UNITED NATIONS (AP): A Swiss-led panel of five governments proposed Thursday that the United Nations assert itself as leader of a global fight against terrorism and establish a new agency or program to coordinate that effort.

Ambassadors from Costa Rica, Japan, Slovakia, Switzerland and Turkey suggested that the U.N. General Assembly create an agency for counterterrorism along the lines of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is based in Vienna, Austria.

It also recommended that the U.N. could help nations' key counterterrorism officials to adopt new standards for cooperating and to do more to promote ``a human rights-based approach to counterterrorism'' that disdains torture and preserves prisoners' rights.

The panel, launched by the Swiss U.N. mission in November, is an attempt to involve more of the General Assembly's 192 member nations in fighting terrorism. It also seeks to shift some of the emphasis away from military or police work and onto grappling with interrelated social, economic and health factors.

Its proponents say the panel's conclusions, reached after holding five workshops on three continents, is a direct response to the U.S.-led ``war on terror'' that has been President George W. Bush's priority since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and to the counterterrorism work of the 15-nation U.N. Security Council.

``It's an attempt maybe to shift or, should I say, to rebalance the focus away from the 'war on terror' to a more comprehensive way in dealing with terrorism,'' Swiss Ambassador Peter Maurer told The Associated Press.

``Our effort here has to be seen as an attempt to make this shift work, and to give the U.N. and the General Assembly an important role in looking at the problem in a more comprehensive way than just through the lens of the 'war on terror' which was a concept we never particularly embraced,'' he said.

One of the panel members, Costa Rican Ambassador Jorge Urbina, also serves on the Security Council.

``We are of the view that there is a need to deepen interagency cooperation and cooperation, both at the national and international level, and this should not be limited to traditional counterterrorism actors, but also include human rights, development, health and social services,'' he said. ``We continue to advocate for the creation of a body that unites all current U.N. counterterrorism efforts under one roof, and gives it a clear mandate and direction.''

In March, Bush described the global war's main challenges as securing Iraq since deposing Saddam Hussein, fighting al-Qaida, ending the violence by Shiite extremists and Turkey's Kurdistan Workers' Party, and combatting Iran's ``destructive influence'' and ``the flow of suicide bombers through Syria.''

The panel's criticism of U.S.-led strategy, however, is based on a belief that the U.N. also must provide a framework all nations can participate in.

``I would even say that it is more than an implicit criticism,'' Maurer said. ``The problem is that it is a one-dimensional view, suggesting that with military deployment and military means you can cope with the phenomenon of terrorism.''

After 9/11, the U.S. persuaded the Security Council to extend sanctions on al-Qaida and the Taliban to other parts of the globe in a process that breeds division among nations because it is seen as ``secretive, non-transparent and imposing,'' said Eric Rosand, a senior fellow with the Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation, based in New York and Washington, which helped sponsor the panel's work.

``They come to the U.N. and just fight over different agendas,'' he said.

Instead, Rosand said, what's needed is a broad U.N. approach that can enlist help from counterterrorism experts in foreign capitals.