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March 2007

Hybrid peackeeping force to be deployed in Darfur

Jessica Valenti - March 30, 2007 - 12:07pm

The United Nations, the Sudanese Government, the African Union (AU) and the League of Arab States (LAS) have agreed to deploy a hybrid UN-AU peacekeeping force to Darfur in an effort to end violence in the region.

During a meeting in Riyadh last night chaired by Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, the participants agreed to play their part to try to accelerate political reconciliation inside Darfur, where rebel groups have been fighting Government forces and allied Janjaweed militias since 2003.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who attended the meeting with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, AU Chairperson Alpha Oumar Konaré and LAS Secretary-General Amr Moussa, later told reporters that, "I think we made progress where there had been an impasse."

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Welcome News

Mark Leon Goldberg - March 29, 2007 - 3:26pm

From Riyadh, Warren Hoge reports that King Abdullah gave Ban Ki-moon an important boost in a discussion with Sudanese President Omar al Bashir.

The president of Sudan, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, came under pressure Thursday from Arab leaders to end the crisis in Darfur.

Mr. Bashir spent an hour and a half in a meeting on Wednesday afternoon with the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, and a two-hour session with him lasting into Thursday morning that included King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia; Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League; and Alpha Oumar Konaré, chairman of the African Union.

"I think we made progress where there had been an impasse," Mr. Ban said. "The king’s intervention very much supported my position."

A United Nations official with experience in the region said: "These Arab discussions on Darfur are significant. There was a time when it was very difficult to raise the subject, but that's no longer the case."

In a speech to the opening session of the League of Arab States summit meeting, the usually defiant Mr. Bashir sounded a defensive note in trying to justify Sudan's continuing resistance to the dispatch of United Nations peacekeepers to Darfur.

That a regional power like Saudi Arabia would take interest in the issue and help Ban make progress in negotiations with Bashir should be welcome news. Until now, many member states from the middle-east have been relatively silent on the crisis in Darfur.

Of course, we still have a very long way to go.

UNEP: Building sector can play key role in combating global warming

Jessica Valenti - March 29, 2007 - 1:01pm

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A new report released by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) says that the right mix of government regulation, energy saving technologies and behavioral change can reduce global-warming carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the building sector. The building sector, the report notes, accounts for 30 to 40 per cent of total energy use.

"The savings that can be made right now are potentially huge and the costs to implement them relatively low if sufficient numbers of Governments, industries, businesses and consumers act," UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director Achim Steiner said of the measures that range from revamping ventilation systems to replacing the traditional incandescent light bulb.

"By some conservative estimates, the building sector worldwide could deliver emission reductions of 1.8 billion tonnes of C02. A more aggressive energy efficiency policy might deliver over 2 billion tonnes or close to three times the amount scheduled to be reduced under the Kyoto Protocol," he added, referring to the pact setting legally binding emission reduction targets for 35 industrialized countries in the 2008-2012 period.

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To Turtle Bay He Goes!

Mark Leon Goldberg - March 28, 2007 - 5:32pm

As Matt reported below, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee formally approved Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad's nomination for United States Ambassador to the United Nations. During his hearing two weeks ago, Khalilzad offered welcome testimony affirming the centrality of the United Nations to American foreign policy objectives. You can read Khalilzad's full statement here and UN Foundation President Tim Wirth's enthusiastic endorsement of Khalilzad here.

Highlights from Khalilzad's testimony are below the fold.

U.S. Perm Rep to the United Nations Confirmed by SFRC

Matthew Cordell - March 28, 2007 - 4:56pm

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The Senate Foreign Relations Committee today approved the nomination of Zalmay Khalilzad to be U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations.

Sudan agrees to give humanitarian groups better access

Jessica Valenti - March 28, 2007 - 12:26pm

The Sudanese government, which has been accused of holding up aid in the Darfur area, signed an agreement yesterday with the United Nations pledging to give humanitarian groups better access to the region.

Under the deal, the Khartoum government would speed up visas for humanitarian workers and take other measures that the United Nations has been pressing for.

...The Sudanese government reiterated it would adopt "fast track" measures to help aid groups with their work, a term it has been using since the first of such agreements was signed in 2004.

