United Nations Mandate Research Articles

THE UN FACTOR IN THE COMPLEX INTERDEPENDENCE SYSTEM OF REGIONAL SECURITY

This article explores the role of the United Nations (UN) within the complex interdependence system of regional security. In an era marked by global interconnectedness and interdependence, regional security challenges necessitate a multilateral approach. The UN, as a global organization, assumes a critical role in addressing these challenges due to its mandate, resources, and convening power. The article begins by elucidating the concept of complex interdependence, emphasizing the intricate web of relationships and interconnections among states and non-state actors in the realm of regional security. It underscores the significance of comprehending the multifaceted nature of contemporary security concerns and the imperative of collaboration and cooperation among nations. Subsequently, the article investigates the UN's role in the complex interdependence system. It examines the UN's mandate, which encompasses the promotion of peace, security, and stability at both regional and global levels. The institutional framework of the UN, including the Security Council, General Assembly, and specialized agencies, provides platforms for dialogue, negotiation, and coordination among member states. Moreover, the article explores the UN's resources and capabilities in addressing regional security issues. It highlights the UN's peacekeeping operations, conflict prevention and mediation efforts, and humanitarian assistance initiatives as crucial tools for fostering regional security. Additionally, it underscores the UN's normative framework, encompassing international law and human rights, as essential components in the pursuit of regional security. Furthermore, the article analyzes the UN's convening power and its ability to bring together diverse actors to collectively address regional security challenges. It discusses the UN's role as a platform for dialogue, diplomacy, and consensus-building, facilitating regional cooperation and fostering trust among states. Lastly, the article acknowledges the limitations and challenges faced by the UN within the complex interdependence system of regional security. It recognizes the need for ongoing efforts to enhance the UN's effectiveness, responsiveness, and adaptability to evolving security dynamics. In conclusion, this article underscores the indispensable role of the UN within the complex interdependence system of regional security. By leveraging its mandate, resources, and convening power, the UN significantly contributes to the cultivation of peaceful and stable regional environments in an era characterized by interconnectedness and interdependence.

Prisoner Lives Cut Short: The Need to Address Structural, Societal and Environmental Factors to Reduce Preventable Prisoner Deaths

Abstract The State duty to prevent preventable prisoner deaths is easy to state and substantiate. Yet prisoner death rates are increasing around the world and are often much higher than those in the community. To understand why this is happening, the findings and recommendations of the country reports of international oversight bodies and thematic reports from international rapporteurs are synthesised with contemporary rights-informed penal standards, multi-disciplinary scholarship, non-governmental organization reports and media extracts. On the basis of this knowledge, this reform-oriented article explores the impact of structural, societal and environmental factors on natural and violent prisoner deaths and how these factors operate cumulatively to create dangerous and life-threatening custodial environments. The paper makes recommendations to reaffirm and enumerate the positive obligation to protect prisoners’ lives, develop specialist standards, adopt a broader approach to prison oversight and create a specific United Nations mandate on prisoner rights.

Middle Point, End of the Road or Just the Beginning? Anticorruption Efforts, Failures and Promises at the United Nations

Although first noted discussions at the United Nations (UN) level about corruption are reaching their 50th anniversary, the core of the UN activity against corruption has taken place in the last quarter of a century. The 2021 special debate at the UN General Assembly was an opportunity for the institution to pause and reflect about its role over this period in the international fight against corruption. It also presented a (partially missed) opportunity for the UN to renew its commitment and reconsider its approach for the next 25 years. This article provides first an overview of the UN activity against corruption, which relies on two main pillars. On the one hand, the well-known United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) in force since 2005, which has received remarkable academic attention and is an example of success in terms of ratifications. On the other hand, the insertion in Sustainable Development Goal 16 of an anticorruption objective (16.5) and its related indicators, which is not as widely acknowledged by anticorruption activists and scholars but serves as a recognition of the importance of tackling corruption in the development context. The article offers a historical contextualisation of both initiatives, analyses this dual approach and explores the impact of these initiatives in the global and domestic contexts. Based on previous research from the author, it highlights their joint value as a true global statement against corruption and an authoritative recognition of its damaging effects and their importance for peace, security, development, human rights and human wellbeing. The article presents, nevertheless, a critical analysis showing their shortcomings and the lack of a real effect of these instruments in overcoming or at least reducing corruption and kleptocracy at the international level. It proposes three different avenues within the UN mandate and fields of action that could guide newer initiatives. First, it explores the possibility of individual (non-criminal) ‘smart’ sanctions, modelled on the counter-terrorism regime driven by national governments, but assisted by United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Second, the article considers how the economic and trade dimension of the UN, especially at the regional economic commissions level, could be reinvigorated with a mandate to tackle corruption through economic instruments. Third, it analyses how an optional protocol to the UNCAC could give more ‘teeth’ to the Convention. The general conclusion is that the UN, within its existing powers, has significant potential to take anticorruption initiatives a step further as the current ones have almost exhausted their shelf life.

