UNGA again urges adoption of terrorism convention proposed by India

United Nations: The General Assembly has overwhelmingly again urged the adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) proposed by India.

The Ninth Review of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy (GCTS), which was carried by 140 votes with three against on Wednesday, urged member nations to “make every effort” to adopt the CCIT, which has been languishing for 31 years after New Delhi proposed it.

India’s Permanent Representative P. Harish warned that the absence of a “universally agreed legal framework” has hobbled the fight against terrorism.

Denouncing the two main roadblocks to its adoption, he reminded the member nations that terrorism can be countered effectively through international cooperation “only if there are no double standards (and) only if there is no distinction between good or bad terrorists”.

Opposition to the CCIT has come from Pakistan and some other countries that try to make an invidious distinction among terrorists, trying to cloak some in the garb of “freedom fighters” to justify their support for terrorism.

“The international community must reject double standards in counter-terrorism,” Harish said.

“There can be no justification for terrorism. Irrespective of any grievance, political cause or strategic calculation, terrorism in all its forms and manifestations must be condemned unequivocally,” he said.

“There is an obligation to hold perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice (and) member states should ensure full cooperation in this regard”, he said.

Harish said the CCIT “is essential to close normative gaps, strengthen prosecution and extradition, and deny terrorists and their sponsors access to safe havens, funds and arms”.

“The time has come to demonstrate political will to conclude the CCIT,” he declared.

Editions of the GCTS, which cover national, regional and international strategy against terrorism, have been adopted unanimously during biennial reviews since the Assembly first approved it in 2006.

But this time it was put to a vote at the insistence of the US, which criticised it as “bloated, outdated and lacking focus” and only Israel and Argentina joined it in voting against the GCTS.

Forty-nine countries absented themselves during the vote, virtually not taking a position, and Japan, which formally abstained, later said it was a technical error and that it backed the document.

Harish drew attention to the UN’s narrow focus on the Abrahamic religions in countering prejudice at the exclusion of others.

“As this is the United Nations, a multilateral forum of universal membership, our lens too should be universal”, he said.

“While we condemn all acts motivated by Islamophobia, Christianphobia and antisemitism, this august body must acknowledge that such phobias extend to other faiths as well,” he pointed out.

IANS