This Week in Multilateralism
Saturday, April 25, 2021
Syria Loses Rights at the Chemical Weapons Organization
It is rare for a country to have its voting rights suspended by an international organization, but the Syrian government managed the feat this week. In the wake of a report earlier this month blaming the Syrian government for a 2018 chemical strike, the member states of the Organization to Prohibit Chemical Weapons (OPCW) voted to suspend Damascus’s rights. Syria’s tenure as a full voting member of the organization was brief. The country had only joined the OPCW in 2013, as part of an internationally negotiated deal to avoid Western airstrikes.
The measure will likely have limited practical meaning but was an indication of the Syrian government’s international isolation. More than 40 countries supported the measure stripping Syria of its rights, including the EU members in the organization, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Ukraine. Russia and Syria itself opposed the resolution, and they were joined by thirteen other countries (including China, Iran, Pakistan, and Palestine). An additional 34 countries abstained.
The resolution places the director general of the organization, Fernando Arias, in the position of deciding whether Syria has come back into compliance with its obligations and can resume participation in the organization.
An Exit Interview for the ICC’s Presidebnt
In a recent interview, outgoing International Criminal Court president Chile Eboe-Osuji spoke about a range of issues, including the court’s working atmosphere, the kerfuffle over judicial salaries, and the U.S. sanctions imposed on the court during the Trump administration. He also offered some guidance to the court’s new leadership:
As we conclude, I ask what advice he has for the new President, Prosecutor and judges. “Never compromise the objectives of the Court and what it was set up to do,’ he says. The last few years have seen the Court face a barrage of negative attitudes, he accepts, “but it would be a mistake for a new set of elected officials to strive more to avoid upsetting sufficiently powerful nations than to do their job as required by the Rome Statute.”
A Nigerian lawyer, Eboe-Osuji worked at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda before being elected as an ICC judge in 2011. Piotr Hofmanski of Poland has taken over as the court’s president.
An EU Diplomatic Academy?
Several members of the European Parliament are calling for the creation of an institution to train future EU diplomats. The EU’s External Action Service, initiated in 2011, serves as the bloc’s diplomatic arm. The idea of a diplomatic training academy has circulated since the EEAS’s creation but is getting new attention:
In this new academy, the EU “could carry out the main training and a selection process for entry into the EEAS and EU Delegations, through developed teaching of courses and subjects for continuous training”, the proposal states.
The EU already runs a European Security and Defence College (ESDC), a body embedded in the EEAS that that provides training and education in the field of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) for civilian and military personnel.
Without a dedicated pipeline of trained diplomats, the External Action Service draws personnel from a variety of sources, including the European Commission and the diplomatic services of individual EU member states.
A Quarter Century of the International Court of Justice
The Hague-based International Court of Justice marked its 75th birthday this week. Judge Joan Donoghue, the U.S. jurist elected as the court’s president earlier this year, insisted that the institution is in rude health:
Donoghue…noted that since the establishment of the ICJ, States have submitted over 140 disputes to it, adding that the Court has also received over 25 requests for advisory opinions.
“The Court has demonstrated that it is equipped to tackle cases relating to new areas of international law that have emerged and developed since its first sitting”, she went on to say.
The President commended the fact that “in recent years . . . the Court has gotten high marks for the way it has handled scientific and technical aspects of environmental disputes” and that “the docket has also included cases arising under a number of important human rights treaties.”
More detached analyses of the ICJ have been mixed, with observers raising questions about the pace of its deliberations, the impartiality of its judges, and the impact of its rulings. The court has been in a slump recently if judged by case filings. 2019 saw just two new cases, and there were no cases filed in 2020. Thus far this year, one new matter has landed on the court’s docket (a border delimitation issue between Gabon and Equatorial Guinea).
ASEAN Meeting on Myanmar
Leaders from the ASEAN countries assembled in Indonesia for a meeting on the crisis in Myanmar. Controversially, the leader of the military regime will attend the session. As the Associated Press reported:
Opponents of the junta are furious that ASEAN is welcoming its chief, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, to its meeting in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, arguing that because he seized power by force, he is not Myanmar’s legitimate leader….
“Min Aung Hlaing, who faces international sanctions for his role in military atrocities and the brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, should not be welcomed at an intergovernmental gathering to address a crisis he created,” said Brad Adams, Asia director for New York-based Human Rights Watch.
Other voices have argued that direct engagement with regime officials is essential. Former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon threw his weight behind direct talks with the military government. According to Reuters, ASEAN leaders want a commitment from the regime that it will restrain its security forces.
Whatever the outcome of the summit, Indonesia-based analyst Johannes Nugroho noted that the convening of a dedicated summit marks a departure for ASEAN:
It is indeed extraordinary that a summit was convened specifically to deal with the Myanmar issue, which is a marked departure from the usual indirect and informal diplomatic style characteristic of ASEAN. In 2014, when the Thai military launched a coup against the country’s caretaker government, Indonesia, which held ASEAN’s rotating chairmanship at the time, never suggested a special summit.
Briefly noted:
A review of the pledges made at this week’s climate change meeting, organized by President Biden and attended by several dozen heads of state.
The UN Security Council broke its silence on the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, condemning abuses there; meanwhile, the World Bank cemented a $900 million package of loans and grants for the country.
A senior official at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development sees momentum for a global corporate tax deal this year.
With Romania in the chair, the Community of Democracies’ Governing Council convened this week.
The African Union’s Peace and Security Council expressed “grave concern” about political developments in Chad, where the son of the deceased president announced that a military council would govern the country.
Hitting the road: President Biden will attend the G-7 and NATO summits this summer.
World Trade Organization chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala answered questions about intellectual property waivers, vaccine equity, and her new book on women in leadership.
Chinese media urged the World Health Organization not to pursue further the “lab leak” theory for the pandemic’s origins.