This article is submitted by:

• Vaishnavi Unmesh Andhare

Taliban, a grievous threat to International security. Year 2021, marks for the twentieth anniversary of the nerve wreaking incident that took place on 9/11 in the city of New York. The attack took thousands of innocent lives and is considered as the deadliest attack that took place in the USA after the Pearl Harbour bombing which lead USA into World War II. That day has not been forgotten by humanity, and now, twenty years later a similar dread has resurfaced. Humanity is in peril again.  

To understand the origin of Taliban, we need to go back to 1900’s, which was the time when Afghan civil war took place. The government that formed back then was the one with Marxist ideology, backed by the Soviet, with the President as Daud Khan. The leading communist party kept suppressing the Islamic groups, leading to a resistance movement. This movement was funded by USA in support to the opposition leader Mujahedeen, who was trying to throw out the ruling party which had the support of Soviet Union. The pressure kept building up and it brought Soviet Union to the negotiating table, where it withdrew itself from Afghanistan in 1989. This lead to a chaotic environment in the country.

Amid this chaos, former Islamic commander, Mullah Mohammad Omar, brought young Afghans from the refugee camps in Pakistan and trained them with strict Islamic ideology and this is when “Taliban Insurgency” took birth. With the growing members, Taliban started to take control over the different parts in Afghanistan but couldn’t establish its control. What helped Taliban was the way he gained sympathy from Afghan Villagers saying he will restore back the long lost peace in the nation.

In the year 2001, when Taliban attacked the twin tower, USA deployed its troops in Afghanistan to keep Taliban under control but the Taliban’s strategy to gain sympathy helped him gain a large area of land. As cited in The New York Times, a US government report , 13 million Afghanis were living under the control of Taliban in the year 2019. Coming to the year 2020, Taliban signed a peace agreement with USA in order to establish a power sharing negotiation with Afghan government, assuring that Afghanistan won’t be used as a launchpad for attacks against the USA.

Further, the document talks about USA to withdraw the military troops from Afghanistan within 14 months following the agreement. With the peace talks, there was hope for year’s long insurgency to come at an end but the insurgent Taliban has now transubstantiated to a violent mode. In order to implement Sharia law, the activities that they are conducting are nowhere near human. The atrocities against women and children are insufferable. All the countries are evacuating their citizens and that’s not an easy task as well. Talibani warriors, as they call themselves, are shooting bullets mercilessly, not letting Afghan civilians escape, women have being forced to give up on their jobs and education,  forced to wear burkhas and sexually enslaving women even after the promises of “no harm” made by them. Human rights are being butchered.

To begin with CEDAW, CRC, ICCPR, UDHR are nothing but mere ton loads of pages to them.  Law and order has lost its meaning. The situation of airlift, as the countries and trying to safely evacuate people from the Kabul airport and the people desperately trying to escape the land of Afghanistan, makes us question the very existence of humanity!  What’s infuriating people all over the world is United Nations role in this scenario of grave humanitarian right violation.  

In an emergency Security Council meeting held on 16^TH August 2021, the Secretary General urged Security Council to “stand as one” and ensure Human Rights in Afghanistan. The question remains the same. What about the lives lost? Who is going to be accountable? When is this coming to an end? No one really has the answer to it and innocent people are the ones suffering. After all of this if Taliban is under the impression of declaring itself as a governing power of the state, and then they are highly mistaken.

In terms of recognition,  The Doctrine of Stimson talks about non-recognition of states created by the way of aggression. This doctrine was implemented by the USA federal government , enunciated in a note of 7^th January, 1932, to the empire of japan and republic of China regarding the international territorial change that were executed with force. This doctrine is derived from the maxim ex injuria jus non oritur which means that illegal acts do not create law. So, does Taliban fulfills the criteria of being recognized as a state?

In International law for a state to be recognized has to have these following requisites- population, definite territory, government and a legal capacity to enter into relations with other states that is a sovereign state. This is as per Article 1 of Montevideo Convention 1993 .  Yes, Afghanistan still has the same borders, a significant amount of population, and though the previous government of Ghani took a fall, Taliban is using coercion to make its way through. The real question arises when it comes to De Jure and De Facto recognition of the state. De facto recognition of a state means an interim recognition given to a state which can be withdrawn at any stage and De Jure recognition means a permanent status given to a state by the other nations.

Now, unless and until either of it happens, Taliban is still going to remain as a group who forced its way through. International relations form the core of a nation, given the fact that Afghanistan is a landlocked nation, its geographical remoteness keeps it at a significant economic disadvantage. Durkheim in his theory correctly stated that without social solidarity a nation state can’t thrive. Twelve nations Including US, India, and China, alongside the EU have come to a conclusion of not recognizing any government that seeks to take control using aggression. With this given what needs to be seen is how long this, already wrecked ship of Taliban sails.