Category: Mingst-Chapter 7

United Nations Security Council Imposes more Sanctions on Iran

In intro to IR, we’ll analyze the role of IGOs, NGOs, and international law in international politics.  Arguably the most important IGO is the United Nations Security Council (UNSC)  Today, the UNSC voted (14-0) to impose tougher sanctions against Iran as a result of that country’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons.  From the New York Times:

unsc_iran_vote_03mar2008.jpg

UNITED NATIONS — The Security Council on Monday adopted its third resolution imposing sanctions on Iran for its refusal to cease enriching uranium, an activity that the West suspects Iran may be using to create fuel for a nuclear weapon.

 The previous two measures gained the unanimous support of the 15-member panel, but in balloting on Monday Indonesia abstained, saying it “remained to be convinced of the efficacy of adopting additional sanctions at this juncture.” Fourteen countries voted in favor.

The resolution authorizes inspections of cargo to and from Iran that is suspected of carrying prohibited equipment, tightens the monitoring of Iranian financial institutions and extends travel bans and asset freezes against persons and companies involved in the nuclear program.

It adds 13 names to the existing list of 5 individuals and 12 companies subject to travel and asset restrictions. The new names include people with direct responsibility for building fast-spinning centrifuges that enrich uranium ore and a brigadier general engaged in “efforts to get around the sanctions” in the two earlier resolutions.

Notice two things: first, the use of “targeted sanctions.”  Second, the story byline reads “United Nations”, not New York.  I wonder if this is standard practice for stories originating from the United Nations headquarters in New York.  Does anyone know?

Peace and Punishment–An Insider’s Account of the ICTY

Marko Attila Hoare, whose blog (Greater Surbiton) is a great place to read about South East European politics, has a post on the recently published book by former spokeswoman of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Florence Hartmann.  The book is written in French and the title is Paix et chatiment: Les guerres secretes de la politique et de la justice internationales [Peace and Punishment: Secret Politial Wars and International Justice].

Hoare has a long post about the book. Here are some snippets:

[Hartmann] has used her eyewitness’s insight into the inner workings of the ICTY to support her blistering critique of the failure of the Western alliance to support the cause of justice for the former Yugoslavia. Her book paints a portrait of Western powers, above all the US, Britain and France, stifling the ICTY and preventing the arrest of war-criminals through a combination of obstruction, manipulation, mutual rivalry and sheer inertia.

One of the best parts of the book concerns what Hartmann terms the ‘fictitious pursuit’ of the two most prominent Bosnian Serb war-criminals, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, involving repeated failures to arrest them. Hartmann gives various reasons why the Western powers might have behaved in this manner, among them the alleged agreement in 1995 between Milosevic, Mladic and French President Jacques Chirac, that in return for the release of two French pilots shot down by the Serbs over Bosnia, Mladic would never be prosecuted by the ICTY; the similar alleged agreement between Karadzic, Mladic and the US’s Richard Holbrooke in 1996, for Karadzic to withdraw from political life in return for a guarantee that he would never be prosecuted; and the readiness in 2002 of Bosnia’s High Representative, Britain’s Paddy Ashdown, to sabotage the attempts of Bosnian intelligence chief Munir Alibabic to track down Karadzic, out of rivalry with the French intelligence services with which Alibabic was working…

…Peace and Punishment, nevertheless, remains essential reading for several reasons. It reminds us that, however critical one may be of del Ponte’s performance as Chief Prosecutor, she was very far from being the only senior individual responsible for the ICTY’s failures. It gives an insight into the sort of debates and conflicts over strategy that preoccupied war-crimes investigators at the OTP. And it highlights the fact that, far from being an agent of Western imperialism, the Chief Prosecutor was acting in a frequently hostile international arena, in which she had to struggle for international cooperation, and in which the ICTY was frequently squeezed rather than supported by the Great Powers. Although, as I have indicated, I am highly critical of several aspects of this book, I would nevertheless recommend it to anyone interested in the subject of why international justice has failed the peoples of the former Yugoslavia.

NGOs and Their Changing Roles–How Have They Changed

Here is a two-part interview, available on YouTube with Norman Cook, and long-time practitioner and student of NGOs and the role they play in international politics.  We’ll be looking at NGOs next week, so you may want to take a look at this interview to learn a little bit more about how the role of NGOs has changed over time.

Here is a description of the interview:

Interview with Norman Cook, Canadian development expert (and jazz lover). How have the roles of NGOs changed? Are they becoming near-governmental – “embedded” with power politics? How our development models and criteria often don’t fit the reality in developing countries.
Interview by Jan Oberg, November 27, 2007

While watching consider the arguments of Krasner and Slaughter that we discussed last week.  How would they respond to Cook’s assertions?

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