As promised, I'll start this week the events of last Sunday in El-Houleh. I won't go into much detail on the attack itself, as there isn't much to say. It was a horrific attack on innocent civilians by the Assad government. I will instead focus on the reaction of the UN and the implications this attack has for the Organisation. On the same day, the Security Council issued a press statement condemning "in the strongest possible terms the killing...of dozens of men, women and children and the wounding of hundreds more...in attacks that involved a series of Government artillery and tank shelling on a residential neighbourhood." This was to be expected. Other expected reactions include condemnations by Ban Ki-moon, and Kofi Annan, and a demand for consequences by Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The reaction that surprised me, however, were French president François Hollande's public musings about a military intervention. Given that he explicitly said France would not intervene without a UN mandate, I can only assume that this is a political maneuver. Russia and China still categorically reject any intervention in Syria. Russia in particular has a vested interest in keeping President Assad in power. Until this changes, there will be no UN mandate.
There being no veto to over come, the Human Rights Council reacted far more decisively to the attacks. On Friday, it convened a special session to address the matter, and adopted a resolution deploying a civilian fact finding mission to El-Houleh, and established an independent, international inquiry into the matter. What strikes me about this is how its being reported in the press. ARD, the German public broadcaster reported that the Council had referred the situation to the International Criminal Court. While it certainly wouldn't be uncalled for for the ICC prosecutor to investigate the matter proprio motu under article 15 of the Rome Statute, the Human Rights Council did not ask him do so. In fact, such a request must come from the Security Council.
The other UN matter these attacks call into question is the UN Stabilisation Mission in Syria (UNSMIS). I must admit I am somewhat torn on this matter. UNSMIS was not able to prevent these attacks, but that is not their mandate. Following the attacks, UNSMIS did exactly what it was set up to do. The mission investigated the attack and confirmed the use of tanks and artillery against civilians. Without the mission on the ground, I would guess we would have a few unreliable reports of government shelling, government propaganda blaming the attack on terrorists, and a shouting match between the Syrian government and the west over who was responsible. As is we have a much clearer picture.
This week also saw the release of the latest IAEA report on the Iranian Nuclear Programme. The Director-General was less scathing in this report than his last report seven months ago. He gives Iran credit for coming closer to reaching a structured inspection agreement with the agency, and for complying with one of three aspects of the nuclear ban imposed by the Security Council, namely the suspension of reprocessing activities. However, the report still paints a fairly disturbing picture. Since 2002, Iran has processed roughly 55 tonnes of uranium hexafluoride, to produce 6 tonnes of 5% enriched uranium, the upper limit for safe use in nuclear power plants, and 150 Kg of 20% enriched uranium. To put this into perspective, the latter amounts to only slightly less fissile material than what was used in the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. There are still undisclosed and improperly disclosed nuclear sites. Iran continues to ignore the ban on heavy-water activities as well.
Strangely, the report makes no mention of the negotiations between Iran and P5 + Germany held in Istanbul earlier this year. I can only imagine that this is due to a mandate issue. The negotiations are clearly within the scope of the report, but were held outside the framework of the United Nations. My guess is that the Director General may only report on the activity of the IAEA on the matter.
Finally, I would like to address a number of statements made by UN Human Rights Officials this week. When I first started writing about the UN six weeks ago, I never expected I would be dealing with Canadian domestic politics with such regularity, but for the second time in three weeks UN Special Rapporteurs in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights have been very critical of Canada, and rightfully so.
First, Maina Kiai, UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association, and Frank La Rue, Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression, both heavily criticised Bill 78 of the Quebec National Assembly, as violating the fundamental rights in their respective mandates.
Second, the Committee against Torture accused Canada of complicity in torture. Citing several the cases of Maher Arar, and Omar Khadr among others, the committee pointed out several instances in which actions by the Canadian government lead to individuals being tortured, and blamed changes in Canada's immigration policy. The committee recommended the immediate transfer of Omar Khadr to Canadian custody, and the compensation of three men bein held on so-called security certificates.
