22 April 2012

Through Model UN over the past year, I learned a great deal about the finer workings of the United Nations, only adding to my already considerable curiosity and fascination with the organization. With both the simulation and my exams being over, I find myself with spare time and in need of an outlet for this curiosity. To that end I am pleased to announce “UN this week”, a, hopefully, weekly blog containing my thoughts about the comings and goings at the UN during the previous week.

The week started with an significant development on the Korean peninsula when North Korea attempted to launch a satellite into orbit. The launch, being really just a disguised missile test, failed spectacularly with the rocket crashing into the Yellow Sea just minutes after being launched. Personally, I think that short of a failure to launch for technical reasons, this was probably the best outcome for all involved.

The DPRK remains probably the most unpredictable regime in the world prone to radical shifts in policy with serious security repercussions in Northeast Asia and beyond. A decision not to launch the satellite would have represented the second of such shifts in six weeks, the DPRK having agreed to, among other things, a moratorium on missile launches in its 29 February bilateral agreement with the US. Flip-flopping on missile launches for a second time would signalled clear internal conflicts in the North Korean government, an indication that Kim Jong-un is either highly manipulable or unable to control certain elements within his in inner circle. Fortunately, it didn't come to that.

As it is, North Korea get their missile launch without gaining the information they would have gathered from a successful test, and the South and its western allies get some sense of stability in the new North Korean leadership, though of course they can't say so publicly.

This brings us around the United Nations. Right now, the UN could hardly be a more hostile environment for North Korea. The Secretary-General is South Korean, the Director-General of the IAEA is Japanese, the chair of the committee controlling sanctions against the DPRK is a European (Portuguese) and the US holds the presidency of the Security Council. All this makes Ban Ki-moon's restraint in his statement on the launch all the more remarkable. Had he wanted to, Mr. Ban would have had all the political cover in the world to bash North Korea. Instead, he issued a fairly dry statement describing the indecent as “deplorable”. He went on to point out that the launch was clear violation of Security Council resolution 1874, and reaffirmed his commitment to peace and stability in the region. I suppose he figured, with UN being so hostile to the DPRK, someone else would do the bashing for him.

This is exactly what happened. Three days later, the Security Council adopted a presidential statement on the matter. In it, the council decided to expand sanctions against the DPRK. What I find of particular interest here is that the Council adopted the sanctions without passing a new resolution on the subject. In the past, new sanctions have always been instituted by resolution. Though I suppose it makes sense. The Council didn't adopt any new sanctions; it just decided to make the existing ones more rigorous.

The second major development this week was last Saturday's decision to deploy a supervision mission to Syria, and the decision to expand it from 30 to 300 unarmed observers a week later. To be honest, these was a predictable decision. It was merely a question of when, given that Join-Special-Envoy Kofi Annan included it his six-point plan. What is of greater interest to me is how the matter was covered in the international media. All the coverage in the build up to the decision to deploy mission was about Russia's position.

Russia had previously vetoed two Security Council resolutions on Syria, last October and last February. What is interesting to note is that both drafts were also vetoed by China, yet there was almost no mention of this in the coverage. The focus on Russia certainly makes sense given that how they would vote was unclear going into the final round of the negotiations, but somehow the fact that China's position had changed was all but ignored. I'm not entirely sure how they pulled it off, but from a public image standpoint, it was brilliant play by China.

The second decision was a bit of an eye-opener for me, not because of the decision itself, but because for the first time I was able to see the development of a resolution. This will be of special interest to my Model UN friends, since we get to see resolution merging in action. On Wednesday, Ban Ki-moon proposed the deployment of 300 observers to the Security Council. Best I can tell, negotiations on the details began immediately, and by Friday night two draft resolutions were being considered, one supported by the US and European members of the council, another by Russia. In the end, the west was forced give up references to “torture, arbitrary detentions, abductions, sexual violence and other abuses against women, children and minorities”, a specific reference to the the withdrawal of Syrian in the mandate of UNSMIS (United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria), and perhaps significantly, the threat of possible sanctions.

As for my thoughts on the mission itself, I'm not entirely sure what to think. On one hand, I have to question its effectiveness. 300 unarmed observers are not going to be able to stop the violence. On the other hand, they clearly have there uses. We're talking about international personnel who are going to see exactly what's going, and who Bashar al-Assad is not going to risk harming. For example, when the advance team visited Homs earlier this week, it was the first time in months that the violence there died done slightly.

For the time being, UNSMIS, in its current form, is probably best balance between what is feasible and what is necessary. Doing nothing is obviously not an option, but the deployment of a full scale peacekeeping mission would irresponsible. The fighting is still so intense that such a mission would probably result in significant international casualties and be largely ineffective.

On a final point, I'd like briefly address a subject that has been completely ignored in the international media. This past week, under the mediation of of President Blaise Campaoré of Burkina Faso, the relevant parties in Mali made the first steps to returning to constitutional order following the Coup d'etat a month ago.