As
Climate
to UN Security Council, Just Words or Coal Mine Sanctions?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
May 20 -- When Germany assumes the Presidency of the UN
Security Council in July, it plans to devote its thematic debate to
“the security implications of climate change.”
On
Friday the
German and Portuguese Missions to the UN held a panel discussion on
the topic, during which the Foreign Minister of the Marshall Islands
said that putting climate change on the Council's agenda wouldn't
lead to “sending peacekeepers to close to coal mines.”
From
the floor, the
Permanent Representative of the Philippines said that too many issues
were being sent to the Security Council: it is being “overloaded,”
he said.
One
proposal made
was for the appointment of a Special Representative of the Secretary
General on Climate and Security Response, to report to the Council
every six months. But to what end, if the Council didn't then use
its coercive powers on the issue, as it does on sanctions, travel
bans and the authorization of force?
The
Assistant
Director General of FAO, Alexander Muller, said that the capital of
Nigeria will grow by 400% by 2050. Belynda Petrie of OneWorld linked
the xenophobic violence in South Africa to scarcity caused by climate
change.
Madelena
Lucas, an
adviser to the Portuguese government, delated a quote that the fight
for resources will shift from oil and gas to food and water. Afterward
the Permanent Representative of Cape Verde said that for
some small island states, history will end. One hopes not before
July and the Security Council debate. Watch this site.
Footnote:
a
more lively UN event was found across First Avenue in the North
Lawn building, where Maori from New Zealand offered greetings with
spears and a conch shell. The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues,
from which some indigenous representatives have been blocked at
governments' requests, soldiers on. More to follow.
* * *
Morocco
Goes
for 2012 UNSC
Seat
over
Mauritania of AU
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee, Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
May
10 -- With the UN Security Council members slated to
meet with the African Union later this month in Addis Ababa, there
are questions about the African Union's role in the process of
selecting the Council's non-permanent members.
Morocco,
which
largely
due to Western Sahara and the African Union position that a
referendum with independence must be held there is not an AU member,
is a candidate to for a Council seat for 2012 - 2013.
In
the African
Union, which usually makes recommendations for empty African seats on
the Council, Mauritania would be next in line. AU sources have told
Inner City Press that the Mauritania may pass up this right, they
say, upon the pressure of its neighborhood Morocco.
Inner
City
Press
on Tuesday asked Moroccan Permanent Representative to the UN
Loulichki about the situation, including Mauritania being “due”
to be the next African Union nominee for the empty seat.
“Every
member
state has a right to run for the Security Council,” Loulichki
replied, adding even more formally that “Morocco is a candidate for
2012 - 2013.”
In apparent
reference to coverage by Inner City Press earlier
this year of his lobbying of Ban Ki-moon, Loulichki said, quote me
on this, making a gesture with
his hands. There: we've done it.
Loulichki and Ban:
Security Council seat still not shown
During
the
negotiation
of the Security Council's annual Western Sahara
resolution, the African Union position that a sentence “without
prejudice to the legal status of Western Sahara” should be added
was rebuffed by the Council.
The
rebuff was
particularly stinging given the belief that the absence of this
qualification from the draft resolution was a mere oversight by the
Group of Friends of Western Sahara -- an oversight they then refused
to fix.
If
the African
Union now “backs down” to Morocco, as one source put it, what
would the message be? Watch this site.
Footnote:
in
Tuesday's
debate in the Security Council, Moroccan Permanent
Representative Loulichki said without any trace of irony that more
resources should be given to UN Peacekeeping missions which have
protection of civilians in their mandates -- not, it is clear,
referring to the MINURSO mission in Western Sahara.
Meanwhile
it
is reported that Kuwait
will step in to run for the Asia Group seat on
the UN Human Rights Council for which Syria had initially been
running unopposed. But even if that's true, will Syria be promised
some other UN system seat, like Iran was given a seat on the
Commission on the Status of Women? We'll see.
, 
