UNITED NATIONS ~ Overview
Human Rights Committee will form sub-committees which send field workers to nations to try to interview individuals and try to look at their records of human rights. Human rights violations in prisons, or go into countries such as Chechnya, Colombia and try to interview individuals who seem to be having human rights problems. Basically making sure that countries are implementing commitments and give a report, analysis, suggestions for change, report is not always publicized.
Countries that have recently have been elected to the commission:
China, Cuba, Pakistan, Russia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Viet Nam, etc.
Treaties and Conventions
Must emphasize reservations to the convention and what impacts these reservations have.
Rights of the Child Convention- what exactly is the age of a child, varies in countries and varies even in the United States from state to state.
Enforcement Issues- are you trying to sanction.
Oil for Food- Iraq was sanctioned after the first Gulf war. Nation that in 1990 was at war, and weapons were found and the security council came out with some resolutions, the resolutions said that they were not supposed to produce anymore weapons and to get rid of the weapons that they already had. Certain economic sanctions and embargoes were enforced against Iraq. Use their oil money and give them food. (UN Charter look at page 881,889)
Dispute resolution:
First diplomacy
Then act with embargoes, if these fail
Then act with military force
Article 39- Security council must determine that what is going on is a threat to the peace and security of the world. Must come out with a resolution, then pull the troops out on a certain recommendation, as an assurance that you behave correctly, we are going to issue embargoes. Companies not supposed to have business or dealings with Iraq unless they had clearance from the UN. Problem was there was no enforcement or monitoring. Countries were dealing with Iraq under the table. The UN is as effective as the member states are willing to fulfill their commitments that they sign onto.
Kofi Annans’ Son- one of the people monitoring the situation, but also receiving the bribes. He was supposed to be in the field to determine that the money coming in was only for humanitarian efforts, but instead he was either blind and he didn’t see what countries were doing, but he also acquired extra wealth besides his salary from the UN. Perhaps the UN should enact a code of ethics, try to politicize what is going on in the UN.
Sexual Harassment-
How severe was the harassment? What may be flattering to someone of one nationality can be construed as offensive to another person of another nationality.
Week 2
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Rwanda- (ppt)
UN charter-> Article 40. Article 7- not supposed to use force in a nation. Not authorized to meddle in matters that are within the domestic boundaries of any state.
Article 97 – The secretariat, to be an administrative officer and any other functions delegated to him by another organ. Supposed to administer this large super-national organization. Is he also supposed to be policing the world.
Article 99- the secretary general may bring to the attention of the security council ay matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.
Article 25- binding if you are a member. Must follow the security counsel resolutions.
Article 100- In the performance of their duties the secretary general and the staff shall not seek or receive instructions from any government or from any other authority external to the organization. Everything has to come from within the institution.
Article 24- Security counsel, primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. Have 5 permanent members, 3 were involved in the selling of weapons to Rwanda.
Article 26- In order to promote the establishment and maintenance of international peace…shall be responsible for formulating with Military staff committee, plans to be submitted to the members of the UN for the establishment of a system for the regulation of armaments. Every member state is supposed to be lending its military forces.
Chapter 7- Article 50, nation can come to the security counsel and say that the economic sanctions are really hurting our country, instead of these sanctions try something else. Security counsel will go back to the table and see if they can ease the sanctions, and decide if they can alleviate some sanctions and continue other sanctions.
History-
15th Century: Hutus had come to an area where the tutsis were already in place. The tutsi’s were the ones in charge up until the 20th century. Hutus rented land from tutsis.
1959 Revolt and the hutus took control. Belgium’s came and tried to establish some sorts of reforms, and the region had some natural resources that the Belgium’s were interested in.
UN came in and decided to give absolute freedom to this region, had a democratic election and then the Hutus came to power. This is when all of these confrontations and slaughtering began. Neighbors became enemies and started to kill each other. The world looked at this as a internal conflict. UN charter cannot do anything here because it is a domestic conflict. So instead the security counsel issued a resolution, and the two parties were supposed to make the peace agreement work. For awhile it seemed that it had worked but soon the violence began again.
