Following a special meeting of the Counter-Terrorism Committee on stemming the flow of foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs), held in Madrid in 2015, a set of guiding principles for the implementation of Security Council resolution 2178 (2014) is now available as an official Security Council document (S/2015/939PDFOpens a new window) in all six UN languages. Building on the norms and recommended practices of participating international and regional organizations and measures found effective by attending Member States, the 35 guiding principlesPDFOpens a new window are grouped together under the following rubrics: I. Detection of, intervention against and prevention of the incitement, recruitment, and facilitation of foreign terrorist fighters; II. Prevention of travel by foreign terrorist fighters, including through operational measures, the use of advance passenger information, and measures to strengthen border security; and III. Criminalization, prosecution, including prosecution strategies for returnees, international cooperation, and the rehabilitation and reintegration of returnees.

Also the Conclusions from MadridPDFOpens a new window are included in this document. According to these, the Committee welcomes the conclusions of the technical sessions preceding the special meeting, broadly organized along the same themes as the guiding principles. Finally, a Declaration of the meeting of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs and of the InteriorPDFOpens a new window was adopted on the same occasion. Reiterating their “condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, which constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security,” the Ministers called upon States to “propose creative ideas and new approaches for developing legal tools to counter terrorism further, including the foreign terrorist fighter phenomenon, in line with obligations under international law.”