Chapter 4: The United Nations and Multilateral Diplomacy

Multilateral Human Rights and Humanitarian Diplomacy at the United Nations When states use and control an IGO to conduct their diplomacy, it is known as multilateral diplomacy. The United Nations (UN) is a universal global IGO and the center for global multilateral diplomacy. To understand the interactive role of the UN and states in human rights and humanitarian diplomacy, it is helpful to think about the UN as three interactive entities.

United Nations The first UN is an organization comprised of sovereign states who bring their different capabilities, values, interests, and rivalries to the table. Where multilateral diplomacy takes place. The second UN is the system of decision- and policy- making by UN officials (the UN bureaucracy) who are independent and not instructed by states. The third UN can be thought of the network of NGOs, independent experts, and other civil society actors that attempt influence states and IGOs to adopt certain values and develop certain policies.

The United Nations Security Council The Security Council is a fifteen member body that is responsible for maintaining international peace and security. The Security Council includes five permanent members (Russia, China, the UK, the US, and France), the P-5, each who have veto power over council decisions. The remaining 10 members are nonpermanent and those seats are allotted to specific regions and elected by General Assembly. Nonpermanent members are elected in two year staggered terms so that 5 new members join the council each year.

Peacekeeping Even though the Security Council was largely paralyzed during the Cold War, it did innovate peacekeeping. Originally, the first peacekeeping missions were security oriented with the only humanitarian purpose of ensuring that violent conflict does not flare up again.

Peacekeeping cont’d. First generation peacekeeping, missions included lightly armed personnel and observers who were deployed with the consent of the host government and other belligerents after a ceasefire had been negotiated. Second generation peacekeeping (often referred to as peace enforcement) represents an evolution of mission in response to the changing nature of post-Cold War conflicts in the 1990s. Second generation peacekeeping often involves preventative diplomacy and enforcing Security Council decisions (MacKinlay and Chopra).

Peacekeeping cont’d. Third generation peacekeeping, also known as, peacebuilding, centers on the reconstruction of post- conflict societies. When there is no government, or it is effectively inoperative, UN peacekeeping missions functionally become the government. At the 2005 World Summit, world leaders agreed to create and fund Peacebuilding Commission that currently has activities in Sierra Leone, Burundi, Central African Republic, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, Haiti, Liberia, and Kenya. No longer does international security mean only state security, it also means human security.

Post Cold-War Conflicts Invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in 1991. For the first time since the Korean War, the UN Security Council authorized a collective security operation to expel Iraq from Kuwait. In response to Saddam Hussein brutally cracking down on rebelling Kurds in northern Iraq and Shiites in southern Iraq, the Security Council passed Resolution 688 which was the first unambiguous recognition of a human rights and humanitarian situation as a threat to international peace and security.

Post Cold-War Conflicts cont’d. The disintegration of Yugoslavia in 1991 led the Security Council to deploy peacekeeping forces to try to stabilize the ensuing secessionist conflict between rival nationalities that included Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, Albanians, Slovenes, Macedonians, and Kosovars. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) had a slow start and did not hold its first trial until 1996; however, it would eventually indict 161 individuals for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, including a sitting head of state. In 1998, violence in the Balkans erupted again, this time in Kosovo, where the majority ethnic Albanians sought to break away from Serbia. against humanity committed in Kosovo and later for crimes committed in Croatia, and Bosnia. Milosevic was forced from office in 2000 and was arrested and transferred to the Hague to stand trial before the ICTY in 2001.

Post Cold-War Conflicts cont’d. The 1994 genocide in Rwanda is perhaps the most dramatic failure of contemporary international diplomacy to stop genocide and other gross violations of human rights and humanitarian law. In one hundred days, more than 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered. Events unfolded quickly. The atrocities led the Security Council to create the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). Security Council Resolution 955 of 1994 states that the ICTR is to "prosecute persons responsible for genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of Rwanda and neighbouring States, between 1 January 1994 and 31 December 1994" .

