It is not right that matters, but victory', and no, the speaker is not the manager of a World Cup team, and the topic is not what is on the whole world's mind at the moment - soccer.

Adolf Hitler was talking about the starting and waging of a war. Yet, the global fervour, with which the proceedings in Korea-Japan are being followed at the moment, does seem to almost overshadow the other that has been on the minds of many these past months, when the world had come together, not in joyous celebration, but united in adversity, against the terrible forces of terrorism - seemingly abated for now - but which continue to plague the minds of political leaders the world over.

Terrorism is a unique form of crime, as it is a combination of the elements of warfare, politics and propaganda. While the issues behind terrorism are usually national or regional, the impact of terrorist campaigns is often international, and it is therefore difficult, if not impossible, to look at international terrorism in complete isolation from domestic terrorism - which is considered an internal matter of sovereign states, due to the spill-over effects of domestic terrorism into other countries. Often, linkages with foreign terrorist groups are common, even though unseen at first blush.

Technology and globalisation, resulting in innovations in global communications have also resulted in many local groups attaining international standing, while internationally operating groups use today's rapid international transportation to hit, run and hide. The stark example of September 11 cannot be overstated.

The connection between terrorism and international crime has also become more apparent, with perpetrators of terrorism in one country frequently using other states as safe havens for the purposes of fund raising or money laundering. In the new global age, borders have opened up, trade barriers have been felled and information is beamed around the world at the touch of a button. If legitimate business is booming, so too is transnational organised crime.

Large criminal groups often mimic legitimate business by forming multinational alliances to extend their reach and push up profits. The solution: effect a new treaty that could close the major loopholes that have allowed organised crime to flourish and have blocked international efforts to combat it. The United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime was thereby forged in only one and a half years by a committee of more than 120 countries and intended to serve as a blueprint for countries to effectively shut down international criminal organisations, eliminate 'safe havens', protect witnesses and block money laundering.

President George Bush has thus spoken of three wars against terrorism in response to the recent attacks in the US: the intelligence war, the economic war and the military war, with the first two fuelling a debate over where to draw the line between civil rights and security. Yet the financing of terrorism has been big business, and naming and shaming by the United States of the seven usual suspects have meant identified countries will not be given American aid and be voted against by America in their loan applications to the World Bank.

Military training is also now often conducted abroad. And foreign countries, known to be safe, are often the target for staging terrorist acts or used as launching bases for their operations elsewhere. Worldwide, the faces of the victims of domestically oriented acts of terrorism have also changed and now foreign business people, diplomats or innocent tourists are also not spared.

On the intelligence front, more and more countries are being called upon to share information with the view to identifying and flushing out latent terrorist elements out of the domestic woodwork.

However, after all is said and done, there is no offence of terrorism as such and great uncertainty surrounds its definition. This is notwithstanding the fact that certain acts have long been branded as terrorist acts and held to be crimes under international law, eg hijacking of civil aircrafts and attacks against their safety, under the Hague Convention on Aircraft Hijacking 1971 and the Montreal Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation 1971, which Conventions effectively provide universal jurisdiction over not just the perpetrators of hijackings, but those who assisted in its planning.

Under art 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 'murder ... when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack' constitutes a 'crime against humanity'. Come 1 July 2002, the Rome Statute, which establishes the International Criminal Court, comes into force. Yet, without retrospective jurisdiction, it will not be able to try the offenders who masterminded the attack on the twin towers.

It may well be said that the setting up of the court will see the world community entering into unchartered territory, but were not the Yugoslav and Rwandan tribunals and the arrest of General Pinochet past attempts at enforcing international criminal responsibility? If the collective will is one and won, procedural difficulties and issues of enforcement are but necessary hurdles that will have to be addressed and overcome.

The court, far from being a panacea, should be seen as at least representing another brick laid on the architecture of an essential body of international law, achieving at its best the goal of not just bringing perpetrators to justice, but also bearing impartial witness to the suffering of victims of war; or at its worst, recording for posterity the commission of a crime, even where no one can be indicted or tried. If nothing else, it represents the threat of proceedings for those who are prepared to risk committing torture or killing to achieve their political ends. Unlike the existing International Court of Justice, which only deals with disputes between states inter se, the new court would handle cases against individuals, and act when the national courts could not or were seen to be ineffective.

The effectiveness of such an international legal personality to combat this phenomenon will ultimately be a test for the world community wanting freedom and opportunity for themselves and their children.

But unless and until countries support the court by delivering to it the evidence it seeks and the people it indicts, it will be powerless. After all, and ironically, to quote Colin Powell, 'no country, no nation, has the luxury to remain on the sidelines, because there are no sidelines'.

The words of Benjamin Ferencz, prosecuting in the Nuremberg war crimes trials, bears remembering, 'if these men be immune, then law has lost its meaning and man must live in fear'. Any continued impunity for the perpetrators of the world's gravest crimes can therefore never be the sorry alternative.

Tackling any issue, much less scoring a goal, on the global stage presents a host of challenges, not to mention skilful out-maneuvering of the opponent.

Yet there is something about seeing young children hand in hand with renowned and beloved soccer players, trotting onto the soccer fields, and the painted faces in the terraces which, save for the differing colours, carry the same expression of awe, pride and bravado which must give us that ray of hope that there is an indomitable spirit of humanity that will never give up.

That in as much as a simple game involving players and a ball and governed by a unified set of rules, adhered to by all who know the game internationally, can bring people together as a unified force just for the love of the game; so too should the belief that these same children should have a peaceful and secure world in which to live bring together the forces of the world to recognise and give effect to a universal code to commit to world peace and security for their future.

Bring terror to the terrorists, I say, in a united effort for international peace and security.

I still want to see many more World Cups, and much more!

Palakrishnan, SC
President
Law Society of Singapore

Your President Listens Members of the Law Society will continue to have the opportunity to meet Mr Palakrishnan, SC, President of the Law Society, at his fortnightly Saturday sessions at the Law Society's premises between 10.30am and 12noon. The sessions for next month will be on 6 and 20 July 2002.