Human
Rights Committee ends session with reports on UN mission and
two countries
28 July 2006 – The panel of experts monitoring the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) today wrapped
up its latest session after examining compliance reports
by the Central African Republic and the United States and, for
the first time, a United Nations peacekeeping operation – the
UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).
The countries that presented
their reports for the consideration of the 18-Member Human Rights
Committee, meeting in Geneva, are among the 156 States parties
to the Covenant, which was adopted in 1966 by the General Assembly.
UNMIK’s report was presented
in response to a request by the Committee in its final observations
on the initial report of the country known as Serbia and Montenegro
when its report was submitted in 2004. As Kosovo is a UN-administered
Serbian province, presentations were made by UNMIK and the Provisional
Institutions of Government in Kosovo, as well as representatives
of Serbia.
The ICCPR affirms that all
peoples have the right to self-determination as well as the
right to life, liberty and security of person. It prohibits
torture, cruel or degrading treatment or punishment, and the
arbitrary deprivation of life. The Covenant also provides, among
other protections, for freedom of movement, freedom of thought,
conscience and religion, and freedom of expression.
Under the Covenant’s Optional
Protocol, 105 States parties recognize the Committee’s competence
to consider confidential communications from individuals claiming
to be victims of violations of rights proclaimed under the treaty.
Some 57 States parties have ratified or acceded to the Covenant’s
Second Optional Protocol, which aims to abolish the death penalty.
In its discussion of the combined
second and third report of the US discussed in the session that
ended today, the committee praised a number of recent Supreme
Court decisions on criminal detention and prosecution, but expressed
concern over “credible and uncontested information” of secret
detentions and extreme interrogations techniques, the abandonment
of which it welcomed. It also noted with concern reports of
shortcomings in the investigation of maltreatment in detention
facilities in Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Iraq and other overseas
locations.
Turning to the UNMIK report,
the Committee welcomed the work of the Ombudsperson Institution
and the promulgation of a Provisional Criminal Code, while expressing
concern over the continuing impunity enjoyed by perpetrators
of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the
ethnic violence that preceded the UN mission’s mandate, as well
as the low priority given to cases of missing persons and the
lack of investigation of accusations of the use of force by
various security units in Kosovo.
While expressing satisfaction
with legal measures in the Central African Republic (CAR) to
ensure greater respect for human rights, the Committee noted
with concern the persistence of discrimination against women,
and requested that the country raise women’s awareness of their
rights, abolish polygamy and take other measures in that regard.
Troubled by the large number of forced disappearances, summary
executions, reports of torture and other penal abuses, the Committee
also requested the CAR to monitor the conditions in its prisons.
The Committee, which
traditionally holds three sessions per year, will convene next
on 16 October, in Geneva, to consider reports of Honduras, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, Ukraine and the Republic of Korea.
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Kosovo
and Serb leaders meet for first time on the province’s status
at UN-backed talks
24 July 2006 – Top Serbian and Kosovar leaders met for the first
time today to discuss plans for the future status of the United
Nations-run province of Kosovo, and while both sides remain
far apart politically, the UN official overseeing the discussions
welcomed the start of dialogue and said the world body remained
committed to further negotiations.
The meeting, which was held
in Vienna under the auspices of Martti Ahtisaari, the Secretary-General’s
Special Envoy for Kosovo’s future status process, included Serbia’s
President Boris Tadic and Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica.
The Kosovo delegation was led by President Fatmir Sejdiu.
“The High-level meeting we
just had here is a result of the clear wish on the part of the
parties to move to direct talks on the future status,” Mr. Ahtisaari
said at a press conference afterwards.
“Today’s discussion was meant
to enable both sides to present and argue their respective positions,
and the meeting did achieve that objective. The presentations
showed that it is evident that the positions of the parties
remain far apart: Belgrade would agree to almost anything but
independence, whereas Pristina would accept nothing but full
independence.”