Deradicalisation Regulations and Violation of Human Rights: A Few Instances from China and Sri Lanka

Given the gravity of crimes of violent extremism and the heightened securitisation associated with it, preventive or counter-terrorism measures have often led to the abuse of power,infringement of justice, and polarisation in the society. As part of countering terrorism,‘deradicalisation’ regulations and practices need to affirm the protection and promotion of human rights. Unfortunately, though this was a consistent proposition by the United Nations (UN), several nations have failed to observe human rights monitoring in their designated ‘deradicalisation’ regulations. This paper, relying on the secondary scholarships and reports of media, the UN and other human rights organisations, has reviewed how states may violate the human rights of the members of targeted communities under the disguise of ‘deradicalisation’. In this regard, the paper has used a few instances from China and Sri Lanka to illustrate the matter more precisely. The objective of the article is to highlight how a lack of theorisation of human rights in deradicalisation may lead countries to end up with politically motivated ‘deradicalisation’ frameworks that contradict UN mandate and other national and international human rights safeguards. Dhaka University Law Journal, 2022, 33(1), 57-72

A danger to protest: the freedom of peaceful assembly and disruptive protest under the Summary Offences and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2019 (Qld)

ABSTRACT In December 2019, four United Nations mandate holders wrote to the Australian government with serious concerns regarding the Summary Offences and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2019 (Qld) (‘SOOLA’). SOOLA was enacted in response to a campaign of non-violent civil and economic disruption and creates new criminal offences, expands police powers to search and seize and intensifies penalties for assemblies that use ‘dangerous attachment devices’. There is considerable evidence supporting the concerns that SOOLA places Australia in violation of its obligations under article 21 of the ICCPR, particularly in the light of the recent adoption of the General Comment on the right of peaceful assembly (General Comment No. 37). Peacefulness and disruption are not mutually exclusive concepts and intentionally disruptive assemblies are not automatically invalidated from protection under the ICCPR. However, the limited nature of Queensland municipal human rights law leaves peaceful assemblies that transgress accepted forms into disruption open to further criminalisation. Positive enforceable provisions that move beyond dichotomous understandings of legal assemblies are required to enshrine Australia’s obligations under article 21 of the ICCPR.

EFFECTIVENESS OF THE USE OF FORCE TO PROTECT CIVILIANS IN THE CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC (CAR)

Though the United Nations (UN) has mandated the use of force, in most missions, innocent civilians continue to be attacked and killed. Focused on the “UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic”, (MINUSCA), the study investigated the effectiveness of the use of force (UoF) in the Protection of Civilians (PoC). The study was anchored on Liberalism theory. This was a library-based research that relied on secondary data. Data was obtained from books, e-books, journals, UN publications and websites. The collected data was analysed thematically. The findings show that the UoF in the PoC has positive impact on the execution of the MINUSCA mandate since early 2017 and has helped to reduce levels of armed violence. Although UoF was perceived as being effective in CAR, it was faced with some challenges. This was due to the fact that it was seen as directly targeting one party to the conflict; an act which is perceived to be against the principles of PKOs. The UoF must be supported by proper conflict analysis prior to the signing of a peace agreement, troops with a capability and training matching the task, and committed to the use of force. Missions with PoC mandate must be matched by an appropriate military capability beyond the normal infantry battalion capability. Troops deployed to PKOs should not be deployed on the basis of just the will of the member state, but the troops must have the capacity and capability to undertake the UN mandate.

