Royal University of Phnom Penh

Institute of Foreign Languages

Department of International Studies

Topic: Effectiveness of the United Nations in Addressing Terrorism

Group3:

HENG Chanvicheth
LY Hakseng
LY Seavly
REAM PhyRobish
SON Solita
TENG Daniel

All assignment submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement for IS309

Lecturer: YUN Kea

2019-2020
 Table of Content

Abstract

Abbreviations

I. Introduction .......................................................................................... 1
II. Problem Statement ............................................................................. 1

III. Overall Objective ............................................................................... 2

IV. Research Questions ............................................................................ 2

V. Research limitation ............................................................................. 2

VI. Literature Review ............................................................................. 3
6. 1. The Root Cause of Terrorism ............................................... 3

6. 2. New Terrorism ..................................................................... 4

6.3. Terrorism will continue ......................................................... 5

VII. Research methodology ..................................................................... 6

7.1. Research Design .................................................................... 6

7.2. Data Collection Method ......................................................... 6

7.3. Sampling Method ................................................................... 6

7.4. Data Analysis Method ........................................................... 7

VIII. Research and Findings .................................................................. 7

8.1. UN’s Roles and Function in countering terrorist ................. 7

8.2 UN’s Effectiveness in countering Terrorism .......................... 9
IX. Data Analysis...................................................................................... 11

X. Conclusion .......................................................................................... 13
References ................................................................................................ 15

Appendix .................................................................................................. 20
 Abstract

Terrorism have become a controversy topic that have been discussed, debated, commented

for decades by numerous of scholars whose objective is to analyze the causes, actors, roots and

motives, and the consequences of terrorism. The topic has erupted following the September, 11th,

2001 attack in New York which lead states and international organizations, for instance the

United Nations to fight against terrorism that was motivated in the sense of peace and harmony

and for the sake of humanity protection. Thus, this research paper aims to analyze the roles, the

functions and the effectiveness of the UN in dealing with terrorism through its existence.
 List of abbreviations

CTC Counter-Terrorism Committee

CTED Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate

ISIS Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

UN United Nations

UNGA United Nations General Assembly

UNSC United Nations Security Council

 I. Introduction

Following the tragic event of September 11th, 2001, the United Nations, especially took
admired actions and steps in fighting against terrorism. The actions condemned international
terror and rearranged the global procedures that recognized the rights of self-defense respectively
according to Article 51 of the UN charter which responds to deal with any terrorist attacks. The
motives reason behind the engagement of the UN in dealing with terrorism is to maintenance
international peace and security which is the responsibility of the United Nations Security
Councils under the UN charter. The United Nations, especially the UNSC have played her
important role in producing responsible functions by adopting Security Council Resolution 1373
on September 28th, 2001 under the Chapter VII of the UN charter which declares terrorism as
international threat to international peace and security. Even though the United Nations took
efforts in fight terrorism internationally in its existence, there are always some areas that their
functions and responsibility prove to be effective or ineffective. Their success and failure will be
discussed elaborately in the finding and analyses section.

II. Problem Statement

In the modern world of militarization where the weapons are untracked and have been sold
all around the world, there is no doubt that some terrorists group have got their hands on it
equipped with bad intentions. Not to mention, these terrorist groups who are very unsatisfied with
their own country’s government and in planning to overthrow the government using any means.
Terrorists used to be rebel groups who were deprived and wanted to start coup. However, in
recent years, we have seen that terrorist groups do not only operate in their region and have
started spreading to international community like wildfire. As a result of that, not only the
countries of Europe or the West have to deal with them but rather an international concern; as
these terrorist intention no longer focuses on specific region but to take on the whole world with
their massacre. Nevertheless, previous researches found are mostly focus on old terrorism; while
less on new terrorism. Therefore, in order to coup up with the problems that may concern with
every country as of now and in the future, we decided to conduct a research about the UN’s
effectiveness in countering terrorism by looking at their roles, functions and mechanisms that they
have used to tackle this issue.

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 III. Overall Objective

This research aims to address the effectiveness of the United Nations in countering terrorism
due to the rising impact of terrorist groups on the modern world.

