Monitoring Policy Making at the United Nations |
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June 11 - 15, 2001 - Global Policy Forum - Email 'Listserv' News
GPF List-Serv
June 11 - 15, 2001Greetings from Global Policy Forum!
Security Council
On Friday, all fifteen members of the Security Council began their historic mission to the Balkans. The visit marks the first time that a council president and all 15 members tour a conflict area. Despite initial reluctance from the US and UK, most council members agree that the visit is necessary in light of the escalating conflict in Macedonia.
As the council prepared for its historic visit, three other issues also occupied the agenda. The Iraq crisis continues to divide the council—especially the Permanent Members (P-5). The US and the UK have agreed to allow an increase in the number of civilian goods that enter Iraq, but have submitted a 30-page list of “dual-use” items that will remain restricted. This list includes all items that the US believes could be used to manufacture weapons of mass destruction. Under the current sanctions regime, the US has prevented such “weapons-related” items as antibiotics and cancer drugs from entering Iraq. France and Russia are in favor of shortening the list, as well as allowing investment in Iraq’s oil sector. The P-5 met in Paris on Monday and Tuesday to discuss the list. While the council was debating the future of Iraq in New York and Paris, the Health Ministry of Iraq reported that nearly 9,000 civilians had died from sanctions-related illnesses in the month of April. The Health Ministry said that 5,712 under the age of five had died of diarrhoea, pneumonia, and malnutrition-related diseases compared to 374 deaths in same period in 1989, a year before the UN imposed the embargo.
The council is also considering a “monitoring mechanism” aimed at strengthening the international arms embargo against the Taliban. The UN would set up offices in the six states bordering Afghanistan to monitor the flow of goods in and out of the country. Visibly upset by these proposals, the Taliban declared that it will begin imposing its strict interpretation of Islamic law on foreign aid workers in Afghanistan. The decree further exacerbated tensions between the Taliban and the UN, leading to the closure of bakeries in Kabul that sold subsidized bread to 300,000 of Afghanistan’s poorest citizens. Such disputes highlight the dual role that the UN plays in Afghanistan as both a relief agency and an adversary.
The council voted unanimously to keep UN peacekeepers in the DRC for another year. Although it expressed satisfaction that the current cease-fire is holding, it recognized that the region is nonetheless unstable. The resolution adopted by the council supports Secretary General Kofi Annan’s recommendation to maintain the UN force’s authorized strength of 5,537 troops and 500 military observers.
UN Financial Crisis
The United States’ share of the total owed to the United Nations’ regular budget inched up another three percentage points to 55%. Its share owed to peacekeeping climbed to 64%. The US debt to the UN currently accounts for 62% of all arrears. Spain has now paid its dues in full.
International Justice
The process of justice for victims of the 1994 Rwanda genocide continues to plod along at a frustratingly slow pace. A report released by the International Crisis Group revealed that after seven years and 90 million dollars the ad hoc tribunal has handed down verdicts for only nine suspected war criminals. The report noted that “the ICTR seems to have been lost in daily dysfunction and internal bureaucratic conflict.” Last week the court’s first major trial resulted in the acquittal of former Mayor Baglishema. Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte fired seven prosecutors who had been working on the Baglishema case. Perhaps the pace of justice will begin to quicken as the tribunal begins its largest-ever mass trial of genocide suspects, including Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, minister of family and women's affairs in the former Hutu-led government.
Justice is slow in Yugoslavia as well. This is due in part due to member states' failure to arrest and transfer suspects to The Hague in a timely manner, forcing the tribunal to retry many cases. President Kostunica’s cabinet approved an extradition law that would allow The Hague to try Milosevic for war crimes, but Montenegrin lawmakers, whose support will be vital to passing the law through parliament, remain opposed to any law that allows extradition of Yugoslavians to the Hague tribunal.
In a new test of the Yugoslav authorities’ willingness to cooperate with the tribunal, the ICTY issued an order for the arrest and extradition of two members of Bosnian Serb security forces. Because the two individuals are not Yugoslav subjects, Belgrade officials cannot claim their extradition is barred by “constitutional obstructions.”
In Yugoslavia as well, however, there is hope that the pace of justice will accelerate. The UN General Assembly elected 27 new judges to the tribunal to hasten completion of trials. Also this week a three-judge international panel in the southern city of Prizren handed down two convictions for war crimes, a first for the local courts administered by the United Nations Mission in Kosovo(UNMIK).
