27 May 2012

This week was a rather light one in terms of official meetings at the UN. In fact it was the first meeting since the end of break for New Years and Christmas in which the Security Council held no official meetings. This is not without reason though. This past week, the Security Council conducted an official visit to West Africa, visiting Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire, and Sierra Leone. While all fifteen members of the Council sent representatives on the trip, Vitaly Churkin and Li Baodong, the permanent representatives of Russia and China respectively, were notably absent from the Council's delegation. I can only speculate that this due to some objection to the peacekeeping missions in the the three countries on the itinerary or to the Council's response to the recent coups d'états in Mali and Guinea-Bissau. 

In the first leg of the trip, Council members visited Liberia to evaluate both the sanctions against that country and the peacekeeping mission deployed there. Liberia, it has to be said, is one of the few political success stories in Africa. In the decade following the end of the most recent civil war, the country transitioned quickly to not only a fragile peace, but a developing democracy. The 2005 elections saw the election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to the presidency. Johnson Sirleaf is not only the first woman to lead an African country, but is regarded internationally as a committed democrat. Last year she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Given these developments, there are some both in Liberia and internationally who have began to question the need for sanctions and for the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL). In his most recent report on the matter, Ban Ki-moon recommended a three-withdrawal of UNMIL. What concerns me, however, is what will happen in 2017 when President Johnson Sirleaf is constitutionally required to step down. I can only hope that some portion of UNMIL remains on the ground at least until then and that, if should matters escalate, the mission is able to fulfil its mandate and keep the peace.

 

The second leg, while in Côte d'Ivoire, again to inspect the peacekeeping mission, and to discuss the issue of refugees on the border with Liberia. At present, there are a significant number of Ivorian refugees in Liberia, and Liberian refugees in Côte d'Ivoire, with both groups claiming it is less safe in the other country. One of the stranger things to come out of these meetings is that the Ivorian refugees seem to be claiming their country has been overrun by Burkinabé. The people they are referring to are in fact Ivorians who supporter President Alassane Outtara whose citizenship has been called into question. Best I can tell, the claim that Outtara is in fact a citizen of Burkina Faso is a complete fabrication. I would guess that it was an attempt by his predecessor, Laurent Gbagbo, to discredit him during last year's election and ensuing violence.

Also on this portion of the trip, Council members met with representatives of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), as Côte d'Ivoire currently serves as chair of the ECOWAS Commission. Main topics on the agenda being the recent coups in West Africa, in which ECOWAS has served as a mediator in an attempt to ensure stability and keep matters from escalating.

In the final leg, in Sierra Leone, Council members met with ranking members of Sierra Leonean government, and with leaders of the peacekeeping and civilian missions in that country. Relations between the UN and Sierra Leone are somewhat strained at the moment, after the government expelled Michael von der Schulenburg, Executive Representative of the Secretary-General to Sierra Leone, fearing that his continued presence would pose threat to their reelection in November. Admittedly, they may have a point that Count von der Schulenburg overstepped his authority and “interfered in the internal affairs of Sierra Leone”. Unfortunately there is very little impartial information available on the subject.

The other major development at the UN this week was the reappointment of Navi Pillay as High Commissioner for Human Rights. Prior to her appointment to the post in 2008, Mrs. Pillay served five years as a judge on the International Criminal Court, and eight years as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, including four as the Tribunal's president. Much to the surprise of exactly no one, Syria objected to her reappointment. Syria accused her of lacking objectivity in her analysis of the Syrian and of not respecting Syria's sovereignty. Perhaps more disturbing is the way in which her office has been used, in particular by Russia and China, as a means of justifying inaction deteriorating human rights and security situations. Until about a month ago, when the Security Council began taking action on Syria, Russia and China continued to insist that the matter be studied by the High Commissioner, and be handled exclusively by the General Assembly 3^rd Committee.

On a final note, I would briefly like to address this morning's attacks in Syria. At the time of writing this, the UN has not yet made a concrete response the attack. I will undoubtedly be covering the matter in much more detail next week.

20 May 2012

Before I begin this week article, I just briefly want to comment on the high level of variance in the amount of activity from week. Last week, I struggled to find enough material worth commenting. In contrast, I had three topics for this week's article by Wednesday, before the Security Council adopted two new resolutions. In addition to the two resolutions, I'll be commenting on two high level events that began this week, and on a report from the High Commission for Human Rights that was released on Wednesday.

