nuclear materials to terrorist organizations and ‘rogue’ states. The body mainly responsible for much of the legislative action has been the General Assembly (G.A.) (Rosand 2003, 333).

The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) which runs the U.N.’s social and economic policy has taken the mantle from the assembly and has played a key role in counter-terrorism.

The U.N.’s Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (UNCCPCJ) has also played a key role in forming the ‘U.N. system’ (Norman 2005, 7). Together, the three have helped formulated multilateral legislation to counter terrorism. Though the G.A. cannot compel members into action, the recommendations made are influential in the shaping of national and regional counter-terrorism policy.

The 40-member UNCCPCJ and the 400-member U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) have been credited with their action against transnational crime such as trafficking of persons and drugs, corruption, organized crime and terrorism (UNODC 2004, 4). The UNODC has a special Terrorism Prevention Branch which has helped coordinate state efforts in counter-terrorism through the Global Programme against Terrorism.

Through the above system, the U.N. has worked to provide both peaceful and coercive solutions to the threat posed by terrorism. While the Security Council responded aptly to the September 11 attacks condemning them as a threat to global peace and security, the response was not targeted to the particular act of terrorism but to international terrorism as a whole (Norman 2005, 4).

Though the immediate remedial action was targeted at Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda terrorist network, the overall action in setting up bodies and legislation was aimed at achieving a multifaceted counter-terrorism framework (NACTAUS 2004, 9).

Additionally, the U.N.’s response provided universal legal norms that guided both regional and local legislation and policy on terrorism and related acts. The pillar of these norms is contained in Article 33 of the UN Charter which states that in dealing with a threat whose remedy can be achieved through peaceful and coercive means, peaceful means must be considered first.

This strategy informed the U.N.’s response to the 2001 attacks and led to the development of the policy of ‘dissuasion’, ‘denial of means to act’ and ‘sustainable cooperation’ as the three main counter-terrorism tools (PWG 2002, Para. 21). However, the above three-pronged approach is just but one out of a myriad of strategies that the U.N. has adopted.

In the 1990s period, counter-terrorism strategy adopted by the U.N. through concerted effort was at most punitive and severe since it involved wide economic and diplomatic sanctions against terrorist-supporting states. A good example of this is the U.N.’s response to Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya after the government prevented the prosecution of Libyans involved in the 1993 Lockerbie bombing.

Another such example was the placement of sanctions against the Sudanese government for its alleged support of Bin Laden and his network of terrorists.

Perhaps the most stringent response by the U.N. to terrorism was the invoking of sanctions against the Afghan Taliban regime through Resolution 1267 (popularly known as SCR 1267) which involved the formation of a special “sanctions committee” to oversee the compliance of states to the sanctions.

Placing of sanctions is done in accordance to Chapter VII of the UN Charter which provides that action shall be taken “with respect to threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, and acts of aggression”.

Interestingly, four days after SCR 1267 was passed, the twelfth convention on counter-terrorism (Convention on the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism) was passed. This marked a change in U.N. policy since the focus now was the speedy adoption of these protocols and conventions with an aim to cause a universal legal framework to prevent both domestic and international terrorism.

In light of all these efforts from various organs of the U.N. towards a legal counter-terrorism framework, only Botswana and the U.K. had effectively acceded to the twelve conventions by September of 2001 (Ward 2003, 289). In particular, only two other countries; Uzbekistan and Sri Lanka had passed the 1999 International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism.

This lukewarm reaction by the international community coupled with the shock that came with the 2001 attacks led the Security Council to blame non-ratification as the cause of the proliferation of the terrorism threat (Szasz 2002, 901).

The mobilization of state actors to cooperate in fighting terrorism was cited to be the main U.N. strategy to defeat the vice. The Security Council consequently developed a two-pronged strategy that involved increasing state capacity to implement counter-terrorism measures and the monitoring of state compliance with universally accepted legal norms.

Resolution 1373 placed focus on this strategy and it aimed at obliging states to sign and ratify the U.N. conventions on terrorism and related acts.

It also required states to cooperate in international counter-terrorism by sharing intelligence, proper screening of seekers of asylum, addressing terrorism loopholes and links, battling organized crime, reporting on any nuclear materials found in suspicious hands and eliminating exemption clauses in extradition laws (SCR 1373, para 4).

