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As Global Compact Lets in Private Military Contractor, UN Quiet on Mercenaries

UNITED NATIONS, March 15, updated twice -- Even after the UN's own Joint Inspection Unit criticized the UN Global Compact as presenting “reputational risk” to the Organization, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon through his spokesman Martin Nesirky had no response much less a plan for reform.

  Rather, Nesirky directed Inner City Press on Tuesday to an answer that Compact boss Georg Kell had already given.

  Inner City Press asked if Ban Ki-moon has any problem with his Global Compact allowing a private military company -- read, mercenary firm -- to join, despite being protested for involvement in Israeli run prisons in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Danish-British private military contractor G4S announced

“G4S has signed up to the United Nations Global Compact, an international standard which promotes socially responsible business behavior in the areas of human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption.”

  But “[a]ccording to a brochure from the company...G4S Technology has supplied security technology to seven Israeli prisons and two remand prisons located in Israel and on the occupied West Bank.”

  Nesirky's response was to say that Ban has confidence in Kell.

In the same Tuesday noon briefing, Inner City Press asked for the second time if Ban thinks that Bahrain's use of security personnel from Pakistan and Yemen is an example of mercenaries. If I have anything on that, Nesirky said for the second time, I will tell you.

  So what is Ban Ki-moon's position on mercenaries? It appears to some to involve double standards: he and his top officials have alleged and criticized the use of mercenaries by Laurent Gbagbo in Cote d'Ivoire and to a lesser extend Gadhafi in Libya, but won't answer questions about presumptive mercenary use by Bahrain's royal family.

Meanwhile the Global Compact, which put a convicted business fraudster from South Korea on its board, now allowed mercenary firms to join it and drape themselves in the UN flag, as the JIU has warned. And so it goes in Ban's UN.

Update: after the noon briefing, the following was sent to Inner City Press, to which follow up questions were asked:

Dear Matthew, The OSSG informed me that you had a few questions regarding the JIU report...

Here is a statement on the JIU report, attributable to Georg Kell, Executive Director of the UN Global Compact:

1. On two occasions (July and August 2010), the Global Compact Office provided comprehensive feedback, including corrections, to draft versions of the Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) report. Regrettably, the authors ignored nearly all of this information, resulting in a document riddled with inaccuracies and misrepresentations.

2. Moreover, the authors failed to take into account any developments of 2010, especially the deliverables and outcomes of the Global Compact Leaders Summit, which is held every three years and which represents the most important forum to give strategic direction to the initiative.

3. As a consequence, the report is based on incorrect or outdated information that does not reflect the Global Compact’s strategic and operational status quo. Stating that consideration of the Leaders Summit’s results "fell outside the scope and timeframe of this review" is as much an admission of the report’s shortcomings as it is an acknowledgement of the JIU’s fundamentally flawed methodology in this case.

4. The report’s conclusions, especially those concerning the Global Compact’s mandate, reveal a lack of understanding of the type of public-private partnership that the initiative has come to represent and that has been repeatedly recognized by the UN General Assembly, the G8 and the African Union, among others. Likewise, much of the report’s tone suggests that its authors also lack any appreciation for the critical role business can play in advancing development, peace and good governance.

5. In sum, we feel strongly that this report raises serious questions about the JIU’s professional standards

  Inner City Press immediately responded:

At the noon briefing I asked about the Global Compact accepting private military contractor G4S into the Compact,

http://www.newswiretoday.com/news/86020/

despite protests about its involvement in, for example, prisons in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This is what I am requesting a Secretariat response on, for example this:

http://www.danwatch.dk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=298:g4s-teknologi-i-israelske-faengsler&catid=16:artikler&lang=en

Please advise, thank in advance.

  The Global Compact said it would provide a response later, and subsequently this arrived:

Subject: Press Q at noon re Global Compact accepting private military contractor G4S into the Compact
From: Matthias Stausberg [at] un.org
To: Matthew Lee [at] InnerCityPress.org
Cc: Kristen Coco [at] un.org, Farhan Haq [at] un.org, Martin Nesirky [at] un.org, Ursula Wynhoven [at] un.org

Hi Matthew, here are some answers for you:

Since you use the term "mercenary", can you please clarify (and provide sources) which current G4S activities you believe would qualify under commonly accepted definitions of the term mercenary (e.g., as in the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries)?

2. The provision of private security services is not an illegal activity. We therefore saw no reason to deny G4S participation in the UN Global Compact.

3. Regarding the specific provision of security technology to various clients in Israel and the Occupied Territories, please note the recent announcement by G4S that it will cease providing certain services and technologies through its Israeli subsidiary. (http://english.themarker.com/danish-company-halts-equipment-supply-to-west-bank-in-wake-of-public-protest-1.349239)

4. Please note also that G4S is a signatory to the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers (ICoC), which was launched in November 2010 as a voluntary initiative to improve industry standards and ensuring respect for human rights and humanitarian law by private security service providers. While the ICoC is not intended to replace national regulation and state control, it marks a critical effort to clarify the role of non-state actors in this arena.

  Note: even regarding the announcement of getting out of the West Bank, note that G4S' predecessor Group 4 Falck made a similar claim in 2002 which was subsequently disproved. But the question raised is not limited to G4S but to whether the standard applied by and to the UN Global Compact be whether an activity is “legal”? Manufacturing weapons is legal, as is the production of pornography. Would the UN Global Compact allow pornographers and weapons merchants to join? Apparently yes.