The Vienna negotiations on the final status for Kosovo

The Vienna negotiations on the final status for Kosovo were an impossible project. It was clear at the outset that both parties would not be able to find common ground on the status issue. However, the talks focused on the practical issues of governance in Kosovo, such as decentralization, community rights and cultural heritage. It was thought that these could be addressed, initially at least, in a status‐neutral way. While the parties did not manage to agree on all or most of these problems, the UN Special Envoy, Martti Ahtisaari, generated a comprehensive proposal offering compromise solutions that should have been acceptable to both sides. The recommendation of the Special Envoy in favour of supervised independence was deliberately separated from the comprehensive proposal. It was thought that the UN Security Council would at least endorse the proposal, even if it was ultimately unwilling to pronounce itself in favour of independence. The issue of status might then be settled outside the Council. However, when it appeared to some states on the Council that endorsement of the substantive Ahtisaari plan would in fact be tantamount to acceptance of independence, this avenue was closed.     

The Kosovo—and Montenegro—effect

The post‐communist space continues to generate new internationally recognized states while incubating unrecognized but de facto states. Recent movement in the Balkans—the independence of Montenegro and the arduous deliberations over Kosovo's future —have variously encouraged other secessionist people and would‐be states, particularly in the former Soviet Union. This article analyses the impact of developments in Montenegro and Kosovo on several levels, including: their usage by de facto states; the reactions to them by central governments; Russian policy; and western and intergovernmental responses to these challenges. The article further argues that the Russian position on Kosovo and on the so‐called ‘frozen’ or unsettled conflicts neighbouring Russia could ultimately backfire on it. Western policy towards both Kosovo and on the post‐Soviet frozen conflicts will be best served by signalling to Russia, irrespective of the exact form of Kosovo's independence, that neither its own interests nor broader western‐Russian relations are served by using or reacting to any Kosovo ‘precedent’.     

The Rambouillet Conference on Kosovo

The Rambouillet process sought to re-establish autonomous governance andhuman rights for Kosovo, under the protection of the international community. However, the Kosovo authorities had committed themselves to outright independence while the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia consistently rejected any international interest in the affairs of Kosovo, which it considered an entirely domestic matter. To reconcile these irreconcilable views, an initial attempt was made to establish self-governance for Kosovo for an interim period, without touching upon the issue of the status of that territory.
As the Rambouillet conference progressed, the Contact Group moved significantly towards the FRY/Serb demand of expressly confirming its continued sovereignty and territorial integrity over Kosovo. While this and other concessions did not help to engage the FRY in the negotiating process, itjeopardized the acceptance of the agreement by Kosovo. The negotiations werebacked by the threat of the use of force, which could only be innovatively justified by reference to the doctrine of humanitarian intervention, inasmuch as there existed no formal Security Council mandate. However, the credibility of that threat was initially undermined by splits within the Contact Group during the actual negotiations, which also extended to implementation of the agreementupon acceptance by NATO. Moreover, the negotiations were hampered by thefact that one of the three principal international negotiators openly sided withone of the parties and essentially represented it. Encouraged by these divisions, Belgrade manoeuvred itself into a position of direct confrontation with NATO, which could now genuinely argue that the grave humanitarian emergency in Kosovo could only be addressed through acceptance of the Rambouilletaccord by Yugoslavia, even if sustained military attacks were required to achieve that end.     

The UN and the African Union in Mali and beyond: a shotgun wedding?

The United Nations (UN) and the African Union (AU) have collaborated in building a viable African Peace and Security Architecture and have worked together in a number of armed conflicts over the past decade. Examples include the peace operations in Burundi and Somalia, and the hybrid peace operation in Sudan's Darfur region which is perhaps the most prominent illustration of this collaboration. Although the UN Security Council authorized the intervention in Libya, which was approved by leading regional organizations (the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Gulf Cooperation Council), it was opposed initially by the AU although the three African states in the Security Council voted for it. Relations cooled as a result and have grown colder still as the UN snubbed the AU and its initial efforts to engage in post‐conflict stabilization in Mali. While the AU sought to prove itself as a capable security provider and partner on the continent with its operation AFISMA, France's Opération Serval and the UN's peace operation for Mali, MINUSMA, bypassed the African Union. This article explores the underlying fault‐lines between the two organizations by examining interactions between the UN and AU since the latter's launch in 2002, but focusing on the Mali case. The fault‐lines emerging from the analysis are different capabilities, risk‐averse vs risk‐assuming approaches to casualties, diverging geopolitics and leadership rivalry.     

