NationStates Jolt Archive

Hello World. Snigfidnia has introduced a modest little proposed resolution called Outlawing Terrorist Groups. We invite you to consider it.

The Grand Duke

Possibly the dumbest thing I've ever heard. That would be like the New York law stating that its against the law to do something illegal.

See above.

Giordano,
UN representative,
The Black New World
Meet The Reps (http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=132588) ~ What can the UN do and what can it do for me?
(http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=151465&highlight=)

Terrorism is already illegal in most places, so this is pointless.

You're all partly right. What you're missing are the ideas of:

- The irrelevance of the terrorist's motivation/cause as a way to justify violence in an international court or as a pretext for any country's harboring the terrorist (i.e., you employ suicide bombers, you can't claim to be freedom fighters),

- Revoking the terrorists' rights, e.g., to due process and retention of financial assets that would be seized (i.e., no argument about whether you have a right to seize the bank accounts), and

- Elimination of the terrorists' ability to hide behind sovereign borders (i.e., Afghanistan provides a haven for al Qaeda, so you bomb the crap out of Afghanistan, and no one argues that it's illegal).

Think about it some more.

Outlawing Terrorist Groups
A resolution to improve world security by boosting police and military budgets.

Category: International Security
Strength: Strong
Proposed by: Snigfidnia

Description: Terrorist violence has escalated in recent years to an unprecedented level globally. The historical root causes that lead to terrorism are too numerous, complex and pernicious to be dealt with by any single act, but the horrific impact of these incidents on civilian noncombatants has offended the consciences of civilized societies worldwide.

Terrorist organizations are generally small, fragmented, secretive, non-governmental entities that cannot be confronted effectively by conventional military forces and tactics or by conventional law. They depend on finding safe haven within the borders of sympathetic states, to organize, recruit, train and finance their operations.

Therefore be it resolved that the UN must confront terrorist violence as an international criminal matter, irrespective of the possible legitimacy of the grievances of the terrorists, and no such grievance shall be held to justify the violence.

Any organization identified by a majority of the Security Council as culpable for specific acts of terrorism -- the council having been given evidence by any Security Council member -- shall under this Resolution be OUTLAWED.

The outlawed organization and its members shall be denied the protection of international law and the laws of all members, including the protection against violence, arrest, due process, or seizure of money and property.

The UN and its members agree to impose no sanction or censure for actions taken against outlawed organizations or individuals.

Further, any nation held by the Security Council to be providing safe haven to an outlawed organization will be denied any redress if invaded by another nation's forces whose purpose is to capture or destroy forces of the outlaw organization.

This Resolution obligates members to commit forces to suppressing and disrupting outlaw organizations operating within their borders, and to seizure of any terrorist assets held by financial institutions within their borders. Nations refusing to abide by this Resolution will be subject to sanctions by the Security Council, enforced by international forces under UN command.

In considering an organization for outlawing, the Security Council shall not consider the grievance or cause that may motivate the terrorist acts introduced but shall consider ONLY the factual issue of whether the organization committed the acts themselves, those acts being regarded as crimes against humanity.


OOC:
For future reference, please note that is good etiquette to paste a copy of your proposal in thread where the debate is taking place because it provides an easy and accessible source of reference for your proposal.

IC:

I have some concerns with regard to this proposal and as it stands the government of Telidia will not be able to support this proposal. Allow me to elaborate:

Quote from proposal
“Therefore be it resolved that the UN must confront terrorist violence as an international criminal matter, irrespective of the possible legitimacy of the grievances of the terrorists, and no such grievance shall be held to justify the violence.

Any organization identified by a majority of the Security Council as culpable for specific acts of terrorism -- the council having been given evidence by any Security Council member -- shall under this Resolution be OUTLAWED.”

As many distinguished members here have already pointed out, terrorism is already illegal in almost every nation therefor this measure is superfluous. Furthermore there is no Security Council in the NSUN, so this measure is unworkable. Finally, if any terrorist organisation is found the be illegal you are effectively making it a legal entity by definition. The last thing any nation dealing with terrorism would want is the legal recognition of these organisations. From a legal stand point the organisation does not exist, only the individuals have existence under law.