Another major contribution of SCR 1373 was the establishment of the Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC), which was annexed to the Security Council as a “committee to monitor implementation of this resolution (para 6).” The committee operated in stark contrast with the sanctions committee of Resolution 1267.

The CTC was given an open-ended mandate which indicated that the U.N. appreciated the threat posed by terrorism and thus continuous obligatory monitoring was and still is a necessity (Norman 2005, 12).

The CTC’s mandate under Resolution 1373 is threefold; first, it works to ensure that all states have legislation that supports counter-terrorism.

Secondly, it looks to strengthen existing state machinery for counter-terrorism and finally, it looks to ensure compliance with other aspects of the Resolution such as capacity building, border screening, international policing, intelligence exchange, extradition and tracing and seizure of proceeds of crime (CTC 2004, 34).

Despite, its efforts, the U.N. is still ill-equipped in its fight against terrorism. Weiss (2009) states that the global body is crippled by four individual and collective problems (146). The first of this is what he terms as the ‘Westphalian system’ whereby the narrow interests of individual states have blurred the global agenda.

Secondly, there is ‘diplomatic burlesque’ whereby states have aligned themselves in interest groups that rarely agree even on mundane matters. The first two problems affect the decision-making capacity of the U.N. The other two problems are structural in nature.

First, there is the problem of agencies with overlapping jurisdictions and lacking in centralized command and coordination. The other problem is bureaucracy and low productivity among the employees of the U.N. yet staff costs account for the largest share of the U.N. budget (146).

The UN’s response to Nuclear Proliferation

The issue of nuclear proliferation is not unrelated to that of terrorism. Nuclear proliferation began in the later part of the 1940s after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan which brought World War II to an abrupt end.

The devastating consequences of the use of nuclear weapons were laid bare for all to see and if that was not enough, the Chernobyl accident of 1986 confirmed that nuclear weapons were not the only threat; nuclear material was equally dangerous.

During the Cold War, the U.S. and Russia were in an arms race, the result of which was that they both have more than 28,000 nuclear warheads in their stockpiles which is enough to destroy the world as we know it (Cooper 2004, 301).

With time, other countries such as India, Pakistan, China, France, UK and Israel built their own stockpiles though this was mainly for defense purposes. Through the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction, states agree that they would not use nuclear weapons against each other due to the effect of retaliatory attacks.

However, the doctrine is only theoretical in the sense that ‘rogue’ states such as Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Syria have at times alluded to their intention to acquire and use nuclear weapons. In addition, terrorist organizations have also attempted to lay their hands on nuclear weapons which increase the threat of nuclear proliferation (Cooper 2004, 301).

The U.N. has established the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as its watchdog against the unlicensed proliferation of nuclear material. The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was passed in 1968 and it sought to prevent the non-nuclear states from acquiring nuclear weapons while prohibiting nuclear states from increasing their stockpiles.

In addition, the hugely popular treaty provided that the nuclear states would assist non-nuclear ones in developing nuclear power for peaceful use as long as they would forgo their intentions to acquire nuclear weapons. To date, the NPT and the IAEA are the only hope against nuclear proliferation (Cooper 2004, 303).

Weaknesses of the UN in addressing terrorism

Initially, the Security Council in combating terrorism used sanctions as the preferred method as evident in Resolution 1267. However, this approach (which seemed to work better in deterrence) was watered down by SCR 1269 which substituted the hard-line stance on terrorism to a more ‘timid’ strategy (Norman 2005, 6).

However, the reason for the change in approach was to include more countries into the counter-terrorism strategy. Nevertheless, there is no special obligation placed on member states to comply with set universal legal norms and the Security Council cannot compel a state to accede to a law (Szasz 2002, 905).

Looking at the other U.N. options, it is clear that the Terrorism Prevention Branch lacks the necessary framework to fight terrorism on a wider level due to limitations in personnel and legal support. The legal deficiency was witnessed when the U.N. Office of Legal Affairs’ Action Plan for the year 2000 failed to include terrorism in its Strategy for an Era of Application of International Law.

The plan blamed the poor penetration of international law on poor follow-up by individual states. It states that “many multilateral treaties of potential global application remain unsigned by a large number of States or, though signed, unratified.