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Fixing Afghanistan

Mark Leon Goldberg - March 27, 2007 - 12:49pm

The aphorism, "America cooks, Europe does the dishes," became a popular way to describe the transatlantic relations in the late 1990s. At the time, the saying referred to Europe's lead role in Balkan reconstruction efforts. It was not used pejoratively, but reflected the honest division of labor between allies following the American led humanitarian interventions in southeast Europe.

If the saying were updated today and applied to the Afghan war perhaps "Europe" would be replaced by "The United Nations." To be sure, this is not to diminish Europe's important contributions in Afghanistan. Rather, it speaks to the outsized role that the United Nations has played in reconstruction efforts there.

Yesterday, the Security Council acknowledged the centrality of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and extended its mandate by one year. Since inception in 2002, UNAMA has taken the lead in critical rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts, ranging from the repatriation of refugees to election assistance and life saving of humanitarian work. When Afghanistan becomes a self-sustaining government, it will be due in large part to the availability and expertise of UNAMA workers.

UN launches initiative to end human trafficking

Jessica Valenti - March 27, 2007 - 12:28pm

Partnering with governments and non-governmental organizations, the United Nations launched The Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking yesterday.

"Slavery is a booming international trade, less obvious than 200 years ago for sure, but all around us," UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa told a ceremony in London today, which is also the bicentennial of the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire.

"Perhaps we simply prefer to close our eyes to it, as many law-abiding citizens buy the products and the services produced on the cheap by slaves," he added, noting that most victims of this modern-day slavery are women and young girls, many of whom are forced into prostitution or otherwise exploited sexually.

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Send the Mediators?

Mark Leon Goldberg - March 27, 2007 - 12:16pm

Writing in the Washington Post, Carlos Pascual, formerly of head of the interagency office of reconstruction and stabilization at the State Department and now a vice president at Brookings, sketches out the possible role of the United Nations in brokering a political settlement to Iraq's civil war.

The March 10 international conference seeking peace in Iraq should be applauded. If those with a stake in Iraq are talking, they might at least find common rhetorical ground in their opposition to terrorism. But dialogue does not mean peace. Focused international mediation, ideally by the United Nations, will be needed for peace and stability.

[snip]

[I]f the parties to the conference want a serious chance for peace in Iraq and stability in the region, they need an honest broker to help them turn contentious issues into meaningful options. The United Nations is not magical, but there is no other actor with comparable neutrality. In Iraq, U.N. special adviser Lakhdar Brahimi brokered agreement on the interim government in spring 2004 when the United States could not.

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The Iran Sanctions

Mark Leon Goldberg - March 26, 2007 - 1:13pm

As expected, the Security Council approved on Saturday a tougher set of sanctions against Iran. The council unanimously agreed to an asset freeze and travel ban on 28 government and military officials, a ban on arm exports from Iran, and sanctions on the state owned bank, Sepah. The resolution also makes clear that if Iran complies, and suspends its uranium enrichment program, sanctions will be lifted and a previous offer of economic incentives will be made available.

Nicholas Burns, a firm international relations pragmatist in the US government, spoke to the press following the Security Council vote:

"It's a significant international rebuke to Iran and it's a significant tightening of international pressure on Iran," said Nicholas Burns, undersecretary for political affairs at the State Department. If Iran does not comply, "there's no question" that the United States will seek a third and tougher resolution, he added.

[snip]

Burns said that because of a "tumultuous political environment" in Iran "we believe there is a faction inside that government that wishes to accept this offer to negotiate."

And from the Washington Post:

"We got more than we thought we were going to get" in this resolution, said Nicholas Burns...He also said that it criminalizes Iran's military support for Middle East extremists and exposes its political isolation. "If Iran has Qatar, a gulf Arab state, and Indonesia, a Muslim state, and South Africa, a leading member of the nonaligned movement, voting for these sanctions, Iran is in trouble internationally."

Security Council votes have consequences. The Iranian government has long been considered a pariah-state in the West. But now, by defying the Security Council, it risks gaining an ignominious reputation in other parts of the world. The council vote also made some of Iran's larger trading partners key stakeholders in the successful implementation of last summer's Security Council resolution 1696, which calls for the suspension of Iran's nuclear enrichment activities. Prior to the vote last week, Russia even suspended construction of a nuclear plant in Bushehr in southern Iran.