“Revitalizing International Law to Meet the Challenge of Terrorism”

U.S. Embassy to the Holy See 20th Anniversary Conference

Thursday, April 22, 2004

"Building an International Consensus to Defeat Terror"

Opening Remarks as prepared for delivery by

Ambassador Jim Nicholson

Father Imoda

Your Eminence(s)

Your Excellencies

Reverend Monsignors and Fathers

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

I am pleased to welcome you here today for what I believe will be a fruitful morning of dialogue on an issue that affects every member of the international community -- the threat to civilized societies posed by terrorism. I am very thankful to Father Imoda and his entire staff here at the Gregorian University for hosting our meeting today and for their efforts to offer us such a beautiful and appropriate venue.

Our specific focus for this conference --the first of a series we are planning to mark the 20 th anniversary of formal diplomatic relations between the United States and the Holy See -- is to seek together a clearer understanding of how international law can be revitalized to better confront the threat of international terrorism. Our hope is that this gathering can contribute to international understanding of how best to deal with what is a fundamentally new challenge to our freedoms, our security, and our shared human dignity.

In speaking about the United States' relationship with the Holy See this anniversary year, I have frequently characterized our bilateral dialogue as a 'Partnership for Human Dignity.' It is well known that Pope John Paul II has placed the advance of human dignity at the very heart of his pontificate. It is less well known that 'championing human dignity' is the first goal of the current United States National Security Strategy. There are many ways in which we are working together to achieve this shared end, including our efforts to combat human trafficking, HIV/AIDS, hunger, and human rights abuses. But our shared desire to overcome the scourge of terrorism -- which seeks to undermine the freedom and confidence at the heart of our societies -- will be vital to our ability to meet all of these other challenges. That is why we wanted to begin this series of conferences by focusing on this new and expanding threat to human dignity.

Events of the past two years have made all too clear that no country is immune from the terrorist plague. Terrorist attacks on the United States, Indonesia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Israel, Turkey, Iraq and Spain have left little doubt of their determination to spread chaos and division through senseless acts of bloody violence. The death of the Italian hostage last week provided only one more brutal image of the depravity and lack of human compassion that characterizes this new wave of terror.

On Easter Sunday in his Urbi et Orbi address, Pope John Paul II called on world leaders and all people of good will to "find the strength to face the inhuman, and unfortunately growing, phenomenon of terrorism, which rejects life and brings anguish and uncertainty to the daily lives of so many hardworking and peaceful people." The Pope also expressed his hope that national and international institutions can overcome today's difficulties and achieve a more effective and peaceful world order. This is a hope shared by President Bush, who outlined the challenge before the United Nations as a battle between "those who honor the rights of man, and those who deliberately take the lives of men women and children without mercy or shame." Our conference today is part of the response to the Pope's and the President's challenge to nations and international institutions to develop effective and united efforts against terror and to bring peace and stability to our world.

At the core of the United States response to terrorism in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks has been a recognition that the threat posed by terrorists today is fundamentally new and different from any threat the word has faced before. While terrorism itself is not new, its new post-September 11 face is something we have never seen before. Today's terrorist acts are not, as they have been seen in the past, intended to advance a specific political aim. Rather, they appear driven by a desire for destruction and death as ends in themselves, perhaps with a futile vision of destroying our unity, undermining our confidence, and eroding our freedoms. That is why we need new ways to deal with threat.

President Bush's recognition that today's threats are unlike anything the world has faced before has led him to conclude that the United States and the international community need to think in new ways about how we ensure the safety and security of our peoples. He has concluded that we will not defeat terror by relying on military might alone. Instead, we must fight terrorist networks and those who support them using every means at our disposal -- diplomatic, economic, law enforcement, information-sharing, intelligence, and military. The United States also believes that we must build a firm international consensus against terror. Only if the international community is united and working together will we be able to defeat this threat to our way of life.

To help build such a consensus, we decided last year to hold a conference in the framework of our 20th anniversary that would examine the issues posed by terrorism to the accepted ways of the international community. Specifically, we wanted to look at how international law could be revitalized to better confront the threat of international terrorism.

Our intention was reinforced earlier this year when we heard the Pope's World Day of Peace Message this year, in which he recognized the need for a "profound renewal of the international legal order" similar to that which occurred after World War II. The Pope observed that "today, international law is hard pressed to provide solutions to situations of conflict arising from the changed landscape of the contemporary world." Specifically, he noted that a legal system designed to regulate law between states was not well-equipped to deal with non-state actors such as terrorist groups.

Our conference today seeks to respond to the Pope's call for a renewal of the international legal order by beginning a dialogue that examines the issues the Pope raised and with which we in the United States have been grappling intensively since September 11th. We are fortunate, and in this company I would even say blessed, to have with us today five distinguished experts with backgrounds in terrorism, international law, and the Holy See's approach to both, who will share with us their perspectives on how revitalized international legal mechanisms can be powerful and necessary instruments in the necessary fight against terror.

• Father Thomas Williams, Dean of Theology Faculty at Rome's "Queen of the Apostles" Pontifical Athenaeum will kick off our discussion by considering the moral and ethical foundation of the fight against terror within the framework of the Catholic Church's magisterium.

• Jospeh McMillan, a Senior Research Fellow at the U.S. National Defense University, will then examine the rights and responsibilities of sovereign states in this new era of apocalyptic terrorism.

Having framed the issues both from the perspective of the Holy See and modern nation states, we will then hear from a distinguished panel who will discuss what is being done, what can be done, and what should be done to defeat this scourge.

• Mr. Philippe Meunier, of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has served as Coordinator for G-8's comprehensive counterterrorism initiative agreed at the Evian Summit last year. He will discuss what the G-8 countries are doing today and what new directions they are taking to expand international cooperation against terror.

• Mr. David Rivkin , scholar and commentator on international law and terrorism, a partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Baker & Hostetler, L.L.P, and former official in the White House and Department of Justice will explore what he believes to be considerable flexibility and unused potential in existing international conventions, suggesting that the international community could make better use of existing law.

• Finally, Prof. Giovanni Barberini, consultant to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on human rights and international law, and professor at the Libera Universita Internazionale degli Studi Sociali (LUISS) will round out our discussions with his reflections on terrorism, Catholic doctrine, and how the international community should respond to buid a new legal system better adapted to our age and its challenges.

I look forward to these presentations and to a lively exchange with all of you present today. Our success today depends in large measure on your willingness to engage on these questions and take advantage of the expertise we have assembled.

Before turning the floor over to our first speaker, I would like to say that the United States recognizes that the defeating terrorism as a threat to our way of life will not occur as a single, defining moment. It will not be marked by the likes of the surrender ceremony that ended the Second World War, or the fall of the Berlin Wall. Only through the sustained effort to provide innovative solutions -- including internationally agreed legal mechanisms -- can we overcome the threat posed by terrorist organizations. Working together we can secure a world in which all people can live free from fear and where the threat of terrorist attacks does not define our daily lives.

I will conclude where I began. In striving to build an international consensus to defeat terror, we have to build a world rooted in human dignity where more and more countries and peoples live lives where values such as human dignity, rule of law, respect for individual liberties, open and free economies, and religious tolerance predominate. In the end, these values will be the best antidote to terrorism. This is the world we are helping and hoping to build by our discussion today.

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