UN: António Guterres nominated as next UN Secretary-General

Posted on October 6, 2016 by Vera Padberg

António Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees speaking at the closing press conference of the 66th Executive Committee in Geneva ©UNHCR/J-M. Ferré

Members of the United Nations Security Council today adopted by acclamation the recommendation of former Portuguese Prime Minister António Guterres to become the next UN Secretary-General.

Mr Guterres, 67, will succeed the current Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in January 2017.

The Secretary-General of the UN is the head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the principal organs of the UN, and serves as the organisation’s top diplomat and chief “administrative officer”. The post lasts for five years but is limited to a maximum of two terms. Continue reading →

Kofi Annan: UN Security Council Must Take In New Permanent Members

Posted on September 23, 2015 by Julien Maton

In a recent interview, the former Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, said the UN Security Council must welcome in new permanent members or risk becoming increasingly irrelevant on the international stage.

Annan said Russia, China, the US, France and the UK should take advantage of the imminent 70th anniversary of the UN to modernise it by taking in powers such as India and Germany.

“One should always take advantage of the accident of the calendar and really push for major reforms […] I firmly believe that the Council should be reformed: it cannot continue as it is.”

The current system has been criticised as an anachronism, setting in stone the global politics of 70 years ago. Among the longstanding proponents of reform are India, Germany, Japan and South Africa, all lobbying for a permanent seat on the Council.

“The world has changed and the UN should change and adapt. […] I think those in privileged positions will have to think hard and decide what amount of power they are prepared to release to make the participation of the newcomers meaningful. If they do that, they will get cooperation; if they don’t, we risk confrontation,” said Annan.

Successive Secretaries General have attempted to push through reforms but have met resistance from the sitting powers. Any reform of the Security Council would require the agreement of all five permanent members, and at least two-thirds of UN member states.

A text setting out the basic framework for reform is being considered by member states, but experts are pessimistic regarding its implementation, given the lack of interest from big powers such as the United States and Russia.

Russia Opposes France Proposal on Limited Veto Power

Posted on September 3, 2015 by Raphaëlle Rafin

Yesterday, Ambassador Vitaly Churkin held a press conference assuming Russia’s presidency of the United Nations Security Council for September during which he commented on the UNSC reform and proposals on veto limitations. Commenting on the proposed initiative by France to limit UNSC permanent members veto powers, Churkin said it was a “populist” idea and that a compromise on a UNSC reform was nowhere in sight.

Ambassador Churkin has first addressed negotiations around the admission of new permanent members, introducing a third-category of long-term non-permanent members: “We want a historic compromise to be reached between the two main camps: Those who want to have new permanent members and those who don’t want to have permanent members, and advocate a reform with a new category of intermediate countries which will be elected for a longer period of time than the current two years for the current non-permanent members.” Continue reading →

Russia vetoes UNSC Resolution on a Tribunal for Downed Flight MH17

Posted on July 31, 2015 by Raphaëlle Rafin

Debris at the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, near the village of Grabovo, Ukraine ©AP

At the last UN Security Council meeting, held on Wednesday 29 July, the Russian federation vetoed draft Resolution S/2015/562 on the creation of an International Criminal Tribunal for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 (ICTMH17). The resolution included a draft Statute providing for the prosecution of suspects accused of downing flight MH17 on 17 July 2014, killing 298 people including 193 Dutch citizens. Eleven countries on the 15-member council voted in favour of the proposal by Malaysia, Australia, the Netherlands and Ukraine, while three countries abstained: China, Angola, and Venezuela.

Earlier on the day, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte had called Vladimir Putin to appeal on him directly to support the creation of the ICT. Based on the Law on International Crimes, Dutch prosecutors have opened an investigation into the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH-17 on suspicion of murder, war crimes and intentionally downing an airliner. Russia said discussions on a dedicated ICT should be postponed until the two Dutch-led investigations into the crash release their reports.

Russia Vetoes UN Resolution to Call Srebrenica Massacre as ‘Genocide’

Posted on July 8, 2015 by Julien Maton

Russia has vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution that would have described the Srebrenica massacre as “genocide”.

Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said adopting it “would be counter-productive, would lead to greater tension in the region”.

Four members of the Security Council abstained while the remainder voted in favour.

The motion had angered Serbia, which rejects the term. Serbia does not have a seat on the Security Council, and had asked ally Russia to block the resolution.

The Serbian President, Tomislav Nikolic, called it a “great day” for his country.

The resolution had been drafted to mark the 20th anniversary of the atrocity, which came amid the bloody break-up of Yugoslavia into independent states.

During the Bosnian War, which saw Serbia-backed Bosnian Serb forces fighting the Muslim-led Bosnian government, thousands seeking shelter at what was supposed to be a UN refuge were slaughtered.