This week really marked the beginning of the end of an era in the Balkans, as the trial against Ratko Mladić began at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). During the Yugoslav Wars Mladić was a general in the Yugoslav People's Army and commander of the Serb forces in Bosnia. He stands accused of four charges of war crimes, five crimes against humanity charges and two counts of genocide, for actions including the massacre at Srebrenica and the siege of Sarajevo. For all of Mladić's crimes, what I find most appalling is that in all likelihood, he will be acquitted on at least one of the Genocide charges. 

The prosecution in this case were careful when charging Mladić with genocide to separate Srebrenica from the rest of the Bosnian War. They did this for a reason. There is an incredibly strong precedent in international law with regards to genocide during the Bosnian War. In it's judgement of 26 February 2007 in the case Application of the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro), the International Court of Justice ruled that Serbia had not committed genocide, and that it had failed in its obligation to prevent genocide only with regards to the events in July of 1995 at Srebrenica, meaning that for legal purposes, there had been no genocide elsewhere during Bosnian War.

Eight of the nine other charges relate to systematic attacks against the Muslim and Croat populations of Bosnia and Herzegovina, ranging from murder and extermination to persecution and deportation. The final charge, the taking of hostages, relates to events of which I had been previously unaware. Shortly before the events Srebrenica, NATO began conducting airstrikes against Serb military targets so as to bring an end to the war. In May and June of 1995, Bosnian Serb forces kidnapped UN peacekeepers and civilian personnel in order force NATO to stop the bombings. The prosecution alleges that Radko Mladić ordered these kidnappings, or had reason to know that they were about take place.

The second high level event that began this week was part two of this year's session of the Conference on Disarmament (CD). The Conference is the main forum the negotiations of international agreements on the regulation of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons, and other weapons of mass destruction. It currently counts sixty-five members including all nine nuclear weapons states, and most states with civil nuclear programmes. In the past it has produced the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Biological and Chemical Weapons Conventions, and the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). 

 

Since the early nineties, the CD has been in grid-lock. Given the current state of affairs, I am thoroughly amazed that a consensus on the text of the CTBT (opened for signature in 1996) was even reached. At present, the two main agreements being negotiated are a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, which would ban the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons, and an agreement to prevent an arms race in outer-space. 

Best I can tell, the grid lock at the CD is a direct result of the end of the Cold War. The tri-polar nature (east/west/non-aligned) of negotiations, made them run a lot smoother. During the Cold War, it was the aligned powers that were the greatest threat. This meant that if east and west managed to agree on something, the non-aligned countries would generally follow suit. For example, this is how the NPT came to be. Nowadays, it is the rogue nuclear nations, in which other countries have only limited influence in defence matters, by this I mean North Korea, Iran, India, Pakistan, and Israel, that pose the largest threat. So long as they don't cooperate, the other nuclear powers will not push matters with other states as they see their own security interests at risk. Getting two sides to reconcile their often conflicting interests was difficult enough. Today, there are between ten and fifteen key players on any given issue, in which there are multiple pairs of states which view each other as mortal enemies.

Next I'll cover the two resolutions adopted by the Security Council. I'll start with the second chronologically. After the resolution on the Sudanese conflict two weeks ago, this was a fairly routine decision. On Friday, the Council decided to extend the mandate of the UN Interim Security Force in Abyei, one of three peacekeeping missions operating in the Sudans. 

The other resolution was on the current situation in Guinea-Bissau. After extensive consultation with regional partners, namely the African Union (AU), the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Council imposed travel bans on five of the leaders of last months coup d'etat and established a committee to determine which other people should be prevented from leaving Guinea-Bissau. While I feel it's certainly a step in the right direction, I wonder how much of an effect these measures will actually have. I mean these people have a highly unstable country to run. If they were to leave Guinea-Bissau, there's a reasonable chance that they may no longer be in power by the time they get back. 

What surprised me, at least at first glance, is that ECOWAS, represented by Togo on the Council, objected to referring to the pre-coup government as the legitimate government of Guinea-Bissau, as ECOWAS has been a key player in mediating a return to constitutional rule. That being said, a number of ECOWAS member states are themselves military juntas whose legitimacy could be called into question.

The final point I'd like to address this week is the Report by UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food on his Official Visit to Canada. The report begins with a criticism of Canada's track record on economic, social, and cultural rights as a whole. This is particularly interesting against the background of the on going student strikes in Quebec, taking due note that there is little to no constitutional and legal protection of economic and social rights. The report criticises the absence of a national right to food strategy, and proceeds to analyse the adverse affects of agricultural policy, and of poor social policy on food security. Notable statistics include the fact that roughly 10% of Canadians live in poverty, of which 1 in 5 are children, One in every thirty Canadians depends on food banks for food security, and perhaps most appallingly, one in every four First Nations children do not have enough to eat on a regular basis.

