Politics

De nuevo comienza la guerra contra al terror

Nov 13, 2015 Bogdan Aurescu and José García-Margallo y Marfil

BUCAREST/MADRID – Los ataques terroristas habidos en París en la noche del 13 de noviembre, que han causado al menos 120 muertes, son un trágico recordatorio de la ubicuidad del terrorismo moderno. Tan sólo este año, unos extremistas violentos han asesinado a personas inocentes en nombre de la religión o la política en Francia, Túnez, Kenya, Israel, Nigeria y, naturalmente, Siria y el Iraq, por nombrar sólo a algunos países. Como la peste negra en la Europa medieval, el terrorismo acecha al mundo moderno y el de erradicarlo ha llegado a ser un imperativo mundial.

La comunidad internacional lleva mucho tiempo preocupada por la amenaza que representa el terrorismo. Los países han promulgado legislación de seguridad, han creado unidades especiales de inteligencia y policía para detener a los perpetradores y disuadir o prevenir los ataques y han complementado esas medidas con la adhesión a tratados regionales y acuerdos bilaterales.

Y, sin embargo, pese a los numerosos intentos de crear un órgano legislativo mundial que dirija la lucha contra el terrorismo, aún no existe. Ya es hora de cambiar esta situación.

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Bogdan Aurescu

Writing for PS since 2015
1 Commentary

Bogdan Aurescu is Minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania.

José García-Margallo y Marfil

Writing for PS since 2015
1 Commentary

José García-Margallo y Marfil is Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 27 Comments on this article

DF Lickiss Nov 19, 2015

In international law (of which I am no expert) is there not already the status of "enemy of humanity' (Hostis humani generis)? The term has been applied to piracy since classical times. The legal status allows the aggrieved nation to go after the individual wherever they hide and requires other governments to aid (or at least not interfere) in the capture and prosecution of the enemy of all.

Rather than create a new international body - something most likely to meet with strong opposition - would it not be easier to simply recognize that those intentionally targeting civilians are in effect declaring themselves at war with civilization?

Again, I ask because I do not know. It just seems to be a less drastic step and less likely to get bogged down in semantics. If you blow up a tank you might be a freedom fighter; if you blow up a kindergarten then is there any doubt that you are a terrorist?
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j. von Hettlingen Nov 17, 2015

Bogdan Aurescu, Romania's foreign minister and his Spanish counterpart, José García-Margallo y Marfil see the urgency of creating a "global legal body" to fight terrorism in the wake of the terror attacks on Paris. He points out that his country, supported by Spain, had "proposed the establishment of an International Court Against Terrorism (ICT)" in February. Given the rise of terrorist attacks, the ICT would be "empowered to prosecute any act of terrorism perpetrated after its creation, offering desperately needed assistance to countries with weak legal systems and providing a strong deterrent to would-be terrorists."
Aurescu says back in 1926, Romania was the first country "to introduce the crime of terrorism into its criminal code" and requested the League of Nations to “consider drafting a convention to render terrorism universally punishable.” After the assassination of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia and French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou in 1934 the League of Nations made "the first attempt to create international judicial mechanisms to confront terrorism." When World War II broke out the drafted Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Terrorism and the Convention for the Creation of an International Criminal Court were shelved.
But can international law deal with today's lawless conflicts? Surely ordinary criminal law enforcement cannot do the job, as some terrorist operations approximate to a full-scale war. Domestic civilian and military law enforcement authorities could fight the terrorists, by targeting them basically as organised crime syndicates, but often with great difficulty. In some cases the international community cannot agree on the definition "terrorism". Many perpetrators are terrorists, but are lauded as freedom fighters by others. That "an effort to place terrorism under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) was dropped due to the lack of a universally accepted definition and the additional workload that such cases would mean", shouldn't be surprising.
The ICC aims to prosecute and bring to justice those responsible for the worst crimes - genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes - across the globe. It is a court of last resort, intervening only when national authorities cannot or will not prosecute. The authors have the model of the ICC in mind for the creation of the ICT. The Rome Treaty which established the ICC had been ratified by 123 countries, minus the US. The ICC has been criticised, particularly by the African Union, for its focus on Africa. A number of important countries are determined not to submit to the jurisdiction of the ICC. Some, like China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia and Turkey, have not even signed the treaty. The idea of "a powerful legal instrument in the global fight against terrorism" is very good, but "obtaining this support will not be easy, particularly at a time when policymakers face so many other economic and strategic challenges." However with all five permanent members of the Security Council having been victims of terrorism, perhaps they would not veto a binding resolution of the UN Security Council.
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Bala Subramanian Nov 16, 2015

