United Nations

Its detractors should note: the L'Aquila conference did move vital climate change legislation forward.

By Andrew Light

If you believe recent media reports, the two international climate change meetings held last week in L'Aquila, Italy, at best failed to do anything and at worst signal that no serious progress will be made on a global climate agreement this year.

If true, this is bad news. According to the byzantine rules of the Kyoto Protocol, set to expire in 2012, a successor to that treaty must be decided this December at the U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen.

The good news is that many of the assessments of these meetings are incomplete, if not inaccurate. A New York Times editorial on Friday, for instance, based its argument in language from a draft of a declaration -- not from the document itself. The Times described the recognition by the world's major carbon emitters that temperatures should not increase more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels as an "aspirational" goal. They concluded that "with global climate talks in Copenhagen only five months away, aspirational goals won't carry things very far." But this weakened, "aspirational" language was struck in the final version of the document, rendering this claim obsolete.

All in all, the twin declarations emerging from the G-8 and the Major Economies Forum (MEF) indicate that progress has been made on the road to Copenhagen. So why the rush to publish such dour reports from Italy, whether accurate or not? It's simple: Invested parties had unrealistic expectations of meetings, which have no binding impact on the upcoming U.N. summit.

There were, of course, disappointments. Developed countries in the G-8 failed to agree on the medium-term goal of reducing reductions targets by 2020. Developing nations, especially China and India, refused to embrace the long-term goal of halving global emissions by 2050, a cap most of the world's leading scientists believe is essential to avoiding the worst impacts of climate change.

But if we only focus on what did not happen, we miss seeing the achievements made in a very short amount of time. When the United States rejoined the global discussion on a new climate treaty in January, it triggered an 11-month countdown to solve the most complicated problem humanity has ever faced. For the 16 countries responsible for 80 percent of carbon emissions to recognize even one marker of failure -- a rise in temperature over 2 degrees Celcius -- is fantastically impressive. A week before the Italy meetings, negotiators doubted that this language would make the final cut.

Some will argue that it's easy to agree on an abstract target like limiting planetary warming. But the G-8 struck an appropriate balance in creating objectives that are both ambitious and achievable. Industrialized countries finally determined their fair share of long-term emissions cuts: 80 percent by 2050. Plus, U.S. President Barack Obama prudently hedged on setting a 2020 emissions target. The Markey-Waxman climate change bill, which includes emissions cuts, is working its way through Congress. While it does, the president should not signal that he will preempt or undercut the legislature.

What about China and India's apparent intransigence to halving emissions by 2050? The fact is that the United States cannot criticize their behavior. If a Chinese leader had promised to join the world eight years ago in reducing carbon dioxide emissions, and then reversed course -- as former President George W. Bush did in 2001 -- the United States would hardly agree to his demands now. So it is with China and India. It will take incentives, diplomacy, and, most of all, time to bring about world-saving targets from them.

Ultimately, the most promising parts of last week's agreements received only marginal coverage. The MEF announced that developed countries will double clean-energy funding for developing nations -- putting pressure on those countries to commit to emissions reductions in exchange, as agreed upon at the Bali summit in 2007. Additionally, the participating countries agreed to determine how they will finance their plans by the G-20 meeting in September.

The countries assembled last week didn't get everything settled on the first go around. But in light of their accomplishments, we should hold off on our rush to proclaim failure.

Andrew Light is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C., and director of the Center for Global Ethics at George Mason University.

Photo: Flickr user AmiCalmant

It doesn't work.

By Jason McLure

As Islamist militants tighten their grip over southern Somalia, the international community is searching in vain for ways to keep the country's weak, U.N.-backed government from collapsing. The latest plan: sanctions for nearby Eritrea, which has channeled weapons to Somalia's Shabab and other Islamist militias. At the recent African Union summit in Libya, the continent's leaders reiterated their call for the U.N. Security Council to take action; condemnation of Eritrea has resonated from every corner of the globe.

There's no doubt that Eritrea has an awful government (Human Rights Watch recently labeled the country a "giant prison"). As gratifying as it may be to punish bad behavior, however, the question here is different: Would sanctions actually change this tiny dictatorial state or its delinquent behavior? It's a quandary that has plagued policymakers for decades -- from Cuba to North Korea to Burma. And despite sanctions' status as a go-to foreign-policy gadget, the answer is often no. When used on already-isolated regimes, sanctions may even be counterproductive. The Eritrean example shows us why.

