Getting on the UN's terrorist list is easy. Getting off is next to impossible.
Co-sponsored by Canada, the blacklist created by Security Council Resolution 1267 in 1999 turns the listed into international pariahs. All United Nations member states are obligated to seize their assets, prevent them from travelling and prosecute anyone who gives them money beyond the absolute minimum for subsistence.
That's the situation Canadian Abousfian Abdelrazik finds himself in. He has been marooned in Sudan for nearly five years because he is on the list and the Canadian government refuses to issue him a new passport.
Originally aimed at squeezing the Taliban when it was running Afghanistan, the list has been repeatedly changed and toughened until it has morphed into a long roll of people and groups secretively accused of belonging to or helping proscribed organizations, including al-Qaeda.
Yet few of the 370 individuals and 110 organizations on the terrorist blacklist have ever been charged. They have no right to know the allegations against them or who fingered them in the first place.
"It can fairly be described as Kafkaesque," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the American Civil Liberties Union National Security Program.
"Once you are on one of these lists, it is virtually impossible to get yourself off."
The UN list, compiled and run by a committee of the UN Security Council, is binding on all nations. Its reach is global and yet it is virtually unchallengeable.
All it takes to get on the list is an allegation - not necessarily supported by any evidence - from one of the more than 180 UN member states.
The accusations aren't made public, nor is any supporting evidence. The UN won't discuss how people get labelled as al-Qaeda or Taliban members. But several officials, speaking on condition that they not be identified, confirmed that the overwhelming majority of names on the list were nominated by a handful of nations. The United States, France and Britain are believed to have fingered most of those on the list. But other countries, including Malaysia and India, also seem to have made nominations.
One international official, familiar with the workings of the committee, said diplomats assigned to the panel almost never challenge those fingered by other committee members because they want to be sure that those they wish to label get placed on the list without difficulty.
"It would be bad enough if your name was just on a UN list, but that list then gets sent around to so many different places ... once your name is on one of these lists, there are so many consequences that flow," Mr. Jaffer said.
And because the Security Council trumps national law, no one can challenge a 1267 listing in a national court.
Getting off the list is daunting.
An application for delisting can be made either by individuals or their country of citizenship or residence. Once made, the application is circulated to the country (or countries) that originally labelled them a terrorist and to their country of citizenship and residence. However, applicants aren't told what countries are involved, whether they took a position on the application for delisting or what that position was.
Once a file is compiled, at least one of the existing 15 members of the committee - the permanent five members of the Security Council plus 10 nations elected for two-year rotating stints - must be willing to advocate bringing the delisting request to the entire committee.
If that happens, then all 15 members must endorse the request or it is rejected.
In practical terms, the process can be stunningly quick and completely obscure.
Mr. Abdelrazik, now granted "temporary safe haven" by Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier in the Canadian embassy in Khartoum, applied for delisting late last year. The request was delivered by Canada's diplomatic mission to the United Nations on Dec. 10. Eleven days later, it was rejected.
"Of the three delisting requests submitted in 2007 through the state of residence or citizenship, the committee has approved one, rejected one and is still considering one," the committee said in its annual report.
It remains unclear whether Canada - not currently a member of the committee - supported Mr. Abdelrazik's delisting. Although Foreign Affairs officials said in a letter to his lawyers that they did, they have also refused to show the lawyers the documents supporting that assertion. It is also unclear whether the delisting application even reached the committee or which countries - possibly Canada - originally nominated Mr. Abdelrazik for listing in 2006.
"It's completely indefensible that there is no appeals procedure," Mr. Jaffer said.
Amir Attaran, a law professor at the University of Ottawa and a human-rights advocate, said the UN 1267 process lacks "the three fundamental legs of basic fairness." There is "no right to know the case against you, there is no right to make submissions in your defence and there is no transparency to the process."
An inconsistent list
Only two Canadians are blacklisted as al-Qaeda members by the UN Security Council - and one of them has been dead for five years.
The other, Abousfian Abdelrazik, 46, denies any association with the terrorist group. He is currently living in Canada's embassy in Khartoum, granted "temporary safe haven" by Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier, which means either the Harper government is sheltering an al-Qaeda operative or his listing is in error.
A cursory examination suggests the United Nations blacklist is riddled with errors and inconsistencies, although all countries - including Canada - are supposed to keep the Security Council informed of changes and details.
For instance, the other Canadian listed is Ahmed Said Khadr. One of his sons, Omar, faces murder and terrorism charges in Guantanamo Bay. Another is fighting extradition from Canada. But the patriarch of the notorious Canadian family and the only listed Khadr has been dead since October, 2005.
Mr. Abdelrazik's entry, meanwhile, includes no information on his whereabouts, although Canadian counterterrorism officers interrogated him in a Sudanese jail in 2003. Canadian diplomats have been meeting with him regularly for the past five years. His birth date is wrong, although it is correct on his Canadian passport. His passport number is correct, but it has expired. He no longer has a valid passport because the government won't issue him one. The passport on the list has expired and was returned to Canada by Sudan years ago. Canada hasn't bothered to update the information held by the UN for years, despite its international obligations to do so.
Similarly, on Interpol's website, maintained in co-operation with the UN's 1267 list, there is no photograph of Mr. Abdelrazik. But Canada has several, including ones from his recently submitted passport application as well as from passports previously issued.
The blacklist includes 372 alleged al-Qaeda and Taliban members, all designated unanimously by all 15 members of the Security Council. Another 112 organizations also are listed.
Among the individuals, at least 11 are reportedly dead, as the list helpfully points out. Some are famous fugitives, such as al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Many are completely obscure and it is impossible to determine the original justification for their blacklisting. Many have never been charged with any crime. Others have been charged and acquitted. For instance, Ahmed al Bouhali, a Moroccan living in Italy, was acquitted of all charges nearly two years ago, but remains on the list. He cannot travel and his assets are supposed to be seized by Italy. Like everyone else on the list, he cannot know who put him there, nor the allegations against him. He can ask to be taken off, but if the request is refused, there is no appeals process.
There seems little consistency. For instance, the United States is known to have 14 "high-value" al-Qaeda leaders imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay.
Yet only five are named on the UN 1267 list. The Taliban listings also seem oddly inconsistent. For instance, Sayed Esmatullah, is listed. He was "Deputy Minister of Preventing Vice and Propagating Virtue" in the Taliban regime. Some other, far more prominent Taliban leaders don't appear. Paul Koring