Specific objectives:

- To explore the mechanisms that are being implemented against terrorism.

- To measure the effectiveness of these various mechanisms.

- To assess public opinion on terrorist groups.

IV. Research Question

In order to understand the role, function, and analysis of effectiveness of the UN in dealing
with terrorism issue, the research will try to find the answer to the research question:

 How effective is the United Nations in countering terrorism?

Sub-research:

 What are the mechanisms that the UN use to counter terrorism?

 How much does the role of the resources contribute to the effectiveness of the UN?

V. Research Limitations

The purpose of the research is aiming only to discuss and elaborate the role, functions and
effectiveness of the United Nations in dealing with terrorism in particular timeframe and
geographical scope only. Due to the reasons, the analysis of this research will focus only on the
involvement of the UN in terrorist actions from 2001 to 2019 and in Middle East region and
relies on the data that have been studied by scholars, data from international organizations,
journals and previous research papers.

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 VI. Literature Review

A. The root cause of terrorism

In the study of Club de Madrid 2005, terrorism can also happen when the globalization
happens. The study focus on about the reason why globalization lead into terrorism in fact, when
the act of globalization happen trade and cooperation are conducted and each country tries to
strive in order to gain benefits in term of politics and economics (Club De Madrid, 2005, p. 22).
In other hand, each country will not gain the same amount equally, there must be the least and
the most gained. Because of this asymmetry of the benefits gaining by each country, the weakest
will get the least benefits and that makes the country feel exploited and they view it as unfair
cooperation. The weakest would face major issues such as unemployment, poverty, political
failure and so on, therefore, the so called “weak globalizer” would become angry and lead to the
creation of terrorist groups in order to fight those countries that he thinks they are exploiting his
own country. In fact, globalization helps people to interact in term of trade and cooperation so
well that it would also give benefits to the terrorist group in term of crossing borders, smuggling
weapons and as well as other transnational crimes. For example, the Balkan terrorist group which
associated with Bosnian Muslims and the Albanian mafia have the same goal of making money,
which show us that they were struggling with poverty and they have the goal to make money by
terrorism because the formal cooperation was unfair and not providing benefits to them in a
satisfy level or not at all. Next, the paper provided by United States Institution of Peace showed
us about the causes of terrorism. One of them is the failure of politics. When the losing party feel
unfair and could not do anything legally to win over the winning party, the terrorism is used to
inflict damage and grievance toward the winning party to show their anger and project violence
in order to gain attention. (United States Institution of Peace, 2001). Why the losing party do
needs attention? Because once they did not start the violence, their voices seem to be weak and
not effective to spread their planned policies at all. Therefore, they chose violence in term of
terrorizing to gain attention from those people to show their objectives that they think they
deserved. Moreover, state also cooperate with terrorist group by sponsoring them because they
both have common interest on specific issue. In this case, take Libya as an example, this country
revenged the United States of bombing Libya by cooperating with terrorist group to detonate the
Pan Am 103 in 1983 which flew from London to New York. Therefore, because in term of
3
military, Libya could not win over the United States, as a result, terrorists were used to conduct
the action to revenge the country. As we can see, the terrorism was used when a state could not
win legally over someone in term of politics and economics. Last but not least, in the journal
article of Martha Crenshaw which is “The Causes of Terrorism” showed that the cause of
terrorism somehow not always about any outside factor, but the personality of the person itself
(Crenshaw, 1981., p. 389) In fact, terrorist also started by the complicated reason and it is hard to
explain why people join terrorism. To avoid misassumption, they had tested those people either
they have any need of ego-defending, cognitive processes, and socialization or not. However, not
even one fits in any circumstances. In addition, there was a test conducted by The West German
psychiatrist to examine four people which was the former of Red Army Faction. The result is
that they have no sign of psychosis or neurosis, but they seem to be intelligent and as well as
humorous. Moreover, in the study of Peter Merkl on the Nazi movement, terrorists may become
aware of social unjust, corruption, and violent, then the terrorism will be justified by creating
more violence on it. For example, Blumenthal and her coauthors found that if the the perception
of an act as violence getting stronger, the increasing of violence will be the appropriate choice
(as cited in Crenshaw, 1981). It is also show that the significant behavior of terrorist is that they
ignore the risk of danger, and it means that they tolerate most of the risk in exchange for a
specific cause. In addition, it seems that terrorism could happen by different situation under
different reasons and it is not fixed, therefore we cannot address the actual reason why terrorism
happen. We can only see the common occurrences of the terrorism based on the three literature
studies above. Moreover, the stereotype of terrorism just makes it more confused when defining
the causes of terrorism because the cause of terrorism is differing from situation and it has no
clear evidence that make people become terrorists.