The Security Council: Behind the Scenes

Following the publication of the various enquiries into the circumstances of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, there has developed a view that the UN lacks the ability to manage complex missions. With particular reference to the case of the UN Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR), the author pays special attention to the oversight of peacekeeping missions and the crucial role of the UN Security Council, the Secretary General and senior officials in the Secretariat and asks whether the Council is sufficiently equipped at ambassadorial level to address professional military issues. Does the Council have a right and a duty to know the details of peacekeeping missions in order to take decisions? A culture of secrecy has developed in the Security Council and it is common practice now for the Council's important debates to be held in secret. This means that its decision‐making is unaccountable. The author also questions the lack of enquiry into British policy towards Rwanda in the Security Council between 1993 and 1994.     

The new politics of protection? Côte d'Ivoire,Libya and the responsibility to protect

In March 2011, the UN Security Council authorized the use of force to protect civilians in Libya. This was the first time that the Council has ever authorized the invasion of a functioning state for such purposes. International society's relatively decisive responses to recent crises in Côte d'Ivoire and Libya has provoked significant commentary, suggesting that something has changed about the way the world responds to violence against civilians. Focusing on these two cases, this article examines the changing practice of the UN Security Council. It argues that we are seeing the emergence of a new politics of protection, but that this new politics has been developing over the past decade. Four things are new about this politics of protection: protecting civilians from harm has become a focus for international engagement; the UN Security Council has proved itself willing to authorize the use of force for protection purposes; regional organizations have begun to play the role of ‘gatekeeper’; and major powers have exhibited a determination to work through the Security Council where possible. However, the cases of Côte d'Ivoire and Libya also help to highlight some key challenges that might halt or reverse progress. Notably, states differ in the way they interpret mandates; questions are being asked about the UN's authority to act independently of specific Security Council authorizations; the overlap of regional organizations sometimes sends conflicting messages to the Security Council; and there remains a range of difficult operational questions about how to implement protection mandates. With these in mind, this article concludes with some suggestions about how the future challenges might be navigated in order to maintain the progress that has been made in the past decade.     

Gender as national interest at the UN Security Council

The United Nations Security Council has often been identified as a key actor responsible for the uneven trajectory of the international Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. It is, however, the Council members—who also seek to advance their national interest at this intergovernmental forum—that are pivotal in the Council's deliberations and shape its policies. Yet, little attention has been paid to this aspect of deliberative politics at the Council in feminist scholarship on WPS. This article seeks to address this gap in the literature. It notes that gender has increasingly become part of foreign policy interests of UN member states, as evidenced by practices such as invocation of ‘women's rights’ and ‘gender equality’ in broader international security policy discourse. The article demonstrates that this national interest in gender has featured in WPS‐related developments at the Security Council. Using specific illustrations, it examines three sets of member states: the permanent and non‐permanent members as well as non‐members invited to take part in Council meetings. The main argument of this article relates to highlighting member states’ interests underpinning their diplomatic activities around WPS issues in the Security Council, with the aim to present a fuller understanding of political engagements with UNSCR 1325, the first WPS resolution, in its institutional home.     

Right-Sizing International Criminal Justice: The Hybrid Experiment at the Special Court for Sierra Leone

In the decade since their establishment, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) have made great advancements in the development of international criminal justice. Nonetheless, the ad hoc tribunals have been roundly criticized for their expense, inefficiency and slowness. When the Security Council decided to set up a court for Sierra Leone, it wanted to find a new model. The hybrid Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) is an effort to right-size international criminal justice: it has a pared-down budget, tightly focused mandate, limited time of operation, and a lack of institutional links to the Security Council. The negotiations over these issues led to repeated clashes between the UN Secretary General and the Security Council, with the Security Council consistently favouring a more modestly sized court. The SCSL has much to recommend it but its promise is shadowed by the paltry resources available to it. In its efforts to avoid creating another over-sized tribunal, the Security Council swung too far in the other direction. The lofty goals of ending impunity and providing justice demand more than a court on the cheap.     

Women and Peace Building: Local Perspectives on Opportunities and Barriers

The UN Security Council Resolution 1325 has made strong provisions to include women in peace‐building interventions and actions. This is, however, rarely observed in practice beyond local‐level activities. This article discusses new qualitative evidence on the opportunities and barriers to women's participation in peace‐building processes, based on a comparative analysis of case studies conducted in Afghanistan, Liberia, Nepal and Sierra Leone. The findings show that women's engagement in peace‐building activities, beyond their immediate social relations, is restricted by institutional, economic, cultural and social obstacles. These barriers prevent the realization of gender equality objectives in peace‐building initiatives. Moreover, local understandings of peace typically place family relations at the centre of how women engage with peace‐building processes, and how other community members perceive women's roles in peace building.     

