Discuss the efficacy of global conventions to combat international terrorism. (2022, 15 Marks)
Because states could never agree on what terrorism is, they outlawed specific acts one at a time. Since the Tokyo Convention (1963), 19 universal instruments have been negotiated under the UN and the IAEA. In Robert O. Keohane’s liberal-institutionalist terms they form a regime: technically dense but conceptually incomplete, effective against the conduct it names and weak against the phenomenon it avoids naming.
What the conventions achieve
- Sectoral criminalisation: hijacking (The Hague, 1970), attacks on protected persons (1973), hostage-taking (1979), terrorist bombings (1997), terrorist financing (1999), nuclear terrorism (2005) and the Beijing aviation instruments (2010). Defining the act rather than the motive sidesteps the “freedom fighter” dispute.
- Aut dedere aut judicare (“extradite or prosecute”) removed the political-offence defence that once sheltered hijackers.
- Near-universal ratification gives a common basis for extradition and mutual legal assistance; the Financing Convention became the legal backbone of asset-freezing.
- Security Council legislation filled the gaps: Resolution 1267 (1999) created targeted sanctions lists; 1373 (2001) imposed binding obligations on all states and set up the Counter-Terrorism Committee (and later its Executive Directorate); 1540 (2004) obliged states to keep WMD from non-state actors; 2178 (2014) addressed foreign terrorist fighters.
Why efficacy remains limited
- No agreed definition: India’s Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT), proposed in 1996, is still stalled over exclusions: the OIC wants struggles against occupation exempted, Western states their armed forces.
- Ratification without implementation: many parties never passed enabling laws, and several, especially in Africa, have reported poorly to the Committee.
- Legitimacy deficit: many Global South states see “legislation” by fifteen Council members as usurping the General Assembly, and give the agenda low priority.
- State sponsorship untouched: the treaties bind states to punish individuals, not states that shelter them. China’s technical holds delayed the 1267 listing of Masood Azhar until May 2019. The Resistance Front, linked to the Pahalgam attack (April 2025), was designated by the United States in July 2025, yet despite Indian efforts it is still not on the UN list. S. Jaishankar has repeatedly called such holds a form of double standards.
- Fragmentation: the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism (2017) coordinates but cannot enforce, and networks adapt faster than treaty law.
What works better than treaties
The FATF, a non-treaty body, has achieved more: grey-listing Pakistan (2018–22) forced prosecutions that no convention had produced. Realists would expect this, since compliance follows interest and market pressure rather than legal promise. India’s Delhi Declaration (October 2022) on drones, online radicalisation and new payment technologies shows the regime trailing technology.
Conclusion
The conventions are necessary but insufficient. They have made specific acts universally criminal, but cannot bind sponsoring states or settle whose violence counts. The ninth review of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy (1 July 2026) passed only by vote, 140–3–1, amid renewed calls for the comprehensive convention. A definition, faster listings and FATF-style enforcement would turn a paper regime into a working one.