Challenges to the Execution of the UN Mandate in Central African Republic

United Nations (UN) Peace Keeping Operations (PKOs) are often faced with numerous challenges. These include lack of clarity in implementation procedures, environmental challenges including language as well as, different customs, and ideology existing within the mission groups among others. This study sought to examine the challenges to the execution of the UN Mandate with reference to the “UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic”, (MINUSCA). Data was obtained from books, e-books, journals, UN publications and websites. The collected data was analyzed thematically so as to establish the efficacy of UN intervention in light of the identified contemporary challenges. The findings show that the execution of the UN Mandate in the Central African Republic is implemented in a complex environment. The UN during its planning for PKOs may have not considered the national institutional capabilities in CAR that were expected to support MINUSCA in the execution of its Mandate. It can also be concluded that challenges to the MNUSCA mandate execution lie in the ability and capability of the rehatted troops from MISCA to MINUSCA which emanated from the inherent inability of the UN to raise enough troops for its PKOs. In this regard, the principles of peacekeeping; impartiality, consent and non-UoF except in self-defense as well as the defense of the mandate must be reviewed so as to be effective in contemporary PKOs.

Diamonds Certify Themselves: Multivariate Statistical Provenance Analysis

The country or mine of origin is an important economic and societal issue inherent in the diamond industry. Consumers increasingly want to know the provenance of their diamonds to ensure their purchase does not support inhumane working conditions. Governments around the world reduce the flow of conflict diamonds via paper certificates through the Kimberley Process, a United Nations mandate. However, certificates can be subject to fraud and do not provide a failsafe solution to stopping the flow of illicit diamonds. A solution tied to the diamonds themselves that can withstand the cutting and manufacturing process is required. Here, we show that multivariate analysis of LIBS (laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy) diamond spectra predicts the mine of origin at greater than 95% accuracy, distinguishes between natural and synthetic stones, and distinguishes between synthetic stones manufactured in different laboratories by different methods. Two types of spectral features, elemental emission peaks and emission clusters from C-N and C-C molecules, are significant in the analysis, indicating that the provenance signal is contained in the carbon structure itself rather than in inclusions.

The United Nations Mandate on Human Rights and the Environment

This chapter describes the background, history, and activities of the United Nations mandate on human rights and the environment. The UN Human Rights Council appointed the author in 2012 to be the first independent expert, and in 2015 to be the first special rapporteur, to hold the mandate. In the course of his work, he published reports on the application of human rights law to the environment, identified good practices, received communications, and conducted country visits. In 2018, he ended his term as special rapporteur by presenting Framework Principles on Human Rights and the Environment and calling for the United Nations to recognize the human right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

La proteccion del «personal humanitario» por el Derecho Internacional Humanitario en los conflictos armados actuales

<p>In today’s armed conflicts targeted attacks on humanitarian personnel has become a direct target of organized violence. International humanitarian law, from its outset, has protected health personnel, who are entitled to be respected, providing necessary assistance to carry out its humanitarian mission. In addition, parties to armed conflict must ensure the safety of humanitarian personnel authorized to provide assistance to victims, and this authorization can’t be refused or removed for any arbitrary reasons. It also provides protection to members of peace and humanitarian missions within the United Nations mandate. IHL provides freedom of movement to impartial humanitarian organizations, which is essential to the performance of their duties. Finally, the criminal protection of humanitarian personnel and resources has been included in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and in the Spanish criminal law.</p><p><strong>Published online</strong>: 11 December 2017</p>

The United Nations Mandate on Human Rights and the Environment

This chapter describes the background, history, and activities of the United Nations mandate on human rights and the environment. The UN Human Rights Council appointed the author in 2012 to be the first independent expert, and in 2015 to be the first special rapporteur, to hold the mandate. In the course of his work, he published reports on the application of human rights law to the environment, identified good practices, received communications, and conducted country visits. In 2018, he ended his term as special rapporteur by presenting Framework Principles on Human Rights and the Environment and calling for the United Nations to recognize the human right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

