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I. Introduction

1. The terrorist attacks on the United States of America on 11 September 2001 caused the international community to focus on the issue of terrorism with renewed intensity. Within the span of a few weeks, the Security Council unanimously passed resolutions 1368 (2001) and 1373 (2001), the General Assembly adopted resolution 56/1 by consensus, and convened a special session. Each of those steps served to underline the depth of shared international commitment to an effective, sustained and multilateral response to the problem of terrorism.

2. The Policy Working Group on the United Nations and Terrorism was established at the behest of the Secretary-General in October 2001, within that context and to those ends. Its purpose has been to identify the longer-term implications and broad policy dimensions of terrorism for the United Nations and to formulate recommendations on the steps that the United Nations system might take to address the issue.

3. The Policy Working Group is chaired by Kieran Prendergast, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, and is comprised of the following members: Hans Corell, Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and The Legal Counsel; Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention and Director-General of the United Nations Office at Vienna; Nitin Desai, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs; Jayantha Dhanapala, Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs; Michael Doyle, Assistant Secretary-General and Special Adviser to the Secretary-General; Ibrahima Fall, Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs; Ibrahim Gambari, Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser of the Secretary-General for Special Assignments in Africa; Edward Luck, Director, Center on International Organization of the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University; David Malone, President, International Peace Academy; Edward Mortimer, Director of Communications, Executive Office of the Secretary-General; Giandomenico Picco, Personal Representative of the Secretary-General for the United Nations Year of Dialogue among Civilizations; Bertrand Ramcharan, Deputy United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; Michael Sheehan, Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations; Danilo Türk, Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs; and Brian Urquhart, former Under-Secretary-General. Mark Quarterman of the Department of Political Affairs serves as the Secretary of the Group.

4. The Group determined that its report should place the role of the United Nations in the struggle against terrorism in context, prioritize the Organization's activities regarding the issue, and contain a set of specific recommendations on how the United Nations system might function more coherently and effectively in this very complex field.

5. The Policy Working Group established subgroups to address the following specific issues:

(a) International legal instruments and international criminal justice issues;
(b) Human rights;
(c) Activities of the United Nations system;
(d) Weapons of mass destruction, other weapons and technology;
(e) Use of ideology (secular and religious) to justify terrorism;
(f) Counter-Terrorism Committee of the Security Council;
(g) Media and communications;
(h) Non-United Nations multilateral initiatives.

The subgroups were composed of members of the Policy Working Group, United Nations officials and outside experts. The subgroups made every effort to include diverse perspectives on the problem. Each subgroup prepared a detailed report. Their principal purpose was to develop the background information and policy recommendations that form the basis of the present report.

6. The Policy Working Group established relationships with groups both within and outside the United Nations system, including the Terrorism Prevention Branch of the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, the International Peace Academy and the Center on International Organization at Columbia University. The International Peace Academy drafted two background papers and organized two meetings for the Group, at which academic experts provided background information and conceptual ideas. The Center on International Organization held four round-table discussions on various topics related to terrorism, which were attended by academic experts, policy analysts, representatives of Member States and United Nations staff. The Center also commissioned eight papers on terrorism that were discussed during the round-table meetings. Expertise of the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention was channelled into the Group's deliberations through the participation of its Executive Director as a member, and through the work of the subgroups on international legal instruments and international criminal justice issues and on activities of the United Nations system.

7. In January 2002, the chair of the Group submitted to the Secretary-General a programme for the preparation of the present report. In March 2002, the chair submitted a note to the Secretary-General, setting forth key recommendations for possible implementation pending the completion of the final report. Efforts are under way to implement many of those recommendations.

8. The members of the Group realize that their work will not end with the submission of the present report. If the Secretary-General agrees to some or all of the attached recommendations, it will be necessary to prepare an implementation plan with details on any additional resources or modifications in mandates that are required. The Group is ready to continue its efforts to see this project through to its conclusion.

