UNITED NATIONS -The U.N. General Assembly approved a global treaty yesterday aimed at preventing nuclear terrorism by making it a crime for would-be terrorists to possess or threaten to use nuclear weapons or radioactive material.
A resolution adopted by the 191-member world body by consensus calls on all countries to sign and ratify the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. The treaty will be opened for signatures Sept. 14 and must be ratified by 22 countries to come into force.
By its action today
the General Assembly has shown that it can when it has the political will play an important role in the global fight against terrorism
U.S. deputy ambassador Stuart Holliday told delegates after the vote. The nuclear terrorism convention
when it enters into force
will strengthen the international legal framework to combat terrorism.
Russia's deputy U.N. ambassador Alexander Konuzin, whose country sponsored the resolution, hailed its approval.
It's the first time that an anti-terrorist convention has been developed on the basis of preventing -that is not after the fact but before the terrorist acts
which are criminalized by this convention
he said.
The treaty makes it a crime for any person to possess radioactive material or a radioactive device with the intent to cause death or injury or damage property or the environment. It would also be a crime to damage a nuclear facility.
Threatening to use radioactive material or devices or unlawfully demanding nuclear material or other radioactive substances would also be a crime. Accomplices and organizers would also be covered by the convention.
Countries that are parties to the treaty would be required to make these acts criminal offenses under their national laws punishable by appropriate penalties
which take into account the grave nature of these offenses.
Russia launched the campaign for a treaty to combat nuclear terrorism more than seven years ago, when Boris Yeltsin was president. It was stymied for years because countries believed the draft convention was trying to define terrorism.
Diplomats said the roadblock was broken after the drafting committee's last formal meeting in November when the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference decided the new treaty could focus on criminalizing specific actions related to nuclear terrorism as other anti-terrorism treaties have done.
The drafting committee then quickly agreed on a text April 1, leaving the difficult issue of defining terrorism to a new overall convention on terrorism still under debate. The General Assembly has tried for years to define terrorism, so far unsuccessfully because of the argument that one nation's terrorist can be another's freedom fighter.
The convention requires all states that sign the treaty to adopt measures to make clear that acts designed to provoke terror in the general public or in specific groups cannot be justified under any circumstances by considerations of a political
philosophical
ideological