It is very unrealistic to have a discussion on terror this way. Terror is not any-sided. When legitimate governments react with force, it is terror as well. It's our biases that are the root cause of terrorism, not, fundamentalism or any other ideology. http://synergism-inc.blogspot.com/2011/07/is-humanity-divisible-into-sane-or.html
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eusebio manuel Nov 16, 2015

God Bless Europe
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Florian Pantazi Nov 16, 2015

I do not personally think terrorists will attack Romania anytime soon. Two weeks before the French tragedy Romanian authorities have done quite a good job of making possible, through sheer incompetence, the carnage from "Colectiv" , without any outside interference (I am referring to the tragic death of 58 people during a rock concert fire in Bucharest ).

In other words, it seems to me that before embarking on grand theoretical pursuits and recommending new international institutions to deal with terrorists, Romanian ministers and other authorities should first deal with the more pragmatic issue of how to prevent in Romanian schools and concert halls similar devastating fires.

Thus, a recent survey has found that only 7% of Romania's 19.000 schools have the authorization of fire departments to function. Only when all such mundane tasks are dealt with can any Romanian minister start recommending to the international community ways of preventing or punishing terrorist acts.
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Iain Henderson Nov 16, 2015

After defining terrorism, will any one be going after George W Bush and Tony Blair for their part in this catastrophe?

The west long lost their position of moral authority, particularly the USA when it sunk to the the level of its enemies through the use of torture.
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Procyon Mukherjee Nov 16, 2015

The conscience of humanity cannot be so easily led by the merchants who prosper from the threat that terrorism poses. The economics of extreme poverty plays havoc in these places of unrest, which becomes the breeding ground of violence; but preparing grounds for another war is just the last thing that the world needs.
It is a sad read when the Wall Street Journal runs a post, "Wake Up Mr. President", which goes on to say, "After years of dismissing the rising terror threat, Mr. Obama needs an epiphany, if he doesn't want to be remembered as President who allowed radical Islam to spread and prosper."

The conscience is so self-directed to the wrong side, it would take another lifetime for sanity to return.
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Zsolt Hermann Nov 16, 2015

It is reassuring seeing the comments.
It seems people are not as easy to fool any more as it used to be before.
It seems people fully understand jumping on bandwagons, rattling swords, revenge bombing, citing "international law", setting up "toothless", meaningless global legal or decision making bodies will not make any difference.

As many comments noted we can't even define terror properly while leading nations, alliances openly trample on the rights of others, purposefully incite, destroy, coerce people, nations, regions for their own short sighted, individual or national benefit, profit.

If our global human society wants to protect itself against extremist forces threatening all over the world either with political or religious ideology first of all we ourselves should rebuild our own societies.
And this time we should use proper humane and moral foundations and values, putting into practice principles we have so far only used as lip-service.

Open, liberal democracy, equality, mutual solidarity and mutually complementing cooperation needs to become real, everyday activities instead of the wealth and profit oriented, ruthless and exclusive competition, success at the expense of others that we live by today.
These are the principles, "values" that are ruining and enslaving our societies even in the most "developed" countries.

This new "war" of values, principles starts at home.
First we have to create and uphold positive examples we want others to follow.
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Akbar Montaser Nov 15, 2015

The war on terror will end if the United States stops its assaults on other nation. Since 1953, our country has created over 80 coups and overthrows, killing 8 million people, of course, with the aid of our “allies”.
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Thomas Muller Nov 15, 2015

Clearly, this should not be a priority: Identifying and preventing terrorism should be the utmost priority. For ISIS, I think Donald Trump’s view is right: The U.S. should let Russia solve the problem. For Russia, they at least have a good reason to step in the war with ISIS. What does the U.S. have to do with Syria? They don’t even know who these rebels are, and they might be even worse than Al Assad.