Sanctions are made to cut countries off from vital international exchange. The trouble is, Eritrea already trades less with the outside world than any country in Africa and places 210th out of all 226 countries and islands for global commerce. The country's president, Isaias Afewerki, isn't interested in being a globe-trotting statesman. He regularly skips African Union summits and meetings of East African leaders. And anyway, sanctions won't deter his few, less savory allies in Libya, Sudan, and Iran who provide Eritrea with aid and diplomatic support. Sanctions will only drive the Eritrean government further into the arms of its dubious allies.

Nor will sanctioning Eritrea choke off the flow of arms and money heading toward Somalia's militants. There has been an arms embargo on Somalia for more than a decade, and it has been about as effective as a chastity belt on Silvio Berlusconi. The country has a 3,000-km coastline that the world has struggled to patrol for pirates -- let alone under-the-radar arms shipments. On land, Mogadishu is home to a dizzying array of traditional money-transfer services that keep Somalia's economy from further collapse -- and its Islamists propped up with foreign funds. Besides, as the United Nations has pointed out, both African Union peacekeepers and Ethiopian troops have apparently sold arms and equipment in Mogadishu to their ostensible enemies.

Aside from being ineffective, sanctions on Eritrea could carry a rather debilitating liability for the international community. Sanctioning Eritrea would dangerously border on taking sides in Eritrea's frozen conflict with Ethiopia, one that has stretched on in one form or another for nearly a decade. Following the two countries' border 1998-2000 war, Ethiopia refused to give back land that a U.N.-backed border commission awarded to Eritrea. So both sides took their struggle to Somalia, where Eritrea backs Islamist militias and Ethiopia props up a flailing government. Eritrea has behaved badly, true, but both countries have been arming Somali militias in a proxy war for years. The United Nations and the United States would do better to mediate the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict rather than taking sides.

These lessons apply to sanctions on dictators more broadly. How do you punish North Korea with sanctions when its trading partners are already limited to a handful of countries -- none of which are likely to pay heed to a harsher set of rules? How do you choke Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe when his strongest rationale for staying in power is to save his country from the hands of countries who would (and do) impose sanctions? Perhaps it's no wonder that such countries' leaders not only survive sanctions, but use them to justify bad behavior.

After 18 years of civil war, it's possible there's nothing outsiders can do to fix Somalia. Certainly, sanctions on Eritrea are not the answer. Trying to get Ethiopia and Eritrea to stop using the country as a proxy battleground would be worth a shot.

Jason McLure is a journalist based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. His reporting has appeared in Newsweek, The Economist, and Bloomberg News.

Photo: ASHRAF SHAZLY/AFP/Getty Images

As violence escalates again in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the world must recognize the need for sustained attention and intervention.

By Colin Thomas-Jensen and Rebecca Feeley

This winter, the militaries of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda -- much to our surprise, given their historical antipathy -- joined forces in an offensive against a rebel group based in eastern Congo: the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or the FDLR. Led by the architects of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the FDLR has terrorized Congolese civilians for nearly 15 years. The group's presence has also served as a pretext for Rwandan intervention that has frequently worsened an already grim humanitarian situation in eastern Congo.

We and many other observers predicted at the time that the joint offensive would lead FDLR rebels to conduct reprisal attacks upon civilians. So, we weren't surprised to hear that atrocities against civilians have escalated dramatically in recent weeks. In one instance, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Congo, MONUC, reported that the FDLR had massacred more than 60 people in the village of Busurungi. Local officials tell us that the FDLR killed nearly twice that number, after clashes with the notoriously inept Congolese Army.

While human rights groups catalog atrocities and advocacy groups sound the alarm, U.N. officials tell us that the situation in eastern Congo is "tense but under control." The gap between the rosy assessments we frequently hear from MONUC and the grim accounts we hear from Congolese affected by the conflict is outrageous and infuriating. And as the Congolese government launches a new offensive this summer, we think the worst is ahead.

Doing research and advocacy to help end the crisis in the Great Lakes region around Congo can feel like screaming into an empty room. The region has been so violent for so long that the United Nations, donor governments, and the press have become numb. But there is a cure to even the worst cases of "conflict fatigue": an understanding that solutions are within reach if we just have the will to pursue them -- solutions that can prevent thousands of senseless deaths.

With greater operational capacity, firmer direction from the U.N. Security Council, and decisive leadership on the ground, MONUC could provide greater protection for civilians.

With high-level multilateral diplomacy led by the United States and the European Union, the Congolese and Rwandan governments could go beyond their current uneasy military cooperation and achieve lasting political solutions to the regional conflict. With bigger incentives for disarming, an emphasis on civilian protection, and tactical support from Western militaries, a regional counterinsurgency strategy could succeed against the FDLR.