Finally, the BBC stirred up the debate on international justice and ruffled the feathers of Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, by airing a program that maintained he could be tried for war crimes in connection with the massacre of Palestinians in Lebanon in 1982.
NGOs
This week we have posted an excellent article on NGO access to international institutions by Jacqueline Peel. She shows that NGOs have important advantages over states in international policymaking, especially concerning environmental issues. Many NGOs are internationally-based, which makes it much easier for them to deal with cross-border problems. Peel presents two recent examples from the environmental debate: NGO access to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and to the World Trade Organization (WTO). In the first case, the access procedure is exceptionally well-developed, which has helped to reduce the “democratic deficit” in the institutions of the European Union. On the other hand, in trying to gain access to the WTO, NGOs are having a much harder time. But there is hope - in the Shrimp/Turtle case the NGO amicus briefs have set an important precedent concerning the growing influence of NGOs on decision-making in the WTO.
Social and Economic Policy
This week, a gradual, yet considerable shift in international economic perspectives, especially on the side of the NAFTA/Bretton Wood Institutions, followed after the growing criticisms on the issues of free trade, privatization, and insufficient social safety net. Both IMF and WTO called for urgent change to existing multilateral trade agreements and ‘offensive’ structural adjustment policies (SAPs) to developing countries. The top officials of these organizations declared to ‘soften’ their blind mission to liberalization as past reviews reveal that developing countries face more socio-economic obstacles when implementing packaged SAPs from mainstream financial institutions such as IMF and World Bank. This finding is nothing new—the poorer countries continue to be poorer and the richer countries to be richer. The growing polarization of wealth is an economic phenomenon which radicalized itself through the SAPs, free trade, and many other ideologically-driven measures, most of which are constituted favorable for advanced capitalist economies of developed nations. Yet, for the NAFTA/Bretton Woods institutions, it may be a “great shame” to admit these fundamental ‘crimes’ that they committed for decades.
Contrast to what these organizations should now aim for, the IMF took an ‘extremist’ step. Early this week, the IMF appointed Anne Krueger, a Stanford economist, as the new deputy managing director. Kruger is a prominent advocate of free trade and has a close tie with the Bush Administration. Her appointment disappointed many non-governmental development campaigners and may lead further tensions with them in future. Schizophrenic tendency that these institutions introduce in their decision-makings is also reflected in the issue of labor force movement. Another interesting report shows that, along with many national governments, the international financial institutions persuade tighter restrictions on the exchange of labor force while they impose the same principles to ‘tradable’ goods. One of the economic principles that NAFTA/Bretton Woods institutions pursue is the trade liberalization based on the ‘belief’ that a freer movement of capital will ‘automatically’ equalize the trade equilibrium across the world. This concept in particular does not really correlate to the economic reality of our world today. If this theory is correct, there would be no poverty or technological difference across the world.
The cut in government expenditure is also another economic principle that these Bretton Woods institutions blindly entail due to a mere belief that governments may become corrupted when equipped with much economic power. The empirical findings, again, reject this idea (governments can be corrupted without being economically interventionist.). Yet, the international financial institutions (IFIs) continue to oblige national governments with the reduce of public expenditure, This week, international outcry highly criticized the TNCs and IFIs, NAFTA in particular, for their exclusive protections over private sector activities. Environmental standards have dropped more severely than ever before and social safety net could no longer support the poorest segment of the society. In the midst of growing concern over the importance of social safety net, African governments chose the right path by strengthening public education system and urging the local universities to take the role of “vehicles for socio-economic development.” Yet, in reality, many countries, especially the developing nations, tend to get punished by IFIs when they decide to improve people’s living standards through higher wages, increase social responsibilities of the government through higher taxes, or increase environmental standards.
The best solution for improving social safety net, however, is not relied solely upon the governmental sector. The private sector can also play a significant role in augmenting available social resource. This week, the UN congratulated the Credit Suisse Group for its $1 million contribution for the international effort to combat the AIDS pandemic. The Swiss firm was the first private company to donate to a new global fund proposed by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Other sources criticize that the private sector could have begun to mobilize its support to the issue of AIDS/HIV. Yet, by far, this is a first good step for TNCs to take as the HIV crisis continues to grow greater and paint our world with fear and sorrow.
And now for this week's links:
