By Alexandra Moffit

Picture: Globe License: Public Domain

United Nations

Under a new Secretary-General, the United Nations took several new steps based on studies in 2017.

·       Antonio Guterres begins role as Secretary-General of the United Nations in January.

·       The United Nations Security Council unanimously voted to issue new sanctions to North Korea. These sanctions were in response to its burgeoning nuclear program and its ballistic missile program.

·       The United Nations’ agency that deals with aviation proposed a global drone registry that would aid local law enforcement agencies. This registry would be a step towards global regulations dealing with the small crafts.

·       Russia and China vetoed resolutions that would have sanctioned Syria for its use of chemical weapons.

·       United Nations agencies reported during 2017 that 2016 was the first time in the 21^st century that hunger increased. Possible reasons offered by the United Nations for this increase were climate change and conflict. These would cause an increase in food insecurity around the world. There are currently around 815 million chronically malnourished people around the world.

·       The United Nations and other organizations began investing in blockchain technology. Organizations like the World Food Programme launched pilots that use blockchain in delivering food.

The United States and International Organizations

With the United States changing leadership as President Trump began his tenure in office, the United States changed its relationships with various international organizations significantly during 2017.

·       The United States, in one of Donald Trump’s first acts as President, declared its intention to abandon the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The previous administration had negotiated the large free trade deal with various nations but had not come into effect yet.

·       The United States withdrew from the Paris Climate Accords in June, becoming one of the only countries not party to the climate agreement.

·       The United States, Canada, and Mexico began to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement following President Trump’s dissatisfaction with the agreement. A relocation or dissolution of the agreement would cause major changes in the economies of each nation, as well as trade laws.

·       The United States withdrew from UNESCO, the United Nations cultural organization, in October. “At the time when conflicts continue to tear apart societies across the world, it is deeply regrettable for the United States to withdraw from the United Nations agency promoting education for peace and protecting culture under attack,” Director-General of UNESCO Irina Bokova said. The United States indicated its reason for leaving as the organization’s inclusion of Palestine as a member in 2011.

Refugees and International Organizations

As refugee numbers increased in 2017, various international organizations took steps to combat problems.

·       Security in Burma has been conducting ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims. Some have sought asylum in Bangladesh. The crisis has had a global impact and is ongoing. A new UN pilot program could provide refugees in Bangladesh with work permits.

·       International Organizations like the World Bank used their leverage to try to push Burma to stop its persecution of Rohingya Muslims. The World Bank announced it would be withholding a $200 million loan it had promised to the country.

·       The United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees announced that there are over 3 million stateless people around the world. The agency urges countries to grant citizenship to these stateless people, which would provide them with basic health and personal rights.

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April 14, 2018

By Maura Sokol

Picture: Globe License: Public Domain

2017 marked the end of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which closed out its existence with high profile convictions. Although international justice may have been achieved in these cases, a number of international crimes were committed across the globe in 2017, many of which will remain a threat in 2018.

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

In November, the ICTY Tribunal in the Hague brought its prosecutions to a close. The ICTY was first created in May 1993, under Resolution 827 by the United Nations Security Council to prosecute international crimes committed during the Yugoslav Wars. This creation of an international, ad hoc tribunal has left an enduring legacy on international criminal law. During its 25 years of existence, 161 individuals have been charged with crimes and 151 have faced trial, with 90 convictions that included major generals and political leaders. All unresolved cases will now be handed over to another ad hoc criminal court, the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT).

General Radko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb army chief known as the “Butcher of Bosnia” was one of the last war criminals convicted in the ICTY. In November, the tribunal sentenced him to life in prison for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Mladic was responsible for thousands of deaths, engaged in ethnic cleansing, and was responsible for the 1995 genocide of Srebrenica and the three-year siege and bombardment of Sarajevo.

During the last hearing of the ICTY, the convicted Bosnian Croat war criminal Slobodan Praljak drew much of the media’s attention by committing suicide in the courtroom after ingesting potassium cyanide. The hearing had been part of an appeal by six Bosnian Croat political and military leaders who were convicted in 2013 of persecuting, expelling and murdering Bosnian Muslims. Praljak ingested the cyanide after the tribunal announced he had lost his appeal. Praljak had been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Genocide in Myanmar

The government in Myanmar, once known as Burma, committed horrific violence against the Rohingya, Myanmar’s minority Muslim population, in what the United Nations high commissioner for human rights called a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” Beginning on August 25^th, more than 626,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar and an estimated 9,000 were killed by late September. Hundreds of villages have been destroyed or burned to the ground, and the Associated Press has reported a campaign of mass rape, robbery and torture. Despite widespread condemnation, there has been little action from the international community.

Syrian War Crimes

Efforts to investigate and bring to justice the many war crimes committed by Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s regimes continued throughout 2017. In November, Amnesty International published an extensive new report that detailed the regime’s massive campaign of sieges, unlawful killings, and forced displacement through use of “surrender or starve” tactics. The Islamic State has unlawfully killed civilians and used them as human shields, and the US-led coalition has also carried out attacks that led to the death of civilians, in violation of international humanitarian law. By the end of 2017, more than 400,000 people have died and more than 11 million people have been displaced.

