Morning Multilateralism
Monday, September 28, 2020
As fighting erupts again in disputed Nagorno-Karabakh, attention turns to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which has played a lead role in mediating the conflict since the early 1990s. On Sunday, the co-chairs of the OSCE’s Minsk Group urged an immediate ceasefire.
In his virtual speech to the UN General Assembly, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas called for a United Nations conference to address the Palestinian situation. Abbas asked the Secretary General “to undertake, in cooperation with the Quartet and the Security Council, preparations to convene an international conference with full authority and with the participation of all concerned parties, early next year, to engage in a genuine peace process…”
A retired Turkish admiral has a plan for asserting Turkey’s maritime rights in the eastern Mediterranean:
The disputes will be solved only when Ankara and Athens show a willingness to compromise, analysts say, but so far, the two governments have been unable to even agree on the ground rules, with Turkey rejecting definitions laid out in the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which it has never ratified, and Greece saying its claims — including to expansive jurisdiction around its many islands — apply to Turkey as a matter of settled international law.
Kenyan minister Amina Mohamed, one of five finalists to lead the World Trade Organization, wants the trade group to be heavily involved in climate change diplomacy.
A British minister is headed to Brussels in an effort to negotiate details of the Brexit divorce deal with the European Union. The government of Boris Johnson is under pressure from pro-Brexit voices to abandon the draft agreement.
There are new twists and turns in the process for selecting the next prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. It appears that none of the four finalists proposed by a selection committee have been able to secure adequate support, opening the door to other names.
A senior Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank official spoke with The Hindu about the lender’s role in India. In response to questions about China’s influence, the official insisted that the Bank is “very, very apolitical.”
Angela Müller asks whether Switzerland’s bid to win a seat on the UN Security Council is consistent with the country’s longstanding policy of neutrality.
Name Games: The European Union helps Taiwan secure a small victory in how its cities are designated.