Preface

Preface Angela Naimou (bio) As the name for one who flees (fugere) from danger to a space of protection, the term refugee names a specific position in space and time: a past emergency leads to a dislocated present under the threat of harm, propelling one’s flight to find refuge toward a future elsewhere. Its shadow is not only the term migrant but also fugitive, one who flees from the law, a reminder that persons move and are moved between regimes of legality and illegality.1 Under the names of asylum seekers, internally displaced persons, refugees registered or under United Nations mandate, and “persons in refugee-like situations,” more than sixty-five million live forcibly displaced around a globe criss-crossed by trip wire, check point, border wall, plastic tent, paper, vessel, plane, footpath, cell phone signal, truck, and treaty.2 These names for displacement have their own complex histories and trajectories as they develop and change among state, international, and nongovernmental actors. They are categories for managing migration that prompt, enable, hamper, and criminalize it. These categories are made meaningful through spatial practices of border and immigration control that shape the temporality of refugee displacement. Refugee movement may be timely and untimely; urgent and belated; compressed and extended into long moments of movement and stasis, of continuity and discontinuity. Refugee seekers might haunt the places they seek; waiting, processed, interdicted, resettled, “voluntarily returned,” or eventually deported, they might be haunted by the futures of the places they do not come to inhabit. If refuge is granted through resettlement as “the gift of freedom,” the time of gratitude must be endured indefinitely, always falling short of repayment to the state.3 If the refuge shows itself to be a site of violence, that violence is endured or resisted with yet another search. Even if refuge is granted and the experience of seeking refuge is relocated to the remembered past, refugee time often persists under the cover of, or erasure under, other names (“immigrant,” “economic migrant,” “illegal alien,” “success story,” “naturalized citizen”). A seeker of refuge might find a future in a host country or in his or her originating country; might change legal status while staying in place; might easily abandon the affective status of abjection or gratitude or exceptionality; might hold onto the temporal disruption of trauma indefinitely; and so on. Refugees, whether authorized or unauthorized, are made to improvise forms of life within systems that respond to them as disordered, unruly, devalued subjects.4 At sea, multiple temporalities get embodied, compressed, and organized into the space of a ship or a raft. Each vessel may hold a multitude of wartimes, memories, histories that overlap and elongate into an indefinite serial catastrophe. The vessels may be navigated but at any moment find themselves adrift, a vulnerable form of [End Page 511] movement for refugees and migrants but a powerful option for the political borders of states and international entities. On land, the temporalities of border control, interdiction, and deportation organize the penal architecture of prisons and detention centers—even if the United States would seek to legally call some of those detention centers “daycares” for Central American minors, or sites for holding economic migrants rather than refugees, or enemy combatants rather than tortured captives. In the humanitarian architecture of formal refugee camps, UN guidelines on how to build an emergency temporary camp can organize the space that multiple generations of a family may inhabit. Built into the architecture of the Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya was the expectation that they would be used by a small number of Somali refugees for a few months: time has since expanded into a quarter century, by three generations born, and the space has compressed those generations ever more densely until a new section of camp is established. The Kenyan state has pointed to this mismatch of time and space to say the camp has outlived its intended temporariness; the camp’s inhabitants point to the most recent threats of imminent closure to ask where will Dadaab refugees find refuge from Dadaab. Meanwhile, people have improvised an informal borderlands, animating a zone of formal and informal economic practices. And so, what promises in...

Operation Sophia in Uncharted Waters: European and International Law Challenges for the eu Naval Mission in the Mediterranean Sea

This article addresses the main legal challenges facing the European Union (eu) Naval Force, eunavfor Med (‘Operation Sophia’), established in 2015, to disrupt human smuggling and trafficking activities in the Mediterranean Sea. It examines a number of legal issues that have given rise to scepticism on the viability of this type of operation, ranging from challenges under European Union law regarding mandate and oversight, to complex questions of compliance with international law. Forcible measures may be at variance with the international law of the sea, binding on the eu and its Member States alike. Even if such strictures can be avoided by a broad United Nations mandate and/or the consent of the neighbouring government(s), international refugee law and international human rights law provide limitations on the measures that Operation Sophia will be tasked with. Different avenues will be explored to ensure the Operation’s compliance with these different legal regimes.

