With the beginning of the twenty-first century, the world is witnessing the emergence of a new threat to global peace and stability: terrorism. The United Nations was once concerned with averting further conventional world wars and mitigating the threat of nuclear incidents in a Cold War bipolar system, but now the major international security threat is terrorism. State-sponsored terrorism is a particularly important topic that the Disarmament and International Security Committee should address. We will focus on questions of national sovereignty, deterrence, and definition. In the process the committee will consider the nuclear dimension, avoiding inter-state war over terrorist actors, and mechanisms for ending state sponsorship of terrorist groups and networks.
Definition: Attempting to reach a consensus on what constitutes state-sponsored terrorism will be an important goal of the committee. Without a clear definition it will be difficult to identify and eliminate such activities. The committee will consider whether terrorism is defined by its means or its ends, when it is illegal and whether there are times when it can be considered freedom fighting, and what types of state actions signify sponsorship.
National Sovereignty: Addressing national sovereignty concerns is an essential task facing this committee. The main problem with countering state-sponsored terrorism is that sovereign nations are responsible. The committee must determine what state activities are so egregious that they demand international reprimand or action.
Deterrence: When states are involved in terrorism suddenly there are targets with which to threaten and strike. This form of deterrence does not exist for non-state based terrorism. The committee will consider possible ways to deter states from sponsoring terrorism.
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