Security Counsel said maybe we should have a regional arrangement- Article 52. UN saying they are going to authorize regional arrangement (African Union, Asian-Pacific Nations, etc.) presumed that if you allow regional arrangements was so that countries that are alike could deal with problems in their region effectively and efficiently. So, in this situation the African Union was supposed to make sure that there were no weapons entering into Rwanda. Not allowed to negotiate for any weapons that were going to end up in Rwanda. Other resolution was for the peace process.
What went wrong?
Organizations were already in Rwanda that were reporting to the UN. Article 53 says that no enforcement action shall be taken under regional arrangements or by regional agencies without the authorization of the Security Council.
No one was checking for machetes which was the weapon of choice for the hutus, instead the UN was checking for traditional firearms.
What was the role of the Security Counsel- issued security resolution for the peace accord, formed these agencies to help, security resolutions for embargoes (arms- economic sanctions, freezing certain assets, only thing that was able to go back and forth was food/medicine.)
Word gets back to the UN secretary general that the sanctions that were imposed did not work. The next step is to bring peace-keeping forces.
Once country lends forces, then they become members of the UN, except that each nation-state can and did pull out their troops. Flaw- tension between nation-states interest vs. UN interests.
What failed? Were they hesitant to violate Chapter 4 and Chapter 7. Many claim that politics were involved.
Once the genocide was committed, the Tribunal (which is under the security counsel) will try those who are alleged criminals. This tribunal was established before the ICC. International Tribunal for Rwanda- ad hoc tribunals- formed for this particular situations to deal with these specific crimes.
Week 2
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS NGO’s
International Organizations, Peoples, and Non-governmental Organizations
International Organizations
How created:
Multilateral treaties,
Example: 1815 Conference of Vienna
When conferences ,et at periodic intervals, states created institutions to fulfill administrative roles
Example: 1890 International Union of American Republics
Functions: discuss and negotiate treaties concerning such issues as arbitration, extradition of criminals, codification of IP law, status of diplomats and aliens
Other examples today: Organization of American States, Council of Europe, European Union, European Court of Justice which regulates a wide range of economic, social, and poltical matters.
Overview:
League of Nations: Idea came from Woodrow Wilson in 1914, but the US was not a member because the US Senate refused to ratify the treaty of Versaille establishing the league. Made advances from 1920-1930, but the League watched helplessly as the beginning of WWII was developing. League was officially dead in 1946 and with its dissolution, the UN was born and the League transferred its powers, functions, buildings, library, and archives to the UN.
United Nations: Charter established in 1945 reflected many influences
UK philosophy: blend of national self-interest and pragmatism
US philosophy: Four policemen concept-worldwide New Deal . Concepts of human rights, freedom for colonial peoples and free trade.
Structure: same basic framework as the League of Nations-> Council, Assembly, Secretariat, and International Court with additional “teeth”. Executive branch arm of UN needed to be a policemen rather than a mediator. For “teeth” the Security Council was developed.
Security Council: given the ability to act quickly and effectively, majority voting (2/3). Council given power to enforce decisions by being able to require armed forces to be at its disposal. Coordination and control of units was to be exercised by the Chiefs of Staff of the major military powers through a Military Staff Committee.
San Francisco Conference:
Main issues:
The position of the permanent members in the Security Council
The role of the General Assembly and of the Economic Social Council
The status of bilateral and regional arrangements
Question of domestic jurisdiction
The handling of trusteeship and colonial matters
Significant change at the Conference to the charter was the addition to the enforcement procedure of a range of measures such as economic and diplomatic sanctions, military demonstrations and blockade. Also, the right of the General Assembly to discuss all matters within the scope of the Charter, including those relating to international peace and security unless the security council was formally seized of the issue. Economic and Social Council’s role was enhanced.
