ABSTRACT
Proposals to substantially involve the United Nations in the fi ght against terrorism were initially greeted with much scepticism. Many Member States and experts within the UN Secretariat doubted that the global organization could provide signifi cant added value.2 Today, however, the UN’s Security Council is recognized as the main international coordinating body and a driving force in the fi eld of multilateral counterterrorism. In the words of the former Chairman of the Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, counter-terrorism has ‘gone global, with the United Nations at the centre’.3 Before becoming Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov stated (as Russia’s Ambassador to the UN) that the Counter Terrorism Committee ‘remains the leading element in the global anti-terrorist architecture’.4
