Daily Multilateralism

Thursday, December 17, 2020

• One of the many subplots playing out at the World Health Organization has been whether and how the organization will investigate the pandemic’s origins. A WHO advance mission arrived in China this summer to conduct initial interviews and help establish the parameters for the inquiry. Reuters now reports that a full investigative team will depart for China in early January:

  [A] team of 12-15 international experts is finally preparing to go to Wuhan to examine evidence, including human and animal samples collected by Chinese researchers, and to build on their initial studies.

  Thea Fischer, a Danish member, said that the team would leave “just after New Year’s” for a six-week mission, including two weeks of quarantine on arrival.

• With the Trump administration’s volte face on Western Sahara still reverberating, the UN Security Council today considers the issue. Meanwhile, the Council has approved two special envoys proposed by the UN Secretary General, one to Libya and one for the Middle East.

• Drama at the African Union: Tension is bubbling between the European Union and the African Union over whether an EU delegation trip may have brought coronavirus. Politico reports:

  A visit to Addis Ababa in October by a high-level delegation including EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell was designed to showcase a donation of 7.5 tons of coronavirus testing kits. Instead, it ended up setting off fears of a super-spreader event at the African Union headquarters and among top Ethiopian officials.

  Meanwhile, there are reports that Chinese hackers have been tapping video feeds from the AU’s headquarters. Via Reuters:

  Acting on a tip from Japanese cyber researchers, the African Union’s (AU) technology staffers discovered that a group of suspected Chinese hackers had rigged a cluster of servers in the basement of an administrative annex to quietly siphon surveillance videos from across the AU’s sprawling campus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital.

• The Democratic Republic of Congo has ratified the legal instrument that created the African Court of Human and People’s Rights. The Tanzania-based court was established in 2004 and has issued a range of advisory and contentious decisions. The court, which is designed to be able to hear individual complaints, provides this update on the status of ratifications:

  The other States which have ratified the Protocol are: Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Comoros, Congo, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Libya, Lesotho, Mali, Malawi, Mozambique, Mauritania, Mauritius, Nigeria, Niger, Rwanda, Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, South Africa, Senegal, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia and Uganda.

  As of to date, only six of 31 State Parties to the Protocol had deposited the declaration recognizing the competence of the Court to receive cases directly from NGOs and individuals.

  The six States are: Burkina Faso, Gambia, Ghana, Mali, Malawi and Tunisia.

• Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte rejected accusations that he is responsible for summary executions and extrajudicial killings. As part of her office’s annual report, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court found reasonable grounds to believe the senior government leaders have committed crimes against humanity.

  Specifically, the prosecutor has focused “on allegations that President Duterte and senior members of law enforcement agencies and other government bodies actively promoted and encouraged the killing of suspected or purported drug users and/or dealers…” Angered by the prosecutor’s enquiry, the Duterte government pulled the Philippines out of the ICC in 2019, but the court retains jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed while the country was a member.

• The Court of Arbitration for Sport has ruled that Russia may not use its flag or anthem at upcoming international sporting events because of violations of drug policies:

  The Lausanne-based court halved the four-year ban proposed last year by the World Anti-Doping Agency in a landmark case that accused Russia of state-ordered tampering of a testing laboratory database in Moscow. The ruling also blocked Russia from bidding to host major sporting events for two years.

  The court began operating in 1984 to respond to the increase in international sports-related disputes.

• Briefly noted:

  • The European Parliament has set a Sunday deadline for trade talks between the EU and Britain to conclude. A key sticking point has been whether European fishing vessels will have access to British waters.

  • A former head of the World Intellectual Property Organization decries attempts to waive vaccine-related intellectual property rights at the World Trade Organization.

  • Egypt backs the Democratic Republic of Congo’s bid to lead the African Union.

  • NATO sweetens up its ambassadors with honey made on site.