The objective of creating a global framework of binding norms in the areas concerned is consequently frustrated, particularly in those cases in which the treaties are prevented from entering into force” (UNOLA 2000, 2).

Norman (2005) states that though the U.N. is objective about state cooperation in counter-terrorism, practical capacity-building and the necessary support to ensure compliance was absent (6).

He finds that in acting against a particular threat the Security Council showed political will in diffusing it such as the Lockerbie and Sudanese incidents but in binding members to come up with a comprehensive legal framework, political will is hard to obtain (7).

The best example of the lack of consensus on these legal norms is the lack of a universal definition of terrorism. In addition, there has been no progress on the initial intention to have a single comprehensive convention on terrorism (UNGA 2000, paras.13-18). The reason behind the lack of a clear definition lies in the fact that many states are reluctant to accept definitions that might hinder them from adequately dealing with ‘political threats’.

Instead, these states have preferred to keep municipal legislation that legitimizes use of brutish force against activists and political actors (SGA 2002, paras.11-13). This has prevented the U.N. from coming up with a definition that is both acceptable and inclusive of the elements that involve terrorism.

As a summary, it is evident that the U.N. suffers from the lack of political will by member states to fully commit themselves to counter-terrorism. The reason for this has been mainly the obsession with the West, particularly America, to introduce a whole raft of changes that seek to take away the sovereignty of states in the name of counter-terrorism.

States have also been concerned with the zeal with which particular groups have been targeted in counter-terrorism, which has led to suspicion on the real intent of the fight against terrorism.

Naturally, the nations with Islam as a major religion have been majorly concerned about these endeavors, especially because terrorist purport to act in the name of Allah and so counter-terrorism measures might aim at suppressing Islam. Since the U.N. cannot compel member states to comply with legal agenda, the U.N. remains captive to political forces, thus limiting its capability to deal with the vice effectively.

Weaknesses of the UN in addressing Nuclear Proliferation

Cooper (2004) finds that the U.N. is actually very poorly equipped to handle the threat of nuclear proliferation (297). First, the NPT is an optional protocol, and being the only piece of international law seeking to prevent proliferation, the non-compliance with the treaty is to be expected.

In addition, nuclear states such as India, Israel, Pakistan, and North Korea have either refused to sign the NPT or pulled out of the convention, thus putting global peace into jeopardy. The IAEA remains the only hope for non-proliferation, but it remains ill-equipped and powerless. First, member states have to give permission to IAEA inspectors and this being voluntary; there is no way to monitor the nuclear activity of a particular state.

The only hope for non-proliferation has been the control of trade in nuclear materials, but even this has been dashed by the discovery of a thriving nuclear “black market”. Apparently, it is only possible to monitor 90% of the nuclear material produced; thus, the other 10% is at risk of being acquired by ‘rogue states’ and terrorists.

After 1991, the world learnt that Iraq had been secretly making nuclear weapons following the Gulf War and an additional protocol was added to the NPT which gave the IAEA more power to conduct investigations at weapons facilities but only 38 states have ratified it (Cooper 2004, 299).

In the words of the former Director-General Mohammed El-Baradei, there is “need for a complete overhaul of the export control system. It is not working right now (Cooper 2004, 301).”

The best examples of the U.N.’s ineffectiveness against nuclear proliferation are the cases where the U.N. has failed to stop the acquisition of nuclear material by rogue states. The most recent of these cases is the Iran case where the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government has been enriching uranium against IAEA and U.N. directives.

Another peculiar case was the confession by A.Q. Khan, the ‘father’ of the Pakistani nuclear bomb that he had been illegally peddling nuclear technology to Libya and other rogue states.

This led President Bush to state that “…these terrible weapons are becoming easier to acquire, build, hide and transport…. Our message to proliferators must be consistent and must be clear: We will find you, and we’re not going to rest until you’re stopped” (Cooper 2004, 209).

Part of the reason why it has been had to control proliferation has been the argument that allowing certain states to have nuclear weapons while preventing other access to the weapons amounts to neo-colonialism. In fact, most states feel that Western states have not taken measures to get rid of their own stockpiles and thus their monitoring of other states is in itself an attempt at dominion.

This is why the non-G8 nuclear states have refused to sign the NPT. Another reason why these states have distanced themselves from non-proliferation attempts are the unique problems of individual states. In the case of Israel, there is need to protect itself from its ‘hostile’ neighbors.