The resolution said that “acceptance of the tragic events at Srebrenica as genocide is a prerequisite for reconciliation”.

Ambassador Samantha Power, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations criticized Russia’s veto, qualifying Russia’s veto as heart-breaking for the families and saying that “it is a further stain on this council’s record.” She argued amongst other things that the crime of genocide is “the crime that the United Nations Genocide Convention was written and ratified to prevent and punish. The crime of genocide in Srebrenica is what the genocide convention — which all of us have ratified — exists to prevent and punish. Reconciliation cannot be built by burying the dark parts of one’s history, however unsettling they may be.”

The Ambassador also highlighted the numerous testimonies which took place before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), describing the atrocities and leading the Yugoslavia Tribunal to convict numerous people of genocide in relation to the Srebrenica killings.

Calls for Reform of the UN to Protect Civilians from International Atrocities

Posted on February 25, 2015 by Vera Padberg

Lately there has been a resurgent in the calls from the international community for reform of the United Nations (UN) system in order to better protect populations from mass atrocities. This year commemorates the 70th anniversary of the United Nation’s founding in 1945, which was created to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,” but it has sparked debate about the functioning of the different bodies of the UN.

©UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

Yesterday, Amnesty International released its 2014/2015 annual report urging the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (the UK, China, France, Russia and the US) to renounce their power of veto in situations of genocide and other mass atrocities.

Salil Shetty, the organisation’s Secretary General, said in a statement that the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) had “miserably failed” to protect civilians and that the UNSC permanent members had used their veto to “promote their political self-interest or geopolitical interest above the interest of protecting civilians.”

A week earlier, Madeleine Albright, chair of the Advisory Council of The Hague Institute for Global Justice and former US Secretary of State, voiced her concern about the world’s attempt to uphold an international order which came into place 70 years ago while an “awful lot of things have changed in the meantime.” Continue reading →

Russia and China Veto Security Council Resolution on Syria Referral to ICC

Posted on May 22, 2014 by Reka Hollos

UN Security Council (c) UN/Evan Schneider

Today, at 10h00 New York time, the UN Security Council voted on a draft resolution introduced by France to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The resolution failed to pass when Russia and China, permanent members of the Council, vetoed the resolution.

Samantha Power, US Ambassador to the UN, in her statement following the vote criticised Russia and China for impeding access to justice for the

Syrian people. She also emphasised the importance of holding Russia and China to account:

“While there may be no ICC accountability today, there should be accountability for those members of this Council that have prevented

accountability.”

The US agreed to support the resolution after ensuring that Israel would be protected from prosecution before the Court in relation to its occupation of Golan Heights in Syria. Responding to criticisms that the resolution was biased, Power said:

“I agree. [The resolution] was biased in favour of establishing facts, tilted in favour of establishing peace.”

The veto has been called an “endorsement of impunity” by the Lithuanian representative and “disgraceful” by the United Kingdom.

The result is unlikely to come as a surprise following the statement made yesterday by Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s Ambassador to the UN, who called the resolution:

“simply a publicity stunt which will have a detrimental effect, unfortunately, on our joint efforts in trying to resolve politically the crisis in Syria.”

Today’s vote marked the fourth veto of the Syrian situation in the last three years.

Since Syria is not a party to the Rome Statute of the ICC, the Court may only exercise its jurisdiction over the situation if Syria were to accept the jurisdiction of the Court by way of an Article 12(3) declaration or the Security Council were to refer the situation to it.

Syria Torture Photos Displayed at the UN Security Council

Posted on April 16, 2014 by Raphaëlle Rafin

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) yesterday examined photographs of about 11,000 Syrians said to have been tortured, starved and killed by the Syrian government’s forces.

Tramline bruises are produced by blows with rod-like objects, the report explains. ©Carter-Ruck and Co.

Most of the photographs were collected by a Syrian military police photographer, code-named Caesar, who smuggled them out on flash drives when he defected and joined an anti-Assad opposition group. “Caesar”, a crime scene photographer for the Syrian military police, was assigned in 2001 to photograph corpses at a military hospital that received bodies from three detention centres in the Damascus suburbs. In his testimony, the photographer described a highly bureaucratic system:

“The procedure was that when detainees were killed at their places of detention their bodies would be taken to a military hospital to which he would be sent with a doctor and a member of the judiciary, Caesar’s function being to photograph the corpses… There could be as many as 50 bodies a day to photograph which require 15 to 30 minutes of work per corpse,” the report said. “The reason for photographing executed persons was twofold. First to permit a death certificate to be produced without families requiring to see the body, thereby avoiding the authorities having to give a truthful account of their deaths; second to confirm that orders to execute individuals had been carried out.” Continue reading →

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