Topics Covered:
- Security challenges and their management in border areas; linkages of organized crime with terrorism.
‘Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism’ (CCIT)
What to study?
For Prelims: CCIT- key facts.
For Mains: Significance and the need for convention, terrorism- threats, concerns and need for international cooperation in curbing.
Context: Vice President appeals to world community to ensure early conclusion of UN Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.
CCIT:
What is it?
The Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism is a proposed treaty which intends to criminalize all forms of international terrorism and deny terrorists, their financiers and supporters access to funds, arms, and safe havens. It is a draft proposed by India in 1996 that is yet to be adopted by the UNGA.
What does it call for?
Universal definition of terrorism: no good terrorist or bad terrorist.
Ban on all groups regardless of country of operation, cut off access to funds and safe havens.
Prosecution of all groups including cross border groups.
Amending domestic laws to make cross-border terror an extraditable offence.
It also addresses, among other things, the issue of Pakistan’s alleged support for cross-border terrorism in south Asia.
Concerns expressed by various countries:
US + allies: concerns over definition of terrorism, including acts by US soldiers in international interventions without UN mandate.
Latin American countries: concerns over international humanitarian laws being ignored.
There are also concerns that convention will be used to target Pakistan and restrict rights of self-determination groups in Palestine, Kashmir etc.
The global impact of terrorism:
- There was no change in the five countries most impacted by terrorism, which include Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Syria and Pakistan. All of these countries have been ranked in the worst five every year since 2013.
- Conflict continued to be the primary driver of terrorist activity for the countries most impacted by terrorism in 2017.
- In 2017, terrorist attacks in conflict countries averaged 2.4 deaths, compared to 0.84 deaths in non-conflict countries. Terrorist attacks are more lethal on average in countries with a greater intensity of conflict. In 2017, countries in a state of war averaged 2.97 deaths per attack, compared to 1.36 in countries involved in a minor armed conflict.
- There are numerous possible reasons for this difference. Countries in conflict have a greater availabilityof more military-grade small arms and bomb-making capabilities.
- Countries that are not in conflict tend to be more economically-developed and spend more on intelligence gathering, policing and counterterrorism.
Sources: the Hindu.
