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as part of
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quarterly
Newsletter
issue 2 > 2015
will the high-level
independent panel
manage to revitalize
a new generation of
un peace operations?
special feature
a young graduate
in nuremberg
report
acuns activities at the
13th UN congress
on crime prevention
and criminal justice
Another spoiler of
UN peacekeeping in the Middle East: ISIS
connect with us
Q > contents
quarterly
feature one
will the high-level Independent panel
manage to revitalise a new generation of
UN Peace operations? | 3
Cedric de Coning | Senior Research Fellow, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI),
Senior Advisor to the African Center for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
special feature
a young graduate in nuremberg | 5
Yves Beigbeder | Nuremberg Tribunal, 1946
Former UN Senior Official, and lecturer for UNITAR, Geneva, Switzerland
special report
ACUNS’ activities at the 13th
united Nations congress on crime
prevention and criminal justice | 5
Milica Dimitrijevic | Collaborator, ACUNS Vienna Liaison Office
feature two
another spoiler of un peacekeeping
in the middle east: isis | 7
Swadesh Rana | Senior Fellow, World Policy Institute, New York
AM15
the un at 70: guaranteeing
security and justice
AM15
k e ynote sp eaker
Mrs. Fatou Bensouda
Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court
John W. Holmes Mem orial lecture
Abiodun Williams
President, The Hague Institute for Global Justice
and Chair, ACUNS
View their biographies on page 10 >
Thursday – Saturday
> June 11-13, 2015
The Hague Institute for Global Justice and the
International Institute of Social Studies
The Netherlands
welcome to acuns
starting
point
up2date
news & opinions
Jam-packed and full of energy
secretariat
staff
Much like the healthy foods we seek out to fuel our bodies
as we go about our lives, ACUNS is actively organizing and
taking part in events and activities that fuel our minds
and engage our expertise to help shape a better world.
Alistair Edgar
Executive Director, ACUNS
Associate Professor,
Wilfrid Laurier University
Dr. Alistair Edgar, ACUNS
Before getting to my usual discussion of ACUNS projects and programs, please indulge us here
as we do a little tooting of our own horn – to tell you that for the second time, the ACUNS
Newsletter has been awarded a Hermes Creative Awards’ ‘Gold Award’ by the Association of
Marketing and Communication Professionals. Congratulations and thanks must go to everyone
at the Laurier CPAM team for their tremendous imagination and dedicated support in designing
and producing this award-winning publication!
T > 226.772.3167
E > aedgar@wlu.ca
Brenda Burns,
Co-ordinator
T > 226.772.3142
F > 226.772.0016
E > bburns@wlu.ca
Readers will see that we have ‘over-packed’ this issue of the Newsletter, to include three
articles and one special report reflecting the theme of the Annual Meeting – security and justice
– as well as the historical dimension of this year as the 70th anniversary of the founding of
the United Nations. Yves Beigbeder gives us his thoughts on his quite unique experiences as a
young legal assistant at the Nuremburg Tribunal; Swadesh Rana discusses the challenges posed
to UN peacekeeping in the Middle East by ‘spoilers’, in particular by ISIS; and Cedric de Coning
takes a careful and critical look at the work and prospects of the High-Level Independent Panel
on UN peace operations led by Jose Ramos-Horta, whose final report is expected to be released
in June, when our Annual Meeting will be talking about exactly these challenges (amongst
others!). The special report comes to us from Milica Dimitrijevic of the ACUNS Vienna Liaison
Office, who along with soon-retiring Michael Platzer, attended the 13th UN Congress on
Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, in Doha, Qatar as representatives of ACUNS where
they organized several panels and spoke to issues including femicide, education, ‘delivering
as one’, and the contributions of science and religion to the post-2015 agenda. The Vienna
team will be at The Hague, as a Workshop Panel on youth contributions to UN policies.
Denoja Kankesan,
Administrative Assistant
T > 226.772.3121
E > dkankesan@wlu.ca
Board members
2014-2015
Chair-Elect: Lorraine Elliott
Australian National University
We have a very full AM15 program at The Hague Institute for Global Justice and the
International Institute of Social Studies, with four plenary sessions, two special lunchtime
panels, thirty-three workshop panels, two evening receptions, the Opening Keynote Address and
the John Holmes Memorial Lecture. Immediately preceding the AM15, members attending also
may choose to join us for a Thursday afternoon “pre-launch” presentation by the Commission
on Global Security, Justice & Governance. On behalf of the ACUNS Board of Directors, I am
pleased to give an especial welcome to our colleagues from the Chinese, Korean and Japanese
UN studies associations who have made a special effort to join us, and who will be making
a number of contributions to our AM15 proceedings.
Chair: Abiodun Williams
The Hague Institute for Global Justice
Vice Chairs: Roger Coate
Georgia College and State University
Melissa Labonte
Fordham University
m e mb e rs
Altogether, it is enough to keep our secretariat team busy – but we are planning ahead, as
always. By the time we meet in The Hague, we are intending to be able to announce the dates
for the 2016 Annual Meeting which will be held next June at Fordham University in New York
City, thanks to the initiative of ACUNS Vice-Chair Melissa Labonte. Looking further ahead,
we can tell our members, that we are planning the 2017 Annual Meeting for South Korea,
in collaboration with our KACUNS colleagues and strongly supported by CANUNS and JAUNS.
Thomas Biersteker,
The Graduate Institute, Geneva
Mary Farrell,
University of Greenwich
Kirsten Haack,
Northumbria University
If you have not already seen the Call for Applications, the 2015 ACUNS-ASIL Summer
Workshop is to be held a little later than usual, in October, and will be hosted in Oslo by
the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI). Thanks to Cedric de Coning, Kari
Osland and everyone at NUPI for their support in making this happen. Cedric and NUPI have
contributed one of the feature articles to this issue of the Newsletter, reflecting in part the
subject matter of the 2015 Workshop as well as an important part of NUPI’s expertise. Given the
timing, even before the 2015 workshop has taken place, we will be putting together the pieces
for the 2016 ACUNS-ASIL Summer Workshop, which I am pleased to report will be hosted by
Vesselin Popovski at O.P. Jindal Global University in Sonipat, north of New Delhi, India.
