The Denouement: Pax UNita
By Cameron Hunt
28 December, 2010Countercurrents.org
The following extract is taken from my novel, Pax UNita, published June 2006. In it, Australia's Ambassador to the United Nations addresses the General Assembly on a 'N o-State Solution' to the Israel-Palestine Conflict, and argues that ending the Conflict first requires us to end the ‘power of veto' in the UN Security Council:
On 18 September 2000, this Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution that has come to be known as the ‘ Millennium Declaration ' . In it, all Members of the United Nations committed themselves to several goals, amongst which included:
• to “establish a just and lasting peace all over the world in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter”;
• to “support all efforts to uphold … the right to self-determination of peoples which remain under colonial domination and foreign occupation”;
• to “reaffirm the central position of the General Assembly as the chief deliberative, policy-making and representative organ of the United Nations”;
• to “strengthen respect for the rule of law in international as in national affairs”; and
• the goal upon which each of the above goals seem to have depended: to “intensify our efforts to achieve a comprehensive reform of the Security Council in all its aspects”.
In 1960, four decades before the Millennium Declaration was adopted, this Assembly adopted a resolution entitled ‘ Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples ' . In it, it was declared that: “The subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights, is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and is an impediment to the promotion of world peace”. Most will have noticed that this resolution pronounced at least two of the goals subsequently repeated in the Millennium Declaration, four decades later. Namely, ending foreign occupations, and the promotion of world peace; these two goals being very much interrelated.
Many will agree that Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands has been the world's most divisive foreign occupation ever since the establishment of the State in 1948. As Security Council President, I have presided over several attempts to help mitigate the decades long Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands; measures vetoed by a single permanent member. Such vetoes, and the scores that preceded them, make it painfully clear that as long as the ‘power of veto' exists, and as long as this Assembly continues to operate within its current norms, there will be no end to that occupation.
For the reasons just cited, I would like to remind the Assembly of a third resolution; a resolution entitled ‘ Uniting for Peace ' . A resolution it adopted in 1950 – at the behest of the United States, the United Kingdom and France – as a mechanism to overcome Soviet obstructionism in the Security Council, caused by the Soviet Union's subconscious and reflexive use of the veto.
The preamble of the Uniting for Peace resolution declared that this Assembly was:
• “ Conscious that failure of the Security Council to discharge its responsibilities … does not relieve Member States of their obligations or the United Nations of its responsibility under the Charter to maintain international peace and security”; and
• “ Recognizing … that such failure does not deprive the General Assembly of its rights or relieve it of its responsibilities under the Charter in regard to the maintenance of international peace and security”.
A third, more profound, but seemingly forgotten paragraph from that resolution resolves that:
• “… if the Security Council, because of lack of unanimity of the permanent members, fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security in any case where there appears to be a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately with a view to making appropriate recommendations to Members for collective measures, including … the use of armed force when necessary , to maintain or restore international peace and security ”.
Reading through this paragraph, it is not difficult to understand why the Assembly president referred to the resolution as: “not only the most important decision adopted during this session, but the most important of all those adopted during any session of the General Assembly”. It made clear for the first time that the UN Charter confers far-reaching powers upon this Assembly in cases where the Security Council “fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security”. Those powers were held to include the full range of powers within the Security Council's remit, including the ability to recommend to Member States “the use of armed force when necessary”.
The Uniting for Peace resolution – Assembly resolution 377 A – was adopted by 52 votes to 5, with 2 abstentions. It was only the Soviet bloc that voted against the resolution; each of the four other permanent members of the Security Council voted in favour of its adoption. During plenary meetings, the United Kingdom explained away the opposition of the Soviet bloc: “The Soviet Union … has attributed to the Council a power which it has never had under the Charter, namely, the power to insist that, because the Council has itself been reduced to impotence in the face of aggression by disagreement among its permanent members, the entire world Organization shall wash its hands of the whole matter and let aggression take its course. The Council has never possessed any such right.”