Quote from proposal
“The outlawed organization and its members shall be denied the protection of international law and the laws of all members, including the protection against violence, arrest, due process, or seizure of money and property.”

I refer back to my point above, by making the organisation illegal you make it a legal entity and only sovereign states are subject to international law, something that does not officially exist cannot. In so far as the individuals are concerned they will already be subject to arrest for a terrorist act and several other charges so no ‘protection’ is given by definition. The matter of due process I feel must never be removed because without defined and fair legal systems how can we call ourselves civilised nations? Whatever these individuals may have done they have right to a fair trial. Please see the following resolutions already passed. Fair Trial passed 13 Jul 2003, The Universal Bill of Rights passed 8 Aug 2003, Due Process 13 Aug 2003 and Definition of Fair Trail passed 14 Feb 2004

Quote from proposal
“The UN and its members agree to impose no sanction or censure for actions taken against outlawed organizations or individuals.”

The NSUN is the members.

Quote from proposal
“This Resolution obligates members to commit forces to suppressing and disrupting outlaw organizations operating within their borders, and to seizure of any terrorist assets held by financial institutions within their borders. Nations refusing to abide by this Resolution will be subject to sanctions by the Security Council, enforced by international forces under UN command.”

I refer the honourable member to my first point and again to the resolution entitled “Due Process” which deals with the seizure of assets, property in this case.

My apologies to fellow members for this lengthy post.

Respectfully
Lydia Cornwall, UN Ambassador
HM Government of Teldia

You can't outlaw terrorist groups, merely terrorists. Very few people are going to support something that outlaws people and not their actions. For instance, the KKK is a legal body, we can't stop that (wish we could, they REALLY make white people look bad.) But everything that kept them from just being whiny rednecks fussy about everything is illegal.

Folks...my apologies, I probably should have anticipated this. Please note:

The verb "outlaw" does NOT mean "make illegal." It means "deny the protection of the law, government and rights." To outlaw someone or something is to place it outside the jurisdiction of laws that would protect it from harm -- to take away his or their rights.

OF COURSE terrorism is illegal. But the individuals who perpetrate it are not outlaws -- if you arrest them, they have rights. (Those who aren't already blown to bits...) The resolution proposes taking away the rights of individuals and organizations identified as having committed terrorist acts. Eliminating the terrorist's rights is a novel concept, and yes, you can do that to a group.

The other import, novel concept is the elimination of motivation or cause from the determination of whether a person or group is terrorist. I propose that only whether the person or group did the deed matters.

The point about there not being a security council is duly noted -- I didn't realize.

The Grand Duke

Your resolution is problematic because it doesnt define terrorism. And terrorism can be defined very narrowly and very expansively.

For example do you define terrorism as any military action that relies on terror. In that case you'd be calling the bombing of Hiroshima terrorism since it was meant to instill so much terror in the Japanese that they would feel compelled to surrender. And then any military action or threat that "frightened" a nation or it's populace would be considered terrorism.

Others, particularly large nations with powerful militaries would define it as form of assymetrical warfare. So thus a guerilla style attack on even on the most overt military target would be considered terrorism. They might also define the Japanese using kamikaze jets against US aircraft carriers out of desperation as terrorism.

Some might consider terrorism to be an action which destabilizes state institutions. For example the Theocracy of Rajaria considers all protests and any actions by any so-called "civil rights" groups to be terrorist activity. And that is why the Republican of Zimbabwe labels their democratic opposition as terrorists.

There also very expansive views on terrorism that take in more than just simple military operations. Palestinians labels Jewish settlements in the west bank as being "terrorist activity." They also apply it to the very act of occupation. Terrorism is often applied to any situation one finds "terrible."

And of course there are questions of when even the most narrow interpretation of terrorism should be applied. For example the UN in the past exempt organizations which fought "racist or colonial" regimes. This was specifically aimed at providing legitimacy to certain organizations such as the the PLO, the ANC, the IRA which members thought were entitled to use extraordinary means. If you had a different alignment of nations in the late 70s perhaps it might've been right-wing rebels in Mozambique who were exempted instead.