Domestic violence legislation for development, peace and security in Nigeria

Though laws have been enacted in different parts of Nigeria to address some aspects of gender-based violence, domestic violence persists with serious consequences for social and economic development. Nigeria has not enacted specific domestic law that is applicable throughout the federation, despite the United Nations mandate to all countries to adopt and enforce such laws by 2015. This article examines the causes and nature of domestic violence in Nigeria, and the legal reform needed to address the situation. In addition to library sources, the study used focus group discussions and individual interviews (involving the general population, key informants, legislators and traditional rulers) to discover that enacting specific national domestic violence legislation is necessary to address the problem in Nigeria, but enacting laws alone is not a magic bullet.

Corporate and State Responsibilities in Conflict-Affected Areas

Some of the emblematic cases of corporate-related infringements of human rights have appeared in unstable and violence-ridden zones, including armed conflict and other contexts with lower levels of conflict, internal disturbances, widespread violence and latent tensions. Businesses have been involved in different ways, as direct perpetrators, accomplices or mere trading partners. This article tracks the issue of conflict-affected areas as elaborated in the United Nations (UN) Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights during the Special Representative’s mandate (2005–2011) and the post-mandate period of 2011–2014, especially by looking at the UN Working Group on business and human rights and the emerging National Action Plans. Conflict was a theme of high priority during John Ruggie’s UN mandate but lost visibility in the post-2011 period. What could explain this change? This article analyses in depth the relevant provisions in the UN Guiding Principles, particularly Principle 7, and how stakeholders have responded to the Special Representative’s policy recommendations. The results of this analysis indicate that, contrary to appearances, Principle 7 is not merely an operational, context-specific principle limited to conflict-affected zones where the host state is incapacitated by conflict; rather Principle 7 should be seen as a foundational principle about gross abuses, about the responsibilities of home states to act preventively and reactively when ‘their’ companies are involved in gross abuses in conflict-affected areas and beyond.

Localising the Australian National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security: a matter of justice

In the bid for a non-permanent seat on the United Nations (UN) Security Council, the Australian government emphasised international peace and security and Indigenous peoples as two of the eight key elements supporting its nomination. Australia's positive track record in support of the UN Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, including the delivery of an Australian National Action Plan (NAP) along with recognition of historical injustices to Indigenous Australians, was highlighted as a valid and important argument in favour of its nomination. The Australian NAP, however, has all but ignored the local context in its development and application, focusing instead on its commitments abroad. This framing of the Australian NAP is informed, firstly, by the WPS agenda policy framework applying to conflict and post-conflict situations, and, secondly, by its location within the UN mandate, requiring those situations to be internationally recognised. This article applies Nancy Fraser's tripartite justice framework to reveal that the Australian NAP gives rise to the political injustice of ‘misrepresentation’ in relation to intra-state (violent), domestically situated Indigenous–settler relations, which are denied the status of ongoing internationally recognised conflict. The author suggests that the remedy to this injustice is to reframe and recognise the conflict status of Indigenous–settler relations in the localisation of the Australian NAP. This localisation creates openings for Indigenous Australian women to engage with the WPS agenda in meaningful ways.

How to Shape Development Cooperation? The Global Partnership and the Development Cooperation Forum