Sukehiro Hasegawa,
Hosei University
Margaret Karns,
University of Dayton
Nanette Svenson,
Tulane University
Last but definitely not least, are you a potential host institution for the ACUNS Secretariat,
2018-23? The Board of Directors invites interested institutions to contact the Secretariat
directly, or any member of the Board, with questions and expressions of interest.
A C U N S q uart e rly n e wsl e tt e r
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acuns . org 2
raising
high
expectations
Feature
story
will the
high-level
independent
panel
manage to
revitalize
a new
generation
of
un peace
operations?
3
> c e d r i c d e co n i n g
senior research fellow,
Norwegian institute of
international Affairs (NUPI)
senior advisor to the
african center for
the constructive resolution
of disputes (ACCORD)
the un secretary-general appointed a High-Level Independent
Panel to review UN peace operations in October 2014. The Panel is
expected to publish its report in June 2015. The Panel is led by
Nobel Peace Laureate and former President of Timor Leste, Jose
Ramos-Horta. With 17 members it has a broad geographical
spread and a wide range of experiences, including former special
representatives, force commanders, ambassadors, scholars and civil
society leaders. The last such major external review of peacekeeping
operations was undertaken in 2000 and led by Lahkdar Brahimi.
The Brahimi report had a considerable impact on the direction of
peacekeeping operations, even though many of its recommendations
have not been implemented. It is thus not surprising that the
Ramos-Horta report has raised similar high expectations.
One significant difference between these two reports is that the
Ramos-Horta panel have been tasked with assessing both peacekeeping
operations and special political missions. This expanded focus
reflects a significant shift in the orientation of UN peacekeeping
from conflict resolution to conflict management. A decade ago, most
UN peacekeepers were engaged in post-conflict peace agreement
implementation missions in countries like Sierra Leone, Burundi,
Liberia and Sudan. Today, approximately two thirds of the UN’s
peacekeepers are deployed amidst ongoing conflict in missions
where there is ‘no peace to keep’. Over this same period the UN has
developed a significant operational political and peacemaking capacity.
As a result, a division of work has emerged where UN peacekeeping
missions are increasingly limited to containing violence, whilst
UN special political missions and special envoys are tasked to
seek enduring political solutions.
feature one
the panel is likely to emphasize
that force can only be
meaningfully applied in a
peace operations context
if it is part of a strategy
to achieve a peaceful outcome.
t
he missions in CAR (MINUSCA), the DRC (MONUSCO) and Mali
(MINUSMA), together with an earlier generation example in Haiti
(MINUSTAH), are indicative of this shift and represent a new
category of UN stabilization operations. These missions are tasked
to protect a government and its people against aggressors identified
by the UN Security Council, and in the case of the Force Intervention
Brigade in eastern DRC, to undertake offensive operations to forcefully
disarm the aggressors. These stabilization missions should not,
however, be misunderstood as military solutions - they should rather
be seen as part of a larger strategy to proactively shape the security
environment in order to create space for political solutions.
In light of these developments it is thus not surprising that the
most important issue that the Ramos-Horta Panel will have to consider
and provide guidance on is how far we can stretch UN peacekeeping
along the use of force trajectory, before the core principles of UN
peacekeeping – consent, impartiality and minimum use of force –
lose its relevance? The Panel is likely to emphasize that force can only
be meaningfully applied in a peace operations context if it is part of
a strategy to achieve a peaceful outcome. This raises the question,
however, of who is tasked with overseeing the execution of such an
over-arching strategy and ensuring system-wide UN coherence? Is it
necessary to update the UN’s integrated approach and One UN policies
to reflect these new developments? And will the Panel speak out on
the potential merging of the UN Secretariat’s departments of political
affairs and peacekeeping operations, to create a new integrated,
geographically organized peace and security department?
Another closely related issue the Panel is expected to give guidance
on is the degree to which the financing of the UN’s peace and security
work has been skewed towards peacekeeping. Currently the UN’s
peacekeeping operations cost almost 9 billion USD annually, whilst less
than a billion is allocated to early warning, prevention, peacemaking
and peacebuilding. This imbalance is untenable, but sustained by the
practice of using assessed contributions for peacekeeping operations.
The Panel may recommend that special political missions, including
special envoys, should also be funded using assessed contributions
because their contribution is equally critical to maintaining
international peace and security. At the same time, and to the relief
of the major contributors to assessed contributions, the Panel may
question the size of UN peacekeeping missions, and especially the
causal assumptions behind the number of peacekeepers and the
expanding comprehensiveness of mandates. The Panel may argue
for a return to the basics, with a more narrow focus on the political
and security dimensions of peacekeeping.
Other important issues the Panel is likely to address are the
critical role of gender in peace and security, the role of state-society
relations and the strategic importance of partnerships with regional
organizations. On gender, peace and security the Panel is likely to
coordinate closely with the review of Security Council resolution 1325,
and offer recommendations for increasing the number of women in
peacekeeping and special political missions, including especially in
senior positions; stronger action against sexual abuse and exploitation
and more resources for combatting conflict related sexual violence.
A C U N S q uart e rly n e wsl e tt e r
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two
thirds
of the UN’s peacekeepers are deployed
amidst ongoing conflict in missions
where there is ‘no peace to keep.’
