United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy
The United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy (A/RES/60/288) is a unique global instrument to enhance national, regional and international efforts to counter terrorism. Through its adoption by consensus in 2006, all United Nations Member States agreed to a common strategic and operational approach to fighting terrorism.
The Strategy reaffirms that Member States have the primary responsibility to implement the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and in preventing and countering terrorism and violent extremism conducive to terrorism. It sends a clear message that terrorism is unacceptable in all its forms and manifestations, and that Member States have resolved to take practical steps, individually and collectively, to prevent and combat terrorism. Those practical steps include a wide array of measures ranging from strengthening Member States’ capacity to counter terrorist threats to better coordinating the United Nations System’s counter-terrorism architecture and activities.
Pillars of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy
The United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy in the form of a resolution and an annexed Plan of Action (A/RES/60/288) is composed of four pillars, namely:
- Measures to address the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism.
- Measures to prevent and combat terrorism.
- Measures to build States’ capacity to prevent and combat terrorism and to strengthen the role of the United Nations system in that regard.
- Measures to ensure respect for human rights for all and the rule of law as the fundamental basis of the fight against terrorism.
Eighth biennial review of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy
Since 2006, the United Nations General Assembly has reviewed the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy every two years, making it a living document attuned to Member States’ counter-terrorism priorities. The review of the Strategy represents an opportunity for Member States to renew international commitment to multilateral efforts to counter terrorism, take stock of progress in implementing the Strategy in the past two years and identify further areas requiring attention over the next two years.
In 2023, Member States undertook the eighth review of the Strategy.
In anticipation of the review, the Secretary-General submitted a report, as requested by the General Assembly, on the Activities of the United Nations System in implementing the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and suggestions for its future implementation (A/77/718), covering the period of January 2021 to December 2022, and issued in February 2023. This report benefitted from submissions from Member States and international and regional organizations on their efforts, as well as inputs from civil society organizations gathered by UNOCT through public calls for feedback in 2022.
All Member States participated in the review of the Strategy as part of the work of the General Assembly. To assist in the steering of this intergovernmental process, the President of the General Assembly has appointed the Permanent Representatives of Canada and Tunisia to act as co-facilitators, while UNOCT served as substantive secretariat, supporting the co-facilitators, negotiations and consultations from March 2023 until the conclusions of the General Assembly debate.
On 22 June 2023, the General Assembly adopted without a vote resolution 77/298 on the eighth review of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, thus sustaining consensus behind the strategy.
Resolution 77/298 requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly at its eightieth session a report on progress made in the implementation of the Strategy, containing suggestions for its future implementation by the United Nations system. This marks a departure from the previous biennial timeline. The ninth review of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy in 2026 will then coincide with the twentieth anniversary of the adoption of the Strategy.