You are the Weakest Link and We Will Help You! The Comprehensive Strategy of the United Nations to Fight Terrorism

Abstract:     
In 2004, the United Nations Secretary-General published the report of the high-level panel of experts on threats, challenges and change that projected a comprehensive strategy to fight various types of scourges that afflict humankind and notably terrorism. The report and the following world summit documents inscribe themselves in established trends set by the State community and the United Nations in the past decades. Since 11 September, five different wide-encompassing strategies have been offered to the State community to come to terms with terrorism. This article focuses on this proliferation of documents and their inconsistency in terms of content. Yet, it also pinpoints the common thread that runs through the documents, namely that the comprehensive strategy must address the root causes of terrorism, strengthen States and promote the rule of law and human rights, three targets that can be reached by the implementation of a strong policy of capacity-building. In all cases, the State community works on the premise that weak and rogue States will consent to be helped in building national and regional capacity to combat terrorism. Undoubtedly, convincing weak and rogue States to abide by international standards will require more than just capacity-building to deflect terrorism. Rather, the United Nations will need to conceptualise general measures to prevent and reverse state failure, which in turn means that the strategy must be indeed 'comprehensive'.

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