Humanitarian Intervention After Kosovo: Emergent Norm,Moral Duty or the Coming Anarchy?

In March 1999 NATO justified the use of force against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on the grounds that it was necessary to avert an impending humanitarian catastrophe. This action was so controversial because it was the first time since the founding of the United Nations that a group of states, acting without explicit Security Council authority, defended a breach of the sovereignty rule primarily on humanitarian grounds. This article reflects on the legality and legitimacy of humanitarian intervention in international society by reviewing five books that explore the strengths and weaknesses of the contemporary legal and moral framework governing humanitarian intervention. The article identifies three broad positions: first, there is an emergent norm of humanitarian intervention; second, humanitarian intervention is seen as a moral duty; and finally, the claim that humanitarian intervention outside Security Council authority should not be legitimated because it threatens the principles of international order. Books reviewed: Danesh Sarooshi, The United Nations and the development of collective security: the delegation by the UN Security Council of its Chapter VII powers Francis Kofi Abiew, The evolution of the doctrine and practice of humanitarian inter‐vention Neal Riemer, (ed.) Protection against genocide: mission impossible? Stephen A. Garrett, Doing good and doing well: an examination of humanitarian inter‐vention Albrecht Schnabel and Ramesh Thakur, (eds.) Kosovo and the challenge of humanitarian intervention: selective indignation, collective action, and international citizenship     

The influence of Operation Allied Force on the development of the jus ad bellum

Some have argued that NATO's air campaign against Serbia in 1999 was manifestly unlawful, others that it was an entirely legitimate humanitarian intervention. A third position suggests that the intervention while unlawful, in the strictest sense, was nonetheless legitimate. Here, a customary law right to intervene was seen as emerging, permitting action to prevent a mass atrocity crime, even when UN Security Council authorization was absent. Did Operation Allied Force, then, add to the case for the emergence of this new customary norm? While the 1990s was a decade of humanitarian intervention, the decade since has been dominated by international action against terrorism and, of course, the effects of the highly controversial US and British led invasion of Iraq. In this context, there is scant evidence that a customary right or obligation to intervene for humanitarian reasons has crystallized since 1999. But if Kosovo achieved anything, it was to prompt greater attention to the merits of the argument in favour of a ‘responsibility to protect’. If NATO's 1999 action were repeated today in a similarly unauthorized manner it would still be unlawful, but it would perhaps be seen as a legitimate means to preventing a mass atrocity crime.     

A chronic protection problem: the DPRK and the Responsibility to Protect

The Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea (DPRK) is arguably the world's most chronic abuser of human rights. In an unprecedented move, a Commission of Inquiry established by the UN's Human Rights Council accused the DPRK government of systematic violations of human rights amounting to crimes against humanity. In so doing, the Commission succeeded in putting human rights in the DPRK on the global agenda. Within months the UN's General Assembly and Security Council had joined the human rights body in examining the issue. This article explains the emergence of this new engagement with human rights in the DPRK, showing its relation to the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ principle. It charts the growing sense of frustration felt at the lack of progress on human rights in DPRK and shows how this was manifested in the General Assembly's decision to pursue the Commission's recommendations and call on the Security Council to take concrete steps. Despite this, however, the article shows that there are powerful obstacles in the way of a more robust international approach to human rights in the DPRK and counsels a less confrontational approach focused on engaging China and building trust within the Security Council.     

Clarity or ambiguity? The withdrawal clause of UN Security Council Resolution 242

Today the international community seems at a loss as to how to transact peace between Israel and Palestine (and Syria). UN Security Council Resolution 242 of 1967 provides the principles for that peace. Yet there has always been a perceived ambiguity about its withdrawal clause. Diplomatic and UN records show clearly what the Security Council intended in Resolution 242. Nine of 15 members wanted total withdrawal, and the minority saw the virtue of small adjustments to the 1949 Armistice Line to accommodate Israel's demand for ‘secure and recognized’ borders. Every Security Council member upheld the overarching principle, ‘the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force.’ Those who drafted Resolution 242 seem not to have checked that its terms were consonant with the Fourth Geneva Convention, even though they recognized the Convention applied. The Convention renders it illegal for those under occupation to agree terms with the Occupying Power which infringe the rights and protections of the Convention. Since the Convention remains in force until the end of occupation, no peace agreement which includes the adjustment of borders or ceding territory may be concluded until after a full withdrawal has taken place—a requirement fully consonant with Resolution 242's ‘inadmissibility’ principle, and removing any doubt regarding the requirement for a full Israeli withdrawal. To comply with it themselves and to avoid misapprehension, Quartet members must tell Israel, Syria and Palestine that they cannot recognize a peace agreement which would violate the Convention's terms.     

