At
UN,
Long Dormant Council Issues Kept Barely Alive as Leverage,
Seizure List Leaked with February 28 Deadline
By
Matthew
Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 19 -- Items on the UN Security Council's agenda face
deletion in a backroom process, as illuminated in a 2011 document
exclusively obtained by Inner City Press.
Of
the 86 matters on the
Council's agenda, 28 have not been taken up in a formal meeting in
the last three years and therefore face deletion unless a member state
speaks up before February 28. This currently pending so called “Seizure List”
is
attached, here.
Meanwhile,
Security
Council members have been asked if they want to delete any
of the more recent 58 items, even if they have been the subject of
meetings in the last three years.
One
could imagine
Russia asking to remove Item Number 10, “The situation in Georgia,”
first raised in 1992 but last considered on June 15, 2009, when
Russia blocked continuation of the Mission and even discussion in the
Council for the past year and a half.
Now
that the UN
Mission in Nepal has unceremoniously left that country, will it
remain on the Council's agenda? Or might India make a request to take
it off?
“The situation
between Eritrea and Ethiopia,” Item Number 21, has not been
discussed since July 30, 2008, when the UNMEE Mission left with the
border dispute unacted on.
The
“Situation
in Myanmar,”
Item Number 46, has not been the subject of any formal
Security Council session since July 13, 2009. Ban Ki-moon has yet to
act on the widespread request, in the last informal meeting, that he
name a full time envoy to Myanmar to replace Vijay Nambiar.
Countries
fight
hard to keep matters off the agenda of the Security Council, which
can impose sanctions and authorize the use of force. Thus, even as
tens of thousands of civilians were killed in Sri Lanka in 2009,
Russia, China and others fought to keep it off the agenda.
Some
matters are
on the agenda, but have not been discussed in years. Facing
deletion from the Seizure List,
unless as usual a member state speaks up, are for example
“The
Hyderabad question” (Item 61, raised in September 1948 and last
discussed in 1949);
“Complaint
by Ukraine regarding the decree of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian
Federation concerning Sevastapol” (Item 79, first raised AND last
discussed on July 20, 1993);
“The
situation between Iran and Iraq” (Item 72, raised in September 1980
and last discussed in 1991);
the
“Kimberly
Process Certification scheme” (Item 82, only discussed
once, in 2003);
numerous
letters
and complaints from Cuba (Items 63, 64, 67);
“Letter
dated 19 April 1988 from the Permanent Representative of Tunisia to
the UN” (item 76, first raised on April 21, 1988 and last discussed
four days after that on April 25, 1988).
With
the current
turmoil in Tunisia, one wag suggested, perhaps this last obscure item
could be revived.
P-5 + 1 on the UNSC floor, seizure list not shown (until now)
Inner
City Press
asked a well placed non-Permanent Security Council member about the
lists, which he
said may later be consolidated. He pointed out that at least some
items do get deleted, mentioning Angola and Libya.
The
debate now,
he said, is whether and how these lists should be publicized to the
wider UN membership. Some countries, knowing the process, have form
letters ready to keep “their” items alive on the agenda. But the
others?
At
an on the
record briefing on January 18, Portugal's Ambassador acknowledged to
Inner City Press that while Bosnia beat his country out to head the
Working Group on Working Methods for this year, Portugal has been
promised the chairmanship next year.
These seizure
lists, and how
they are disseminated to the wider UN membership, are the type of
procedural issue that Portugal says it has worked and wants to work
on. We'll see.
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