France backed this claim: “Where peace and security are at stake, France considers that the General Assembly and the Security Council should assume all the responsibilities laid upon them by the Charter… The Council should fulfil its role; if it does so it will be adequate… If, however, for some reason, it does not fulfil its role, the United Nations will not thereby be paralysed. A special session of the General Assembly can be convened within twenty-four hours and the Assembly … can discuss and adopt any recommendations which appear necessary for the maintenance or re-establishment of peace and security .”
The United States offered support for the General Assembly and its powers that exceeded even the support offered by the British and French: “We must organize dependably the collective will to resist aggression. If the Security Council does not do so, then this Assembly must do what it can by invoking its residual power of recommendation.” Further to this, the US representative provided the Assembly with some very reassuring words: “As the world moves in the path that this resolution defines, it will move nearer and nearer to the Charter ideal”.
The only permanent member to vote against the Uniting for Peace resolution, the Soviet Union, agreed with most of the Charter interpretations provided by the US, UK and French representatives; with one crucial exception. The Soviet representative stated that: “the General Assembly may discuss and make recommendations on any matters relating to the powers and functions of any organs of the United Nations – and consequently of an organ such as the Security Council – except as otherwise provided”. “But”, he stated, “there is a basic reservation… the General Assembly may [only] decide what measures ‘not involving the use of force' are to be employed”. He went on to identify the powers that did fall within the remit of the Assembly: “Severance of diplomatic relations is a measure not involving the use of armed force. Interruption of economic relations is an enforcement measure not involving the use of armed force.” As such, the only permanent member to vote against the resolution agreed that this Assembly has the power to recommend to its Members the severance of diplomatic and economic relations with a state.
Although the Uniting for Peace resolution was adopted over sixty years ago, it is still not yet part of the ‘normative framework' of the General Assembly; despite representing a fundamental component of its ‘legal framework'. Up until this point, the Assembly has failed to make “appropriate recommendations to Members for collective measures … to maintain or restore international peace and security”, in cases where “the Security Council … fails to exercise its primary responsibility” to do so. Given the current, decades old impasse in the Security Council on the issue of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, this Assembly must finally assume those powers otherwise reserved for the Security Council. We must remember that the failure of the Council “to exercise its primary responsibility … does not deprive the General Assembly of its rights or relieve it of its responsibilities under the Charter ”.
Excellencies, we have come to a fork in the road. The two paths are as follows:
1) The unanimously declared goal of “comprehensive reform of the Security Council” is committed to and commenced before this Assembly begins its regular sittings in mid-September; or
2) A new norm is established at the UN whereby the General Assembly actively authorizes “the use of armed force when necessary”, in all cases where there is a “lack of unanimity of the permanent members” in the Security Council. The Council can be made defunct, or, at its most potent, a rubber stamp for Assembly decisions; should this Assembly wish to make it thus.
Some measures that any “comprehensive reform” of the Security Council should entail, include:
• an end to the ‘power of veto', and a shift to ‘weighted voting' on the basis of such criteria as population size, and conformity to UN-set ‘democratic guidelines' used to gauge government representativeness;
• a cap on the size of the Council, which might be achieved, for example, by including only those UN members that represent more than thirty million citizens and/or contribute more than 0.1 per cent to the UN's budget;
• those members behind in their contributions to the UN should lose not only their General Assembly vote, but also their vote in the Security Council; and
• a three-quarter majority, rather than a two-thirds majority, should be required in order for the newly democratized Security Council to authorize the use of armed force.
