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FEATURE: The UN Security Council’s great disappearing act

The United Nations' renovation of its landmark headquarters has effectively drawn a curtain of secrecy around the proceedings of the UN Security Council, dramatically reducing public access to members of the world's most powerful international security body.

In the past four months, public appearances by the world body's 15 members have dropped precipitously, with Security Council presidents making 20 per cent fewer appearances before the Security Council camera stakeout compared with a year ago. The decline is more dramatic for the 14 other members of the council, who have made 64 percent fewer appearances than last year, according to new data compiled by the Columbia University-affiliated think tank, the Security Council Report.

The findings underscore the importance the physical layout of the original UN headquarters building - which provided sweeping neutral spaces and a sprawling delegates' lounge where diplomats mingled freely with reporters - had played in promoting greater openness of the council's workings. They constitute the first hard evidence to support what reporters and many diplomats have already realized anecdotally - that the renovation has essentially altered the way that news is gathered and diplomacy is conducted at the United Nations. However, the data does not account for the way in which the new quarters have sharply curtailed the kind of informal contacts reporters and non-council members had with council diplomats at the previous site.

"The Security Council has never been very accessible, but now it is even less so," Christian Wenaweser, Liechtenstein's UN ambassador, told Turtle Bay. But he said an even larger problem than the reduction in public appearances by council members is the closure of the delegates' lounge, where council members and other prominent diplomats used to meet each day for coffee and informal networking. "The renovation has had an impact on our work. I spend less time at the UN as I used to. There is no place to go, and no reason to go. In the old days, I would be at the UN once a day to see who was there. ... People now only go to the UN if they have a special reason, a meeting or a speech to deliver; then they go back home. The information flow among the ambassadors is not the same."

The diminished appearances in the council are due to a host of logistical challenges that have arisen since the UN moved the council's chamber to cramped, less-accessible temporary quarters in the UN basement in April. But it also reflects measures taken by the five permanent members of the Security Council, including the United States, to reduce the number of UN officials allowed into closed-door session - including UN press officials that traditionally kept journalists abreast of the council's activities and alerted reporters when council meetings were about to end. And the council recently ordered the removal of a second camera trained on the council entrance that allowed reporters to monitor diplomats entering and exiting the council chamber.

"There is no doubt that the constraints of the new temporary facilities are a key factor in [the reduction of public appearances], including the distance between the stake out venue from the new locations for the UN press corps," according to the Security Council Report. "Although the new facilities are temporary, the physical status quo seems likely to prevail for some time and there is therefore a real risk that the information status quo will become a permanent habit."

The report's findings hint at suspicions among reporters, many diplomats, and other observers that the Security Council's big powers - including the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France - have taken advantage of the renovation to impose greater secrecy over the council's deliberations. In the first weeks after the move, the council imposed a series of sweeping restrictions that limited press movement to a tightly cordoned area and blocked non-members of the Security Council from entering the council chamber. The UN stakeout camera previously stationed outside the council - requiring council diplomats to walk past it - is now positioned far from the council chamber, requiring diplomats go out of their way to hold a press conference.

"Appearances of the council president and other council members at the media stakeout have proved over the years to be a major source of insight to the informal work of the council," according to the Security Council Report. "Such appearances have significantly improved the transparency of the council and the information available to member states and the wider public - especially since the advent of the UN webcast archive. However questions have arisen since the relocation of the Security Council in April 2010 to new temporary premises regarding ongoing transparency."

[Source: turtlebay.foreignpolicy.com]

Read more about transparency in UN processes in our campaign briefing 'The future of children's rights – in whose hands?'

Further information

• Track UN Security Council reform negotiations
• About the UN Security Council

Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=23135

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LATEST NEWS AND REPORTS

Untold stories

Democratic Republic of Congo: A draft UN report indicates that the killings of tens of thousands of ethnic Hutus, including children, by the predominantly Tutsi army could be classified as genocide, revealed the BBC today.

The report presents the findings from an investigation into the conflict in the country from 1993-2003. Full story.

Staying in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Nations Security Council yesterday spoke out against the mass rape of nearly 200 women by rebels in eastern Congo while the organisation's top officials struggled to explain how its peacekeepers failed to prevent the attacks. The United Nation's Democratic Republic of Congo peacekeeping operation appeared powerless to prevent the three-day rebel rampage through a string of rural villages. Officials in Congo said they only heard about the rapes from an international medical charity 10 days after they happened. But some say the news was passed on a lot sooner. (SOS Children's Villages, 27 August 2010). Full story.

Northern Uganda: Women and girls with disabilities in northern Uganda experience ongoing discrimination and sexual and gender-based violence, according to the latest report by Human Rights Watch. Many are unable to gain access to basic services, including health care and justice, and they have been largely ignored in post-conflict reconstruction efforts.

The report, "‘As If We Weren't Human': Discrimination and Violence against Women with Disabilities in Northern Uganda," describes frequent abuse and discrimination by strangers, neighbours, and even family members against women and girls with disabilities in the north.  Women interviewed for the report said they were not able to get basic provisions such as food, clothing, and shelter in camps for displaced persons or in their own communities. One woman with a physical disability who lived in such a camp told Human Rights Watch that people said to her, "You are useless. You are a waste of food. You should just die so that others can eat the food."  The research was conducted in six districts of northern Uganda - a region recently emerging from over two decades of brutal conflict between the rebel Lord's Resistance Army and the government. Full report.

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Landmines still kill in Europe - Time for an absolute ban

There have been more than 3,000 casualties caused by landmines in Europe in the last ten years, said Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe, in a human rights comment released this month. Anti-personnel landmines continue to kill or maim long after wars have finished and are banned under international law, he said. However, this prohibition has not been effectively implemented and some Council of Europe Member States have not even ratified the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. Full story.

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Out of favour

Canada: Amnesty International's new secretary general, Salil Shetty, launched an attack on the Canadian government for its lack of support for human rights in an address to the CIVICUS World Assembly on Citizen Participation.

"There is a real shrinking of democratic spaces in this country... Many organisations have lost their funding for raising inconvenient questions," he said.

Shetty also urged the government to seek the repatriation of Omar Khadr whose trial before the Guantanamo Military Commission opened this month. Khadr was 15 at the time of his arrest in Afghanistan for throwing a hand grenade which killed an American soldier. (AFP, 24 August 2010). Full story.

Yemen also came under fire from Amnesty this month for cracking down on human rights in the name of security. The report,  "Yemen: Cracking Down Under Pressure", documents unlawful killings of those accused of links to al-Qa'ida, to Huthi rebels and Southern Movement activists who are demanding secession in the country's south. Full report.

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And the beat goes on...

 
Occupied Palestinian territories: Defence for Children International - Palestine has expressed concern about the effects of housing demolitions on children's lives. Since the beginning of 2010, there has been a sharp increase in house demolitions in Area C. OCHA reports that during the same period in 2009, there were 182 demolitions, compared to 242 since the beginning of 2010. This has resulted in the displacement of over 1,100 Palestinians, including 400 children, according to Badil. More than 50 per cent of these demolitions occurred in July alone. Full story.

Afghanistan: The number of children killed in conflict in Afghanistan has shot up 55 per cent from last year, according to the 2010 “Mid-Year Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict” published by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan this month.

On a positive note, the Afghan government has set up a committee to deal with serious violations of children's rights in the country. Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, welcomed the development and said it showed the government was following up its earlier commitment to protect children in conflict. Full story.

The last word

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