Courts in Spain, Germany and Sweden have all attempted to bring individuals to justice for war crimes committed, and in October the first individual was convicted in the conflict and sentenced to eight months in prison in Sweden. 2017 also saw the beginning of the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) to Assist in the Investigation and Prosecution of Those Responsible for the Most Serious Crimes in Syria, which was established by UN General Assembly at the end of 2016.

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April 09, 2018

By Anna Jarman

Picture: Globe License: Public Domain

Last year, the “refugee crisis” experienced a political reckoning, as governments around the world sought to tighten boarders and curtail refugee-friendly policies where they had previously existed.  At the same time, the number of displaced people continued to climb in 2017, after it reached its highest number ever at 65 million people at the end of 2016.  The below events chronicle 2017’s most significant developments in the refugee crisis and the policy responses to it.

Travel Ban – Shortly after taking office, President Trump signed an Executive Order titled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” which greatly reduced the number of refugees the U.S. would admit -- including blocking admission of all Syrian refugees -- and suspended entry of nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries for 90 days.  The order was met with immediate protests, international criticism, and legal challenges by those who saw the order as a “Muslim ban.”  A nationwide temporary restraining order was issued in the case Washington v. Trump, and upheld by the Ninth Circuit.  The first order was replaced by a second and then a third order which revised the original list of countries, clarified the effect on green-card holders, and made the 90-day ban permanent.  The Ninth Circuit upheld a lower court decision finding the order unlawful in Hawaii v. Trump; the Supreme Court granted cert in January, and allowed the administration to implement the travel ban while legal challenges were pending.

Refugees Cross U.S. Border into Canada – the number of asylum seekers illegally crossing from the U.S. into Canada spiked to more than 15,000 people last year.  The refugees, many of whom fear Trump’s immigration policies, were met by both opposition by anti-migrant groups and a supportive response by Canada, which granted asylum at increasing rates.

South Sudan – Displacement from South Sudan’s war became the largest refugee crisis in Africa.  More than 2 million people had fled to neighboring countries by the end of the year, with another 2 million displaced inside the country.

Rohingya Refugee Crisis – After a group of militant Rohingya Muslims attacked police bases in northern Myanmar on August 25, the army responded with a brutal show of force, burning villages, killing civilians, and raping women.  Within weeks, over 420,000 Rohingya refugees had fled, leading to a mass exodus “unprecedented in terms of volume and speed,” according to the International Organization for Migration.  Over 700,000 Rohingya have now fled to squalid refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh.  The U.N.’s human rights commission described the retaliation as ethnic cleansing and possibly genocide.

German and Austrian Elections – Radical right-wing populist parties performed well in both the Austrian and German elections.  The newly elected Chancellor of Austria, Sebastian Kurz, earned his reputation as foreign minister for tightening Austria’s borders during the refugee crisis, when Austria was taking in more asylum-seekers than any EU country except Sweden.  Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel has tightened her asylum policy under pressure from the far right and in response to backlash against her initial welcoming stance.  Germany resumed deporting Afghans whose asylum claims were rejected after stopping deportations in May when a bombing near the German embassy in Kabul killed around 150 people.

Manus Island Removal – Hundreds of asylum seekers held for years in an Australian-run detention center on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island were forcibly removed in November, three weeks after Australia officially closed the camp.  Afraid to leave the camp, the refugees had remained, despite Australia cutting off electricity, food, and water.  Security forces eventually stormed the camp destroying the refugees’ shelters and belongings. 

Climate Change Spurs Migration -- Research published last year suggests that changing weather is spurring people to seek asylum in Europe, and predicts that trend to continue as temperatures are projected to rise.  The research has sparked discussions on the appropriateness of the current definition of “refugee,” which includes people fleeing persecution but not those forced to leave by climate change.

East Congo – Eleven Congolese refugees were killed by Rwandan police responding to a protest over reduced food rations in a Kiziba camp.  Over 17,000 Congolese refugees inhabit the Western Rwanda refugee camp.  Violence in Eastern Congo has worsened recently due to clashes between government soldiers, local militias, and foreign rebels.

Looking ahead, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments on the travel ban this year, and the new Austrian and German governments are likely to further articulate their more restrictive immigration policies.  At the same time, the international community will grapple with how to respond to the world’s ever-increasing number of displaced persons fleeing conflict, ethnic cleansing, and changing climate.

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April 03, 2018

By Elizabeth Gibson*

Deputy High Commissioner T. Alexander Aleinikoff

The United Nations’ refugee agency knows how to set up refugee camps, but finding long-term solutions to get refugees out of those camps is not easy.

The Deputy High Commissioner of UNHCR, T. Alexander Aleinikoff,** presented the 34th Annual Thomas F. Ryan Lecture at the Georgetown University Law Center yesterday, and he emphasized that the international community needs to rethink its response to refugee situations.

“Non-solutions have become the norm and literally hundreds of thousands of refugees have become forgotten people,” he said. “We have to move away from the paradigm of dependence that currently defines the refugee regime.”

Protecting the rights of refugees and providing for their basic needs is the bread and butter of UNHCR’s work—and it’s crucial, lifesaving work. However, no matter how much of a success you might consider Thai camps that provide shelter, food, medical attention, and education for families fleeing persecution in Myanmar, it is worrisome that the camp is 35 years old and still relying on food aid, Prof. Aleinikoff said.

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November 22, 2013