Today’s meeting was also the
first formal one between top Serbian and Kosovar leaders since
1999, although Mr. Ahtisaari has facilitated lower-level technical
talks between the two sides since February and he said his office
intended “to move rapidly forward” with further technical discussions.
“We will also focus increasingly
on areas which have not been discussed – namely, community rights
and constitutional and institutional aspects of the status process.
Again, substantial progress in these areas requires the parties
to be realistic and flexible.”
He stressed that one of the
central aims of the international community is to create conditions
in Kosovo where all communities can live in a multi-ethnic society,
adding that the full support of Serbia was of vital importance
for this.
“I have reminded the participants
today that we should not lose sight of the fact that the process
we are engaged in is about all the people of Kosovo, from all
of Kosovo’s communities. The people expect them to exercise
leadership, so does the international community.”
Kosovo, an Albanian-majority
Serbian province, has been run by the UN since Western forces
drove out Yugoslav troops in 1999 amid grave human rights abuses
in ethnic fighting.
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Decentralization
talks on the UN-run province of Kosovo held in Vienna
19 July 2006 – In the run-up to a high-level meeting next
week on the future status of the United Nations-run province
of Kosovo, delegations from Pristina and the Serbian capital
of Belgrade met today in Vienna to discuss the decentralization
process in the province, a UN spokesman said.
Yesterday the two delegations,
hosted by the Special Envoy for the Kosovo Future Status Process
Martti Ahtisaari, met for discussions on the protection of the
religious and cultural heritage of Kosovo, UN spokesman Farhan
Haq told reporters.
Next Monday’s status
talks, also to be hosted by Mr. Ahtisaari, will be a chance
to move the twice monthly dialogue from the technical to a political
level.
Last week, Serbia’s
Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and Kosovo President Fatmir
Sejdiu briefed the Security Council members in separate sessions
regarding the province’s future status. Kosovo, an Albanian-majority
Serbian province, has been run by the UN since Western forces
drove out Yugoslav troops in 1999 amid ethnic fighting.
Kosovo
status talks to enter new high-level political phase, UN envoy
says
13 July 2006 – As senior officials from Kosovo and Serbia
met in New York today with members of the Security Council,
a United Nations envoy told that body that status talks on the
province will soon enter a more advanced phase.
Briefing the Council behind
closed doors, Martti Ahtisaari, the Secretary-General’s
Special Envoy for Kosovo’s future status process, said
he intends to take the process, begun in February, from technical
talks to a new high-level political phase, to be held this month
in Vienna, UN spokesman Marie Okabe told reporters in New York.
During the new phase, teams
from both sides will be invited to present their positions on
status, she added.
At a closed meeting this morning,
the Security Council heard from Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav
Kostunica, while in the afternoon, Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu
briefed Council members.
Kosovo, an Albanian-majority
Serbian province, has been run by the UN since Western forces
drove out Yugoslav troops in 1999 amid ethnic fighting. Mr.
Ahtisaari’s status dialogue between Kosovo Albanians and
Serbs has been held about twice monthly since it began in February.
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General
Assembly lifts spending cap from UN budget, allowing operations
to go on
1 July 2006 – The United Nations General
Assembly has formally lifted a spending cap restricting budget
allocations to the first half of this year, affirming a recommendation
by its main administrative committee, which earlier this week
achieved a breakthrough on the issue that had threatened financial
crisis at the world body.
The move late Friday evening giving Secretary-General Kofi Annan
authority to spend the remaining funds in the 2006-2007 fiscal
period, with its $3.79 billion budget, came just as coffers
were about to run dry; last week, UN Controller Warren Sach
had warned that under the cap the “last dollar available” would
be spent before mid-July.
But the decision was not without detractors, as three major
contributors the United States, Japan and Australia all formally
“disassociated” themselves from the authorizing resolution,
while Canada's representative echoed their concerns in a statement
urging managerial reform.
