ABSTRACT
It is instructive to examine international law as it applies to terrorism from the particular perspective of the United Nations. In the first place, while much of the legal effort in the fight against terrorism has in recent years been conducted outside of the United Nations, what we may term the international diplomatic history of the topic began within the United Nations. The identification of the issues and the shape of the legal debate were formed within that institution, as were many of the institutional mechanisms for the international community’s response. Second, this perspective interestingly illustrates the operational techniques which the United Nations has at its disposal-with its strengths and weaknesses. The marshalling of an international law strategy on terrorism is a story of committees and their reports, of resolutions, of drafting treaties, and of calls for State action. It is also the story of a United Nations that was itself changing against the background of extraordinary world events. Finally, it has been of the essence of this problem that the issue of terrorism has not been self-contained: its essential character is such that it can only be understood by studying its interface with a variety of other international law topics with which the United Nations has also been concerned.