The content of the report aside, the reaction of the Canadian government to the report is also of some interest to me. First of all, that it was Jason Kenny, the immigration minister, instead of someone from Agriculture, Foreign Affairs, or Fisheries and Oceans, said more than the statement itself. Mr. Kenny stated that Olivier de Schutter, the Special Rapporteur, was an ill-informed, patronising, academic, and that the UN should focus its efforts on the third world. The obvious deflection of the content of the report only further only further reinforces Mr. de Schutter point that the right to food has not been a priority in Canada, and that this government is flouting its international and domestic obligations. It should also be noted that Mr. de Schutter conducted his visit at the request of the Canadian government.

13 May 2012

I'll start this week far removed from the UN offices in New York and Geneva. Instead we find ourselves in the southern Caucasus, in a border region between Armenia and Azerbaijan: the Nagorno-Karabakh. Based on Soviet borders the regions falls under the sovereignty of Azerbaijan, however the region's population consists overwhelmingly of ethnic Armenians. The region has been a source of conflict since before the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 1988, a full-scale war broke out between the two then-Soviet Republics. A cease-fire agreement was reached in 1994, but continues to be breached on a regular basis by both sides. Against this backdrop, I want to introduce the first topic this week.

Thursday's briefing by the chairs of the Security Council subsidiary committees demonstrated clearly some of the problems with the current setup of the Council. Azerbaijan, a country actively involved in an international conflict, holds the Council presidency this month. The end of the Council meeting degenerated into a somewhat ridiculous back and forth between the Armenian representative, who had been invited to the meeting as an observer, and the Council president, and its not the first time the countries have abused the Council to blast each other. The first meeting convened by the Azerbaijani presidency, while branded as “threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts”, was convened for the express purpose of accusing Armenia of terrorism. In fact, every Council meeting this year, at which both countries have spoken, has resulted in arguments similar to the one we saw on Thursday.

While the actions of both countries are reprehensible, what bothers me more is that the rest of the international community allows it. Azerbaijan's election to the Council last fall shows a patent disregard for Article 23 of the UN Charter, which says that in the election of members of the Security Council “due regard [shall be] paid...to the contribution of Members of the United Nations to the maintenance of international peace and security”. Given Azerbaijan's involvement in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, its violations international peace and security certainly out way its contributions thereto.

All of this, however, is emblematic of a much larger problem with the Security Council. For all the emphasis that is put on the role of permanent members, and on the veto power, other issues, including the selection non-permanent members and the Council's working methods. The veto in my opinion, for all its problems, is a necessary evil. If there is no clear way for the major powers, democratic or otherwise, to use the UN to there advantage, they will simply marginalise the Organisation. The working methods of the Council, on the other hand, leave much to be desired. Input from non-members is limited. The people most directly effected by the Council's decision are often completely unrepresented. Reports and working papers are produced in an incredibly non-transparent way. Sometimes reports are even doctored by certain Member States.

For all the problems though, I have to give credit where credit is due. A group of countries calling itself the S5 (Small five), consisting of Costa Rica, Jordan, Liechtenstein, Singapore, and Switzerland, has been heavily advocating for reform of the Council's working methods. This group regularly presents draft resolutions to the Council, most recently in April 2011. Unfortunately, their proposals have found little support among the permanent members of the Council, and other relevant states. Even if the Council is reformed, the working methods are unlikely to change, as the status quo remains in the best interest of the permanent membership.

On an unrelated issue, something rather unique happened this week at the UN. The Food Assistance Convention was opened for signature. At present, it is the only binding international agreement on food aid, and is open to signature for the Schengen Zone countries, plus Canada, the US, Mexico, Argentina, Australia, and Japan. While I must admit, I know little about the convention and what it does. What I want to comment on is the material related to the signing procedure put out by the UN. Much of it relates to the presentation of full-powers. Full-powers refers to a document issued by a government granting that state's representative the authority to sign a treaty. In the associated material, the Secretary-General comes across as condescending; scolding the Member States about the presentation of full-powers, leading me to believe that it may have been a problem in the past.

6 May 2012

This was a fairly slow week at the UN. The General Assembly is completely out of session, having held no official meetings this week. The high profile issues like the deployment of UNSMIS are largely in the procedural stage. There are still a number of issues I'd like to discuss.

Three weeks after expressing its intention to toughen sanction on North Korea, the Security Council finalized the updates to the sanctions regime last Wednesday. In addition to prohibiting the import and export of the latest nuclear and ballistic missile technologies, the Council decided to subject three new North Korean firms to an asset freeze, a state-owned bank and two state-owned export companies. All three are suspected of trying to sell North Korean missile technology to Iran. 

