CHAPTER 4: THE UNITED
NATIONS AND
MULTILATERAL DIPLOMACY
Multilateral Human Rights and Humanitarian
Diplomacy at the United Nations
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When states use and control an IGO to conduct
their diplomacy, it is known as multilateral
diplomacy.
The United Nations (UN) is a universal global IGO
and the center for global multilateral diplomacy.
To understand the interactive role of the UN and
states in human rights and humanitarian diplomacy,
it is helpful to think about the UN as three
interactive entities.
United Nations
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The first UN is an organization comprised of sovereign
states who bring their different capabilities, values,
interests, and rivalries to the table.
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Where multilateral diplomacy takes place.
The second UN is the system of decision- and policymaking by UN officials (the UN bureaucracy) who are
independent and not instructed by states.
The third UN can be thought of the network of NGOs,
independent experts, and other civil society actors that
attempt influence states and IGOs to adopt certain
values and develop certain policies.
The United Nations Security Council
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The Security Council is a fifteen member body that is
responsible for maintaining international peace and
security.
The Security Council includes five permanent members
(Russia, China, the UK, the US, and France), the P-5,
each who have veto power over council decisions.
The remaining 10 members are nonpermanent and
those seats are allotted to specific regions and elected
by General Assembly.
Nonpermanent members are elected in two year
staggered terms so that 5 new members join the council
each year.
Peacekeeping
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Even though the Security Council was largely
paralyzed during the Cold War, it did innovate
peacekeeping.
Originally, the first peacekeeping missions were
security oriented with the only humanitarian purpose
of ensuring that violent conflict does not flare up
again.
Peacekeeping cont’d.
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First generation peacekeeping, missions included lightly
armed personnel and observers who were deployed with the
consent of the host government and other belligerents after a
ceasefire had been negotiated.
Second generation peacekeeping (often referred to as peace
enforcement) represents an evolution of mission in response to
the changing nature of post-Cold War conflicts in the 1990s.
 Second generation peacekeeping often involves
preventative diplomacy and enforcing Security Council
decisions (MacKinlay and Chopra).
Peacekeeping cont’d.
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Third generation peacekeeping, also known as,
peacebuilding, centers on the reconstruction of postconflict societies.
 When there is no government, or it is effectively
inoperative, UN peacekeeping missions functionally
become the government.
 At the 2005 World Summit, world leaders agreed to
create and fund Peacebuilding Commission that
currently has activities in Sierra Leone, Burundi, Central
African Republic, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, Haiti, Liberia,
and Kenya.
 No longer does international security mean only state
security, it also means human security.
Post Cold-War Conflicts
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Invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in 1991.
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the first time since the Korean War, the UN Security
Council authorized a collective security operation to
expel Iraq from Kuwait.
 In response to Saddam Hussein brutally cracking down
on rebelling Kurds in northern Iraq and Shiites in
southern Iraq, the Security Council passed Resolution
688 which was the first unambiguous recognition of a
human rights and humanitarian situation as a threat to
international peace and security.
Post Cold-War Conflicts cont’d.
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The disintegration of Yugoslavia in 1991 led the Security Council to deploy
peacekeeping forces to try to stabilize the ensuing secessionist conflict
between rival nationalities that included Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, Albanians,
Slovenes, Macedonians, and Kosovars.
 The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)
had a slow start and did not hold its first trial until 1996; however, it
would eventually indict 161 individuals for genocide, war crimes and
crimes against humanity, including a sitting head of state.
 In 1998, violence in the Balkans erupted again, this time in Kosovo,
where the majority ethnic Albanians sought to break away from Serbia.
 against humanity committed in Kosovo and later for crimes committed in
Croatia, and Bosnia. Milosevic was forced from office in 2000 and was
arrested and transferred to the Hague to stand trial before the ICTY in
2001.
Post Cold-War Conflicts cont’d.
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The 1994 genocide in Rwanda is perhaps the most
dramatic failure of contemporary international
diplomacy to stop genocide and other gross violations
of human rights and humanitarian law.
In one hundred days, more than 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis
and moderate Hutus were murdered. Events unfolded
quickly.
 The atrocities led the Security Council to create the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
Security Council Resolution 955 of 1994 states that the ICTR
is to "prosecute persons responsible for genocide and other
serious violations of international humanitarian law
committed in the territory of Rwanda and neighbouring
States, between 1 January 1994 and 31 December 1994" .
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The 1990s: Assessing Outcomes
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What is viewed as a success (or at least a preferable outcome) for
a liberal and constructivist is often seen as a failure (or as
prolonging or exacerbating a situation) for a realist or a
structuralist.