Libya and Syria: R2P and the spectre of the swinging pendulum

This article examines recent UN Security Council deliberations over events in Libya and Syria and in particular assesses the extent to which Council members sought to justify their positions and voting behaviour by reference to the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P). It shows how limited invocations of R2P were with regard to Libya, before proceeding to demonstrate how, somewhat paradoxically, R2P‐sceptics such as Russia and China subsequently drew upon concerns over the manner in which NATO implemented its UN‐mandate in Libya to cast doubts over R2P during debates over Syria. Contemplating the implications of the Libyan and Syrian cases for the future of R2P, the article concludes by arguing that the concept's international standing can best be preserved through the excision of its most coercive elements; R2P should be reconstituted as a standard of acceptable sovereign behaviour and a mechanism geared towards the provision of international guidance and support, while decisions over coercive military intervention, inevitably infused with considerations of strategic interest, should be made outside the R2P framework.     

The effectiveness of UN and EU sanctions: lessons for the twenty‐first century

A fractious UN Security Council has contributed to the decline in effectiveness of a number of UN sanctions adopted in recent years. Yet they remain a tool of the Council, for example with regard to Libya in 2011. The challenge is to understand how UN, country (US) and regional sanctions (EU, AU, Arab League) can be meaningful in such a climate. The four books reviewed make various suggestions, from clarity of mandate to better evaluating impact. Mikael Eriksson's Targeting peace seeks to evaluate the complexity of the sanctions policy process. He argues that effectiveness comes partly from understanding politics (episodes of sanctions), but also from institutional reform—‘black box’ processes, as he calls them. Sanctions are more successful as part of a wider package. Clara Portela in European Union sanctions and foreign policy examines the use of sanctions as a political tool, including the suspension of development aid and the withdrawal of trade privileges. She shows how the EU plays an important role in signalling and constraining when UN sanctions are weak. For example, informal measures like the 2003 EU decision to invite only dissidents to national day receptions in Havanna resulted in the release of detainees that it had aimed for. The high rate of success of development aid cut‐off stands in sharp contrast with EU Common Foreign and Security Policy sanctions. The unintended consequence of good intentions is also highlighted by both Portela and Eriksson—Zimbabwe in particular but also Côte d'Ivoire and Iran pose similar challenges. The imposition of EU or UN sanctions is easier than reaching consensus to lift them, although events in Burma (Myanmar) in 2012 have resulted in smooth suspensions of most US and EU sanctions. All four books show that targeted sanctions cannot be seen as stand‐alone measures, nor assessed in isolation. Sanctions are multi‐faceted and require detailed assessment of political context, episode and institutional process.     

Australia and the 1947 United Nations Consular Commission to Indonesia

ABSTRACT

The Netherlands’ colonial empire was a source of wealth, pride and prestige, being seen by some as an essential element of Dutch identity and the key to the Netherlands’ status as a European power. The most prized of the empire’s components was Indonesia. When nationalists declared the independence of the Republic of Indonesia on 17 August 1945, Dutch colonialists refused to take it seriously, but they soon discovered that the Indonesians were willing to fight for their newly-declared freedom. They also found that international opinion, especially as expressed in the new United Nations (UN), defended the Republic’s right to exist. Australia has been acknowledged as an important contributor to international recognition of Indonesian independence through its actions in the UN Security Council and its membership of the UN Committee of Good Offices (CGO). This article, however, focuses on a lesser-known part of the story: Australia’s role in the UN Consular Commission, established at the same time as the CGO. Although the Commission was active for only a short period in late 1947, it deserves recognition on a number of counts: for its pioneering work in UN peacekeeping; as an early example of Australian diplomacy in its region; and for how an examination of its activities, and the responses of the Dutch, the Indonesians and others, can be useful for understanding the course of the Indonesian independence struggle in the years that followed.     

