Meet the UN's next Goodwill Ambassador: hip-hop legend Russell Simmons. His role is to promote the Permanent Memorial for the victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. And he gets a new hat.
Wrapping up a relatively quiet trip to Africa, the UN Security Council toured Liberia, a country that has calmed after years of devastating war, but which still has the potential for instability. Addressing the topic of the UN peacekeeping mission that has operated in the country since 2003, Liberia's president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, offered this:
Asked when the country would be able to stand on its feet without peacekeepers, Johnson-Sirleaf told Reuters after talks with a Security Council delegation: "Two years after the elections. Then we can ask everybody to leave."
(image of UN vehicles in Monrovia, from Scarlett Lion)
The UN Human Rights Council is set to hold a special session on Sri Lanka next Monday. While that may not reassure critics of the institution, I think it's a good sign that the Council is engaged. The more focus on the humanitarian disaster -- and its possible escalation -- in Sri Lanka, the better. This is what worries me:
Sri Lanka has said it needs to keep people inside the camps long enough to weed out potential Tiger infiltrators, and the United Nations has since said the camps meet international standards aside from the limited freedom of movement.
"Aside from the limited freedom movement" is a rather scary caveat, particularly when the Sri Lankan government is insisting it will be able to resettle the 250,000-plus displaced civilians in just six months. Combined with an ambiguous "weeding-out" program, this could spell danger.
Ban Ki-moon will be in the country tomorrow, and he better make sure that humanitarians and human rights activists have good access to make sure nothing goes wrong in the camps.
It's called the Convention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, and it was adopted 12 years ago today (via IntLawGrrls' excellent "On this day in..." feature). Though it passed the UN General Assembly by a resounding vote of 103-3, the Convention has not yet entered force because the requisite 35 countries -- 35! -- have not yet ratified it.
This seems to make sense to me. And if a country found it onerous to have to consult with a river-sharing neighbor about a certain project, that seems to be only more reason to need to have a mechanism to deal with these kinds of disputes. Maybe if we could ratify the Law of the Sea here in the United States, we could make some progress on rivers, too...
UPDATE: Probably unsurprisingly, the Convention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses didn't appear to make the list of top treaty ratification priorities for the United States.
(image from flickr user superciliousness under a Creative Commons license)
Reuben Brigety and Sabina Dewan of the Center for American Progress have authored a new report proposing a "National Strategy for Global Development" to go along with the customary National Security Strategy. The report urges using the Millennium Development Goals as the basis for the United States' development strategy -- now that's progress I can believe in.
The Wall Street Journal makes the supremely trenchant point that Cuba -- Cuba! -- is on the Human Rights Council. Well, sheesh, somebody should have just told the Obama Administration before they joined the Council. There's no telling how American presence could help improve the body...
(image from flickr user CharlesFred under a Creative Commons license)
Mark rightfully expressed dismay last month when the Israeli government signaled that it would not cooperate with a UN investigation into alleged crimes (on both sides) during the December 2008-January 2009 Operation Cast Lead, even though the mission was to be lead by a respected jurist, Richard Goldstone, on whom any claim of anti-Israel or anti-Semitic bias would, by all accounts, fall objectively flat. Israel's position hasn't changed, but Goldstone's team is saying that they will be moving forward with the investigation, even with the regrettable non-participation of the Israeli government.
Russia Today bemusedly reports something on which "Russia and Georgia have found themselves in rare agreement" -- a UN report on the security status in the disputed region of Abkhazia. The report recommends such outlandish steps as securing a ceasefire zone and calling for the UN's 129 unarmed military observers to monitor peace and stability.
My somewhat insouciant conclusion: if both Russia and Georgia think a UN report on something as contentious as Abkhazia is biased, well, then it pretty much must be fair.
Readers will also be reassured to know that Telecoms sans Frontieres, those technological humanitarians extraordinaires, have deployed to Pakistan to provide emergency telecommunications infrastructure.
(image from UNHCR)
Ban Ki Moon will visit Sri Lanka later this week and the Secretary General had this to say in advance of the trip.
"The task now facing the people of Sri Lanka is immense and requires all hands," he said, stressing the need for progress in three critical areas: immediate humanitarian relief; reintegration and reconstruction; and a sustainable and equitable political solution.
The task now facing the people of Sri Lanka is immense and requires all hands
Progress on all three of these fronts must move forward in parallel - and it must begin now, he stated.
Mr. Ban's Chief of Staff, Vijay Nambiar, is currently in the country and is engaged with relevant parties on how best to respond to the humanitarian situation of the large number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and initiate a process for early recovery and long-term reconciliation, rehabilitation and reconstruction.
I'll judge the trip a success if the outcome includes opening the internment camps to international aid agencies and the media.