General considerations

9. It is important to state what the Policy Working Group did not attempt to do. Rather than taking a comprehensive approach, the Group focused specifically on areas in which the United Nations would have a comparative advantage and could make a fresh and tangible contribution to the international anti-terrorism effort. The Group has not attempted to devise a definition of terrorism, identify its diverse roots or address specific instances of terrorist activity. The Group does not believe that the United Nations is well placed to play an active operational role in efforts to suppress terrorist groups, to pre-empt specific terrorist strikes, or to develop dedicated intelligence-gathering capacities. Rather, the Group has focused on practical steps that the United Nations might take in the following areas of activity: (a) dissuading disaffected groups from embracing terrorism; (b) denying groups or individuals the means to carry out such acts; and (c) sustaining broad-based international cooperation in the struggle against terrorism on the basis of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.

10. Counter-terrorism activities are carried out through bilateral and multilateral cooperation among national agencies devoted to law enforcement, intelligence and security. By and large, such measures do not require the Organization's involvement. On the other hand, as the responses of a number of Member States to the Counter-Terrorism Committee have indicated, there may well be places where the United Nations system could assist in providing or organizing capacity-building efforts related to law enforcement, criminal justice and the implementation of the provisions of Security Council resolution 1373 (2001).

11. The Group is mindful of the multiple ways in which terrorism challenges the core principles and mandate of the Organization, as derived from the Charter of the United Nations. Terrorism is, and is intended to be, an assault on the principles of law, order, human rights and peaceful settlement of disputes on which the world body was founded. However, despite its relatively wide use as a technique, terrorism is not a single phenomenon, but must be understood in the light of the context from which terrorist activities arise. It is not a problem that primarily springs from any single ethnic or religious group. Rather, terror has been used as a tactic in almost every corner of the world, making no distinctions as to the wealth, gender or age of its victims, who are largely civilians. To be sure, we have seen in our time terrorism being used as a strategy.

12. Most terrorist acts have been carried out by specific groups with limited agendas, using small weapons, and within the boundaries of individual States. Transnational networks of the type that perpetrated the 11 September attacks are a relatively new phenomenon. Nevertheless, the international implications and linkages of the more traditional form of terrorism should not be overlooked. Over time, groups based in one country may take on a transnational character, carrying out attacks across one border, receiving funding from private parties or a government across another, and procuring arms from multiple sources. Terrorism in a single country can readily become a threat to regional peace and security owing to spill-over effects, such as cross-border violence and the creation of refugee populations. It is therefore difficult to draw sharp distinctions between domestic and international terrorism.

13. Without attempting a comprehensive definition of terrorism, it would be useful to delineate some broad characteristics of the phenomenon. Terrorism is, in most cases, essentially a political act. It is meant to inflict dramatic and deadly injury on civilians and to create an atmosphere of fear, generally for a political or ideological (whether secular or religious) purpose. Terrorism is a criminal act, but it is more than mere criminality. To overcome the problem of terrorism it is necessary to understand its political nature as well as its basic criminality and psychology. The United Nations needs to address both sides of this equation.

14. While terrorist acts are usually perpetrated by subnational or transnational groups, terror has also been adopted by rulers at various times as an instrument of control. The rubric of counter-terrorism can be used to justify acts in support of political agendas, such as the consolidation of political power, elimination of political opponents, inhibition of legitimate dissent and/or suppression of resistance to military occupation. Labelling opponents or adversaries as terrorists offers a time-tested technique to de-legitimize and demonize them. The United Nations should beware of offering, or be perceived to be offering, a blanket or automatic endorsement of all measures taken in the name of counter-terrorism.

15. The phenomenon of terrorism is complex. This does not, however, imply that it is impossible to adopt moral clarity regarding attacks on civilians. Terrorism deserves universal condemnation, and the struggle against terrorism requires intellectual and moral clarity and a carefully differentiated implementation plan.

