Conflicts

A high-level mission to Darfur--led by Jody Williams, 1997 Nobel Peace Prize winner and anti-landmine campaigner--has told the Human Rights Council that the abuses in Darfur continue.

[She] told the Council that ineffective justice mechanisms, the free flow of weapons and a climate of impunity meant Darfur had become a stranger to the rule of law. She said civilians had become the main target in the conflict, which has also exacerbated the underlying social and economic deprivation in Darfur.

More than 200,000 have been killed and 2 million displaced since 2003. More

UNICEF has issued a warning that camps for displaced persons in Darfur are filled to capacity, some with 50,000 to 100,000 people apiece. After a visit to the region, UNICEF country representative Ted Chaiban said that "it's absolutely critical that [a settlement to the conflict] happens now because we simply cannot absorb any more displaced...it's been very difficult for humanitarian workers in Darfur. I think we should be very proud that we've held the line, that we've kept malnutrition levels down and mortality levels down, that we've been able to vaccinate so many children and that we've been able to get children in to school in the camps." More

Fast on the heels of the report commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council on Darfur, the United Nations Foundation today published "UNF Insights: Darfur and Beyond," an essay written by Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Lee Feinstein on a revolutionary principle adopted by the United Nations -- the "responsibility to protect" -- and the steps that could be taken to translate that principle into action -- both in Darfur and in preventing future mass atrocities.

Darfur and the Responsibility to Protect
One year ago the United Nations formally endorsed a principle known as the "responsibility to protect," the idea that mass atrocities that take place in one state are the concern of all states. The universal adoption of this principle at the United Nations World Summit in 2005 went relatively unnoticed. Yet it was a turning point in how states define their rights and responsibilities....The question now is whether this pledge was humanitarian hypocrisy, or did they have something serious in mind? Read more...

The United Nations-sponsored International Compact for Iraq (ICI) will hold a meeting in New York this Friday. Michele Montas says that the meeting of the ICI--which seeks ways to consolidate peace and promote political, social and econoic development--"offers an opportunity to involve the larger international community in a discussion on how best to support the Government of Iraq," and that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "looks forward to the participation of the broader international community at Friday's meeting to help put Iraq on a credible path towards sustainable development and economic prosperity." More

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has appealed for $1.7 million to feed 30,000 of the poorest Iraqi refugees who have fled to Syria.

"Those leaving Iraq are doing so in greater haste and either have had no time to sell their belongings, or cannot find buyers," WFP Country Representative in Syria Pippa Bradford said. "As a result, people arrive in Syria with far less cash, only to find there are fewer opportunities to cope than for those who came before them."

There are 1.8 million Iraqi refugees estimated to be scattered around the Middle East. More

UN Assistant Secretary-General of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Jane Holl Lute, spoke candidly about women, peacekeeping, and the role of women in post-conflict areas yesterday at a lunch celebrating International Women's Day. The event was hosted by the UN Foundation, the UN Information Center, and the Women's Foreign Policy Group. More videos are available after the jump.

UN's reponse to allegations of sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers.	Engagement by women harbinger of success in UN peacekeeping missions.

Today the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) named a Sudanese minister and a militia commander as the first suspects he wants tried for war crimes.

The Security Council referred the Darfur issue, along with the names of 51 suspected perpetrators, to the ICC in March 2005, after a UN inquiry into whether genocide occurred in Darfur found the Government responsible for crimes under international law and strongly recommended referring the dossier to the Court.

More

Working with Sudan's Government, UN agencies and NGOs have organized a workshop aimed at preventing sexual exploitation. "[The UN mission in the country] said today's workshop, which is being held in Juba, southern Sudan, aims to share information about the UN's zero-tolerance policy on sexual exploitation, while assessing achievements and identifying gaps in preventing the crime, especially against children in the region. It will also set up a joint reporting and assessment mechanism." More

Last Tuesday, during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing (video) on the "The Future of the United Nations Under Ban Ki-moon," a question was asked that reflects the conventional wisdom on the crisis in Darfur:

This conflict, I think, highlights the profound shortcomings of the United Nations, and I suspect we might be further down the road of acting decisively, if it were not for the restrictions we allow the Security Council to impose upon us. And I think that ... in the United Nations, we're sort of guaranteed the lowest common denominator approach to genocide.

The response posited by former Senator Tim Wirth flipped the issue on its head and framed it in a way that should be of interest to those promoting a framework for responding quickly to the genocide.