Can I suggest to the five permanent members, each of whom stand to lose a considerable degree of influence as a result of the democratization of the Security Council, that they stand to lose a great deal more influence if they force the General Assembly to take the second path; a path whereby the Assembly would begin authorizing the use of armed force, as necessary. If that path is taken, each nation, irrespective of its population size or financial contributions to the UN, will have one non-weighted vote . True, we would then arrive at the ‘sovereign equality' spoken of in the Charter, but such a norm would likely damage the authority and prestige of the United Nations. Resolutions authorizing the use of armed force should only ever be adopted by this Organization in cases where the military and financial resources necessary to enforce them actually exist; resulting in the need for weighted voting. Otherwise, some UN resolutions may never be enforced; a situation we are trying to correct.
Excellencies, the draft resolution before you represents a UN-imposed solution, to a UN-created problem: the Israel-Palestine conflict. It requires this Assembly to utilize a portion of those powers granted it by the UN Charter, powers that until now it has overwhelmingly failed to utilize, in complete neglect of its “responsibilities under the Charter”. By authorizing the imposition of economic sanctions and recommending the severance of all diplomatic relations with the State of Israel, this Assembly will be establishing a new norm at the UN, thereby altering the current ‘normative framework'; but it will stop short of authorizing the use of armed force, which for the time being should be reserved for the remit of a comprehensively reformed Security Council.
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The secret, 1916, ‘Sykes-Picot agreement' between Britain, France and Russia envisaged an “international régime” for historic Palestine at the end of the First World War, since “places sacred to three world religions were located there”. It is easy to imagine the untold wars and carnage that would have been avoided, if that international régime had been imposed; if superpower self-interest had not been permitted to trump peace.
General Assembly resolution 181 – the ‘Partition resolution' – did not call for an international régime for the whole of historic Palestine, but it did call for an international régime for the whole of Jerusalem. Anyone familiar with the history of the conflict will know that by 14 May 1948, the day that the State of Israel was declared, the “major part of Jerusalem meant to be internationalized under the partition plan, had … been occupied by Jewish forces”, in violation of resolution 181, and that that occupation has never ended. In fact, the occupation has grown to encompass the whole of Jerusalem.
Anybody that has read the ‘ Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel ' , will be aware that Assembly resolution 181 is citied as the most fundamental instrument from which that State claims its legitimacy; yet Israel declared Jerusalem to be its capital on January 1950, not two years after the declared establishment of their State, in complete violation of resolution 181. Additionally, the Israeli Prime Minister recently declared: “Jerusalem is ours for eternity and will never pass into foreign hands”. Do such words render resolution 181 null and void? In fact, the Prime Minister of Israel himself referred to resolution 181 as “null and void”. Likewise, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs proclaims the status of Assembly resolution 181 to be “defunct”. As such, we at the United Nations have a situation where a Member State is claiming its legitimacy from a resolution it considers to be “null and void”. One can only conclude that that State, and any legitimacy it may have originally had, is now also null and void.
Excellencies, the solution is before us; just as the solution was before us in 1916. Bringing about the full implementation of resolution 181, including the internationalization of Jerusalem, is no longer enough. Nothing short of the complete internationalization of Palestine can possibly hope to right the wrongs done by this Assembly when it adopted resolution 181. The so-called ‘two-state solution' that we hear so much about today, is patently no solution at all. The Partition resolution was our first attempt at a two-state solution, and with the hindsight granted us by decades of war and terrorism, it should be clear to us all that it has failed. Today, the only solution available to this Assembly is a ‘no-state solution' ; the complete internationalization of Palestine , with the United Nations as administering authority.