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

It's violence against civilian noncombatants, as opposed to military, police or political targets like government officials. The latter kinds of acts are heinous, but not the focus of this resolution. I'm talking about walking into a nightclub and detonating a bomb, flying airliners into a building, that kind of thing, where the intended victims are ordinary people, and the purpose is instilling terror. Cumbersome but fairly precise. Applicable in some instances to attacks against military, police or political targets IF the intention is to hurt a lot of bystanders too, or if the method used (a massive bomb, a weapon of mass destruction or a fully loaded airliner) is impossible to carry out without hurting lots of bystanders.

As for "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," I say no. If you refuse to consider the cause and just focus on the act, it's not hard to say who the terrorist is. To me this is crucial, because it is impossible to finish arguing about the "justifications" -- some of these grudges go back 1000 years. The urgent thing is to deal with the violence.

This resolution might help because it would limit the incentive to identify oneself with the act, and that would blunt its effectiveness -- the terrorist wants attention. This would force him to sacrifice his rights to get it.

The examples you give do show the activities you want to ban. But they still must be defined. Especially since it is an emotional term that provokes a strong response. Thus it tends to be overused and applied in directions that you may not intend.

I'll assume your definition is in two parts. First violence against a target without a military or governmental purpose for the sole purpose of instilling terror in the populace.

The second part would be targeting a legitimate target that has too high a risk of civilian casualties. This proves problematic. Though your intent is to cover a Timothy McVeigh type action it covers more ground than that. For instance would it be considered "terrorist activity" when the United States drops a bomb on a known high-risk terrorist who lives in a residential neighborhood and civilian casualties are unavoidable.

You also have the problem that more localized instruments of destruction (such as "smart bombs" and cruise missiles) are only in the possession of more developped nations and are thus not an option for smaller poorer governments who are forced to wage war.

I do suspect however that your intention is not to have this limit the rules of war but just support for extra-governmental organizations. Which actually is all the more reason why precise definitions needs to be given. You may mock the "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" but just about EVERY government terms any rebel army no matter how well-behaved as being "terrorists."

Not that it isnt necessarily accurate. The college student we executed last week for distributing pro-democracy leaflets certainly was a terrorist in our eyes and that was one of the charges he was convicted of.

i doubt this is really that important since people don't usually role-play terrorist attacks.

It's violence against civilian noncombatants, as opposed to military, police or political targets like government officials. The latter kinds of acts are heinous, but not the focus of this resolution. I'm talking about walking into a nightclub and detonating a bomb, flying airliners into a building, that kind of thing, where the intended victims are ordinary people, and the purpose is instilling terror. Cumbersome but fairly precise. Applicable in some instances to attacks against military, police or political targets IF the intention is to hurt a lot of bystanders too, or if the method used (a massive bomb, a weapon of mass destruction or a fully loaded airliner) is impossible to carry out without hurting lots of bystanders.


This very explicit definition MUST be in the proposal. Otherwise, we will never vote on it. If this definition is not in the proposal, this proposal will leave a gaping legal loophole for whatever tyrants of the moment wish to step through it and squelch the freedom of their peoples.

If you do not define it as such within the proposal, it is NOT a part of that proposal. Make it so and then we may discuss. Otherwise, you're effectively making it internationally sanctionable to undertake any necessary violent actions against any group of peope if it is 'decided' that their actions are 'terrorist' actions. Whether this is spreading democratic principles, or wrapping oneself in dynamite and walking into a crowded subway.

this proposal seems unnecessary, doesn't it? im goin' to the bar...

The resolution proposes taking away the rights of individuals and organizations identified as having committed terrorist acts. Eliminating the terrorist's rights is a novel concept, and yes, you can do that to a group.

The government of Telidia firmly believes in due process for everyone. If we even consider removing this basic right we begin to erode the very fabric under which our civil liberties exist. I understand what the honourable member is trying to convey with this proposal, but I am unable to support their position. Terrorists are individuals with rights whether we like it or not. As I previously tried to point out, under past UN resolutions these rights are afforded to everyone which, would include terrorists.

The average government kills more people than ELF. Why aren't governments terrorist organizations?

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