On state-society relations the Panel - that made a special effort to
include civil society in its regional consultations - may call for a more
people’s oriented approach to peace operations, to counter the UN
tendency to benchmark the withdrawal of peace operations against the
improved capacity of State institutions. Such an approach can include
benchmarks that monitor the progress of peace operations against
improvements in the perceptions of safety and wellbeing of the people
the UN is tasked to protect, rather than only monitoring improvements
in the capacity of the state to provide safety and security.
On strategic partnerships, the most important regional relationship
for the UN is its relationship with the African Union (AU). African
capacities are an important resource for UN peacekeeping, currently
contributing approximately 45% of the UN’s uniformed personnel.
UN support is a critical enabler for AU operations, and the UN is an
important exit strategy partner for the AU. The effectiveness of both
the UN and the AU are thus mutually interdependent on several levels.
At the strategic level the Panel could encourage the UN and AU to
foster a common narrative that is mutually re-enforcing and respectful
of each other’s roles. At the operational level the Panel can recommend
that the UN and AU should develop mechanisms to ensure strategic
guidance and joint guidelines on transitions, so that it becomes easier
for both organizations to involve each other from the earliest stages
in assessments, planning, coordination mechanisms, mission support,
benchmarks and evaluation.
More efforts are needed to creatively and innovatively find ways
to support African peace operations. For instance, the Panel can
recommend that the UN Department of Field Service make some of its
capabilities available to the AU, including its Brindisi and Kampala
logistical depots; include the AU in some on-call procurement
arrangements, for instance strategic airlift; and partner with the
AU in developing essential mission support planning and managing
capabilities in the AU Commission and AU missions.
Most important, however, is the issue of making use of UN assessed
contributions to support AU operations. The Panel would be amiss
if it does not come out in support of the UN supporting those AU
operations that are critical for maintaining international peace
and security. African peace operations represent regional and local
responses to global problems. Most African conflicts are global in the
sense that they are heavily influenced, if not driven, by external factors
like the international agenda of Islamic extremists and the global
war on terror; the exploitation of natural resources by multinationals;
capital flight facilitated and solicited by the international banking
system, and transnational organized crime, driven by markets in the
West for narcotics, human trafficking, timber and illegally caught fish.
Effective African peace operations thus represent
a significant contribution to the global common
good and prevent the UN, as a last resort, from
being prematurely drawn into a stabilization role.
*Cedric de Coning is a senior research fellow with the Norwegian Institute
of International Affairs (NUPI) and a senior advisor to the African Center
for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD).
acuns . org 4
a young graduate
in nuremberg
SPECIAL
FEATURE
I worked at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial as an assistant to my uncle Henri Donnedieu de Vabres, the French judge,
from March to August 1946. The judge needed some help and he called on two nephews in succession to Nuremberg.
I was the second one, a recent law graduate (the French ‘licence en droit’) aged 22. I was asked to summarize French
verbatim records of the hearings, delivered daily in four languages, on seven defendants. They included Hans Frank,
originally a lawyer, the Governor-General of Poland, the “Butcher of Poland”. I wrote a short article in the French weekly
‘Réforme’ (25 May 1946) on his unique guilty plea of 18 April 1946: a converted Catholic, he said that he was possessed
by a deep sense of guilt. Baldur von Schirach, the Nazi youth leader, but also the Vienna Gauleiter, was another of my
“clients” entrusted to me by my uncle in view of my (then) strong interests in scouting. In his testimony in May 1946,
he said that he was always tolerant. He learned about the gas chambers and massive exterminations only in 1944.
He concluded: “Hitler is a murderer. Auschwitz must mark the end of racism. It is a shame in the German history”.
My summaries were dictated to French
secretaries, older than me, who wondered
whether I was up to the job. My work was
in the back office but I was allowed occasionally
to be present on important occasions during a
Tribunal’s session.
This was my first job.
•••
the trial was set in a destroyed Nuremberg,
where only the restored Tribunal looked like
an oasis of order and justice. Coming from a
France not yet recovered from its defeat, German
occupation and restrictions, the Tribunal set
in the American zone of Germany was to me a
place of luxury of all goods we still missed in my
country. French participation in the trial suffered
from the lack of adequate financial resources,
available documentation and the shortage of
qualified jurists: the French judges had almost
no legal staff and the French prosecution staff
was meagre in comparison with US and British
delegations. Transportation from Paris to
Nuremberg was provided by the US military,
and British cars took the French judges
on excursions.
There was a contrast between the dramatic
solemnity of the trial sternly and ably led by its
British President, Sir Geoffrey Lawrence, the rows
of the defendants, former powerful Nazi leaders,
the smooth American operational efficiency, and
the offer of evening distractions and week-end
tours. Among the gifted interpreters who initiated
the new “simultaneous interpretation” technique,
I remember the Russian interpreter who forgot
his stuttering when he spoke to the microphone.
5
acuns . org I was lodged in a requisitioned house in
the near suburbs of Nuremberg together with
Donnedieu and Robert Falco, his alternate judge
and their wives. Donnedieu was a former professor
of criminal law and an eminent specialist in
international law. His lack of judicial experience
was somewhat compensated by his expertise
in international criminal matters and Falco had
long experience as a magistrate in the Cour de
Cassation. He had been expelled from the Court
by the Pétain regime as a Jew in December 1940.
Falco, at the preliminary London negotiations and
Donnedieu during the pre-judgment deliberations
challenged the validity of a “crime against peace”
under international law and raised objections to
the concept of conspiracy both charges initiated
and strongly maintained by Robert Jackson and
included in the Nuremberg Charter.
My uncle knew German but no English, which
hampered any professional or social familiarity
with his American and British colleagues. Falco
and his wife knew good English. We were driven
each day to the Tribunal under the protection
of two US military bodyguards.
Hermann Goering, although thinner and
deprived of his flamboyant uniforms, was the
leader in the dock and faced the charges of
Robert Jackson in April 1946 with aplomb
and better insider knowledge of Nazi facts.