There are likely to be several thinking: if we bypass the Security Council, and by way of that, the vetoes of the permanent members, one result might be the withdrawal of the United States from the UN system; the nation which, when it chooses to pay its dues, funds 22 per cent of the UN Secretariat's budget – approximately US$390 million. Not all of you will be aware that today, the occupied Palestinian territories are already a ‘quasi-UN trust territory' . The ‘United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees', UNRWA, is “the largest UN operation in the Middle East, with over 25,000 staff”. It is “the only UN agency that reports directly to the UN General Assembly”. “Originally envisaged as a temporary organization”, today it is “the main provider of basic services … [including] education, health, relief and social services” to over four million Palestinian refugees. UNRWA funding comes almost entirely from voluntary contributions by donor states, and its budget for this year alone is US$690 million. If we subtract US contributions from that figure, other nations are covering the remainder – US$560 million – in order that UNRWA can provide basic services required by the Palestinians; in order that we can sustain a Palestinian existence within UN refugee camps. You may have noticed that this figure exceeds US contributions to the UN Secretariat by US$170 million. If a trust territory is imposed upon the Levant, and if the US chooses to withdraw from the UN system as a result, given that a solution will have been found to the conflict in Palestine, and given that UNRWA operations could be wound back as a true UN trust territory took shape, UNRWA donor states would stand to save millions of dollars annually even if they chose to make up any shortfall in the UN Secretariat's budget that might result from a US withdrawal.
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If we are going to discuss keystone UN resolutions, and what they mean – if in fact, they mean anything – we need to examine those resolutions in further detail. In December 1948, as a consequence of the ‘First Middle East War', this Assembly adopted resolution 194 , and resolved that: “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property”. This resolution establishes the Palestinian ‘Right of Return' under customary international law . Many of us have been unnerved by ongoing US efforts to unilaterally revoke Assembly resolution 194; no longer content with the ability to veto draft Security Council resolutions alone. Given these efforts to revoke Assembly resolution 194 – including a US insistence that “new realities on the ground” be allowed to override international law, thereby rendering international law meaningless – it should be clear to everybody that the status quo will ensure that the Palestinians are never able to exercise the ‘Right of Return' entitled to them under international law. The solution? A trust territory which ensures that those “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours … [ ARE ] permitted to do so”.
The 1948 ‘Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel', after citing Assembly resolution 181, goes on to declare: “the General Assembly required the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution.” Not content with 56 per cent of Palestinian lands, despite being only 32 per cent of the population at the time, on “termination of the [British] Mandate, Jewish forces moved to occupy further territory beyond the boundaries specified by the Partition resolution”, taking up 77 per cent of Palestine, as well as the larger part of Jerusalem. Today, Israel occupies approximately 85 per cent of historic Palestine. Let us be clear: General Assembly resolution 181 did not authorize “the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution”. Even today, norms at the UN still do not see the General Assembly authorizing the use of armed force – despite it having been made explicit in 1950, three years after the adoption of resolution 181, that it has the power to do so. Instead, resolution 181 “Requests that … The Security Council take the necessary measures as provided for in the plan”, and that “The Security Council determine as a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression … any attempt to alter by force the settlement envisaged by this resolution” . As everybody will be aware, the State of Israel has gone well in excess of an “attempt to alter by force the settlement envisaged”. Even today, Israel continues to expand onto Palestinian lands with complete impunity – impunity afforded it by the veto of a single permanent member – in contempt of the fact that such actions represent “a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression”.
Security Council resolution 242 – passed five months after the ‘Six-Day War' of June 1967 – emphasized “ the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war ” , and demands “Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict”. These territories are still, for the most part, occupied by Israeli forces; more than four decades later, and in manifest contempt of the Security Council and its resolutions. Given “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war” , and given that Israel's 1948 ‘War of Independence' was in no way authorized by resolution 181, there is only one remedy available to this Assembly: all territories inadmissibly acquired by the State of Israel must be redeemed by the United Nations .
