Diplomacy and international organizations
-
Strenghtening the UN Interim Forces in Southern Lebanon. Decision making processes at the top
AFRI 2010, Volume XI
par , - 10 November 2010UN Security Council Resolution 1 701 has been criticized for failing to give sufficiently clear direction to peacekeepers in Lebanon. But the resolution was shaped by the need to find a diplomatic solution to the 2006 war. Initially, France and other Western powers assumed that a non-UN commanded international force would deploy to replace the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). This option was publicized by European leaders and Kofi Annan at the G8 summit in July 2006, and gradually gained the acceptance of the United States and Israel. A first draft Security Council resolution, drafted by France and the US, proposed such a force – but this was rejected by the Lebanese government. Thereafter, all parties came to accept a strengthened UNIFIL as the only politically viable post-war peacekeeping option. While some gestures were made to satisfy French and European military concerns about the force’s command structure – notably the creation of a special cell in New York to advise the UN on the mission –, the expanded UNIFIL remains a classic blue helmet operation. Unlike most UN missions, however, it does not support a viable political process – a fundamental flaw that the Security Council has not yet addressed. The history of UNIFIL’s expansion and reinforcement in 2006 thus demonstrates the political and operational constraints that the Council faces in defining robust peace operations.
-
The blank prose of the crime of aggression. An American approach
AFRI 2010, Volume XI
par - 21 September 2010This article deals with the elements of definitions of the crime of aggression adopted in February 2009 by an ad hoc Working group. This organ was created by the Assembly of State Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and its conclusions should be examined during the Review Conference of the Rome Statute to be held in spring 2010. In the author’s views, the propositions of the Working group, if ever adopted, would constitute a breach of several international norms and would violate American laws. It would disregard the principle of legality and the United Nations Charter. Politically, the success of the attempt could only face great powers hostility. For instance, if such a definition would have been in force for the last several decades, every US President could have been subjected to prosecution. The same could be said regarding heads of State and military leaders from other places. In sum, it is not reasonable for both ICC credibility and viability to enforce the Working group propositions.
-
Ten years after the Brahimi Report on UN peace operations. What are the outcomes of a decade of reforms?
AFRI 2010, Volume XI
par - 21 September 2010Reform is a structural state of the UN and of its adaptation to its environment. Since their inception, the United Nations are engaged in a constant reform, which stages are shaped by crises. This is particularly true in peacekeeping where the operations are an instrument that the framers of the UN Charter had not considered, but that are the UN’s most important and well-known activity today. The Brahimi Report structured the ongoing peacekeeping reform process since 2000, and became a major reference for the reports that ensued, including the last one (« New Horizon »). Thus, peacekeeping was professionalized and rules and procedures were established for operations’ conduct. However, has this decade-long reform process led to a common vision of Member States on the limits and challenges of UN peacekeeping ? Will all these efforts avoid the UN to go back to its bad habits and made it able to face the political constraints ?
-
The evolution of the diplomatic profession
AFRI 2009, Volume X
par - 9 January 2010The diplomatic profession cannot be limited to social activities, neither to a pure exercise of bilateral representation. This job develops itself today in a multipolar environment where negotiation takes a prominent part. Diplomacy is faced with two challenges: it is more and more often elaborated in a multilateral framework and deals with so-called transversal topics like the environment, energy, the struggle against terrorism or pandemics. In the troubled international context that we know, it is even more important than before to understand and to analyse the international changes, to assess the concerns of non-State actors, to communicate well, and to elaborate a « public diplomacy » for that purpose. The diplomat is expected more than before to go on the field and to take chances, because globalisation implies a dialogue which goes beyond the interstate framework. The transformations of the diplomat’s job do not alter the core elements of service to the State and dialogue between nations and cultures.
-
Variations on non-governmental organizations
AFRI 2008, volume IX
par - 24 July 2008The NGOs’ influence is outstanding in the humanitarian field, as well in the difficult question of intervention. The main NGOs are more and more professional as they face contemporary stakes : in the selection of their leaders, in their marketing, which is more and more aggressive, and for their financing process, depending on their priorities. NGOs are more and more instrumental for the States and for the parties to the conflicts in which they intervene – Kosovo, Afghanistan, Somalia … Accordingly, they are more and more subject to political manipulations. They will probably become, in the future, an element of State strategies, and even be created by the States – the GO-NGOs.