The 1990s: Assessing Outcomes What is viewed as a success (or at least a preferable outcome) for a liberal and constructivist is often seen as a failure (or as prolonging or exacerbating a situation) for a realist or a structuralist. The Balkans, Somalia, Rwanda were by no means the only humanitarian crises in the immediate post-Cold War era. The multidimensional crises in Sudan, Haiti, East Timor, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of Congo also generated extensive diplomatic efforts to protect human rights in humanitarian crises. These tensions resulted in the ongoing, coordinated effort to redefine sovereignty as the responsibility to protect (R2P). With the support of the Canadian government and the UN General Assembly, the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) was created to explore the issue of humanitarian intervention.

Responsibility to Protect Diplomacy As a result of this commission diplomacy, member-states at the 2005 World Summit at the United Nations the embraced the principle of R2P by stating that that the UN may “take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council, in accordance with the Charter, including Chapter VII, on a case-by-case basis and in cooperation with the relevant regional organizations as appropriate, should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities are manifestly failing to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.”

Responsibility to Protect Diplomacy cont’d. The paradox of R2P diplomacy specifically, and human rights and humanitarian diplomacy in general, is that state sovereignty is the cornerstone of diplomatic relations and states are necessary for the promotion and protection of human rights and humanitarian principles. At the same time, undermining state sovereignty compromises the ability of further international human rights and humanitarian principles. Recent examples of R2P include (Kenya, Myanmar, Libya, Syria etc.)

The Security Council and Courts Another way the Security Council has responded to gross violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in the post-Cold War era has been to authorize the creation of ad hoc international criminal tribunals and hybrid courts. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is independent of the UN, but loosely associated with it. Beginning in 2004 with efforts to manage the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan, the Security Council has referred situations to the ICC to pressure states to change their policies.

The Security Council and Courts cont’d. A central weakness of international criminal courts and tribunals is that justice is imposed from outside, usually by the strong against the weak. It challenges state sovereignty and can lack legitimacy, especially when domestic and international law are in conflict. To address this, the Security Council has also authorized the creation of hybrid courts, which blend both international and domestic law and are staffed by international as well as local staff and lawyers. Hybrid courts have the advantages of holding trials close to where crimes were committed and helping local communities develop a culture of legalism. Examples: Sierra Leone, Lebanon and Cambodia

The United Nations General Assembly The plenary body of the UN is the General Assembly is currently comprised of 193 member states. The UN Charter spells many roles including oversight of the UN bureaucracy and deliberating and passing resolutions (nonbinding) on issues arising under the charter, including human rights and humanitarian situations. Decisions are taken through majority rule so states from the Global South can also be active diplomatically at the UN to promote and humanitarian principles

Commission on Human Rights (1946-2006) Originally, human rights at the UN revolved around the Commission on Human Rights. The commission was a fifty-three member body that was elected by the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the UN organ responsible for promoting economic and social cooperation in the interrelated fields of economic development, human rights, and social welfare. The politicization of the commission, coupled with the double standards and inconsistencies in state policies eventually led to it being discredited.

Human Rights Council (2006-Present) At the 2005 World Summit, the member-states of the UN took decisive action and agreed to abolish the Commission on Human Rights and create the Human Rights Council (HRC). The HRC differs from its predecessor in that election of the 47 members (instead of 53) to the council was by a majority vote of the General Assembly rather than by the much smaller ECOSOC. Universal Periodic Review (UPR): a tool for challenging states to improve their own HR records. The UPR is a staggered peer review process where all 193 UN members report on the status of their domestic human rights and explain how they are meeting their obligations under international human rights law.

The Regional Multilateral Architecture Multilateral approaches to promoting and protecting international human rights and humanitarian principles has also occurred regionally. Examples: Europe: Council of Europe, the Organization (once Conference) for Cooperation and Security in Europe (OSCE), the EU, European Court on Human Rights . The Americas: Organization of American States (OAS), The InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights, InterAmerican Court for Human Rights Africa and the Middle East: African Union (AU), the League of Arab States, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights Asia: ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights

Discussion Questions Discuss the differences between IGO diplomacy and multilateral diplomacy? Discuss the evolution and the role of UN peacekeeping in the evolution of human rights and humanitarian protection. What is R2P and why is it a controversial norm in human rights protection? Will multilateral human rights bodies ever become depoliticized?