B. New Terrorism (Contemporary context)

In the new era of terrorism, the terrorist acts can be happened in two forms both
domestically and internationally. The domestic terrorism is known as a violent homegrown
terrorism, which is involved by individuals or groups that live in the same local state. (Pascus,
B., 2019). These local terrorists usually act against their government or any other parties within
its own country to achieve their ideological goals in term of domestic influence, religious,
political, social or environmental nature. They are normally sponsored by or associated with
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opposition parties. One of the best examples is Extradition Bill that happened in Hong Kong.
Even if the government try to avoid the word “terrorism”, yet the violence of the protestors who
committed in the state was meet the definition of terrorist acts. The protestors were making the
protest by setting fire, smashing shop windows, yelling slogans and waving banners with the aim
to fight for Hong Kong’s independent policy making. In this case, many people had been injured
and many infrastructures had been destroyed by the demonstrators. This kind of violent
demonstration shows that it is not different from terrorism definition. (Yu, V., & Davidson, H.,
2020). Similarly, the international terrorism also involved by individuals or groups that is known
as the criminal acts against the local government in order to influence their power or to threaten
the other states by booming the local country, kidnapping individuals, murder, assault, hijacking,
and destructing properties, as well as killing innocent people. (Jenkins Phillip, J., [n.d]). We can
see in the 2001 Al-Qaida Hijacking in US as an example. The terrorists had attacked the New
York City and Washington DC which caused enormous death and destruction. The Islamic
terrorist group Al-Qaida hijacked the four US passenger airliners, in which two of them were
crashed with the tower that made the tower collapsed in a hundred minutes. Moreover, they set
the fire within the US world trade center resulted in the collapsing of all buildings which was
severely harmed to economy of New York city and was effected to global market as a whole.
(Angerer, D., 2019).

C. Terrorism will continue

The world has undergone a radical change since September 11 2001. Fear, anxiety,
sensations of repugnance and hate or, mostly, a deep sense of great confusion took their place,
dominating and still controlling the daily lives of people (Cotrim, 2015). Thus, terrorism will
continue due to few individuals or communities prefer living endlessly in chaos and violence in a
country that is in state of war. Therefore, the world must respond and combat this evil which
seeks to threaten and destroy our fundamental freedoms and their way of life, such as freedom
and fear, is at war. For example, Al-Qaeda as a terrorist group attacked on World Trade Center in
the United States on 9 September 2001. Terrorist groups at its base create more opportunities for
terrorists to exploit underlying conditions such as poverty, corruption, religious conflict and
ethnic conflict. Most of these conditions are invented and some are real. Terrorists use these

5
criteria to justify and broaden their support for their actions. Besides that, the belief that terror is
a legitimate means of tackling these conditions and of bringing about political change is a
fundamental issue which allows terrorism to grow and develop (CIA, 2003). Moreover, terrorist
group like ISIS has transnational network structure, enabled by modern technology, ISIS also has
such as transnational network structure, enabled by modern technology. In addition, ISIS
continues to expand its activities to regions beyond the Middle East, with Southeast Asia as one
geographical area to be watched (Lurie , 2020). For instance, ISIS stared increasing its
activities in southern Philippines. Currently, ISIS has over 10,000 fighters, including tens of
thousands of their supporters from over 50 countries (Baladi, 2020).