For India and Pakistan, tension between both states has made them acquire nuclear weapons. It remains to be seen what steps the international community shall take to prevent proliferation since this is a sensitive issue that might threaten peace and security.

Recommendations

Jolly et al. (2005) make various suggestions to improve the U.N. to meet new transnational security threats. They state that the current structure of the U.N. and its approach to security as a whole is flawed and needs to be reconsidered. First, they suggest that collective security should be reconsidered outside the ‘traditional compasses of national and military security (61).

Instead, a collective approach should be postured on globalization and instead of depicting terrorism and nuclear proliferation as threats to nations; they should be marketed as threats to trade and good relations which countries can easily identify with outside their political interests (62).

These researchers further suggest that the U.N. should address global inequality and unresolved political differences so as to gain the necessary consensus needed for action.

Weiss (2009) suggests that the U.N. should focus more on the concepts of global citizenship and international responsibility to eliminate the threat posed by nationalism and narrow-minded interests that are the biggest setbacks to its capability to combat terrorism and nuclear proliferation (148).

Lastly, he adds that the U.N. structure should be reformed based on performance, leadership, integrity, and talent just like any other 21^st Century body with a mind for success (151).

Conclusion

All in all, the U.N. has made various attempts to meet threats of peace and security in the globe. For particular threats, the Security Council has met and provided solutions to the problems which have in one way or the other, helped solve conflicts. However, just like any other regional or international body, the UN has been the victim of political back and forth between states.

As such, it is necessary that the U.N. adjusts itself to rid itself of these weaknesses that have stifled its effectiveness in eradicating global insecurity. This would involve reviewing legal frameworks, especially on nuclear proliferation, taking tougher stances on terrorism and fighting the politicization of the security debate.

In addition to these measures, the UN should be re-invented to reflect 21^st Century practices such as centralization of trade and command, performance-based contracting, global citizenship and less fascination with national sovereignty. This way, it can equip itself to solve 21^st Century problems.

References

CTC (2004) CTC Programme of Work. Available at: https://www.un.org/en/ .

Cooper, M.H. (2004) Nuclear Proliferation and Terrorism. The CQ Researcher, 14 (13), 297-320.

Jolly, R., Emmerij, L and Weiss, T. (2005) The Power of U.N. Ideas: Lessons from the First 60 Years. New York: United Nations Intellectual History Project.

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the U.S. (NACTAUS) (2004) Overview of the Enemy. Staff Statement No. 15. Web.

Norman, P. (2005) The United Nations and Counter-terrorism after September 11: Towards an Assessment of the Impact and Prospects of Counter-Terror ‘Spill-Over’ Into International Criminal Justice Cooperation. Portsmouth: Centre for European Studies Research, University of Portsmouth.

Policy Working Group on the United Nations and Terrorism (PWG) (2002) Report of the Policy Working Group on the United Nations and Terrorism. UN General Assembly /Security Council, A/57/273-S/2002/875. New York: United Nations.

Rosand, E. (2003) Security Council Resolution 1373, the Counter-Terrorism Committee, and the Fight against Terrorism. The American Journal of International Law, 97(2), 333-341.

Secretariat of the General Assembly (SGA) (2002) U.N. General Assembly 57th Session: Summaries of the work of the Sixth Committee. New York: U.N. General.

Szasz, P.C. (2002) The Security Council Starts Legislating. The American Journal of International Law, 96(4), 901-905.

U.N. General Assembly Sixth Committee (UNGA) (2000) Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism. Report of Sixth Committee, A/55/614.

United Nations Office of Legal Affairs (UNOLA) (2000) “Strategy for an Era of Application of International Law: Action Plan [Electronic version]”. Adopted by the Senior Management Group and Approved by the Secretary-General. New York: United Nations.

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) (2004) Global Programme against Terrorism: Momentum for increased international action against terrorism. Vienna: UNODC.

Ward, C.A. (2003) Building Capacity to Combat International Terrorism: The Role of the United Nations Security Council. Journal of Conflict and Security Law, 8(2), 289-305.

Weiss, T.G (2009) Toward a Third Generation of International Institutions: Obama’s U.N. Policy. The Washington Quarterly, 32(3), 141-162

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