2014 will be an important milestone for shaping the policy field of development cooperation in a post-2015 context. Two central events are taking place. The Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC) will convene for its first High-Level Meeting in April 2014 in Mexico City. The United Nations (UN) Development Cooperation Forum (DCF) will hold its biennial meeting in July 2014 in New York. How will these two platforms shape development cooperation and its future governance architecture? Development cooperation, as a policy field dealing with the mobilisation of budgetary resources for the purpose of promoting development, is in a transition phase. For a long period, development cooperation has been closely linked to “aid”, a concept developed by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). However, this system has increasingly come under pressure to adapt to a more differentiated global landscape characterised by newly emerging actors, new forms of cooperation and a growing awareness of global challenges such as climate change, financial regulation and security. The shifts in the policy field have given rise to competing global platforms for development cooperation and incentives for “forum shopping”. Still, any global platform to manage development cooperation needs to provide a set of principles, norms, and mechanisms for knowledge exchange around which actors’ expectations converge. In order to adequately fulfil this function, it will have to be legitimate, effective and relevant. Applying these criteria to the GPEDC and DCF, three models are possible: 1) Each platform for itself: This model describes a perpetuation of the status quo, characterised by a lack of cohesion between the GPEDC and the DCF. The continuation of parallel efforts on competing platforms will not sufficiently enable current challenges to be addressed. 2) Two platforms, different functions: Under this model, stakeholders in the GPEDC and the DCF agree to clearly describe their functions in support of the overarching post-2015 agenda. This model would mark an improvement over the status quo; however, challenges in day to day coordination between both platforms would remain. 3) One platform for all: This model envisions a merger of both platforms to consolidate discussions around the functioning of development cooperation. The platform would have universal membership and strong monitoring, evaluation and accountability mechanisms, combining the best features of DCF and GPEDC. It would draw on a clear UN mandate to manage development cooperation towards implementing the post-2015 agenda. Only such a common platform would be legitimate, effective and relevant at the same time.

Corporate and State Responsibilities in Conflict-Affected Areas

Some of the emblematic cases of corporate-related infringements of human rights have appeared in unstable and violence-ridden zones, including armed conflict and other contexts with lower levels of conflict, internal disturbances, widespread violence and latent tensions. Businesses have been involved in different ways, as direct perpetrators, accomplices or mere trading partners. This article tracks the issue of conflict-affected areas as elaborated in the United Nations (UN) Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights during the Special Representative’s mandate (2005–2011) and the post-mandate period of 2011–2014, especially by looking at the UN Working Group on business and human rights and the emerging National Action Plans. Conflict was a theme of high priority during John Ruggie’s UN mandate but lost visibility in the post- 2011 period. What could explain this change? This article analyses in depth the relevant provisions in the UN Guiding Principles, particularly Principle 7, and how stakeholders have responded to the Special Representative’s policy recommendations. The results of this analysis indicate that, contrary to appearances, Principle 7 is not merely an operational, context-specific principle limited to conflict-affected zones where the host state is incapacitated by conflict; rather Principle 7 should be seen as a foundational principle about gross abuses, about the responsibilities of home states to act preventively and reactively when ‘their’ companies are involved in gross abuses in conflict-affected areas and beyond.

World Intellectual Property Organization Development Agenda

During the 31st Session of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) General Assembly, which took place in September 2004, a group of countries called ‘Friends of Development’ co-sponsored a proposal to establish a ‘Development Agenda’ for WIPO. The proposal was based on the premise that development concerns should be given emphasis in all WIPO activities, so that the Organisation may comply with its United Nations mandate. After some years of in-depth discussions, a Development Agenda was adopted in 2007 by WIPO's General Assembly. The Development Agenda includes a number of issues relevant to development such us technical assistance and capacity-building; norm-setting, flexibilities, public policy and public domain; technology transfer, information and communication technologies, and access to knowledge; assessment, evaluation and impact studies; institutional matters including mandate and governance; and so on. This paper outlines the process that led to the adoption of the Development Agenda, and analyses the expected effects and challenges of its implementation.

Strengthening the Role of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief

AbstractThe Special Rapporteur holds the key United Nations mandate for the protection of freedom of religion and belief. This article gives an overview of the establishment and developing role of the Rapporteur and considers the way in which the three individuals who have held the office so far have carried out their mandate. It assesses the effectiveness of the methodologies used by the Rapporteur and, in particular, questions the shift of emphasis from prevention to protection. It then analyses the way in which the Rapporteurs have dealt with some of the substantive issues required by their role. The example of religious defamation is given to demonstrate the dangers of Rapporteurs taking overly simplistic approaches to complex issues. Finally a number of areas where further consideration is needed—in particular with respect to funding, the development of a treaty on religious freedom and the relationship with States—are briefly overviewed. The article concludes that the performance of the Rapporteurs have been exceptional, particularly given the limited financial resources allocated to the mandate and the complexities of the problems with which the mandate deals.