UnitedNations-02-Antiterrorism_Pass5.indd

Terrorism in a Modern Context Terrorist activity affects virtually every corner of today’s world. As a result, individual governments and regional and international governing bodies

have been forced to address the issue. Terrorism was first formally addressed by the League of Nations, the predecessor of the modern United Nations. In 1937, the League of Nations drafted the Geneva Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Terrorism.This was intended to be a vehicle by which member nations would be able to follow a consistent plan to address the underlying causes of international terrorism and to identify, try, and punish terrorists. Despite the good intentions of the League of Nations, its plan was never widely adopted. For the next several years, individual nations

Defining Terrorism Thedefinitionof terrorism is the act of causing fear, through violence or the threat of violence, to create political pressure on a group or government. However, member countries of the United Nations have found it difficult to agree on a single definition of terrorism.

unilaterally addressed terrorist incidents. In the decades that followed, the UN was formed and grew into an international body of true importance with some power to enforce its resolutions.

Development of Current Conventions on Terrorism

Despite the growth and increasing influence of the UN, it did not address the issue of terrorism until 1963. What emerged was a series of fourteen conventions that dealt with international terrorism from legal and political perspectives. Instead of crafting one document to identify a single policy on terrorist activity of all types, the twelve individual conventions were drafted over a period of years as new threats were identified. All fourteen conventions have common features. Each one defines a particular type of terrorist violence as a crime under the convention, such

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Chapter One