United Nations peacekeeping
operations, which are funded individually and not as part of
the overall budget, also received fresh allocations. The Assembly
approved some $4.72 billion for peacekeeping missions deployed
to deal with situations concerning Western Sahara, Haiti, the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Burundi, Côte d'Ivoire,
Israel-Syria, Cyprus, Lebanon, Georgia, Ethiopia-Eritrea, Kosovo,
Liberia and Sudan.
In another action, the Assembly
adopted a lengthy resolution on the issue of development, addressing
themes such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set
of antipoverty targets first agreed at a 2001 UN Summit, which
appear to have long been the subject of international agreement.
But despite the familiarity of UN delegates with the subject
of development ? put forward as a central pillar, along with
security and human rights, in a landmark reform report submitted
by Secretary-General Kofi Annan last year ? diplomats held lengthy
negotiations to forge agreement on the text.
General Assembly President
Jan Eliasson alluded to the difficult process in introducing
the text. “This resolution is a result of your efforts, of your
creative thinking, of your flexibility and of your ability to
find possible ways forward,” he told those gathered for the
late-night meeting, commending them “for having set aside your
differences to reach an agreement, acceptable to all.”
This positive assessment was contrasted by the reaction of South
Africa's ambassador, Dumisani S. Kumalo, who, on behalf of the
132 member “Group of 77” caucus of developing countries and
China, said the resolution was just a reiteration of already
agreed language from a summit meeting held last September at
the UN and did not address how to make good on commitments regarding
trade, agricultural subsidies and the transfer of resources
to poorer nations.
Actions Friday evening on budget issues were accompanied by
the adoption of measures aimed at further reforming the UN,
particularly in the area of managerial accountability. For example,
the 192-member Assembly called for the Secretary-General to
ensure that the application and enforcement of accountability
be carried out impartially at all levels and without exception.
But the Assembly did not take action on a proposed managerial
overhaul of the UN submitted by Secretary-General Kofi Annan
in March. His recommendations, contained in a report entitled
“Investing in the United Nations,” were geared to fundamentally
alter the Organization in a bid to keep step with its shift
in recent years from mainly Headquarters-based activities to
extensive life-saving work in the field.
Among other proposals, Mr. Annan called for setting up a 2,500-strong
core of mobile peacekeeping professionals, requiring greater
mobility among staff members in order to create a more agile
civil service, and making multimillion dollar investments in
training and technology.
Despite intensive negotiations in recent weeks in what President
Eliasson described as “an increasingly improved atmosphere,”
Member States did not achieve agreement in the Administrative
and Budgetary (“Fifth”) Committee, and so decided to extend
its resumed session from 5 to 7 July with a view to recommending
a resolution on the proposals to the Assembly.
Mr. Eliasson said some agreement had emerged. “There is agreement
to establish the post of Chief Information Technology Officer
in the Office of the Secretary-General,” he said, and delegates
generally accepted the need to replace current information technology
systems governing staffing. Other areas he cited included “support
for the intention of the Secretary-General to submit a single,
comprehensive annual report to the General Assembly, containing
financial and programme information, aimed at enhancing transparency
of the Organization and accountability of the Secretariat to
Member States.”
The issue of “mandate review” ? or examining just what tasks
the UN has been asked to carry out by its Member States ? was
also on the agenda because the 2005 World Summit had asked for
the Assembly to examine all mandates older than five years in
order to strengthen and up-date the programme of work of the
UN. Mr. Eliasson reported Friday evening that work would also
continue on that issue. He said he would convene informal consultations
of the Plenary on mandate review as soon as possible in the
month of July to consider the way forward.
In closing remarks, the General
Assembly President said that with the lifting of the spending
cap, “the United Nations is now in a position to fully implement
its programme of work during the remainder of the biennium 2006-2007
and deliver its services to peoples and crises areas all over
the world.”
He stressed that “in
order to do this effectively the work to reform, streamline
and modernize the United Nations must be pursued with vigour
and a sense of shared responsibility.”
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