The Balkans, Somalia, Rwanda were by no means the only
humanitarian crises in the immediate post-Cold War era. The
multidimensional crises in Sudan, Haiti, East Timor, Sierra Leone, and
the Democratic Republic of Congo also generated extensive
diplomatic efforts to protect human rights in humanitarian crises.
These tensions resulted in the ongoing, coordinated effort to
redefine sovereignty as the responsibility to protect (R2P).
With the support of the Canadian government and the UN General
Assembly, the International Commission on Intervention and State
Sovereignty (ICISS) was created to explore the issue of
humanitarian intervention.
Responsibility to Protect Diplomacy
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As a result of this commission diplomacy, member-states
at the 2005 World Summit at the United Nations the
embraced the principle of R2P by stating that that the
UN may “take collective action, in a timely and decisive
manner, through the Security Council, in accordance with
the Charter, including Chapter VII, on a case-by-case
basis and in cooperation with the relevant regional
organizations as appropriate, should peaceful means
be inadequate and national authorities are manifestly
failing to protect their populations from genocide, war
crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.”
Responsibility to Protect Diplomacy
cont’d.
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The paradox of R2P diplomacy specifically, and human
rights and humanitarian diplomacy in general, is that
state sovereignty is the cornerstone of diplomatic
relations and states are necessary for the promotion
and protection of human rights and humanitarian
principles. At the same time, undermining state
sovereignty compromises the ability of further
international human rights and humanitarian principles.
Recent examples of R2P include (Kenya, Myanmar,
Libya, Syria etc.)
The Security Council and Courts
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Another way the Security Council has responded to
gross violations of international human rights and
humanitarian law in the post-Cold War era has been to
authorize the creation of ad hoc international criminal
tribunals and hybrid courts.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is independent
of the UN, but loosely associated with it.
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Beginning in 2004 with efforts to manage the humanitarian
crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan, the Security Council has
referred situations to the ICC to pressure states to change
their policies.
The Security Council and Courts cont’d.
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A central weakness of international criminal courts and
tribunals is that justice is imposed from outside, usually
by the strong against the weak. It challenges state
sovereignty and can lack legitimacy, especially when
domestic and international law are in conflict.
To address this, the Security Council has also authorized
the creation of hybrid courts, which blend both
international and domestic law and are staffed by
international as well as local staff and lawyers.
Hybrid courts have the advantages of holding trials close to
where crimes were committed and helping local communities
develop a culture of legalism.
 Examples: Sierra Leone, Lebanon and Cambodia
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The United Nations General Assembly
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The plenary body of the UN is the General
Assembly is currently comprised of 193 member
states.
 The
UN Charter spells many roles including oversight of
the UN bureaucracy and deliberating and passing
resolutions (nonbinding) on issues arising under the
charter, including human rights and humanitarian
situations.
 Decisions are taken through majority rule so states from
the Global South can also be active diplomatically at
the UN to promote and humanitarian principles
Commission on Human Rights (19462006)
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Originally, human rights at the UN revolved around
the Commission on Human Rights.
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commission was a fifty-three member body that
was elected by the Economic and Social Council
(ECOSOC), the UN organ responsible for promoting
economic and social cooperation in the interrelated
fields of economic development, human rights, and
social welfare.
 The politicization of the commission, coupled with the
double standards and inconsistencies in state policies
eventually led to it being discredited.
Human Rights Council (2006-Present)
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At the 2005 World Summit, the member-states of the UN
took decisive action and agreed to abolish the Commission
on Human Rights and create the Human Rights Council (HRC).
The HRC differs from its predecessor in that election of the
47 members (instead of 53) to the council was by a majority
vote of the General Assembly rather than by the much
smaller ECOSOC.
Universal Periodic Review (UPR): a tool for challenging
states to improve their own HR records. The UPR is a
staggered peer review process where all 193 UN members
report on the status of their domestic human rights and
explain how they are meeting their obligations under
international human rights law.
The Regional Multilateral Architecture
Multilateral approaches to promoting and protecting international
human rights and humanitarian principles has also occurred
regionally.
Examples:
 Europe: Council of Europe, the Organization (once Conference) for
Cooperation and Security in Europe (OSCE), the EU, European
Court on Human Rights .
 The Americas: Organization of American States (OAS), The
InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights, InterAmerican
Court for Human Rights
 Africa and the Middle East: African Union (AU), the League of
Arab States, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC),
African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights
 Asia: ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights
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Discussion Questions
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Discuss the differences between IGO diplomacy
and multilateral diplomacy?
Discuss the evolution and the role of UN
peacekeeping in the evolution of human rights and
humanitarian protection.
What is R2P and why is it a controversial norm in
human rights protection?
Will multilateral human rights bodies ever become
depoliticized?