VII. Research Methodology

7.1 Research Design

This research was conducted through the cross-sectional study, which means that the
information that we gathered is one time only without follow-up checks to verify our information
as there is time and resource limited in our research conduction. While the research will be
focusing on mixed methods using both qualitative as our primary source using documents,
journals, articles, scholar researches and interviews with some of the experts in the related field;
whereas, we also focus on the quantitative as using surveys to assess the public opinion. This
research paper want to focus and emphasize the effectiveness and mechanism of the UN to
counter terrorism through data from various sources

7.2 Data collection method

The research paper collection method will be based on holistic data collection where the
paper will try to gather as much as information as possible from many various sources to
combine data together so the research can carefully measure the impact of the UN. Moreover,
the research paper will also focus on opinions stemming from IR students, scholars, professors
on the matter using interview and surveys in collecting the data while also doing document
analysis to fact check the answers while carefully collecting their opinions from citizens
standpoint on the UN’s roles in terrorism.

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 7.3 Sampling Method

The sampling of this research will focus on cluster sampling that want to concentrate on 2
specific groups which are IR students as one group and scholars in the related field as one group.
The paper wants to diversify as much opinion as possible from many perspectives stemming
from students to scholars to measure the deep politics behind UN’s closed door; whether the
motivation behind these policies that were adopted by the UN are being understood correctly to
the perspective of students and scholars.

7.4 Data analysis method

Beside the survey, group discussion, document analysis, and data analysis, we are also
using the content analysis in order to analyze or describe the methods of the UN including
behavior, helping the victims, belief and preferences, and morality by using different ideas and
meaning.

VIII. Research and Findings

8.1 UN’s Roles and Function in Countering terrorist

Terrorism is a plague that no continent or nation is immune to. International cooperation is vital to
tackling this global threat to peace and security. The United Nations is unique in its position to help
member states effectively prevent terrorist acts within its borders and across regions. The multifaceted
strategy proposed by the UN also provides countries with the means to address different but
interconnected problems simultaneously. The UN became far more involved in counter-terrorism in
the 1990s than is normally the case after the World Trade Center terrorist attack on September 11,
2001, revealed the growing transnational nature of the threat has been exposed, making the UN
Security Council a natural place to lead the international charges against Al Qaeda (Einsiedel, 2016).
In response, the United Nations establishes the Counter-Terrorism Committee as a subsidiary
body; established to monitor the implementation of the resolution aimed at enhancing States'
ability to combat terrorism, it is not a penal body, nor does it maintain a list of terrorist groups or
individuals. However, the counter-terrorism committee is not a direct provider of capacity, it acts
as a broker between those States or groups with the appropriate capacity and those needing
assistance. In 2004, in an attempt to revitalize the work of the Committee, the Security Council
7
adopted Resolution 1535, creating the Executive Directorate of the Counter-Terrorism
Committee (CTED) to provide expert guidance to the CTC on all the areas covered by
Resolution 1373. CTED has also been developed to facilitate technical assistance for countries
and foster closer cooperation and coordination both within the UN organizational structure and
between regional and intergovernmental bodies (The United Nations Security Council Counter-
Terrorism Committee, 2019). Meanwhile, under the auspices of the UN, the international
convention has been signed criminalizing particular acts of terrorism, such as the taking of
hostages, attacks against certain means of transport or groups of individuals, or the use of such
devices for terrorist purposes. The most current, for example, is the 2005 Convention for the
Suppression of Nuclear Terrorism Acts. Sadly, the UN has been eluded by attempts to implement
an all-encompassing holistic counterterrorism convention. It is because member states were
unable to agree on a definition of terrorism, particularly as to whether the concept would include
so-called state terrorism, which is not a significant gap in the law, and whether citizens under
foreign occupation would maintain the right to violent resistance. (Ruperez, n.d). Because of the
international convention, terrorist activity does not work well in response. Meanwhile, some
years after 9/11, the UNSC and UNGA, concerned about the Council's exclusive grip on the UN
counter-terrorism agenda, tried to reassert their role in this area. In 2005, UN Secretary-General
Kofi Annan laid out a blueprint for a global counter-terrorism strategy designed to focus more on
addressing root causes and respect for human rights. At the same time, he established an
interagency, Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force, to ensure that the broad spectrum of
UN agencies contributes their combined strength to the implementation of the strategy (The
United Nations, n.d). In 2014, the Security Council endorsed the idea of tackling the growing
question of foreign terrorist fighters(The United Nations Security Council Counter-Terrorism
Committee, n.d ).In December 2015, the UN Secretary-General issued a 'Plan of Action to
Prevent Violent Extremism' promoting a laundry list of measures, ranging from conflict
prevention and strengthening governance, human rights, and the rule of law to community
engagement, empowering women and youth, and advancing education and employment. (The
United Nation, 2016).