Excellencies, I shall now proceed to the draft resolution I put before you:
“ The General Assembly,
“ Reiterating the permanent responsibility of the United Nations for the question of Palestine until it is solved in all its aspects,
“ Notes with regret the failure of this Organization to properly implement resolution 181 for the partition of Palestine,
“ Also notes with regret the ongoing and flagrant violation of this Organization's resolutions and Charter,
“ Conscious of the failure of the Security Council to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security because of lack of unanimity of the permanent members,
“1. Decides to revoke its earlier resolution 181;
“2. Urges the European Union to immediately terminate the ‘EU-Israel Association Agreement';
“3. Urges all governments to prohibit trade with the State of Israel;
“4. Urges all governments to expel any diplomatic missions of the State of Israel, and to terminate all diplomatic ties with that State;
“5. Requests that the Security Council immediately pass a resolution for the termination of the membership of the State of Israel in this Organization;
“6. Instructs the Trusteeship Council to reconvene and to prepare the ‘Statute of the United Nations Trust Territory of the Levant', encompassing all the lands of historic Palestine, with the General Assembly as the Administering Authority;
“7. Instructs the Trusteeship Council to utilize the existing staff and resources of the ‘United Nations Relief and Works Agency' and the United Nations Secretariat ‘Division for Palestinian Rights', in the administration of the ‘United Nations Trust Territory of the Levant';
“8. Decides to merge the ‘United Nations Truce Supervision Organization', the ‘United Nations Disengagement Observer Force', and the ‘United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon', into the ‘United Nations Trust Territory Defence Force';
“9. Authorizes an immediate and ongoing airlift of humanitarian supplies to Palestinian areas, under the supervision of the ‘United Nations Trust Territory Defence Force', and any other forces made available to that body by Member States.”
Today, the European Union is Israel's largest trading partner , absorbing over 25 per cent of Israel's exports and supplying it with more than 40 per cent of its imports; all upon the basis of preferential trading privileges. If the EU terminates its Association Agreement with the State of Israel, and imposes trade sanctions, that State will fail. If the world's remaining nations partake in the imposition of economic sanctions, upon the recommendation of this Assembly, the State will fail considerably sooner. Given the absolute impact that any widespread economic embargo would have on the State of Israel, this Assembly has no need to authorize the use of armed force in order to ensure the implementation of the draft resolution now before it. Indeed, such authorization should be reserved for acts of aggression against UN bodies, non-government organizations, or civilians, and should only be given by this Assembly in the absence of a comprehensively reformed Security Council.
A final point I would like to make is that the cost to this Organization of the three peacekeeping forces mentioned in paragraph eight of the draft resolution, comes to a total of US$172 million annually. Even if we ignore the many other UN organs I have failed to mention that provide aid, staff and other services to the Palestinians, it is clear that the financial cost of the ‘power of veto' to the UN, is far in excess of the financial contributions made to the UN by the five members wielding it . Japan, a non-permanent member, contributes more than four of the five permanent members combined. Germany, the third biggest contributor to the UN, and also a non-permanent member, provides more than double the combined contributions of China and Russia; it provides more than the United Kingdom and France. My country, Australia, a nation of twenty million people, contributes nearly 50 per cent more than Russia, a nation of one hundred and forty million. Can the UN afford the possible financial implications of ending the power of veto: the withdrawal of one or more permanent members and the loss of their contributions? It cannot afford not to . UNRWA per capita contributions to Palestinian refugees are now one-third of their 1975 levels, and falling. Additionally, Japan has suggested that it will give less to the UN in the future unless it is placed on an equal footing with the permanent member states; a footing all states deserve.
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Condemnation
‘Good Morning Mr. Secretary-General', [said] Andrew ... a civilian now, stripped of all diplomatic credentials.
‘I have just been on the phone with the President of Switzerland. She has okayed the transfer of UN Headquarters from New York to our European Headquarters at the Palais des Nations. The President did warn me however that if your resolution is adopted, Geneva might not have enough human resources to fill the new roles that would be created.'
‘Right...', replied Andrew, beginning to regret what he had started.
‘Come on Andrew, you know the answer to that. A newly internationalized Levant would be the perfect location for UN Headquarters. It would provide thousands of new jobs in an area where unemployment is dangerously high... Can you imagine the boost to the economies in the area? We would also be headquartered on the first international soil – the first true international soil – ever known to man.'
Cameron Hunt is the author of Pax UNita - A novel solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
