Global Policy Forum

By Estanislao Oziewicz

The United Nations adopted a landmark treaty yesterday, designed to prevent nuclear annihilation by stopping terrorists from acquiring the most lethal weapons known to man. To become international law, the convention must be ratified by 22 countries. The first opportunity for signatures will be Sept. 14 in New York, when heads of government meet for a summit on UN reform.

Among countries hailing the UN General Assembly's move is Russia, which first proposed such a treaty in 1998, amid fears that its nuclear weapons would get into the wrong hands following the collapse of the Soviet Union. At the time, then Russian national-security head Alexander Lebed said that among the "loose nukes" were 100 suitcase-sized nuclear weapons that Moscow had lost track of.

Alexander Konuzin, Russia's deputy UN ambassador, hailed the UN effort yesterday: "It's the first time that an anti-terrorist convention has been developed on the basis of preventing -- that is not after the fact but before -- the terrorist acts which are criminalized by this convention."

The treaty is called the International Convention on Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, and it requires governments to prosecute or extradite those who possess radioactive material or a radioactive device with the intent to cause death, injury or to damage property or the environment. Even threatening to use radioactive materials or devices would be a crime. The treaty also requires better co-operation between states on sharing intelligence and on mutual legal assistance.

Stuart Holliday, U.S. deputy ambassador, said the treaty is another element in strengthening the international framework to fight terrorism. "The General Assembly has shown that it can, when it has the political will, play an important role in the global fight against terrorism."

Wesley Wark, who teaches a course on intelligence and security at the University of Toronto, said the treaty is more than symbolic. "Introducing this into international law is the beginning of a dawning recognition that this is a universal problem -- and not just Western, or Northern in the North-South context -- and that it needs an international and universal response," he said.

A draft of the treaty was accepted earlier this month by the assembly's legal committee after four countries withdrew amendments. Pakistan had wanted the treaty to apply to nuclear threats by governments; Cuba wanted it to cover actions by government armed forces; the United States wanted to add a phrase stating that the peaceful use of nuclear materials should not be used as a cover for weapon proliferation; and Iran, accused by Washington of seeking nuclear weapons and under pressure to relinquish production of enriched uranium, wanted to acknowledge the right of states to exchange nuclear equipment for peaceful purposes.

If ratified, the treaty will be the 13th UN convention against terrorism. It means, UN legal affairs official Nicolas Michel said, "that now most of the possible terrorism acts are covered by existing legal instruments."

But the UN has yet to adopt a comprehensive treaty on terrorism, including a definition of the term, which UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan argues is vitally important. Mr. Wark said that yesterday's action by the UN may provide momentum in that direction. "My guess is that there is bound to be a kind of spillover effect from the nuclear-terrorism treaty that will lend its impetus to the determination to ratify a convention on the definition of terrorism itself," he said.

Mr. Annan has proposed this definition: "Any action constitutes terrorism if it is intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act."

With a report from Associated Press and Reuters

Link to the UN treaty