‘Nail countries backing terror’

Jurists from across the world have called upon the world leaders to impose multilateral sanctions against nations providing safe havens, financial and logistic support to terrorist groups. Satya Prakash reports.

Denouncing terrorism in all its forms, jurists from across the world have called upon the world leaders to impose multilateral sanctions against nations providing safe havens, financial and logistic support to terrorist groups.

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“Harbouring terrorist groups and providing logistic and financial support to such groups was no less a crime than terrorism itself,” said a resolution adopted at the end of the two-day international conference on terrorism, rule of law and human rights last evening.

It asked the world community to take concrete steps to address these issues on a priority basis and “impose multilateral sanctions against nations not extending their cooperation in this regard”.

The jurists, both from India and abroad, highlighted the inadequacies in the existing multilateral and bilateral arrangements to deal with cross-border terrorism and ‘non-state actors’ engaged in violence against innocent citizens across in the world.

Endorsing the views expressed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Law Minister H.R. Bhardwaj, the jurists urged all the nations to treat terrorists as international criminals and extradite them to the countries where they perpetrated the crime to face trial.

Jointly organised by the International Council of Jurists, All India Bar Association and Indian Council of Jurists, the conference described terrorism as a serious threat to the rule of law and the worst form of human rights violation.

Maintaining that sovereign nations had a right to defend their territory and people, the jurists, however, said all laws enacted to deal with terrorism should be in consonance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The fight against terrorism should not result in violation of basic human rights, targeting any particular section of society, denial of fair trial to the accused, they cautioned.