Special Representative Of The Secretary General Research Articles

All necessary measures? The United Nations and international intervention in Libya

In this slim book, Ian Martin, the first United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) to Libya, evaluates the international response to the 2011–2 conflict and the international community's responsibility for Libya's subsequent instability. All necessary measures? relies heavily on Martin's personal recollections, but the book is more than a memoir: it offers a thoughtful assessment of the short-term factors that led to Libya's current predicament. The book does not address intra-Libya dynamics in great depth, focusing instead on the positions and roles of key international players. It will therefore be of primary interest to scholars of International Relations, conflict mediation and state-building. The book is structured around a series of questions, which Martin is likely to have reflected on repeatedly over the last decade: Was a military intervention necessary? Did NATO exceed its mandate to protect civilians and seek regime change? Was a successful negotiated transition between Gaddafi and the rebels possible? Should there have been a peacekeeping mission after the conflict? Were the first post-conflict elections held too soon? The result is a highly illuminating account of the thinking and constraints of the period, though it is also somewhat defensive. For example, Martin rightly argues that the scattershot approach of Libya's transitional administration, the National Transitional Council (NTC), to funding in the informal security sector was highly destabilizing. He also notes that the unconditional unfreezing of Libyan assets facilitated this damaging spending. However, he largely absolves the international community of responsibility and concludes that ‘any attempt through the [UN] Security Council to control the use of the assets would have been hugely resented in the context of late 2011’ (p. 145).

Business Enterprises and the Environment

In 2011, following his 2005 initial mandate of the UN Commission on Human Rights and his extended 2008 mandate of the UN Human Rights Council, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) on the issues of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, professor John Ruggie, issued the final text of the Principles for the Implementation of the United Nations 'Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework'. The 2008 Framework on Business and Human Rights and the complementing 2011 Guiding Principles consist of three pillars: the duty of states to protect human rights, the responsibility of business enterprises to respect human rights, and access to remedies for victims of human rights abuses. They currently qualify as the dominant paradigm in the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) discourse, also because they now form part of various soft law and self-regulation initiatives. The Framework and Guiding Principles do not however specifically focus on environmental issues. But their systematic approach and structure do provide a model to address state duties and business responsibilities to care of the environment. This article is intended to complement the UN Framework and Guiding Principles on business and human rights with principles in the field of business and the environment. Hence, it is submitted that states have a customary duty to care for the environment (paragraph 2); it is similarly submitted that business enterprises have a responsibility to care for the environment (paragraph 3); and it is submitted that stakeholders must have access to remedies in relation to breaches of these duties and responsibilities (paragraph 4).

Mediation and Peacebuilding: SRSGs and DSRSGs in Integrated Missions

This article focuses on the role of the special representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) in the context of UN integrated missions. The article argues that the primary leadership function of the SRSG is to facilitate a process that generates and maintains strategic direction and operational coherence across the political, governance, development, economic, and security dimensions of a peacebuilding process. The power and influence of the SRSG does not reside in the resources that he or she can directly bring to bear on a specific situation, but in the ability to muster and align the resources of a large number of agencies, donors, and countries to support the peacebuilding effort in a given context. This type of leadership role implies that persons with skills, experience, and a personality suited to multistakeholder mediation and negotiations are more likely to be successful SRSGs than someone who is used to top-down, autocratic, military, private sector, or direct-control type leadership styles. Th...

Business and Human Rights in South Africa: An Analysis of Antecedents of Human Rights Due Diligence

The purpose of the present article is to analyse South African listed companies’ public reporting in order to contribute to our understanding of how and why companies consider human rights. The empirical analysis is placed in the context of the increasing prominence of human rights as a business issue, premised in part on the activities of the United Nations (UN) Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) on human rights and business. On the basis of a content analysis of the public reports of the top 100 companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), we test hypotheses focused on the antecedents of companies’ demonstrated human rights due diligence, with particular reference to assumptions or findings of the SRSG and institutional theory. Some of our results are unexpected: there is little influence exerted by the sector and size of companies in our sample, and there is also an unexpectedly insignificant impact of company participation in the UN Global Compact and the JSE Socially Responsible Investment Index. On the other hand, a key predictor of human rights due diligence is an explicit leadership commitment, and important roles are also played by government regulations and stock exchange listing rules.

The state of the media in Kosovo

Introduction It is easy to speak about the Kosovo media in derogatory cliches. Kosovo is the only place in Europe deprived of foreign direct investment in the media. Newspaper circulation figures are the lowest on the continent. Radio stations serve as jukeboxes. Commercial television stations excel only in soaps. The public service broadcaster is best known for a gaffe which triggered widespread rioting in 2004. Political interference is rife. Copyright is infringed day and night. Yet, almost unnoticed, over the past few years considerable progress has been made. Most of the framework of legislation, regulation and education has been put in place, and the media have gradually improved. The Kosovo Assembly adopted a commendable civil defamation law, which was recently promulgated by the Special Representative of the SecretaryGeneral (SRSG), Kosovo's proconsul. This defamation law, which will open the way to revoking the existing criminal code, was the last part of the legal jigsaw. All other media laws had come into force in the previous two years. Kosovo now has a copyright law which meets European standards, as well as a public broadcasting law and a law establishing the broadcast media regulator. And the existing Law on Access to Official Documents has moved closer to proper implementation through an administrative directive. The print media have established a multi-ethnic Press Council, which enforces a code of conduct. An Independent Media Commission has started to regulate the broadcast media. The Kosovo Institute for Communication and Journalism, a centre of journalistic excellence situated on the outskirts of the capital, is running twoyear MA courses in journalism. The Kosovo Media Institute will shortly add to this the vital ingredient of mid-career training. However, a lot remains to be done.

Institution-Building and Human Rights Protection in Kosovo in the Light of UNMIK Legislation

AbstractBy analyzing specific legislative and institutional aspects of UNMIK's administration of Kosovo, this article attempts to highlight the discrepancy between the nature of an international security presence and civilian administration (under Security Council peacekeeping mandate), and effective human rights remedies, as well as principles of democratic governance such as accountability, lawfulness and constitutionality. The `constitutional' aspects of the current system of governance in Kosovo are described and difficulties of creating an international administration, which seeks to gain a certain level of acceptance by the subjected population, are pointed out. The article explains how UNMIK went about establishing a Joint Interim Administrative Structure while dismantling parallel, illegitimate power structures. It further addresses the Constitutional Framework for Provisional Self-Governance and evaluates briefly its human rights-related aspects. Legislative issues and questions concerning the rule of law are discussed in another section, which deals with UNMIK's formal commitments to adhere to the highest level of internationally recognized human rights standards. Several important Regulations issued by the Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) are analyzed. Consequently, the most significant structures and mechanisms for the protection, promotion and monitoring of human rights are shortly presented and put in context. The article raises several crucial questions concerning the access to effective remedy and the effectiveness of human rights institutions in an environment of legal uncertainty, the absence of the rule of law and the supremacy of international authority, which is beyond the reach of judicial control or review. It concludes that if effective human rights protection shall be the outcome of structures dedicated to human rights, these structures have to be constructed to offer real remedies, proper judicial procedures and legal clarity. The present nature of international peace missions (military and civilian) is not compatible with the requirements of a law-based administration according to the Rechtsstaat-model, which is arguably a prerequisite for effective human rights protection.