One of the events the Indian government has planned to strengthen its counterterrorism diplomacy is the special UN Security Council Counter Terrorism Committee (UNSCCTC) session that was conducted last month in Mumbai and New Delhi and focused on new and emerging technology.
Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC)
- A subsidiary body of the UN Security Council is the CTC (UNSC).
- To oversee the application of the resolution, the 15-member CTC was constituted at the same time.
- The UNSC unanimously approved resolution 1373 in the wake of the terrorist events that occurred in the US on September 11, 2001. This is one of its obligations to all States.
Delhi Declaration on Terrorism
- The Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) unanimously approved the Delhi Declaration on preventing the exploitation of new and emerging technology for terrorist purposes on day two of the Special Meeting.
- The Declaration outlines a number of decisions, including the intention to continue working on recommendations related to the three special meeting themes and the choice to create a set of non-binding guiding principles to help Member States combat the threat posed by the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes.
- The proclamation attempts to address the primary issues surrounding the misuse of crowdfunding, social media platforms, and drones and to establish rules that will aid in addressing the escalating problem.
Challenges for International Consensus on counter-terrorism
- Narrow Global War on Terrorism (GWOT): The first issue is that the “Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT), as it was imagined by a post 9/11 United States, has ended, with the last chapter being written last year as the United States negotiated with the Taliban and ultimately withdrew from Afghanistan.
- Non-cooperation with India by the USA and the rest of the world: The Global War on Terror was founded on an unequal strategy when India had pleaded for similar assistance to deal with the IC814 hijacking (December 1999), which occurred less than two years before the 9/11 attacks (it is now evident that those whom the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government was forced to release were all terrorists who went on to assist in planning, funding, or providing safe havens to the al-Qaida leadership.
- The United States and China are escorting Pakistan: Even after the start of the Global War on Terror, Masood Azhar and Hafiz Saeed were never mentioned in the UNSC designations of those who posed the greatest threat to India because of their involvement in attacks there thanks to Pakistan’s status as a U.S. ally and China’s “iron friend.”
- FATF is losing its power: The only real benefit that India saw from international cooperation came from Pakistan being removed from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF grey )’s list in October, a sign that the will to punish Pakistan for its support of terrorism had waned.
- Realpolitik against Global Issue: In addition, the lacklustre response from the international community to the Taliban’s occupation of Kabul and their persecution of women and minorities there shows a growing disinterest in “another country’s problems.”
- Ineffective UNSC resolutions: For India, this means that future counterterrorism cooperation will be less cooperative and that counterterrorism regimes like the UNSC Resolutions 1267, 1373, and others will be deemed obsolete and ineffective.
New and emerging technology in terrorism
- Drone attacks: New technology and the terrorism-related weaponization of a variety of methods. Currently, drones are used to transfer money, drugs, ammunition, weapons, and even homemade explosive devices.
- Potential Biowar Concerns over the use of biowarfare and Gain of Function (GoF) research to alter viruses and vectors that could be unleashed into targeted populations have intensified since the COVID19 epidemic.
- Robotic soldiers and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are already being used in the present to make it even simpler to carry out large-scale attacks while remaining undetected.
- Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are used in terror financing, and social media, the dark web, and even gaming facilities are used for terrorist communications.
- Global consensus: India’s place in it
- India has long been at the vanguard of the push for international action to combat terrorism, which is more and more becoming a worldwide scourge.
- India will host the conference “No Money for Terror” The third “No Money for Terror” (NMFT) conference, which will address potential new means of financing terrorism, will take place in New Delhi.
- Making Use of the Global Counterterrorism Architecture: India will host a special briefing on the “Global Counter Terrorism Architecture,” looking at the challenges ahead, in December, when it assumes the United Nations Security Council Presidency for the final time before its two-year term in the Council comes to an end.
@the-end
Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, the West and the United States have all but abandoned efforts to combat terrorism worldwide. India is working harder than ever to achieve international agreement on cross-border terrorism. India’s diplomatic efforts will find it extremely difficult to combat terrorism.