Rudolf Hess looked absent except to reject the
jurisdiction of the Tribunal and deny, like all
defendants, any guilt. The generals and admirals
maintained their dignity. One of the most
impressive testimonies also in April 1946 was
that of Rudolf Hoess, who had been Commandant
of the Auschwitz extermination camp from May
> yves Beigbeder
Nuremburg Tribunal, 1946
Former senior official
with the UN and
lecturer at UNITAR,
geneva, switzerland
1940 to December 1943, as a damning witness
for Kaltenbrunner. Hoess declared calmly having
personally sent to their deaths in gas chambers
close to two million people (present estimates are
1.1 million detainees’ deaths). He was told that
this was to prevent the Jews from annihilating
the German people. He also gave details on
the Nazi medical experiments.
I remember a visit of Raphael Lemkin, the
Polish lawyer, to our house. He was promoting
his concept of genocide and tried to have it
mentioned in the judgment. He failed, but the
Genocide Convention was adopted by the UN
General Assembly on 9 December, 1948.
I left Nuremberg in August 1946. The four
judges and their alternates had started their
deliberations in June, before the end of the
public proceedings. The trial, which started on
18 October 1945, ended on 1 October 1946.
Donnedieu and Falco gave me a precious
testimonial that I had performed my duties
to their entire satisfaction.
•••
I went to Indiana University in Bloomington on
a two-year scholarship, where I completed the
requirements for a Master’s degree in Education
and Psychology, leaving the Nuremberg trial
well behind. I then engaged in a long career
in UN organizations, the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the UN in Rome, and the
World Health Organization in Africa, Denmark,
Alexandria, New Delhi and Geneva. I was a
Personnel Officer, and finally Assistant Chief
of Personnel in WHO at Geneva. My work
involved legal duties.
Continued on next page >
S i g n u p f o r o u r e > upda t e b y b e c o m i n g a m e m b e r !
member
publications
Nuremberg is credited as a major juridical
and judicial precedent in international law
MPub
Routledge Handbook of Transnational Criminal Law
Neil Boister, Robert J. Currie | Routledge
i returned to the nuremberg trial when I started
giving courses on international organization to universities
in North America and in Europe, besides my WHO work and
after my retirement. Part of my courses concerned international
justice, and Nuremberg came back in the picture. The creation
of international criminal tribunals in the 1990s – the Former
Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Cambodia, Lebanon – and
the establishment of the International Criminal Court in 2002
renewed my interest in the fight against the impunity of major
leaders. I published five books on international criminal justice
and tribunals between 1999 and 2011.
The Nuremberg and the Tokyo Tribunals were later criticized
as “Victors’ Justice”. Their jurisdiction and judgments were also
deemed to be based on charges not in force when the alleged
crimes were committed. In Nuremberg, the German lawyers
used the tu quoque argument: they denounced the
Soviet aggressions against Finland and Poland
(crimes against peace) and the Katyn massacre,
and the British and American mass bombing of
German cities.
On the positive side, Nuremberg is credited
as a major juridical and judicial precedent in
international law: for the first time, high level
political and military leaders were held responsible
for crimes committed in their name or in the name
of their government.
Individual responsibility replaced the ineffective
state responsibility. A civilized, punctilious,
judicial process replaced raw vengeance and
summary executions.
The Nuremberg Charter, the new definition of
international crimes, the Tribunal’s procedures and
jurisprudence have served as essential precedents
for the creation and functioning of the later
international criminal tribunals and of the
International Criminal Court. It opened international
law to individuals, previously reserved to states:
individuals had obligations under international law.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted
in 1948, affirmed that they also had rights.
* Yves Beigbeder served at the Nuremberg Tribunal in 1946.
After a long career in UN organizations as a senior official,
he lectured on international law and organizations for
UNITAR in Geneva, Switzerland and various other
European and North American universities.
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Routledge Handbook
of Transnational
Criminal Law
Edited by Neil Boister
and Robert J. Currie
Routledge research on
the united nations
Martin Daniel Niemetz | Routledge
This book offers a concrete and practically applicable answer to the
question of how to reform the UN and increase the legitimacy of
the UN’s decision-making procedures on issues of global peace and
security. In order to provide this answer, it connects the minutia of
institutional design with the abstract principals of democratic theory
in a systematic and reproducible method, thereby enabling a clear
normative evaluation of even the smallest technical detail of reform.
Reforming UN DecisionMaking Procedures
Promoting a deliberative
system for global peace
and security
Martin Daniel Niemetz
acuns activities at the
13th united nations
congress on
crime prevention
and criminal justice
Among NGOs, ACUNS organized the
largest number of sessions, addressing
issues including: gender-based and
conflict-related violence against
women and girls; educating succeeding
generations for justice, inclusiveness and
equality; and the challenge of uniting
United Nations bodies to “deliver as one”
on the post-2015 agenda. Led by Michael
Platzer and Milica Dimitrijevic, the ACUNS
Vienna team drafted and coordinated the
In spite of its limitations and failings, international
criminal justice remains as a necessary instrument
to fight against the impunity of criminal leaders.
>
Reforming UN Decision-Making Procedures: Promoting a
Deliberative System for Global Peace and Security
At the 13th United Nations Congress
on Crime Prevention and Criminal
Justice, 12-18th April in Doha, Qatar,
the ACUNS Vienna Liaison team
organised 8 ancillary meetings,
with more than 35 speakers and
over 300 attendees. At an official
opening event of the Congress
United Nations Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon stressed there could
be no development without human
rights or the rule of law.
Donnedieu wrote in 1947 that although Nuremberg
was human justice, incomplete justice, a relative
justice was better than no justice. For him, the
Nuremberg judgment ratified the supremacy of
international law over national law. It also affirmed
the primacy of conscience over the exigencies
of discipline.