-
The WTO and the tribulations of the Doha Round
AFRI 2008, volume IX
par - 24 July 2008Despite the official name given to the Doha Round negotiations, designated as the Development Round, development matters are neither at the core of the Ministerial statement, nor at the core of the Geneva negotiations. The tribulations of this negotiation cycle proceed mainly from developing countries’ will to make the negotiations’ schedule comply with negotiations under the Doha Round, in order to make it an authentic development cycle, contrary to the forecasts of developed countries which rather focus on reinforcing its neo-liberal gist. The result is that the Doha Round is a place where the various actors’ strategies are confronted more than a place for transactions.
-
What is the use of the United Nations?
AFRI 2008, volume IX
par - 24 July 2008Without losing all hope in the UN, which is understood as a mere meeting place or a forum most of the time, one must acknowledge the challenges and inner contradictions it faces. Economy seems to be more and more of a problematic issue for the United Nations, who are losing their leading role to specialized institutions (the WMF, the WTO…) and are failing to implement their founding doctrines. The defence of human rights is challenged by a blatant lack of binding means. The UN is also painstakingly making its way between apparently contradictory principles: the sovereign equality of States, the right of people to dispose of themselves and the right of interference. Finally, one can also notice hardships in peace and international security.
-
NATO in Afghanistan: the Titanic’s uncertain future?
AFRI 2008, volume IX
par - 24 July 2008Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan has imposed itself as a blueprint for the invasion of Iraq two years later. Yet, as early as 2003, analysts had pointed out the illusory quality of what was presented to Western public opinions as a success. Actually, the progressive increase in the number of troops did not stop the military situation from degrading. This Western failure has three major causes: default of expertise, absence of coordination between Western countries and absence of means for reconstruction. The Taliban have proved to be dynamic adversaries when confronted with Western forces: having reconstituted their forces in Pakistan, they have quickly initiated the attack. Moreover, the regional context is not favourable to Westerners and can only worsen if the United States pursues an aggressive policy towards Iran or Pakistan, the two determining neighbours in the Afghan crisis evolution. In these circumstances, no perspective for a crisis outcome in the near term can be foreseen.
-
Death and resurrection of Moscow’s Mechanism
AFRI 2007, volume VIII
par - 20 March 2008The Vienna and Moscow conferences’ (respectively, 1989 and 1991) concluding documents form the basis of OSCE’s human dimension mechanisms. Both documents, though elaborated in different contexts, gave birth to the Vienna and Moscow Mechanisms. The former is a diplomatic consulting mechanism, which was quickly routinely used since 1991. The latter, which includes the possibility of forming experts’ missions to study questions related to the human dimension on one of the participating States’ territory, has only been exceptionally used. After a long phase during which the Moscow Mechanism seemed to have become outdated, it has finally been reactivated in 2002 towards Turkmenistan, which has allowed triggering an alarm signal with diplomatic consequences, by motivating the UN General Secretariat and OSCE to get closer to Turkmenistan’s authorities, towards a certain balance between incitation and pressure.
-
The European institutional response to questions raised by minorities. Gaps, overlaps, opportunities
AFRI 2007, volume VIII
par - 20 March 2008For many years, the normative and regulative action of OSCE, the Council of Europe and the European Union in the field of minority rights protection has allowed to prevent a number of interethnic conflicts from emerging. With time, a functional dichotomy has developed between the Council of Europe’s normative role, OSCE’s prevention and regulation initiatives, and the European Union’s role as a warrant. Yet, the evolution of societies, States, and minorities as well, has deeply changed the nature of the issue. The new member States are less receptive to the European institutions’ actions in this field, while the dialectics of « new minorities », relations between parent-State and host-State and random autonomist movements replace the traditional opposition between minorities and majorities.