16. Just as terrorists seek to undermine the core principles and purposes of the United Nations, so it is through a determined effort to bolster and reassert these guiding principles and purposes that the world body can best contribute to the struggle against terrorism. The lack of hope for justice provides breeding grounds for terrorism. Where United Nations efforts to reduce lawlessness and despair in the world succeed, terrorism will find no nourishment. The Group therefore suggests that it is in the realm of norms, human rights, justice and communications that the comparative advantages of the United Nations will be most apparent and that it will make the greatest difference. Through its conventions, resolutions, statements and actions, the Organization can help to dissuade disaffected groups from choosing the terrorist path and those who aid, abet or excuse terrorist acts from maintaining those ties or sympathies. The universal character, global reach and international legitimacy of the United Nations constitute important assets upon which it can draw in this effort. The Secretary-General's credibility in so many different quarters may equally be of great use in specific cases.

17. Security Council resolution 1373 (2001) is at the same time a comprehensive and a specific statement of the international community's desire to deny terrorists the tools of their trade - finance, secrecy, arms and shelter - but it certainly was not the first. Through the years, a number of conventions, agencies and programmes - United Nations and non-United Nations - have sought to curb the access of terrorists to the means of carrying out their violent attacks. This is no easy task, and it demands the sustained and specific cooperation of a variety of national, regional and global agencies and arrangements. The Group envisions the United Nations system playing an important role in the effort by building on its substantial work on disarmament and curbing weapons of mass destruction, on implementing the provisions of Council resolution 1373 (2001), and on narrowing the space available to terrorists through post-conflict peace-building and related preventive measures.

18. The Group understands that these two tasks - dissuasion and denial - demand a response that is both multi-layered and coherent, that unfolds within a multilateral framework yet allows each participating organization, State and agency to contribute what it does best. The United Nations has a key place in this effort, but it needs to work out a sensible division of labour with the many other players. Given that this is the first attempt at a United Nations system-wide strategy for dealing with terrorism, careful attention must be paid to the institutional, bureaucratic and financial questions, the answers to which can help to ensure an integrated response to this unprecedented challenge. More fundamentally, the Organization is uniquely situated to provide the political cohesion and principled purpose required to sustain broad-based international cooperation to oppose terrorism.

19. In pursuing this tripartite strategy of dissuasion, denial and cooperation to counter terrorism, the United Nations cannot and must not retreat from the other pressing issues on its wide agenda. In this regard, the Group was mindful of the address by the Secretary-General during the general debate at the fifty-sixth session of the General Assembly, in which he stated that the problems, such as poverty, HIV/AIDS and environmental degradation, that faced the global community before 11 September 2001 remained just as urgent afterwards. The Group further recognized that many of the Organization's existing programmes could help to reduce the appeal of terrorism and the pool of human, material and financial resources that sustain it. As a result, the Group decided to recommend neither substantial modifications to the Organization's agenda, nor organizational changes within the United Nations system or the diversion of major resources to the struggle against terrorism. The Group, in its review of the activities of the United Nations system, recognized that the Organization's terrorism-related efforts would be more effective if better coordinated, supported by modestly enhanced resources, and shaped by a more sharply defined strategy and priorities.

20. The present report begins by focusing on international legal instruments, human rights and behavioural norm setting - which can be powerful instruments for dissuasion. The second section addresses three key tools for denial: the United Nations efforts at disarmament and curbing weapons of mass destruction; implementation of the provisions of resolution 1373 (2001) and the work of the Counter-Terrorism Committee; and the contributions that United Nations peace-building and conflict-prevention efforts can make to narrowing the space in which terrorists operate. The third section considers ways of sustaining cooperation among the Member States, of working with non-United Nations multilateral initiatives, and of fostering greater coherence within the United Nations system. The report concludes with a concise, prioritized list of recommendations for future United Nations efforts to counter terrorism.