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 8.2 UN’s Effectiveness in countering Terrorism

The amount of terrorist groups and acts are dramatically risen after the most horrific
event in the history of terrorist attack which is the 9/11 attack in 2001. There are many factors
that lead to the incident which mainly is due to the religious reason; According to Osama bin
Ladin on his “letter to America” stating the reasons of the attack which he blamed the aggression
against Muslims in countries like Somalia and Bosnia Herzegovina, the Qana massacre in
Lebanon, and Indian forces in Kashmir and Assam. The letter also indicated that the presence of
the US troops in Saudi Arabia, US support the atrocities against them in Chechnya, US support
of Israel and the sanctions against Iraq which crushed the economic sector and caused harm to
the innocent civilian too (The Guardian, 2002). Since then, the whole world has changed their
perspective toward the terrorist acts which cost casualties, threats, and challenges to the local
people, security, economy, and especially to the world as a whole. Among all the countries in the
world, most terrorist groups existed inside the Middle East countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq,
and Syria. In terms of terrorist groups, there are a few amounts of them which mostly are Shia
Islamic group that include Al Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram, Taliban, and Al-Shabaab. Regarding
the respond from the UN to fight with terrorism, the organization was engaged to this kind of
issue since before the 9/11 incident; what the UN did is to bring the international community
together to condemn terrorist acts and developed the international legal framework to enable
states to fight the threat collectively. In additions to the deadly attacks in East Africa and the
deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, the UNSC decided to impose sanctions on the Taliban and
Al-Qaeda in 1999 with the extension of the travel ban, assets freeze, and arms embargo for the
individuals that associated with these organization (Smith, n.d.). Furthermore, after the 9/11
attack, the organization took even more actions by adopted a far-reaching resolution paving the
way to fight against terrorism and required all UN members states to individually and
collectively cooperate in order to bring those terrorist groups to justice. Moreover, in 2006, the
UNGA has adopted the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy in which it stressed
on the importance of addressing the issues that give rise to terrorism which include unresolved
conflicts, dehumanization of victims, violations of human rights, and lack of good governance
(UN Digital Library, 2006). However, even with the prevention and actions that proposed and
taken from the UN, in 2015, there was a major terrorist attack in Paris which is believed to be

