Despite this dismal performance in the field of making or keeping peace, dealing with the international conflicts, purely on the principles of justice and up-holding the rules of international law and their universal application; the protection of fundamental human rights when they were violated by powerful members, the need for a body like UN cannot be over emphasised.

It was the institution of United Nations which first drafted the convention on offences and certain other acts committed on board an aircraft, signed at Tokyo on the 14th of September 1963, when hijacking of civilian aircraft became an increasing menace. When after some incidents it was realisd that the convention did not cover the whole range of crimes in respect of aircraft, another convention for the suppression of unlawful seizure of aircraft was signed at the Hague on 16th December 1970. Yet another convention was signed on the 23rd of September 1971 for the suppression of unlawful acts for the safety of civil aviation. On the 14th of December 1973 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Internationally Protected Persons such as a Head of the State, a Minister of Foreign Affairs, representative or official of a state or of an international organisation who is entitled to special protection from attack under international law, came into being.

When incidents of taking of hostages registered an alarming increase, the United Nations adopted an International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages on 17th December 1979. To create a regime of universal jurisdiction over the unlawful and intentional use of explosives and other lethal devices in, into, or against various defined public places with intent to kill or cause serious bodily injury or intent to cause extensive destruction of the public place, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution for the suppression of terrorist bombing on the 15th of December 1997.

Even earlier on, a convention was adopted in the wake of the 1988 Pan-Am 103 bombing, to control and limit the use of unmarked and undetectable plastic explosives. When facts came to surface of financing of terrorists, an International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on the 9th of December 1999, requiring member states to take steps to prevent and counteract the financing of terrorists, whether direct or in-direct, including such groups which are engaged in drug trafficking and gun running. In this Convention, bank secrecy was no longer a justification for refusing to cooperate.

Following the pattern of the United Nations, League of Arab States adopted a Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism which was signed in Cairo on 26th April 1978. It was an improvement on the European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism concluded at Strasburg on 27th of January 1977. It is an elaborate document consisting of 16 Articles which enumerates offences included in all the previous conventions along with the arrest of the criminals as well as the jurisdiction of the contracting states with a mechanism for arbitration in case of a dispute between two or more contracting states.

Later on December 7-8, 1985, the SAARC Summit at Dhaka recognising the seriousness of the problem of terrorism as it affected the security and stability of the region, decided to sign a convention which was ultimately signed by the foreign ministers of the SAARC member countries on the 4th of November 1987 at Kathmandu. Under Article IV of this Convention, the contracting states have the option of trying the offenders found in their countries either themselves on the basis of evidence provided by the requesting state or extraditing the offender to the requesting state. Under Article VII, the contracting states shall not be obliged to extradite if it appears to the requested state by reason of the trivial nature of the case or by reason of request for the surrender or return of a fugitive offender not being made in good faith or in the interest of justice or for any other reason it is unjust or inexpedient to surrender or return the fugitive offender. This Convention was signed amongst others, by Mr. K. Natwar Singh, Minister of State for External Affairs, for the Republic of India and late Mr. Zain Noorani, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, for the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

But the Convention adopted by the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) on Combating International Terrorism can be termed, in all respects, as the most comprehensive document. It was signed on the 1st of July 1999 in Ouagadougou. It is a very comprehensive draft with 42 Articles and taking into account all previous conventions, principles of international law and the United Nations Charter. It has for the first time, recognised the legitimacy of the right of peoples to struggle against foreign occupation, colonialists and racist regimes by all means, including armed struggle to liberate their territories and attain their rights to self-determination and independence in compliance with the purposes and principles of the Charter and the resolutions of the United Nations.

This Convention has also given the definition of “terrorism” in Article 1 (2) stating that “terrorism means any act of violence or threat thereof, notwithstanding its motives or intentions, perpetrated to carry out an individual or collective criminal plan with the aim of terrorising people or threatening to harm them or imperilling their lives, honour, freedoms, security or rights, or exposing the environment or any facility or public or private property to hazards or occupying or seizing them or endangering a national resource or international facilities or threatening the stability, territorial integrity, political unity or sovereignty of independent states.”

This definition not only covers individual or group terrorism but also state terrorism like what India is doing in Occupied Kashmir.

The above measures are all legal and administrative in nature. The elimination of terrorism in all its forms is imperative for the survival of humanity. Cooperation and coordination of every section of the society is necessary but the above measures have neither succeeded nor are they expected to achieve a satisfactory level of success unless the root causes of terrorism are also effectively and judiciously addressed universally and not selectively. The only forum available is the International Court of Justice but its mandatory jurisdiction is very limited. If its scope is broadened to check unilateral actions by individual states on genuine and some times even self-created reasons for use of force, the present trend of ‘might is right’ can be effectively reversed.