The United Nations and Peace Enforcement: Wars, Terrorism and Democracy by Mohamed Awad Osman

Author:Mohamed Awad Osman [Osman, Mohamed Awad]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781351738163
Google: TvhKDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 38506269
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2002-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

6 Peace Enforcement and International Terrorism

During the Cold War the United Nations had never taken measures against international terrorism. The Security Council proved to be impotent by failing to adopt any resolutions condemning specific terrorist activities. These patterns have dramatically changed during the 1990s, and mercurial changes in East- West relations have allowed for the organisation by the Security Council of collective responses under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to deal with incidents of international terrorism. The General Assembly has also been able to adopt conventions for the prevention and elimination of terrorism. Thus, the revival of the Security Council, since 1990, has enabled its member states to confront the challenges of terrorist activities in the world through the mobilisation of the UN system for peace enforcement. However, these responses have not been without difficulties and controversy over their justification and the Cold War confrontation over the meaning of international terrorism and what constitutes a terrorist attack did not abate.

This chapter is concerned with collective responses to international terrorism in the form of peace enforcement actions. It examines the Security Council's innovative practice in this area and the challenge of imposing peace enforcement measures in situations of international terrorism. It does not intend to explore the issue of terrorism and its wider implications; however, some of its aspects are briefly explained where necessary.

The employment of diplomatic sanctions against Sudan will be discussed in length for three reasons. First, it is the first incident of mandatory diplomatic sanctions imposed as an exclusive regime of sanctions. The Council did not implement other kind of sanctions against Sudan and the limited air embargo adopted by the Security Council was suspended indefinitely. Secondly, the issue of diplomatic sanctions was rarely discussed in the literature on mandatory sanctions.1 Thirdly, the aspects of peace enforcement in the case of Sudan have not yet been explored, a fact requiring a comprehensive approach to the course of events and die explanation of regional and international factors in an attempt to establish a coherent understanding of the case.

Terrorist acts are usually conceived of as involving the threat or use of force. When a state initiates or supports a terrorist attack against another state it breaches, to a certain degree, the principle of non-use of force among states provided for in Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter. This correlation provides the basis for states’ obligations to refrain from the use of terror in their interstate relations.

If an armed attack occurs against a state through the mobilisation of terrorist activities by another state, the attacked state might consider the undertaking of unilateral or multilateral counter-measures. However, the question arises about the appropriate and permissible response to such acts? Yuri Kolosov proposes that in the face of international terrorism ‘[t]he international community has two choices: either to recognise the right of self- defence against states which support terrorism or drug trafficking; or to recognise the competence of the Security Council to undertake collective sanctions against such states’.2 The first option, responding in self-defence, dominated the practice of states during the Cold War era.

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