9
organized by the ISIS group when shootings and bomb blasts were occurred outside of the Stade
de France Stadium during a friendly match football game (BBC, 2015). Nonetheless, in 2016 the
attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando that killed 49 people which counted as the second-deadliest
mass shooting in the recent US history after 9/11 attack; the shooter, who identified as an
American who had pledged allegiance to ISIS, was then killed by the police inside the club
(CNN, 2020). According to the Global Terrorism Index in 2018, there were around 3000 terrorist
attacks to the Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria which most of them are responsible by Al-Qaeda and
ISIS (Staista, 2019). Due to the increasing amount of terrorist attacks that cause harms and
security risk to the innocent people around the world, the UNGA then established the United
Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) on 15 June 2017 (UN, n.d.). The UNOCT
provides UN members with necessary policy support and spread in-depth knowledge of the
United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy in which there are five main functions that all
of which aim to provide leadership, advocate and facilitate the fight against terrorism. The office
provides most of its technical assistance and capacity building support to members through the
UNCCT (UN Counter-Terrorism Centre) and SPIB (Special Projects and Innovation Branch)
(UN, n.d.). The UNCCT so far implementing capacity- building programs to the countries or
regions with the most expected to be threaten by terrorism such as Africa, Middle East, and
Central and South Asia and around 71 countries are benefiting from these projects. While for the
SPIB, there are 3 main programs which are engaging parliamentarians, sports and security, and
terrorist travel. According to the review of the UNOCT from January to May 2020, there were 30
workshops successfully organized with around one thousand individuals trained during the
capacity-building programs that provided by the UNOCT (UNOCT, 2020). Even though there
were a lot of efforts taken by the UN in order to fight against terrorism, the organization still
seem to be not very much effective enough to successfully eliminate the terrorist groups around
the world. The reason for that is because fighting against terrorism is costly even for the rich
countries which have a lot of resources and skilled personnel. Thus, it is clear that the
government alone cannot deal with this challenge, especially for the poor countries as they
would rather put their scare resources into development than for the counter-terrorism. So, it is
suggested that there should be involvement of the local communities, private sector, media, and
other groups in society to cooperate with one another in the exchange of intelligence,
information, and expertise between national agencies and across borders (Smith, n.d.). Another
10
reason which limits the effectiveness of UN in combating terrorism is that even after the
implementations of the UNOCT programs, the number of terrorist attacks are still there and they
did not provide specifications, mechanisms, procedures, and actions that are clear enough for
every country to follow in order to fight and prevent the terrorist acts inside the country.
Moreover, before and after the existing of the UNOCT, after the death of one of the terrorist
leaders, Osama Bin Laden, after the fall of the ISIS, the amount of terrorist attacks are still at
large and the terrorist groups are still existing. This means that the UN role alone is not effective
enough to counter terrorism. Therefore, all states must separately and collectively cooperate with
one another to fight against this non-tradition issue in order to eliminate the threats that keep
haunting to the local people, security, economic and international communities as a whole.

IX. Data Finding and Analysis

9.1 People’s awareness of terrorist groups

The graph above represents the percentage of Cambodian people’s understanding toward
terrorism. After collecting the survey online data that we got from the university students in
Cambodia, we can see that many of them are quite familiar with terrorism concept, whereas few
of them do not. Besides asking them whether or not they know about terrorism, we also include
the question on what are the motives behind the terrorist attacks. 39% of them think it’s about
western resentment, 25% of them think it’s about Jihadism, other 10% think it’s about escaping
11
deprivation, and the rest think of other motives. At the same time, 90% of them know very well
that their government will lay down mechanisms to protect the threat of terrorists at all costs
even if only 68% of them understand the UN’s works in countering terrorism. Therefore, it is
significant to do research and to provide, as well as to produce more information relating to
terrorist acts for Cambodian citizens.

9.2 Perspective on UN’s mechanisms implementation

Based on the 26 responses from the survey on Perspective on some UN’s mechanism, one of
which showed us that they think the joint effort is the most effective mechanism of the UN rather
than the other mechanism people think it would such as sanctioning, war and political dialogues.
With the highest percentage 38.5%, joint effort believed to be the most effective mechanism in
term of countering terrorism. Following by the joint effort, there is the sanctioning, with 23.1%
that the responders believed it is effective. As the graph above, the sanction option is not really
effective in countering terrorism like the joint effort at all, therefore, the UN should consider
using one of the mechanism which is the most effective in order to counter terrorism.

9.3 People’s opinion on UN’s credibility

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 This research analyzes based on graph above represent the comparison of people’s
perspective on UN's credibility in the act countering terrorism. After doing a survey through
online, we have gotten 26 responses. Furthermore, it also linked the information which go
through students who study or have background in international studies. The graph illustrates a
little different when it comes to People's perspective on UN's credibility. In addition, all
responders are private students. Hence, most of them believed that the UN mechanism is based
on P5 that mostly means the UN is merely a P5's tool which does not produce any significant
achievements in countering terrorism. From the graphs above, we see that 57% of responders
believe in the UN terrorist mechanism, but 42% of responders believe that the UN seems to be
unable to resolve the problems. On the other hand, only state and state seem to be capable of
handling and maintaining international security. However, based on the survey, most people's
perspectives believe that UN activities have also been successful in the fight against terrorism
through P5's interest.

