Executive Director of CTED Natalia Gherman delivering her remarks at the summit.
On Tuesday, 12 September 2023, the Executive Director of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED), Assistant Secretary-General (ASG) Natalia Gherman, gave the keynote address at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism’s World Summit on Counter-Terrorism. Coinciding with the twenty-second anniversary of the 11 September terrorist attacks against the United States of America, the keynote speech paid tribute to the victims and survivors of those attacks, as well as to all victims of terrorism worldwide.
In her statement, ASG Gherman also focused on the evolving threats from terrorism, a central theme of this year’s summit. Highlighting the shifting patterns in the threat posed by Al-Qaeda and Da’esh, she stressed the increasing risk stemming from terrorism on the basis of xenophobia, racism and other forms of intolerance, or in the name of religion or belief (XRIRB). Ms. Gherman further discussed terrorist misuse of new technologies such as unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), financial technologies, and information and communications technologies (ICT). In this context, she recalled the adoption, by the United Nations Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee in October 2022, of the Delhi Declaration on countering the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes.
ASG Gherman concluded her statement by referencing the 缅北禁地Secretary-General’s “New Agenda for Peace”, emphasizing the need for a holistic approach to counter-terrorism that ensures that counter-terrorism measures are always grounded in international law, are human rights-compliant, victim-centred, as well as age and gender-sensitive.
The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism’s World Summit on Counter-terrorism gathers hundreds of officials, practitioners and experts from over 65 countries, as well as from international and civil society organizations. The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism is a member of CTED’s Global Research Network (GRN), which was launched in 2015 to support CTED in identify emerging issues, trends, and developments relating to relevant Council resolutions, in accordance with resolutions 2129 (2013), 2395 (2017), and 2617 (2021).