A C U N S q uart e rly n e wsl e tt e r
The Routledge Handbook of Transnational Criminal Law provides a
comprehensive overview of the system which is designed to regulate
cross border crime. The book looks at the history and development of
the system, asking questions as to the principal purpose and effectiveness
of transnational criminal law as it currently stands. The book brings
together experts in the field, both scholars and practitioners, in order
to offer original and forward-looking analyses of the key elements of
the transnational criminal law.
SPECIAL
report
> milica dimitrijevic
collaborator with
the ACUNS vienna
LIaison Office
Doha Civil Society Declaration, with the
Alliance of NGOs on Crime Prevention
and Criminal Justice.
H.E. Ambassador Martin Sajdik,
President of the Economic and Social
Council (ECOSOC), gave his opening
remarks at the ancillary meeting
“Delivering as One” on the UN Post2015 Agenda: Peaceful and inclusive
societies for sustainable development.
The meeting examined how UNODC and
the other UN organizations can work
together to fulfill Goal 16 of the Post2015 Development Agenda, recognizing
that sustainable development and the
rule of law are mutually reinforcing. The
Doha Declaration calls for comprehensive
approaches to counter crime, violence,
corruption, and terrorism in all their
forms, to be coordinated along with
broader measures for social and economic
development, poverty eradication,
respect for cultural diversity, social
peace and social inclusion.
Continued on next page 9 >
acuns . org 6
another spoiler of
un peacekeeping in
the middle east: isis
> s wa d e s h r a n a
senior fellow,
world policy institute,
New York
Feature
story
as a relative newcomer among
the spoilers for United nations
peacekeeping in the middle east
ISIS has created more insecurity in a shorter time period in
this increasingly volatile region. While doing so, it has also hit at more
than one button for self-destruction. One, by claiming statehood with
mobile frontiers and a commitment to “Remaining and Expanding“ as
its motto. Two, by using the same brutal methods for coercing uncritical
obedience within the territory it occupies as it employs outside to
convert, convict and punish. Three, by inadvertently encouraging political
line-ups against it even by those who do not see eye to eye otherwise.
And four, by setting aloud the alarm bells for UN Peacekeepers to seek a
closing of the gap between their mandates under Chapter VI of the UN
Charter on Pacific Settlement of disputes and their actual dealing with
a changing nature of armed conflicts that fall more under Chapter VII on
Threats to International Peace and Security. Prior to the establishment
of ISIS with the onset of Syrian Civil war in 2011, those conflicts had
already moved to a fourth generation in a post World War Two genealogy:
from inter-state, to intra-state, to states vs. non-state actors, and to
societies at war with themselves. ISIS has added yet another that defies
categorization and poses an immediate hazard for the already stressed
UN Peacekeepers in the Middle East. Of the 15 ongoing UN Peacekeeping
Operations, 3 are located in the Middle East: UNTSO, UNIFIL and UNDOF.
Since the deployment of UNTSO in 1948 as the UN’s first ever
Peacekeeping Operation, the Middle East has been a virtual test case
of the UN’s political resilience in adapting to the changing nature of
armed conflicts. Accounting for roughly one fifth of the total worldwide
there is often simultaneity in the 65 armed conflicts occurring in the
Middle East since 1948. All 16 countries in the Middle East have been
engaged in or adjacent to the theatre of one or more of those conflicts
that divide the regional political line-ups into Arab-Israel, PalestinianIsrael, Inter- Arab and Intra-Arab. All the three ongoing peacekeeping
operations were mandated to deal with the Palestinian –Israel, ArabIsrael and Inter-Arab conflicts until the situation in Syria assumed an
added intra-Arab dimension. None so far made a significant difference
in bringing down the incidence and outcome of these conflicts. Each
became a direct target of local extremism. UN Mediator in Palestine Count
Folke Bernadotte, to assist whom it was set up, was assassinated soon
after establishment of UNTSO. In the 1980’s UNIFIL was the target of so
many local militant groups that guarding its own personnel became its
major pre-occupation amidst cross border terror attacks launched through
its territory. To demand a reversal of their inclusion in the UN’s list of
terrorist organizations in 2014, Islamic militants in Syria kidnapped and
surrounded UNDOF personnel from Fiji and the Philippines. In last one
year, the Middle East suffered the largest single number of peacekeeper
fatalities worldwide. It also witnessed the highest civilian casualty in
any single country where UN peacekeepers were deployed, when Syria
alone lost more than a quarter of its population to fatalities and
7
displacement. Yet to date, no Middle Eastern country has called for
a termination of UNIFIL or UNDOF, and UNTSO operates as a training
centre for peacekeepers long after events overtook its role to supervise
the truce between Palestine and Jordan.
Sir Brian Urquhart, a mastermind for UN peacekeeping as an
extra-constitutional evolution of the UN Charter without an amendment,
attributes its durability by asking us “to imagine the Middle East without
UN Peace Keepers.” The Middle East remains a priority in the ongoing
reviews and outlook for UN Peacekeeping. A major UN presence in the
Middle East is foreseen by 2017 with additional troop deployments in
Syria and Lebanon, and possibly a new operation in Yemen. “If the UN
has a major role in the Middle East in the next five years, European
countries will probably make a major contribution to forces in the region”
says a 2012 report on “UN Peacekeeping: The Next Five Years.” Counting
China and India as doing the same, the report lists the following to
strengthen future UN peacekeeping including political missions like
the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) set up in 2003:
Enabling units, including (i) helicopters; (ii) drones; (iii) engineers;
(iv) gendarmerie and riot police; (v) special forces and protection units; (vi) field hospitals and (vi) maritime capabilities.
Highly specialized personnel, including: (i) air planning and movement specialists; (ii) information analysts; (iii) chemical weapons experts; and (iv) security sector and defense reform specialists.