X. Conclusion

To sum up, the United Nations, especially the United Nation Security Council (UNSC) has
been play in a critical road in solving and finding numerous solutions toward the aggressive
terrorist acts. Along with some successful missions of the UN in combat the acts itself, there still
remains terrorism existing and the aggressive acts frequently happening which could cause
insecurity and threatening to the world peace in every minutes. Thus, it is the mirror showing
13
that the UN itself still facing problems and needed to overcome the challenges in pursue to the
better outcome in counter and stop the aggressive acts from happening. That is the reason; in
response to the challenges for United Nations in combat over terrorism issues this research paper
has conveyed some of the possible recommendations or solutions for strengthening the
effectiveness of United Nations to enhance the coordination of United Nations activities in this
regard. First is to denying terrorists the means to carry out an attack (UNGA, 2006). Meaning
that, the United Nations should consider in apply financial sanctions system can be an important
tool in make sure the effective action against terrorist. Furthermore, the Security Council should
also impose the means such as an arms and travel ban against members that are associated with
those from terrorist group. Specifically, the United Nations should better cooperated with the
International Maritime Organization allow an internationally agreed as well as implemented
regulatory regime for ship and port facilities. Moreover, IMO is also recognized as developing a
mandatory tool for the global long-range tracking of ships. Secondly, the United Nations should
play as a guidance role in promoting good governance, human rights and the rule of law. The
reason is to convey the messages for State to cooperate and wake the State mindset to combat an
aggressive act from the terrorists group (CTCD, N/A). Thus, the United Nations better stands
ready to work with journalists’ associations and press freedom in the aims to facilitate regarding
aggressive act of terrorist group and give attention to the need for measures to promote the safety
and security of journalists to gather information and express to the world. Thirdly, the United
Nations should assess to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
to provide assistance and advice to State members, in regard to the protection of human rights
and fundamental freedoms when combat terrorism, that include the review and development of
anti-terrorism legislation. Moreover, it further provides training for security officials and law
enforcement, in the aims to build the important skills to implement international human rights
instruments (UNGA, 2006).

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a-cause-for-concern/

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 Appendix
Consent Form
Full title of Project: What is the effectiveness of the United Nations in countering
terrorism?

Name, position and contact address of Researchers:

Heng Chanvicheth, student (phone: 077 280 898 / email: [email protected])

Ly Hakseng, student (phone: 086 333 296 / email: [email protected])

Ly Seavly, student (phone: 012 524 152 / email: [email protected])

Ream Phyrobish, student (phone: 011 855 527 / email: [email protected])

Son Solita, student (phone: 015 506 585 / email: [email protected])

Teng Daniel, student (phone: 092 743 281 / email: [email protected])

1. I confirm that I have read and understand the information sheet for the above study
and have had the opportunity to ask question.

2. I understand that my participation is voluntary and that I am free to withdraw at any

time, without giving reason.
3. I agree to take part in the above study.

Name of Participant Date Signature

18
Dear Sir/Madam,

We are a group of students from Department of International Studies at Institute of

Foreign Languages of Royal University of Phnom Penh, and are conducting a study examining
the effective of the United Nations in countering terrorism. Terrorism, especially in the Middle
East are no longer considered a regional issue, but have become an international issue that
require scholars’ opinions on this matter whether the mechanisms of the UN can be trusted and
what state as an actor can do to protect itself. As a result of that, we have created questions with
the hope of your participation in order for us collect more information from scholars to analyze
and study from different perspectives.

This study has become quite a topic for discussion among scholars to debate on the
current stage of international relations between states and many other various IGOs on how to
deal with terrorism effective since this issue has widespread to be everyone’s problem. As a
result of that, this study will also aim to raise awareness, collect more information, analyze UN
mechanisms in order to improve the knowledge to counter this violent group effectively while
also benefitting general public, students, scholars, interest groups, government, states, IGOs to
grasp on this knowledge and work collectively from now on.

