XXVIII. Commentary-The Road Ahead: Nicholas Rostow

• Author: Nicholas Rostow
• Pages: 461

I will begin by saying a few words about the United Nations and terrorism before September 11, 2001, the impact of September 11 lth, and where the United Nations seems to be headed.2 UN Member States have always had, at best, an ambivalent relationship with terrorism. Some delegates have preferred to see it as a social phenomenon, not as a criminal instrument for advancing a political or other agenda. Indeed, at a UN terrorism symposium in Vienna in 2002, over fifty delegates spoke, and almost all of them talked about terrorism as a social phenomenon; only one speaker addressed terrorism as a weapon.

Part of the difficulty arises from the fact that wars of independence often involved acts of terrorism. It is difficult for participants in such struggles to admit 1. Nicholas Rostow is currently the General Counsel to the United States Mission to the United Nations. He held the Stockton Chair in International Law at the U.S. Naval War College in 2001, prior to September 11 and being called to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. He has served in a number of senior Federal government positions, including Legal Adviser to the National Security Council, 1987-1993, and Staff Director of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 1999-2000. The views expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the U.S. Government.

2. See my Before and After: The Changed UN Response to Terrorism since September 11th, 35

CORNELL INT'L L.J. 476 (2002) and Eric Rosand, Security Council Resolution 1373, the CounterTerrorism Committee, and the Fight against Terrorism, 97 AM. J. INT'L L. 333 (2003).

to having used terrorist tactics. And, of course, in the debates about the ArabIsraeli conflict and the Pakistani-Indian conflict over Kashmir, Arabs and Pakistanis and others deprecate the use of the term 'terrorist' to describe any acts undertaken against 'foreign occupation.'3 In contrast, there is substantial evidence, including in the Arab-Israeli warfare since September 2000, that terrorism is a weapon. The evidence of terrorism's political effectiveness with many governments, inter-governmental institutions, and commentators has been accumulating for decades; as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has said on many occasions, terrorism, although itself unjustifiable under any circumstances, does not invalidate legitimate grievances.4

Prior to September 11lth, UN Member States addressed the issue of terrorism chiefly through the General Assembly and the Sixth (Legal) Committee in particular. The Sixth Committee and other UN bodies have provided the principal forum for negotiating the twelve conventions elaborating particular terrorist acts: handling of nuclear material,5 hostage taking,6 maritime navigation,7 and the like.8

3. See, e.g., Rostow, supra note...