The Counter-Terrorism Committee, or the CTC, is made up of all 15 members of the UN Security Council. The aim of the CTC is to advocate states to follow Resolutions 1373 and 1624. Including steps such as criminalizing and denying any sort of financial aid of terrorists, the freezing of any funds of people that are involved in acts of terrorism, the extinguishing of any and all safe places, provisions, or any thing else supporting terrorists within a state, the sharing of details about terrorist organizations from one state to the other, and the co-operation with governments with the investigation and arrest of terrorists.
The CTC was founded under resolution 1373 in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the United States. In 2004 the Security Counsel adopted Resolution 1535; this created an Executive Directorate, or EDCTC, for the CTC. The EDCTC helps to provide expert advice on how to respond to terrorist acts and how to bring nations together to act against such attacks. Headed by Jeremy Greenstock, the CTC has investigated how its member states can take a more active role against terrorist acts. These include acts of the legislative branch of a government, and the aiding of member states to meet the goals set forth by Resolution 1373. During the 2005 World Summit Conference, members of the Security Counsel convened and debated over sever issues regarding terrorism that have been up for debate for years. They also came to the adoption of the formal definition for the word terrorism at the Summit. This allowed to CTC to gain more ground in aiding countries to take measures to combat terrorist organizations.
Although the CTC has made no groundbreaking efforts to abolish terrorism, and was founded out of fear of other terrorist organizations in 2001, it has much potential to aid the world in the never ending fight against terrorists. Meanwhile it remains fairly useless. The CTC has no real power to enforce resolution 1373 and merely acts as a go between for nations struggling to fight terrorists. It is also only comprised of the members of the Security Counsel. As of now, unless more members are added, it hardly makes sense to have an entire committee made of every member of a Counsel dedicated to ending bloodshed in the world.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Counter-Terrorism_Committee
http://www.un.org/en/sc/ctc/aboutus.html
United Nations Military Staff Committee
The United Nations Military Staff Committee is a powerful committee within the UN organization whose sole operational purpose is to plan and execute UN military operations and to provide as well as regulate arms. This committee is the most historical committee in the UN and has held a variable, but notable amount of power in the time that it has been active. It is a subcommittee within the UN Security Council, and as such, it is regulated and run primarily by the five power nations that make up the powers of the UN Security Council.UNMSC, a common acronym for the committee, was founded by article 45 of the UN charter and was established along with the rest of the UN in 1945 after the conclusion of the Second World War. It was established in order to maintain world order as the fear of weakness in the face of power of individual nations became a reality in the Second World War. Recall after World War I in the early 1900s, the people of the most powerful nations feared that Germany would rise again. To prevent such a catastrophe, Germany was stripped of its power and military forces were placed in the four established quadrants of the nation. A body was needed to assist in the regulation of these important international affairs, so Woodrow Wilson, in his fourteen points, established, along with other world powers, the League of Nations. When Germany rose again in the Second World War, the League was militarily defenseless, and so any threats it levied against other nations (Particularly Germany, but also Japan) were empty threats that were never real, and so Germany rose to power and a struggle between nations ensued. This was a lesson to the powers of the world. They knew they had to create a powerful global governing body that could mobilize a military force and that military force would need the ability to act swiftly and effectively to end challenges to the peacemaking powers of the UN.
The committee, as of late, has done little to the benefit of the United Nations and the world. In the last “war”, the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union, despite the threat of a nuclear holocaust, the United Nations did nothing militarily to stop these two nations from taking their respective fingers off of the triggers. Because both the US and the USSR were members of the United Nations, the body was unable to act either militarily nor diplomatically in favor of either country. The end of the Cold War came and went, but to this day, the UN Military Staff Committee remains a dormant committee of sorts and is relatively inactive when it comes to global affairs.
Sources: Alan Brinkley’s “American History: A Survey”
UN Charter:
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