The U.S. has a lot of money to spend on Iraq alone. It is all of these misallocated funds without taking priorities that are causing tensions in the world. A case in point: Recently, the U.S. let Shinzo Abe, the hawkish revisionist prime minister of Japan, a grandson and an incarnation of a convicted WAR CRIMINAL Nobusuke Kishi, and the current member of Nippon Kaigi, an influential lobby of which the key mission is to spread and make the world believe there were no atrocities committed by Japan, to remilitarize for no good reason.

Thrilled by this, Abe and its puppet Liberal Democratic Party, a party which never lost its majority in the parliament ever since Japan involuntarily conceded to World War 2 only after its two cities were nuked, is now setting up an organization who directly reports to Shinzo Abe, to “examine” if the trials and verdicts given by the U.S. to its war criminals were right. The news says “Twenty-five Japanese Class-A war criminals tried by the tribunal were convicted of crimes against peace. Seven of them, including wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tojo (1884-1948), received death sentences and were hanged.” If one of the leading countries Japan, but only in terms of economy, who are supposed to be safeguarding world peace are full of hypocrisy like this, who are they to try ISIS terrorists? At a point when the U.S. is condoning these unbelievable and egregious actions by Japanese politicians because of continued misallocation of resources that have went to places that shouldn’t have and too little in the Far East, how can they rightfully hand out verdicts to the ISIS?

They should first scrap the original pivot to Asia strategy, and not allow Japan to lift its pacifist law and remilitarize. The recent movement of Japan is an action that is infuriating all the people who fought against them during the war and for all the people who are perpetually at peace.

Although the trials at the time had some problems, that is sentencing too little Japanese war criminals to death and for exempting people like Shinzo Abe’s grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, it at least provided a lesson to all people in the world that nobody gets away with organized criminal activities toward civilians (e.g. civilian murder and rape, operating sex slaves, looting, etc) like the ones that Japan committed during the war, and the ones now ISIS is committing. If somebody, in this case Japan politicians, are trying to reverse the whole system, we should first get things straight from here; setting up an International Court Against Terrorism (ICT) should be next.

Source: http://atimes.com/2015/11/japan-ldp-to-set-up-panel-to-review-tokyo-war-crimes-verdicts/

An article introducing current Japanese politicians’ collective standpoint about sex slaves
http://www.smh.com.au/national/australian-wartime-sex-slave-jan-ruffohearne-hits-out-at-hideous-japanese-denials-20140224-33d4o.html
''From the point of view of people like Mr Abe and others in his government, it is something that makes Japan look very bad … they want to say this didn't happen, or it didn't happen the way people think it did - or if it did happen, everybody else did it as well,'' she said.
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Romeo Andersson Nov 15, 2015

Sirs, please tell us on how to end the syrian war before trying the terrorists.
Also, before trying to try the terrorists please devise political means to uproot the causes of terrorism. No western capital will be safe unless we uproot the causes of terrorism.
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Peter Belmont Nov 15, 2015

Israel has ignore4d (and violated) its responsibilitie under Fourth Geneva Convention at least since 1967 qand the nations have, for their parts, ignored their own responsibilities to "ensure respect for the convention under all circumstances".

The nations simply will not act in favor of human rights if it means acting against an established state. (Or is it a state protected by great wealth?)
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george sos Nov 15, 2015

So who will be the first to go to trial in this court?I bet you not the terrorist erdogan,not the terrorist states that steal resources from tothers,not the terrorist saudi family or the terrorist profit making machines that enslave populations in the name of profit....for sure not.....but the Basques of course!!or the irish !.or the movement for a free Kurdistan...these are your terrorists ,these are who you want to silence and destroy?...Otherwise yuou d propose a different thing,than reenforcing thestatus quo that includes the above mentioned organisations and people.
Terrorism is a result.If you want therapy you should be looking at the causes of it.And it all starts (and this is what empowers terrorists for some part) the injustice and the inequality of our world.
If you d collect the world's wealth and redistribute it equally(or more equally than today at least),you d then see if there would be many ready to give up their peace and happy lives in order to create havoc ,to promote causes that in their base have a common factor.Poverty.
You want to stop terrorism,share the world.Stop trying to steal wealth and resources from the weaker.Start assist and sharing what you ve already stolen and maybe balance will restore peace too..Wow,you really need to be a scientist to think that eh?...I m fed up wiyth all these people who took up places in government (only because we had more important things to do in life than fight for power over others).Save it ,you are not as bright you might believe....Only mouthpieces for the few rich who really controll you and through you our lives.So if we have to start from somewhere,i d start with...hmmm.....
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William Cash Nov 15, 2015