This study conducting on terrorism and your answers on this matter will remain
anonymous and the detailed of the information will not be leaked as we keep manner of the
research ethics to not harm participants’ identity, private in any shape of forms that this answer
will not negatively affect you in the future.

It is very much appreciated that you decide to take your time off to cooperate with us in
answering the questions that we have created. If there any point of inquiries that need to be
answered, please do not hesitate to contact us with provided information.

19
 Survey on UN’s effectiveness in countering terrorism

 Age: ____________________
 Academic Year: ___________

I. Perspectives on terrorist groups

 Are you familiar with terrorist attacks and groups such as Al Qaeda, ISIS?
Yes
No
 What do you think are their motives in these violence attacks?
To Escape deprivation Jihadism (Islamic Movement)

West Resentment Other…………...

 Does your own government lay down any mechanisms to protect and recognizing the
threat of terrorists?
Yes. What are they?.................................................
No

II. Perspective on some of UN’s mechanisms

 Are you familiar with UN’s work in countering terrorism?

Yes
No

 Although the UN took the lead in countering terrorist after 9/11, there were a lot of
criticisms about its lack of effort to implement resolution 1373, 1540, US war’s on Iraq,
and neglected human right issues in their lead?
The criticism was right.
The criticism was not right.

20
 What do you think of UN’s “Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force”?

1. Very Effective 2. Effective 3. Neutral

4. Not so much 5. Ineffective

 Which are the mechanisms that you think is effective in countering terrorist?
Sanctioning Direct Confrontation (War)
 W  W
h
Political Dialogues h Effort
Joint
 W a  W
a
Others…………….
 W h
t ht
ah a
 Do you think
tad sanctioning states who support terrorist group
td is an effective move?

to Yes o
d d
ody No oy
o o
yu yu
 Since terrorist
oy group is independent on their own, do you
o think imposing sanction in their
home countryuot will affect these groups? Or these sanctionsut only victimized innocent
citizens?
uh h
ti ti
It only affects innocent citizens
htn hn
ihk It affects terrorist group in some ways ik
ni n
It only affects terrorist group
kno W ko
h
kf f
o a o
III. Personal Opinions foU t on UN’s effectiveness fU
f
N N
U d U
’ ’
 What do you
N think
o of the UNSC or the P5 roles in countering
N terrorism?
s
U s
’N They only act when there is benefit and ’interest.
s’“  yW s“
ohWe need their knowledge, resources, intelligence in countering terrorism.
sC aW C
“o uh “
They are very effective in their actions. o
“u  W
C t C
a u
oC
n
t h
tOthers…………………………………………………………. on
uot hda ut
 Do you think nue itd the
o UN act base on P5’s interest? ne
tnr n tr
oAgree
et- kyd e-
reT ooy 21 rT
-re ou -e
o
T fy T
-r t u r
eT o er
r h
reo U u ro
it
 Disagree
 The U.N. is too political, too uncoordinated, too focused on process rather than outcomes
and follow-up, and too far removed from the people who actually deal with the problems
of terrorism on the ground to make much of an impact, or even to appear relevant.
Agree
Disagree
 Do you think the act countering terrorism has affected other spheres namely, human
rights?
Agree

Disagree

 Interview questions
 To your understanding, how many types of terrorism can you think of? What the
differences between them?
 How would you anticipate and what measures would you take to maintain International
Peace by solving international conflicts even before they start and become a crisis like
Terrorism?
 If you were to rate the effectiveness on the UN’s action in countering terrorism based on
your knowledge so far, what would be your ratings and why? (From 1 being effective to
5 ineffective)
 Do you think self-protection mechanisms come first and UN should rather focus on
raising awareness on how to protect yourself?
 How would you counter terrorism? Does structural change in the UN necessary? Or do
you think the approach of the UN so far is wrong?
 Do you think that UN mechanism is really to every countries that faced terrorism?
 How does UN function influences over other states to support its function to counter the
terrorism?
 Is imposing sanctions on states not only make the people suffer but also cause rises on
terrorist group? Plus, since the state suffered enough of the sanctions, they might turn
their back on the UN and support the terrorist group instead?

22