Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 2002, page 56

United Nations Report

 

Security Council Debates Use, Veto of Military Force to Protect Human Rights

 

By Ian Williams

As 2001 drew to a close, an international commission set up by the Canadian government reported back on the question Kofi Annan had asked the year before at the U.N.’s Millennium Summit: “If humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica—to gross and systematic violations of human rights that affect every precept of our common humanity?”

Funded by the Canadian government, but with an international membership, the Commission considered “when, if ever, it is appropriate for states to take coercive—and in particular military—action, against another state for the purpose of protecting people at risk in that other state,” and whether, if there is a right of intervention, “how and when it should be exercised, and under whose authority.”

In the end the commission, chaired by former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans and Algerian diplomat Mohamed Sahnoun, declared that any such breach of the sacred principles of national sovereignty could only be sanctioned by the United Nations, and above all the Security Council. Its members, however, were canny enough to note that in cases like Rwanda and Bosnia—interestingly Israel and Palestine were never mentioned—the Council was unable to act because of vetoes actual or threatened by permanent members.

The commission, named after Lloyd Axworthy, the former Canadian foreign minister who founded it, suggested that Security Council members promise not to use their vetoes when their direct state interests are not involved. Failing that, it suggested that to force humanitarian interventions, member states should use the “Uniting for Peace” procedure that the U.S. successfully proposed in 1950 to beat the Soviet veto. This allows the calling of an emergency special session of the General Assembly that can overrule a Security Council veto. In the days of the Cold War the Americans used the procedure nine times.

Coincidentally, the week the report was issued the Palestinians were trying to use exactly that procedure. The Security Council resolution of Dec. 15 that the U.S. vetoed (see Jan./Feb. 2002 Washington Report, p. 36) was resubmitted to the reconvened Tenth Emergency Special Session of the General Assembly on Dec. 19. Even the Germans and the other Europeans—not to mention Turkey, Israel’s close strategic ally—united to support what was clearly a balanced resolution condemning terrorism on both sides and a second resolution supporting the meeting of the parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention that had condemned Israeli behavior in the occupied territories and declared the Convention to be applicable to them.

 

The Palestinians were trying to use exactly that “Uniting for Peace” procedure.

Once again, the British, newly enthralled by Washington and its own pro-Israel lobby, abstained on the repeat of the Council resolution, but did vote for the one on the Geneva Convention. The Canadians, despite their own sponsored report suggesting just this procedure, also abstained, and made themselves look even sillier by abstaining in New York from the resolution they had supported in Geneva. The turnabout came in the face of heavy pressure from pro-Israel politicians in Ottawa.

For reiteration of the Security Council resolution calling for implementation of the Mitchell Report and international observers, the U.S. did manage to shepherd two more mini-micro-states through the nay lobby to support its semi-dependencies Micronesia and the Marshalls. Washington successfully swayed Tuvalu and Nauru to vote against the resolution. Even they could only bring themselves to abstain on the Geneva Convention resolutions, however.

In addition, the Palestinians ran a flag up the pole with amendments to the Fourth Geneva Convention resolution that would have called upon the International Court of Justice in The Hague for advisory opinions on Israeli breaches of the conventions and on the duties of signatories to the convention to secure compliance with them. At the last minute, however, they withdrew. “It was only on 24 hours’ notice, so we really were just trying it,” said Nasser El Kidwa, Palestine’s ambassador to the U.N. “But we will return to it—unless of course the International Criminal Court becomes effective first. That,” he added, “would be the most logical venue.”

 

Anti-Terrorism Committee

The Security Council committee on terrorism set up in the wake of Sept. 11 has had an unprecedented response to its call for information from member countries on the state of their anti-terrorism measures. By the beginning of the year, 122 states, anxious to show their cooperation, had filed reports to the committee, which will divide into subgroups to consider whether they fit the bill. Eventually the reports will appear on the Internet, which should provide an interesting study for human rights groups.

Even as the committee prepared to meet, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres was calling for Iran to be marked as a state supporter of terrorism for its alleged role in the shipload of arms seized in the Red Sea by the Israeli navy. Quite why anti-tank weapons are terroristic while their putative targets, the actual Israeli tanks firing on Palestinian towns, are not will make for an interesting hearing if the case ever gets that far.