International Court of Justice (replaced the existing Permanent Court of International Justice)
The Reparation Case Reparation for Injuries suffered in the service of the UN, 1949 ICJ 1949 WL 3
Background- international law was just evolving. At this time states were the only ones who had rights and duties, up until this case, only states could bring actions against other states. One of the organs of the UN was asking the ICJ for advice.
Issues: If the UN as an organization to
ions, several NGO’s. Here, there was a problem with coordination between all of these organizations. All organizations involved said that Rwanda was a fiasco.
Who takes charge of what? And who determines who takes charge? Should it be from the US, from the UN, or should it be everyone together? Here, it would make sense to have the UN to take charge because they have international personality. Or, ideally coordination should occur through the local government, but sometimes there is a very weak government or it is the government that is procuring the crimes against humanity. Sometimes UN, NGO’s etc. take place of the local government. If it is the local government requesting the assistance like in Haiti, then there is going to be a massive response authorized by the local government, and that is an easier situation or coordination effort.
NGO Role in Disaster Response- NGO’s as implementing partners of donor organizations, are the legs on which disaster response stands.
DARFUR- had requested the presence of the African Union- but the AU didn’t have enough soldiers, and that is when the UN said that they needed a massive response, and a lot of NGO members had already been killed in Darfur.
UN has a political, security, development, and humanitarian component.
Humanitarian component- under jurisdiction of security council through a resolution, respond to specific emergencies that the security council is going to lay down. Problem was that the resolution wasn’t specific enough to give guidance to the UN or the NGO’s. This includes UN dept. of humanitarian affairs who is in charge of coordinating all humanitarian efforts. Also, UNHCR is supposed to creating places for refugees to go and eat, and be safe.
Development- long term humanitarian issues. All programs work with their own staff and use NGO’s all of the time. WFP, UNICEF, World Health Organization, UN development program. These groups will be in Rwanda for a certain period of time establishing certain types of policies and dealing with these types of issues.
Political- UN department of political affairs, supposed to provide early warnings of impending conflict, supposed to analyze preventive actions and supposed to make suggestions. This component was criticized in the Rwanda situation
Security- UN Dept. of Peacekeeping operations, includes monitoring, planning, support of operations, serve of the secretary of military staff. Military police, civilian police- sometimes send these to elections.
NGO’s
Red cross, etc. Private international organizations, operate independently from their respective governments, have special status as international entities.
Not easy for NGO’s and military to work together in different operations. NGO’s fear working with the military, supposed to be detached and impartial
Perceived violation of core values (Kosovo, Chechnya)
Military domination of humanitarian response
Appropriate military role: refer to humanitarian community
Differences: independent v. highly disciplined; decentralized authority v. Hierarchal command; on the job training v. extensive branch training; few field manuals v. doctrinal publications
Today: overlapping humanitarian missions, chaotic complex environments, neutrality concerns, security concerns. Military needs to protect the NGO’s. When the military tells the NGO not to go to certain areas there is a clash because the NGO’s want to go to those areas. Who suffers from this conflict? The people in the country that they are trying to HELP! Two groups that seem to have the same goal have different means of doing so and sometimes cancel each other out.
Coordination between Military and NGO-
US Embassy Country Team
Other USG Agencies (OFDA, “DART”)
UN coordination entities (UNHCR, WFP, UNDP, UNICEF, OCHA, Special Humanitarian Coordinator)
NGO-only coordination Bodies/Field Level Coordination meetings
Host government ministries/authorities
Civil-military cooperation or operation centers. – successful in Northern Iraq. First Gulf War. “where are land mines, what type of food do the people like, help getting medical supplies from point A to point B). Lesson has been there needs to be some type of coordination. This was lead by the US. Problem is that US is taking the lead and other countries say its not fair- remember this has worked well in some operations and failed in
