A World Transformed. Danilo Türk
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as a necessary part of the solution. In order to avoid such unwelcome scenarios, question of the inclusion of all political actors, and, as the case may be, geographically-defined autonomy and federal arrangements need to be addressed sufficiently early, with a sense of realism and political creativity. Although decentralization can be perceived as a step towards ultimate partition, it could, in fact, be necessary to keep a country together.
Admittedly this is a sensitive matter. However, real political issues must be addressed and real solutions must be preferred to circumvention and delays. Specific experiences of diplomacy, both good and bad, leading to the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the 2001 Ohrid Framework Agreement in Macedonia, are worth keeping in mind.
The crisis in Ukraine is a fundamental challenge to the international system. The importance of a stable solution cannot be overemphasized. Ukraine must not become a geopolitical battlefield. It has the potential to play the independent and globally important role as a bridge of cooperation. And in order to harness this potential, Ukraine should develop an inclusive constitutional arrangement and the appropriate international status. All efforts should be motivated by this objective. Let us not forget even during the hard times in the Cold War era, it was possible to build bridges. It should not be an impossible task today.
In matters of maintaining international peace and security, there is no substitute for cooperation among the permanent members of the UN Security Council. They continue to bear a special responsibility for the functioning of the international system as a whole. The growing number of global security problems today calls for a renewed effort. A global security compact among the permanent members of the UN Security Council is needed. Admittedly, such a compact was necessary but could not materialize in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War. However, the intervening years have brought additional experience and wisdom. This could help in developing a consensus regarding the main challenges to international peace and security, and would help international institutions, above all the United Nations and the OSCE, to play an effective role in an increasingly multipolar world.
The ideas which guided the conference at Dumbarton Oaks seventy years ago continue to be inspiring and should be brought forth in the modern context. Cooperation between the UN and regional organizations and, above all, learning from each other is one of the critically important requirements for the successful functioning of the international system in the twenty-first century.
(Keynote Address on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and Chapter VIII of the UN Charter, OSCE Security Day, Vienna, 27 May 2014)
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Notes
1. 1 For the history of these provisions see S. Schlesinger, Act of Creation, Westview 2003, pp 175–193.
2. 2 For some features of the evolution of regionalism see Peter J. Katzenstein, A World of Regions, Cornell University Press, 2005.
3. 3 For some of the recent developments of regional organization in Asia, see William T. Tow, Ramesh Thakur and In-Taek Hyun, Asia’s Emerging Regional Order: Reconciling Tradition and Human Security, United Nations University Press, 2000.
The Threat of Terrorism and International Responses
The early years of the twenty-first century have seen the revival of an old challenge to international peace and security, that of violent extremism and terrorism. States and the international institutions that form the international system have been confronted with the need to develop effective and coherent policies to counter that threat. Expectedly, this has proven to be a difficult task.1
Terrorism is an aggregate expression which describes, in a single word, a variety of political, ideological or religiously-motivated forms of violence. The purpose of terrorism is to engender immense fear in order to destabilize a certain social environment, and to achieve specific political or related goals. Thus, terrorism is not and cannot be something monolithic. It is most often, though not always, linked to violent extremism, an ideological base that breeds violence as a legitimate means of action in society.
Terrorism is a form of combat; it is a tactic. It has its starting point in a political, ideological or religious idea, which those who believe in this idea wish to realize through terrorist actions. It has been proven many times throughout history that terrorism does not ensure political success. However, it is also often the case that terrorist groups and individual terrorists are neither prepared nor able to acknowledge this. Recent history attests to many tragic examples.
The twenty-first century started with the particularly ominous terrorist attack in the United States on September 11, 2001. Subsequently, “September 11” became ←35 | 36→a synonym for the most devastating terrorist attack that produced a series of shock waves. The immediate shock was caused by the loss of life: almost three thousand people were killed in a single attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Additional psychological shocks were triggered by the understanding of the missed opportunities to prevent this heinous act and the vulnerability of a modern society.2
The level of solidarity expressed by the international community to this tragic event in 2001 was unique. However, it could not last and will probably not re-emerge in a long time. This is partly due to the many subsequent repressive strategies declared as counterterrorism which were proven inefficient. Some of these strategies, moreover, were disingenuous.
Much of the rhetoric in the “war on terror” used in discussions in the aftermath to 11 September 2001 was misleading – both as a slogan for political mobilization and as an organizational principle of anti-terrorist activities. Many abuses of human rights including incidents of torture resulted from this rhetoric. In addition, the rise of a variety of private security companies intended to combat terrorism by military means has become a problematic new phenomenon. “The war on terror” has also adversely affected the international law system as well as the meaning of national sovereignty, not to mention the financial consequences and the general damage to society, with regard to human lives and the destruction of infrastructure.
A carefully coherent set of strategies is necessary to develop efficient and wise counterterrorism activities. Repressive measures are only one element, which must not predominate. There ought to be policies to address the causes of terrorism, causes such as social injustice and discrimination. It is important that counterterrorism does not lead to human rights violations.
In the past two decades there have been some positive achievements reflected in the adoption of international conventions which have brought international legal regulation closer to a universal definition and condemnation of terrorism. In addition, the closer cooperation of intelligence, security, police and judicial authorities, particularly in the area of intelligence sharing, represent an example of the progress made. The introduction of specialized working bodies for counterterrorism within regional organizations and within the United Nations is also an improvement.
Progress made at the international cooperation level, however, cannot eliminate the threat of terrorist action completely. Terrorist attacks are always accompanied by an element of surprise. On July 22, 2011, a single terrorist, Anders Breivik, killed 77 young people gathered at a political event on the island of Utoja in Norway. That attack shook and awoke Europe and the world to the threat of terrorism. It ←36 | 37→has also raised several