Despite all the tough talk surrounding the adoption of the new sanctions, best I can tell, this is simply an attempt to close loop-holes that have developed in the sanctions over the passed few years. In 2009, the Council identified Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (KOMID) as North Korea's primary arms dealer. In it's the description of Green Pine Corporation, one of the three companies put under sanction week, the UN stated that “Green Pine [had] taken over many of the activities of KOMID.” Given the highly provocative nature of last month's missile launch, I'd be shocked if the North Korean leadership didn't see this coming and pulled essential assets out of Green Pine, and the other two companies, before they were subjected to the freeze, only to restart the companies under different names, as they did with KOMID three years ago. So long as the Council continues to impose sanctions in a reactionary manner North Korea will be able to side step key elements of the sanctions against them.

On the same day, the Council also adopted a resolution on the inter-Sudanese conflict. The resolution imposed a seven-point cease-fire plan, and requires both Sudanese states to unconditionally return to the negotiating table about finalising the border, and agreements on oil and gas revenue. What surprised me about this resolution was not so much the content, but the time it took to get it adopted. On 26 April, the US distributed an extremely draft resolution. The only difference is that the American draft decided that Sudan would accept the tripartite proposal by the AU, the UN, and the Arab League, whereas the adopted resolution strongly urges them to accept, and the American draft threatened sanctions if both states did not comply, the resolution does not. I find it hard to believe that it took almost a week to adopt such minor changes. The only thing I can imagine is that the US and the European members of the Council were insisting on the provision about sanctions, while Russia, China, and the Presidency, currently held by Azerbaijan, strongly objected. 

The other two points of interest for me this week were a pair of reports released by the Secretary-General. The first is on the United Nations Interim Administration in Kosovo (UNMIK). Kosovo represents somewhat of an anomaly in the UN system. After Palau was accepted as a UN member in 1994, the Trusteeship Council concluded its mandate and there were no more territories under direct UN administration. Yet in 1999, following the end of the Yugoslav Wars, the Security Council established UNMIK to essentially serve as the Kosovar government. At present however, UNMIK's role is minimal. Most of the day to day administrative activities are handled by the self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo with support from the EU mission EULEX and KFOR. The key political problems addressed in the report are largely due to today's parliamentary and presidential elections in Serbia. Regions of northern Kosovo, where Serbs form the majority, had wanted to hold local elections under the same time table and in accordance with Serbian law. Perhaps more detrimental, these same communities, with backing from Belgrade, held a referendum last February asking voters whether they accepted the Kosovo's self-proclaimed government. The governments authority was overwhelmingly rejected, but given the way it was conducted, the referendum has little legitimacy, and according to UNMIK, no legal consequences.

In the long term, I think universal recognition of Kosovo's independence is inevitable. Last March, the EU agreed to accept Serbia as a candidate-country after three years consideration. It will probably be in Serbia's best interest to accede to the EU. Something which will remain impossible until the Kosovo question is resolved. All EU members, except Greece, Roumania, and Spain, have recognised Kosovo's independence. In 2008, the ICJ ruled that the Kosovo's declaration of independence was done in conformity with international law. Given these circumstances, recognition by Serbia is the most likely resolution.

The other report is on an issue that has received almost no attention in the West, namely the political situation in Guinea-Bissau. If nothing else, this report serves to highlight the severe apathy in the West for issues in Sub-Saharan Africa. Almost a month ago, element in the armed forces of Guinea-Bissau carried out a coup-d'état, arresting the President, the Prime Minister, and the Chief of Defence Staff. Other key government officials, including the President of the Supreme Court and at least three cabinet ministers have been forced into hiding. 

As was the case with coup in Mali several weeks ago, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) immediately began mediation for a return to constitutional order. The AU and the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP) both suspended Guinea-Bissau's membership. ECOWAS, the AU, and the CPLP have all declared their intention to impose sanction against coup leaders. The EU and the UN are considering doing the same. 

The Secretary-General suggested four possible option to the Security Council in his report: Mediation, targeted sanctions, the deployment of training and protection units, and the deployment of a peacekeeping force. Even though it was requested by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the deployment of a peacekeeping force seems unlikely in my opinion. The Security situation in Guinea-Bissau is calm, meaning such a deployment would only heighten tensions. That the UN will lend its support to mediation, almost goes without saying. It's the other to proposals that are less clear cut to me. In a presidential statement two weeks ago, the Council said it would consider targeted sanctions. Whether or not it will follow through remains to be seen. As for the training and protection units, I'm not entirely sure what that would look like, but given that the Peacebuiling Commission already has troops on the ground, it seems like a feasible option.