If such a thing happens, the first 3 prosecuted should be George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. They set off this conflagration in the mid-east through their ignorance and incompetence.
The US would never join this organization and I don't believe Britain would either.
- yw yap Nov 16, 2015
  
  guess "ignorance & incompetence" are less accurate; probably "greed" is more apt?
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M M Nov 15, 2015

The ends justify the means. Today's laws and regulations were written for a world that is living relatively at peace with itself and not a world that is in the midst of wars, with 21st century means but a 4th century mind set.
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Petey Bee Nov 15, 2015

"imbuing it with legitimacy". I'd support that. Hopefully it will go better than the ICC, which has had no such luck:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_International_Criminal_Court

Out of curiosity, what is wrong with plain old "murder" and "conspiracy to commit murder" charges that a separate international court is necessary?
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Robbie Jena Nov 15, 2015

"there is no global legal body" - Yes it is needed...except, a lot of good people will get snared in from race, religion, money or whatever in the name of terrorism....like some old lady flying out in a plane...
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M M Nov 14, 2015

Who said that the war on terror ever stopped (other than Bush Jr with that stupid banner on the naval ship stating “mission accomplished”)? A leading ME politician made a statement a couple of months ago: Quote” The European / US leadership are dealing with the current ME crises (including the influx of refugees/migrants) like a doctor prescribing Aspirins to a patient with cancer” Unquote. The current political leadership must be given an ultimatum, either to act decisively or to make space for others, too many lives have been lost already.….
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Michael Public Nov 14, 2015

You sure wasted no time in making sure to benefit off this. I think the last war on terror was an unmitigated disaster. All it did was give the hawks (like presumably the authors) complete freedom to trample all over civil liberties of their own countrymen.
- M M Nov 14, 2015
  
  It is all part of the "Grand Plan"...
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Avraam Dectis Nov 14, 2015

.
The USA would never join the ICT.

In the USA, stalker gangs openly and notoriously stalk, harass and poison people, sometimes for over 18 years. Yes, I know this from personal experience.

We would be treated to the spectacle of American citizens complaining to the ICT that they are being poisoned openly by gangs and the police are refusing to act.

There is a good lesson in social and cultural disintegration in the sequence of events that caused this formerly unimaginable situation. No society should ever let its guard down or assume they are impervious to the most vile developments. It is far easier to lose a good culture than to gain one and that fact mandates cultural maintenance efforts.

.
- Michael Public Nov 15, 2015
  
  Sorry Avraam - when I looked up gang stalking I found a definition that seemed completely crackpot. When I looked it up a 2nd time it basically just means organised harassment of people. Can't even rely on google these days.
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- Avraam Dectis Nov 15, 2015
  
  Hi again Michael,
  
  Let me additionally add that the proof of my assertion may be in the poisoned pudding:
  
  Here is a list of the countries that belong to the International Criminal Court.
  
  https://www.icc-cpi.int/en_menus/asp/states%20parties/Pages/the%20states%20parties%20to%20the%20rome%20statute.aspx
  
  It is a lengthy list. Yet the USA, which should have been a founding member, is absent.
  .
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- Avraam Dectis Nov 15, 2015
  
  Hi Michael,
  
  Yes, quite serious.
  
  I should probably emphasize that when I say culture, I am referring to the attributes that form a superior society, such as honesty, civility, civilized behaviour, respect for rule of law, aversion to corruption, etc.
  
  If you were skeptical about my assertion of stalker gangs in the USA, it is not easy to prove. You could do a web search on gang stalking, you will find some references but of course much that is not true. It was a big story in the media in the early 1990s but they stopped covering it - the reporters were getting poisoned.
  
  If you live in the USA you should be aware so I applaud your luck not to be in the USA and hopefully in a civilized country.
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- Michael Public Nov 14, 2015
  
  I beg your pardon? You can't possibly be serious?
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