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At
UN, Small Islands Want Climate
Change in Security Council Agenda, NAM Push Back
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee
of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, May 15
-- From small states, big ideas can come. That is how
the Pacific Ocean small island states are promoting a draft UN General
Assembly
resolution which would encourage the Security Council to address
"climate
change, including its possible security implication" for the
"maintenance of international peace and security."
Their
draft resolution, obtained by Inner City Press
and placed online here,
is
a version watered down after push-back from the Group of 77 and
Non-Aligned Movement, developing countries which oppose giving the
Security
Council and five veto-wielding members more power.
But the small island states, faced in some cases
with the elimination of
their land by the rising of the seas, are pushing to get climate change
on the
agenda of the Security Council, which alone among UN organ has the
power to require
all member states to take action, with resolutions under Chapter 7 of
the UN
Charter.
The
draft resolution, "not[es] the open debate at
the Security
Council on 'Energy, Climate and Security' held on 17 April 2007" --
when
the UK held the rotating presidency of the Council. The footnote in the
draft
then also refers to the push-back in 2007 from Cuba on behalf of NAM
and
Pakistan on behalf of the G-77.
A
proponent of the draft said that its supports now
include the Maldives
and, significantly, the European Union, and that the plan is to
introduce the
draft on May 18 and vote the following week. Supporters were set up May
15 in
the UN's Delegates Lounge, with small replicas of flags of their
nations. Small
nations, small flags, big ideas. A showdown is brewing: watch this site.
On Sri Lanka
On Friday
May 8, Inner City Press asked Deputy
Spokesperson Okabe:
Inner
City Press: On the invitation by the Government of Sri Lanka to the
Secretary-General to visit, is there any progress in thinking? In
the alternative, is the Secretary-General, is he considering invoking
Article 99 or responsibility to protect or making some other move of
some type on the situation in Sri Lanka?
Deputy
Spokesperson: I have nothing beyond what we’ve been saying from
this podium this week on Sri Lanka, including what the
Secretary-General himself has said earlier this week.
What Ban said
did not involve calling for a cease-fire, did not respond to the
invitation to visit Sri Lanka, or the accelerating rate of civilians
death over the weekend, during which no statement issued about Sri
Lanka. Watch this site.
Channel
4 in the UK with allegations of rape and
disappearance
Click here
for an Inner City Press YouTube channel video, mostly UN Headquarters
footage, about civilian
deaths
in Sri Lanka.
Click here for Inner City
Press' March 27 UN debate
Click here for Inner City
Press March 12 UN (and AIG
bailout) debate
Click here for Inner City
Press' Feb 26 UN debate
Click
here
for Feb.
12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56
Click here for Inner City Press' Jan.
16, 2009 debate about Gaza
Click here for Inner City Press'
review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner
City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press'
December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
These
reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
UN
Office: S-453A, UN, NY 10017
USA
Tel: 212-963-1439
Reporter's
mobile (and
weekends):
718-716-3540
Other,
earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available
in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
Copyright
2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
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