Morning Multilateralism
Tuesday, July 14 2020
Days after the fourth anniversary of the South China Sea arbitration, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo offers a defense of the ruling and a challenge to China’s maritime claims:
The PRC has no legal grounds to unilaterally impose its will on the region. Beijing has offered no coherent legal basis for its “Nine-Dashed Line” claim in the South China Sea since formally announcing it in 2009. In a unanimous decision on July 12, 2016, an Arbitral Tribunal constituted under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention – to which the PRC is a state party – rejected the PRC’s maritime claims as having no basis in international law. The Tribunal sided squarely with the Philippines, which brought the arbitration case, on almost all claims.
In many respects, the U.S. statement is not new. And the U.S. Navy has for years been challenging Chinese maritime claims through “freedom of navigation” operations. But the statement adds emphasis to these activities and comes in the context of growing regional emphasis on the illegality of China’s claims, including by Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines itself.
The eight candidates for leadership of the World Trade Organization will meet WTO members—and the press—this week. According to one assessment, the race may be a two-woman contest:
Insiders believe that European countries will rally behind one of the two hotly-tipped African contenders – Kenya’s former Trade Minister Amina Mohamed and Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a former managing director of the World Bank and chair of the board of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Both Mohamed and Okonjo-Iweala are Geneva-insiders, respected as solid technocrats rather than big name politicians, and either would become the WTO’s first female director-general.
A new trial begins at the International Criminal Court this week. The defendant, Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz, stands accused of committing multiple war crimes and crimes against humanity during the conflict in Mali. Specific charges include implementing sexual slavery and destroying cultural and religious monuments.
The African Union-sponsored talks between Egypt and Ethiopia appear to have failed. The dispute centers on the Grand Renaissance Ethiopian Dam, which Egypt claims would endanger its access to Nile waters. Egypt has employed various multilateral mechanisms to voice its concerns, including the United Nations Security Council, but with limited success.
An attack in the Central African Republic killed a UN peacekeeper from Rwanda. The attack comes less than a month after the death of an Indonesian blue helmet in the Democratic Republic of Congo. For information on trends in UN peacekeeping deaths, see this chart.
Virtual since mid-March, the UN Security Council returns to in-person meetings, although in a borrowed room. The Council is expected to adopt a resolution on youth, peace, and security.
The International Court of Justice is set to rule on a dispute about Qatar’s airspace.