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UN Security Council Revamps Counterterrorism CommitteeBy Jim Wurst
UN Wire
March 29, 2004
The Security Council on Friday unanimously voted to revamp its Counterterrorism Committee (CTC) "to make the committee more agile, more operative, more efficient," said the committee's chairman, Ambassador Inocencio Arias of Spain.
At a news conference following the vote, Arias said, "The committee is doing a decent job" but "it needed to be revitalized," particularly in providing technical help to countries that want to comply with council-mandated counterterrorism actions but do not have the means.
Resolution 1535, adopted Friday, endorses the reform plan Arias presented to the council earlier this month. The plan called for a "counterterrorism executive directorate," headed by an executive director who would be appointed by the U.N. secretary general, and composed of council members, secretariat staff and an expanded team of technical experts. The team would include experts on issues such as customs, international financial systems, drug trafficking, human rights and weapons of mass destruction. The new structure would have a "sunset" clause of Dec. 31, 2007, meaning it would automatically expire if the council does not vote to extend it.
Secretary General Kofi Annan has 45 days to name the director, then the director would have another 30 days to form the team and present to the council a program of work. The CTC was set up under Resolution 1373, which was unanimously adopted less than two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. The CTC's mandate is to monitor states' compliance with the multiple anti-terrorism measures in the resolution, such as denying safe haven for terrorists and cracking down on money laundering, and to assist governments in complying with the resolution.
Arias said that nearly 50 countries have not complied with 1373's mandate to report to the CTC on their governments' counterterrorism measures. With an executive director, "we will know if it is a lack of means or a lack of will," he said. "If it is a lack of will, that's very serious," Arias said. The director "will go to the committee and you will know the names," he added.
Even though the CTC have been working for 2 ½ years, he said "it's not clear" which countries are acting in bad faith. It could be another year before the council starts to take action against non-complying governments.
At one level, this revamped CTC echoes the establishment of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), which was responsible for investigating evidence of Iraqi weapons program. The head of UNMOVIC, Hans Blix, while reporting to the council, had a great deal of autonomy to conduct investigations as he saw fit. "My dream is to have a Mr. Blix for terrorism," said Arias. The executive director position "must be a post with status, with clout, visibility and authority, otherwise it will be a stupid game," he added.
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