With greater coordination among donors, conditioned support to the Congolese government could begin to end impunity, professionalize the Army, and improve governance. And with corporate due diligence in the mining sector, the Congolese could begin to benefit from their country's immense natural resources while drying up the trade in conflict minerals that remain a lifeblood for predatory militias.

That's a laundry list of "coulds," but in a place like Congo -- a desperately poor country where nearly 6 million people have died from 13 years of chronic conflict -- the world has a lot of work to do. Anyone advocating for an end to the conflict must be content with slow and steady progress and not expect a quick fix. In fact, this is true of most conflicts. Conflict fatigue only takes root when we forget that.

Colin Thomas-Jensen is policy advisor to Enough, the Center for American Progress's project to end genocide and crimes against humanity. Rebecca Feeley is Enough's former field researcher based in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.  

UN Photo/Marie Frechon

The U.N. Security Council's shameful failures in Sri Lanka.

By Gareth Evans

As the whole world watches the continuing calamity in Sri Lanka, with thousands of civilians dead and tens of thousands more at risk as government forces try to quash the last of the insurgent Tamil Tigers, the United Nations Security Council remains mired in debates over whether or not to even discuss the issue, with a minority of member-states obstructing any collective action in response to the crisis, or even an official review.

As the Sri Lankan army continues its assault on what is left of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), tens of thousands of civilians remain trapped inside a shrinking conflict zone, at risk not only from the fighting but from starvation and lack of water and medical attention. Despite the government's April 27 announcement that the military had been ordered to cease using air attacks, artillery, and other heavy weapons against remaining LTTE-held areas, such attacks have carried on with increased intensity.

The trapped civilians are not the only ones at risk. More than 170,000 who have managed to escape the worst of the fighting remain imprisoned in desperately overcrowded camps and medical centers. Scores are reported to have died after fleeing the conflict zone, and the military has been overwhelmed by the number of civilians flooding into reception areas.

Moreover, the government's screening process for those fleeing the conflict zone is both highly chaotic and without any international monitoring presence. Given a not-insignificant history of government-linked disappearances, the safety of those suspected to have LTTE ties is also of grave concern.

The reality is that both the LTTE leadership -- a murderous bunch of extremists for whom no tears should be shed by Tamils in Sri Lanka or by anyone anywhere -- and the Colombo government have abdicated their responsibility to protect Sri Lankan civilians from mass-atrocity crimes.

And the tragedy is that they have now been joined in this abdication by the Security Council itself, notwithstanding the unanimous resolution of the General Assembly, meeting at the heads of government level in 2005, that it should take "timely and decisive" action when "national authorities are failing to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity."

To their credit, France, the United States, Britain, and a number of other proactive Security Council members have ratcheted up pressure in recent weeks. They have pushed -- albeit cautiously -- for the council to review Sri Lanka as an official agenda item, and carefully negotiated a series of informal remarks on behalf of the council.

But because of consistent obstruction by a handful of member states, the issue continues to be relegated to informal statements and unofficial meetings -- not in the Security Council chamber -- but in the basement of the U.N. building. Those signaling varying degrees of opposition to council engagement have been China, Russia, Libya, Vietnam and --most surprisingly and disappointingly, given its role in advocating human security generally and civilian protection specifically -- Japan. While the tacit approval of a military endgame against a terrorist group is understandable enough, looking the other way as tens of thousands of innocent civilians are imperiled in the process is indefensible.

Since February, four U.N. envoys have been dispatched on missions to Sri Lanka to assess the deteriorating humanitarian situation, the status of displaced persons, and to discuss political solutions to the current crisis with President Rajapaksa and senior government officials. Despite obtaining a series promises from Colombo, no U.N. needs-assessment team has been received, humanitarian access remains limited, and the shelling continues.

Well aware of the absence of determined and united international action -- by the council in particular -- the government has defaulted on its promises and paid mere lip service to calls for restraint, all the while pursuing its military onslaught. But Colombo's intense efforts to prevent a review by the Security Council, with much lobbying in member state capitals, show how much weight effective council action would have.

Immediate -- and official -- action by the Council should include securing a U.N. needs assessment, the lifting of all restrictions on the delivery of humanitarian aid, and open access for the ICRC and U.N. agencies to all reception and screening points. The council could also facilitate steps toward an internationally-supervised surrender of the LTTE and a lasting political settlement.

It must be made crystal clear to both the Tigers and the Sri Lankan government that they will be held accountable for their actions. The council could consider a U.N. commission of inquiry to examine the likelihood of war crimes committed by both sides.

The longer the Security Council delays taking action of this kind, the longer atrocities will continue. Its relative silence is a matter for growing shame with each passing day.

Gareth Evans is president of the International Crisis Group and author of The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and for All.