Libya and the state of intervention

The international response to the crisis in Libya has been remarkably quick and decisive. Where many other cases of mass atrocity crimes have failed to generate sufficient and timely political will to protect civilians at risk, the early response to Libya in 2011 has shown that the United Nations Security Council is able to give effect to the ‘responsibility to protect’ norm. While not an implementing party in a legal sense, the Australian government has taken a forward-leaning diplomatic stance in helping to mobilise broad support for addressing this crisis. In light of the ongoing political controversy over armed humanitarian intervention, the Libya case shows that state-based advocacy for R2P matters, given the on-going need to bolster the legitimacy of the principle. A discussion of Canberra's diplomatic activity is a prelude to an examination of the proceedings of the UN Security Council and the two key resolutions, the second of which gave effect to the forcible action. The article then considers three dimensions of the Security Council's implementation of the responsibility to protect: the language of the resolutions and the intriguing absence of a textual reference to the international community's responsibility to act; the expansive mandate for civilian protection in Security Council resolution 1973; and the first unanimous referral to the International Criminal Court, with novel support from the United States of America.     

In the footsteps of George Orwell: Patrick McCarthy as Italian correspondent for Tribune, 1978–1980

Abstract

This paper examines Italy's contribution to the United Nations (UN) and how effective this has been in protecting Italian interests. The first part outlines the areas where Italy's input to the UN has been most relevant in terms of ideas, policies and participation, such as for example the campaign to ban the death penalty and its participation in collective security through participation in UN peacekeeping missions. This paper also highlights the critical role that Italy's long-standing positions on UN reform and the enlargement of the Security Council have played in defining Italy's status in the international community, and asks whether there have been significant changes in the traditional Italian position and its loyalty to the UN and, more generally, to the multilateral system. The second part analyzes the origin and rationale of Italy's policies toward the UN and their effectiveness in defining and defending the national interest. It explores the idea that these policies have been determined by the ‘institutional multilateralism’ of the Italian Constitution, the ‘genetic multilateralism’ of the Italian society and the ‘forced multilateralism’ of Italy as a middle-range power. Italy's positions on the UN and its reform are examined in the light of claims that Italy's foreign policy reflects its ‘complex of exclusion’ and presumed lack of influence in the ‘major stakes’ in world diplomacy.     

The invasion of Iraq: what are the morals of the story?

It is uncontroversial that the invasion and occupation of Iraq involved the following errors: the misinterpretation of intelligence; the underestimation of the number of troops requisite for law and order; the disbanding of the Iraqi army; and indiscriminate debaathification of the civil service. The first error was one of imagination rather than virtue; the others were caused by ‘callousness”, impatience, and consequent imprudence. These vices were partly responsible for massive civilian casualties, which many wrongly assume to teach the fundamentally erroneous character of the invasion. Nonetheless, we should beware such moral flaws in tomorrow's policy‐makers and renounce the managerial mentality that fosters them. Another lesson is that, in so far as nation‐rebuilding requires substantial and long‐term commitments, it must command the support of the nation‐builder's domestic electorate; and to do that, it must be able to justify itself in terms of the national interest. From this we should not infer the further lesson that morality's reach into foreign policy is limited, since, according to Thomist ethics, the pursuit of the national interest can itself be moral. Finally, one lesson that we should not learn from Iraq is never again to violate the letter of international law and intervene militarily in a sovereign state without Security Council authorization. The law's authority can be undermined as much by the UN's failure to enforce it, as by states taking it into their own hands. It is seriously problematic that the current international legal system denies the right of individual states to use military force unilaterally except in self‐defence, while reserving the enforcement of international law to a body, whose capacity to act is hamstrung by the right of veto. Given this situation, military intervention without Security Council authorization could be morally justified on certain conditions.     

Multilateral sanctions against terror suspects and the violation of due process standards

The UN and EU sanctions regimes against suspected terrorists at first clearly violated commonly accepted due process standards. Both organizations gradually reformed the procedures that regulated which individuals and entities were subject to sanctions, yet the UN procedures in particular still evince important shortcomings. While international law scholars have debated how the sanctions regimes must be designed to be consistent with international law, political science scholars have, as yet, largely held back from looking into why the regimes evolved in the way they did. This article suggests that court decisions and proceedings and, in the case of the UN, falling commitment from member states, have prompted the UN Security Council and the Council of the EU to implement limited reforms. However, courts did not challenge the sanctions regimes per se and there was no substantial pressure from civil society actors. Moreover, owing to the competences and working methods of the UN Security Council and the Council of the EU, powerful member states could fairly easily deflect reform proposals from disaffected states and other UN and EU bodies.