UN committee continues work on draft anti-terrorism treaty

A United Nations General Assembly committee has begun its latest negotiating session on a draft treaty dealing with terrorism, with its focus directed to the thorny issue of defining terrorism and its relation to liberation movements.

The Ad Hoc Committee on Measures to Eliminate Terrorism, which opened its seventh session yesterday, heard opposing views regarding key provisions of an international comprehensive convention on terrorism, one of two draft treaties currently being elaborated by that body.

While the Committee has made rapid progress in negotiating the majority of the 27 articles of the comprehensive treaty, which was submitted by India during the Committee's fifth session in 2001, it has narrowed its focus to three particularly difficult areas, including a definition of terrorism and its relation to liberation movements, and the possible exemptions to the treaty's scope, in particular the activities of armed forces.

Established by the Assembly in 1996, the Ad Hoc Committee has the task of harmonizing international legal structures against terrorism. So far, it has successfully negotiated two treaties: the 1997 International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombing, and the 1999 International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism.

The Committee is also mandated to continue consideration of the outstanding issues on a convention for the suppression of acts of nuclear terrorism, as well as to keep on its agenda the issue of convening a high-level United Nations conference to formulate an organized international response to terrorism.