Some ranking UN peacekeepers believe that without the spoiler effect
of militant extremists, a timeframe of 7 to 8 years could bring the peace
process in the region to fruition. Among half a dozen such groups that
include Al-Nusra, Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS comes atop. Within less than
a year of announcing its statehood in June 2014, ISIS has not only
assaulted UN peacekeepers but also obstructed other international
efforts to underpin the peace process through timely humanitarian
assistance and protection of civilian populations. During the briefings
by the Commanders of UN Peacekeeping Missions in the most difficult
areas, Lieutenant General Iqbal Singh Singha, the Force Commander
UNDOF talked of “Blue helmets” for the Golan coming under fire, getting
abducted, hijacked, having their weapons snatched and offices vandalized
by Islamic militants. Besieged in the western neighborhoods of Deir ez
Zor by ISIS since May 2014, the only humanitarian assistance received
by 250,000 Syrians until March this year was 140 sheep through the
UN’s humanitarian partners. A calculated use of brutality by ISIS to
dominate every aspect of the lives of those living in ISIS-controlled
territory includes public beheading, shooting and stoning of civilians
and captured fighters. An estimated 1.8 million Iraqis were displaced
and at least 4,692 civilians killed between June and August 2014
alone due to ongoing violence involving ISIS.
Q
uestioning the very existence of ISIS as an independent state,
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned even its very
nomenclature. “The terrorists calling themselves the Islamic State (also
known as ISIS or ISIL) should not get to use that name because they
are not truly Islamic and do not represent any state,” he told a press
conference in New York during the week long session of the General
Assembly last year. “They should more fittingly be called Un-Islamic
Non-State.” Denouncing it as “unacceptable” after ISIS took control of
large parts of the Palestinian Camp at Yarmouk he labeled the “massacre”
thereafter as “the deepest circle of hell” that has driven out all but
18,000 of its 160,000 Palestinian refugees and Syrians residents who
escaped the fight between the government and Syrian insurgents since
2011. “The deliberate destruction of our common cultural heritage
constitutes a war crime,” said the Secretary-General after ISIS bulldozed
the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, smashed artifacts in the Mosul
museum and was reported to set its sights on the 2,200-year old city
of Hatra, a world heritage site in the north of Iraq.
Militant groups resorting to terrorism as a mode of combat usually
thrive on the strongest condemnation of their acts as they see in it an
acknowledgement of their power to hurt. The ISIS is no exception. If
anything it flaunt its uniqueness as a normally functioning state with
expanding borders and dares those who believe that it can be destroyed
militarily. “At some stage, you’re going to have to face the Islamic
State as a country, and even consider a truce,” says an article entitled
“Paradigm Shift” in the eighth issue of Dabiq, the official ISIS magazine.
It first assumes that Western leaders have now accepted that unlike any
previous terrorist organization, ISIS is a country with all the attributes
of a bona fide state—from a police force and schools to a functioning
court system and supposed currency. Then it asks rhetorically “What’s
the alternative, launch airstrikes in half-a-dozen countries at once?” And
finally it adds, “They’ll have to destroy half the region if that’s the case.”
By now, according to the Pentagon, 20 percent of ISIS controlled
territory has been recovered by Iraqi forces and “ISIL is no longer the
dominant force in roughly 25 to 30% of the populated areas of Iraqi
territory where it once had complete freedom of movement.” Of an
estimated 31, 000 fighters available to ISIS, with a fighting force of
between 9000 to 18000, the coalition forces are believed to have killed
close to 6,000 including half of the top command. At least 184 Humvees,
58 tanks and nearly 700 other vehicles were destroyed or damaged in
the more than 1,600 airstrike missions that hit over 3,000 ISIS targets
in Iraq and Syria since August 2104. The targets included 26 MRAP (Mine
Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicles , over 700 artillery, mortar and
infantry fighting positions and 14 small boats used by ISIS to ferry
personnel and supplies on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Iraq. In
releasing further details of ISIS losses by February 2015, Rear Admiral
John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary portrayed the cumulative
effects as severely restricting ISIS’ ability to communicate and maneuver.
Of all the losses suffered, and denied by ISIS, nothing compares to
the symbolism and impact of its loss of territory within which it forces
a given population to uncritically practice the teachings of Islam by
Prophet Muhammad pbuh. Confined so far mostly around the edges of its
front line, the military push against ISIS may go behind those lines for
breaking it up, according to Afzal Ashar, a counter-insurgency specialist
and consulting fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
ya Allah
eace
feature two
What could ensue is “a maneuverist warfare” that uses airpower to take
over land along main supply routes to put friendly forces thereon and
cut it into chunks that cause a more massive disruption and rapid collapse
for command, control and supply chains than normally possible with
a frontal push. The high tech capability required for such a maneuver
is available in the region, particularly with helicopters and aircraft
of Jordanian and Egyptian forces outraged by ISIS’ execution of their
compatriots. In February this year, Jordan’s King Abdullah II cut short
a visit to Washington to deal with the ISIS murder of a Jordanian pilot.
