The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime is mandated to provide assistance to requesting countries in the legal and criminal justice aspects of countering terrorism. Its Terrorism Prevention Branch is leading this assistance delivery, primarily by assisting countries to ratify the international legal instruments against terrorism, incorporate their provisions in national legislation and build the capacity of the national criminal justice system to implement those provisions effectively, in accordance with the rule of law, including human rights.

The Counter-Terrorism Legal Training Curriculum is one of the tools developed by the Branch for transferring the knowledge and expertise needed to strengthen the capacity of national criminal justice officials to put the universal legal framework against terrorism into practice.