Adding interest to the discussion will be the Syrian delegation, which has just joined the Security Council for a two-year term and is thus ex-officio part of the anti-terrorism committee. Of course, it does not have a veto, but the consensus for which U.N. diplomats so continually strive will doubtless be more reflective of Damascus’s traditionally hard-line stance on Middle Eastern issues. This was in evidence at the Council’s first public meeting to discuss terrorism. The newly elected Syrian delegate made an underwhelming debut at the first big performance of the New Year with a standard set-piece diatribe whose tone tended to detract from some of the substance of his message.

Having carefully steered the committee on terrorism away from particular instances and what he called “subjectivism,” however, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the British chair of the committee, left hostages to fortune by attempting a “negative” definition to exclude “state terrorism.” “Resolution 1373 (2001) was the primary guide for the committee,” Greenstock declared, “but the committee was also conscious of the 12 international conventions on the subject, and none of them referred to state terrorism, which was not an international legal concept. If States abused their power, they should be judged against international conventions dealing with war crimes, international human rights and international humanitarian law,” he said.

He knows, of course, that while the U.S. has a veto some such state perpetrators will not be judged at all.

Unsurprisingly, Nasser Al-Kidwa chose to differ, politely and diplomatically thanking Greenstock for his efforts. However, he quibbled, “If an act was terrorism, it was terrorism whether committed by individuals, organizations or States. How could there exist State-sponsored terrorism if there was no State terrorism?” Al-Kidwa asked. “If a terrorist act was perpetrated by people working for a State, it was State terrorism. Such strange talk underlined the importance of finishing the work of the General Assembly on a convention to combat terrorism.”

He then, of course, attacked the Israelis for just such acts.

In his statement, Secretary-General Kofi Annan added his voice to those around the world, from the International Committee of the Red Cross to U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson, expressing concern about what has been happening in the name of the war on terrorism. “We should all be clear that there is no trade-off between effective action against terrorism and the protection of human rights,” Annan said. “On the contrary, I believe that in the long term we shall find that human rights, along with democracy and social justice, are one of the best prophylactics against terrorism.”

 

Tidying Things Up

On other issues, the Security Council tidied up its former resolutions and lifted international sanctions against Ariana Afghan airlines so that its sole remaining aircraft can fly in and out of Kabul. The same week, the Security Council sanctions committee for Afghanistan issued a new list of individuals and organizations linked with Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network that are still subject to sanctions. These include the Afghan Support Committee as well as the Pakistan and Afghanistan offices of the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society.

The Council also sent off a border demarcation mission, which will probably be led by Norwegian Ambassador Ole Peter Kolby, to plot the 600-mile disputed border between Eritrea and Ethiopia. The Council declared that commission’s verdict would be “final and binding,” when it reports back by Feb. 28, as agreed in the peace pact signed by the two countries. It only said so in a statement, not a resolution, however, so the line might be as fluid as those left by Oslo, Norway’s previous peacemaking effort.

The mission will only draw a line on the map. The line on the ground, through a war zone littered with landmines and the debris of war, will take somewhat longer. At present the peace is brokered by some 4,200 peacekeepers, who may be in for a longer stay than budgeted.

Indeed, in longevity it could even rival Western Sahara, where the secretary-general issued yet another report and the issue was postponed yet again. The basic problem remains the attempt by Morocco, backed wholeheartedly by the French and somewhat less fervently by the U.S., to tear up the whole referendum process agreed upon by the parties over a decade ago. Once Rabat saw that it would lose the referendum, Annan’s envoy and former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker proposed an interim autonomy, at the end of which Morocco’s ballot-box-stuffing would be legitimized and the annexation recognized. The rest of the world has not been taken with the idea, but no one wants to upset Morocco too much and few worry about the Sahrawis baking in the desert refugee camps if they do not start fighting.

When the issue comes before the Security Council in February, one can assume that decisions will take their normal procrastinatory form, and the issue will be postponed yet again.

Ian Williams is a free-lance journalist based at the United Nations.

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