UNSC Committees dealing with Counter Terrorism
There are three committees that deal with Counter Terrorism:
- Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee
- Counter-Terrorism Committee
- Security Council Committee
- All Security Council committees, are composed of Member State representatives from the 15 members of the United Nations Security Council.
- These are the five permanent members, China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States, and ten other rotating members.
- Chair positions do not carry extraordinary decision-making power as the Committee takes all its decisions by consensus.
- Since the committees officially takes decisions by consensus, the five permanent members can exercise their veto by placing a proposal on technical hold – which delays the case for three months before it can come back before the committee.
Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee
- Established on 15th October, 1999, pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 1267 – popularly known as the UN 1267 Committee.
- Initially dealing with both al-Qaeda and the Taliban, hence previously known as the Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee, it was split on 17 June 2011 (vide Resolution 1988), creating the new Taliban Sanctions Committee to separately deal with the Taliban.
- Currently only deal with sanction measures applied to designated individuals and entities associated solely with al-Qaeda.
Latest developments
- Lashkar-e-Taiba’s operational commander Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi who was arrested for his role in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks and included in December 2008 by the UN sanctions committee in the list of designated terrorists under UN Security Council Resolution 1267 (UNSCR 1267) was released from a Pakistani prison on bail on April 10.
- In May, India took Lakhvi’s release to the sanctions committee, popularly called the 1267 committee, where it argued that the committee needed to investigate who had paid or stood guarantee for Lakhvi’s bail, as he is on the sanctions list and has no access to funds.
- In all the meetings of the 1267 committee, China reportedly ensured that the Indian proposal was not taken up – and has used a technical hold to block the move against Lakhvi, saying that India has not provided sufficient information in support of its case.