In the same month, ISIS provoked condemnation in Egypt after publicly
executing 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Tripoli where they were held
captive. If the military odds against ISIS are heavy, the geo-political
landmines in its route are no less intimidating. “Properly contained, the
Islamic State is likely to be its own undoing. No country is its ally, and
its ideology ensures that this will remain the case,” says Graeme Wood,
an expert on the historical roots of Caliphates - as ISIS claims to be one
today. “The land it controls, while expansive, is mostly uninhabited and
poor. As it stagnates or slowly shrinks, its claim that it is the engine of
God’s will and the agent of apocalypse will weaken, and fewer believers
will arrive. And as more reports of misery within it leak out, radical
Islamist movements elsewhere will be discredited.”1
A worst-case scenario could bring together Al-Nusra and ISIS with either
one or both holding UN peacekeepers to ransom by an ultimatum to use
crude chemical devices assembled from the abundantly available medical
waste in any civil war with large-scale civilian casualties. Doctors from
Medicine Sans Frontiers, operating in conflict torn areas of Middle East,
are known to be intrigued if not alarmed by the exaggerated demand
by some local doctors for chloride and potassium. Better-scrutinized
methods of medical waste disposal merit a place in the issues for urgent
attention for the ongoing comprehensive review of the whole question
of UN peacekeeping. So does a revalidation of information analyses for
tracking any impending coalitions for terror between Al- Nusra, ISIS
and their common mentor: the former Iraqi Revolutionary Guards. With
speculation over the future of ISIS after rumors in late 2014 about a
dead/disabled/many alias assuming Caliph Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi,
a merger between Al Nusra and ISIS was reported in social media in
August 2014.2 ISIS claims receiving oaths of allegiance by the
Nigeria-based Boko Haram and Somali based Al-Shabab, the latter
having failed already in getting attending RSVP’s for its open invitation
to the mujahedeen worldwide to “come home” to Somalia.
An optimistic scenario may turn a spoiler for UN peacekeepers into
an inadvertent game changer for the peace process in the Middle East.
Within the region, the Palestinians after Yarmouk are reported to have
approached President Assad of Syria to offer their support to crush
the ISIS. The Israelis presumably asked UN peacekeepers to convey to
President Assad a message to count them in for defeating the ISIS.
Outside the region too, the coalition forces opposed to President Assad
seem inclined to put their demands for his ouster on hold to strengthen
his hand in overwhelming ISIS militarily and isolating it politically.
Even a temporary coalition of convenience among the Palestine-Israel,
the Arab- Israel, the Inter-Arab and the Intra Arab line-ups on the civil
war in Syria, if successful in out- maneuvering ISIS, would have a
lasting impact on equipping the UN peacekeepers better in dealing
with terrorism as a tool of combat for a group of non-state actors
claiming to be a state that is non-existent.
* Swadesh Rana is a Senior Fellow at the
World Policy Institute in New York.
1 Graeme Wood on “What ISIS Really Wants” the cover story in the March 2015 issue of The Atlantic.
2 Kurt Nimmo in Infowars.com, August 30, 2014.
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acuns’ activities at the 13th united nations congress on
crime prevention and criminal justice
Continued from page 6 >
At the ancillary meeting Femicide: Genderrelated and mass killing of women and girls,
ACUNS presented its recently released third volume
of Femicide: A Global Issue That Demands Action
with an overall theme Targeting of Women in
Conflict. H.E. Dubravka Simonovic, Ambassador
and Permanent Representative of the Republic
of Croatia, chaired the panel; Thelma Esperanza
Aldana Hernandez, Attorney General from
Guatemala, and Austrian Federal Minister
of Justice Wolfgang Brandstetter, delivered
keynote statements. Luis Alfonso De Alba,
Ambassador of Mexico and Permanent
Representative to the International Organizations
in Vienna introduced with a discussion of the
Doha Declaration. Kanchana Patarachoke, Deputy
Director-General, Department of International
Organizations, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of
Thailand, emphasized the recommendations
of the UNODC expert group on gender related
killing of women and girls. Panelists focused
on violence and the mass killing of women,
and the work being undertaken by various
countries and organizations to promote and
protect women’s rights. A key message from
panelists was that Member States should be
responsible for undertaking initiatives to send
a message to their own citizens and to the
global community that violence against
women will not be accepted.
Dean Al-Khulaifi of Qatar University chaired the
ACUNS ancillary meeting on Scientific evidence
and religious belief in support of the adoption
of the 2016-2030 Sustainable Developments
Goals by the United Nations General Assembly.
The event focused on the adoption of the UN
2016-2030 sustainable development goals
(SDGs), particularly to reducing injustice and
other inequalities through the interfaith dialogue
(between secular and non-secular actors) to
counter resource deprivations and inhuman
and degrading treatment.
The ancillary meeting Women and children
as victims, offenders and agents of crime
prevention, organized in collaboration with
the Thailand Institute of Justice, focused on
early crime prevention as one of the most
viable means to prevent future offending and
victimization. This event looked into crime
issues through the lens of prison reformers
and educators. Experts discussed the issues
of women and children as victims, offenders
and agents of crime prevention.
The period 2016-2030 is designated by the
UN Secretary-General as “The Road to Dignity”.
The side event Educating Succeeding Generations
for Justice focused on the emerging new
UN priorities, specifically the rehabilitation,
reintegration and intercultural education of
youth in conflict with the law, and education
of global youth on the United Nations. ACUNS
presented the example of the Regional Academy
on the United Nations (RAUN), as a unique
program with the aim to train young scholars.
ACUNS in collaboration with the Thailand
Institute of Justice organized the session,
Political aspects of crime prevention and their
effects on reducing crime. The side event
looked into this topic from the international
perspective that may contribute to countering
crime domestically, with a view
to making it work for the UN
sustainable development agenda.
The ACUNS Vienna Liaison team would like to
extend our gratitude to the Thailand Institute
of Justice, our thoughtful donors and partners.
Their efforts continue to help raise awareness
and contribute to ending the mass killing of
women and girls, and educate succeeding
generations for justice, inclusiveness and
equality. With TIJ’s assistance, ACUNS Vienna’s
initiatives have been recognized globally.
