The Week in Multilateralism
Friday, November 4, 2022
Tangled in Blue: Haiti and the Decline of UN Peacekeeping
As the security situation in the country deteriorates, Haitian officials have pleaded for intervention to help restore order. The Guardian reported recently on the crisis:
Heavily armed gangs have blocked off Haiti’s main fuel terminal, bringing much of the country to a halt and triggering the collapse of basic services, amid a cholera outbreak and widespread hunger. The UN has said 96,000 Haitians have been forced to flee their homes to escape the violence.
International experts are also ringing the alarm bell about the human costs of the country’s spiral; the UN’s top human rights official described the country as “on the verge of an abyss.” A few weeks ago, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged the dispatch of an international force:
The Secretary-General urges the international community, including the members of the Security Council, to consider as a matter of urgency the request by the Haitian Government for the immediate deployment of an international specialized armed force to address the humanitarian crisis, including securing the free movement of water, fuel, food and medical supplies from main ports and airports to communities and health care facilities.
At the Security Council, however, no consensus has emerged about whether a peacekeeping force (or some other form of UN-authorized intervention) is the answer. The reluctance of Council members likely springs from several different sources. Some are specific to the UN’s past involvement in Haiti. The organization’s recent peacekeeping experience in the country, which wrapped up in 2017, was traumatic. Evidence that peacekeepers introduced cholera to the country produced international investigations, complex litigation, and demands for compensation. The scourge of sexual abuse by peacekeepers was acute in Haiti as well. In part because of this background, civil society organizations who work in the country do not appear enthusiastic about a new international presence.
But the Council’s reluctance to authorize a new peacekeeping force is also part of a broader trend: UN peacekeeping is in a period of (relative) decline. The Council has not authorized any new missions in almost a decade, and the numbers of active missions is at a post-Cold War low. The total number of deployed peacekeepers remains high by historical standards but has declined steadily over the last decade.
It is still possible that a UN force for Haiti will materialize. There are indications that a few countries in the region may be ready to contribute forces. Canada appears willing to play some kind of leadership role, and the United States has not ruled out participating in some form. But the Council’s evident reluctance is a sign that the political barriers to new peacekeeping undertakings are much higher than they have been in the past.
Restarts for the International Criminal Court
Two International Criminal Court investigations that have been on pause may soon get moving again. In both situations, ICC judges face the legal question of whether and in what circumstances the court should yield to national investigations under the doctrine of “complementarity.”
First, a panel of judges ruled this week that the prosecutor may restart his investigation in Afghanistan. Since 2020, that enquiry had been on hold at the request of the (now collapsed) Afghan government, which asserted that it was able to investigate the alleged crimes through its national processes. The judges saw no convincing evidence that Afghanistan was able to conduct investigations that would cover the same ground as the ICC enquiry:
Afghanistan is not presently carrying out genuine investigations and that it has not acted in a manner that shows an interest in pursuing the Deferral Request. The limited number of cases and individuals prosecuted by Afghanistan, as shown by the materials submitted and assessable by the Chamber, cannot lead to a finding that the ICC investigation must be deferred.
In Venezuela, the proceedings are at a different stage, but the overall trajectory appears similar. After receiving referrals from several governments in the region, the prosecutor initiated an investigation into alleged crimes in that country in late 2021. That decision prompted a Venezuelan government request a few months later to pause the investigation in favor of its domestic proceedings. This week, the prosecutor, Karim Khan, asked the judges for permission to move ahead anyway. In so doing, however, he strove to maintain cordial relations with the Venezuelan authorities:
My Office…acknowledges and is encouraged by the fact that the Venezuelan authorities have undertaken a number of legal reforms which aim to address a number of structural and systemic issues. Should such efforts be appropriately implemented, they might offer scope for hope and change. Nonetheless, at present, my Office’s independent and objective assessment is that these efforts and reforms remain either insufficient in scope or have not yet had any concrete impact on potentially relevant proceedings.
It is likely the judges will grant the prosecutor’s request. Taken together, these Afghanistan and Venezuela decisions add to the court’s evolving complementarity jurisprudence and provide rudimentary signposts for governments hoping to keep investigations a national matter and forestall ICC involvement.
The broader operational question for the court posed by both situations is whether the prosecutor can effectively investigate a government that does not want to be investigated, has asked to handle matters itself, and controls access to the territory in question. In both Afghanistan and Venezuela, after all, alleged crimes by the current authorities are a central focus of the prosecutor’s investigation. There is little hope of any cooperation between the prosecutor and the Taliban, and any investigate steps there will likely be taken from a distance. The situation is more nuanced in Venezuela, where the government has pledged to cooperate with the court. The prosecutor’s filing this week—and the judges’ likely response—will put that commitment to the test.
The African Union for the Win?
News broke this week that an African Union mediation effort in the bloody conflict between the Ethiopian federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) has produced unexpected success. Via Reuters:
“The two parties in the Ethiopian conflict have formally agreed to the cessation of hostilities as well as to systematic, orderly, smooth and coordinated disarmament,” said Olusegun Obasanjo, head of the AU mediation team, at a ceremony….Obasanjo, a former Nigerian president, said the agreement also included “restoration of law and order, restoration of services, unhindered access to humanitarian supplies, protection of civilians”
AU mediation efforts have had a mixed record of success in recent years, and in Ethiopia the organization faced the particular challenge of mediating a civil war in its own host country (the AU is headquartered in Addis Ababa.) As Zekarias Beshah Abebe noted in September, the Ethiopian government had consistently pushed for the AU to take the lead:
The federal government of Ethiopia has expressed its firm stand that any peace initiative should be within the AU framework anchored on the ‘African solutions to African problems’. TPLF were reluctant but has now accepted the AU’s mediation role of the peace process. The AU has also asserted its leadership role in the peace talks claiming the AU-led mediation process as the ‘only viable and effective approach’ towards finding a lasting solution to the situation in Ethiopia.
For the moment at least, it seems that reliance on the AU has paid dividends. Its apparent success stands in contrast to the recent record of another regional organization: ASEAN thus far has had little to show for its efforts to mediate the crisis in Myanmar.
Briefly Noted:
The president of the International Court of Justice, Judge Joan Donoghue, presented the institution’s annual report to the UN General Assembly. She described an unusually busy year for the court, which issued four judgements and fifteen orders.
The International Atomic Energy Agency found no evidence of a “dirty bomb” at Ukrainian nuclear sites. Russian officials had alleged that Ukraine was planning to detonate radioactive material, and Ukraine’s government invited IAEA teams to investigate those charges.
Russia reportedly wants the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to create a joint payments system that would break dependency on the West.
South Africa secured a major World Bank loan to help transition from coal to renewable energy sources.
The Diplomat examines whether the European Union and Indonesia can finally cement a trade deal.
It appears unlikely that Turkey will give its consent for Finland and Sweden to join NATO this year.
UN Security Council members received an informal “Arria formula” briefing on the human rights situation in Iran.
Over at Lawfare, I offered some thoughts on the state of the ICC’s Ukraine investigation.
Notable New Writing and Research:
In the latest issue of International Organization, Tom Long and Carsten-Andreas Schulz examine Latin America’s historical role in developing multi-purpose international organizations.
In the new Journal of European Integration, Charles Roger considers how informal and formal international organizations interact.
UCLA scholar Kal Raustiala has published a new biography of UN diplomat Ralph Bunche.