2015 dissertation award
announcement
the academic council on the united nations system
is pleased to announce the winner of the
2015 Dissertation Fellowship Award
Dahlia Simangan
PhD Candidate, Department of International Relations,
College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University
for her dissertation entitled,
The Responsibility to Rebuild:
Exploring the Future of UN’s Approach
to Post-Conflict Peacebuilding
view the 2016 dissertation fellowship award
call for applications online
> visit acuns.org/2016da/
acuns/asil summer workshop on
international organization studies
call for applications
swios15
study
opportunity
The Evolution of UN Peace Operations:
Contemporary Challenges and Requirements
October 26 - November 1, 2015
Norwegian Institute for International Affairs (NUPI) | Oslo, Norway
Online applications
Visit: http://acuns.org/2015-summer-workshop-on-line-application/
Applications must be completed by Monday, June 8, 2015.
Questions? Please email admin@acuns.org
or call (1) 226.772.3121
A C U N S S e cr e tariat > Wilfrid Laurier University, 75 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3C5
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acuns . org AM15
details and updates
AM15
the un at 70: guaranteeing
security and justice
scheduled
events
11-13 june, 2015
The Hague Institute for Global Justice and the International Institute of Social Studies | The Netherlands
J ohn W. Holmes Memorial lect ure
key not e sp ea ker
Abiodun Williams
Mrs. Fatou Bensouda
President, The Hague Institute for Global Justice
and Chair, ACUNS
Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court
Dr. Abiodun Williams was appointed the first President of The Hague Institute
for Global Justice on January 1, 2013. From 2011 to 2012 he served as Senior
Vice President of the Center for Conflict Management at the United States
Institute of Peace (USIP) in Washington, DC. He led USIP’s work in major
conflict zones such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, Tunisia and
Egypt. He served as Vice President of USIP’s Center for Conflict Analysis
and Prevention from 2008 to 2011, and had primary responsibility for
the Institute’s work on conflict prevention, Iran, and Northeast Asia.
From 2001-2007, Dr. Williams served as Director of Strategic Planning in
the Executive Office of the United Nations Secretary-General, where he was a
principal adviser to Secretaries-General Ban Ki-moon and Kofi Annan. He served
in three peacekeeping operations in Macedonia, Haiti, and Bosnia-Herzegovina
from 1994 to 2000 as Special Assistant to the Special Representative of the
Secretary-General, and Political and Humanitarian Affairs Officer.
Dr. Williams has also had valuable experience in academia. He has served
as Associate Dean of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies at the National
Defense University in Washington, DC, and held faculty appointments at
the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University,
University of Rochester, and Tufts University.
In 2012 Dr. Williams was elected Chair of the Academic Council on the
United Nations System. He is a Member of the Executive Board of the Institute
for Global Leadership at Tufts University. Previously he served as a Trustee
of the Lester B. Pearson United World College of the Pacific in Canada, and a
Member of the International Board of Directors of the United World Colleges.
He is the author or editor of three books on conflict prevention and
multilateral negotiations. He has received several awards including the
Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award from Tufts University and the
Constantine E. Maguire Medal from Georgetown University.
Dr. Williams attended Lester B. Pearson College, where he gained the
International Baccalaureate Diploma. He holds an M.A. Honors in
English Language and Literature from Edinburgh University, as well as
an M.A.L.D. and a Ph.D. in International Relations from The Fletcher
School of Law and Diplomacy.
On 12 December 2011, Mrs. Fatou Bensouda was elected by consensus
by the Assembly of States Parties to serve as the Prosecutor of the
International Criminal Court (ICC). She was nominated and supported as
the sole African candidate for election to the post by the African Union.
Between 1987 and 2000, Mrs. Bensouda was successively Senior State
Counsel, Principal State Counsel, Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions,
Solicitor General and Legal Secretary of the Republic, and Attorney General
and Minister of Justice, in which capacity she served as Chief Legal Advisor
to the President and Cabinet of The Republic of The Gambia. She has also
served as a General Manager of a leading commercial bank in The Gambia.
Her international career as a non-government civil servant formally
began at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where she
worked as a Legal Adviser and Trial Attorney before rising to the position
of Senior Legal Advisor and Head of the Legal Advisory Unit (2002 to 2004),
after which she joined the ICC as the Court’s first Deputy Prosecutor.
Mrs. Bensouda has served as delegate to United Nations conferences on
crime prevention, the Organization of African Unity’s Ministerial Meetings
on Human Rights, and as delegate of The Gambia to the meetings of the
Preparatory Commission for the ICC.
She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the distinguished
ICJ International Jurists Award (2009), presented by the then President
of India P. D. Patil; the 2011 World Peace Through Law Award presented by
the Whitney Harris World Law Institute, Washington University; the American
Society of International Law’s Honorary Membership Award (2014), and
the XXXV Peace Prize by the United Nations Association of Spain (2015).
In addition to holding several honorary doctorates, Mrs. Bensouda has
been listed by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people
in the world (2012); by the New African magazine as one of the “Most
Influential Africans;” by Foreign Policy as one of the “Leading Global Thinkers”
(2013), and by Jeune Afrique as one of 50 African women who, by their
actions and initiatives in their respective roles, advance the African
continent (2014 & 2015).
Booking information, schedules and more information can be found online at
quarterly newsletter
Issue 2 > 2015
AC U N S S e cr e tariat
Editor: Brenda Burns, Co-ordinator, ACUNS
Wilfrid Laurier University
75 University Avenue West,
Waterloo, ON, Canada N2L 3C5
Contributing Writers: Cedric de Coning, Yves Beigbeder,
Milica Dimitrijevic, Swadesh Rana, Alistair Edgar
and Brenda Burns
Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS)
Quarterly Newsletter is published four times a year with
the support of the Department of Communications, Public
Affairs & Marketing (CPAM) at Wilfrid Laurier University.
Design: Dawn Wharnsby, CPAM
Imagery: Thinkstock.com
We welcome and encourage your feedback. Opinions
expressed in ACUNS Quarterly Newsletter do not necessarily
reflect those of the editor, ACUNS or the host institution.
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A C U N S q uart e rly n e wsl e tt e r
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