Month: November 2022

In November, Ghana will hold the presidency of the Security Council. 

Ghana plans to organise two signature events during the month. The first signature event is a ministerial-level open debate on the theme “Integrating Effective Resilience-Building in Peace Operations for Sustainable Peace”. Ghana’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey is expected to chair the meeting. Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix, AU Commissioner for Political Affairs and Peace and Security Bankole Adeoye, Chair of The Elders Mary Robinson, and Security Council Report Executive Director Karin Landgren are the anticipated briefers.

The second signature event is a debate on “Counter-terrorism in Africa—an imperative for peace, security, and development”. Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo is expected to chair the meeting. AU Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat, President of the European Council Charles Michel, and a civil society representative are expected to brief.

In November, the Security Council will hold its annual briefing with the heads of police components of UN peace operations. Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix; the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) police commissioner, Christine Fossen; the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) police commissioner, Mody Berethe; and Emma Birikorang, director at the Faculty of Academic Affairs and Research at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre, are the anticipated briefers.

The Council is also expected to receive its annual briefing from UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in November.

In addition to the debate on counter-terrorism in Africa, other African issues on the programme of work in November are: 

Libya, the semi-annual briefing by the ICC Prosecutor concerning cases in the country;

Gulf of Guinea, briefing on the Secretary-General’s report on Gulf of Guinea piracy pursuant to resolution 2634;

Joint Force of the Group of Five for the Sahel (FC-G5S), briefing and consultations on the activities of the force;

Sudan/South Sudan, mandate renewal of the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA);

Central African Republic, meeting with troop-contributing countries to the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) and renewal of MINUSCA’s mandate; and

Somalia, renewal of the mandate of the 751 Somalia Sanctions regime and its Panel of Experts.

Middle East issues on the programme include: 

Syria, monthly meetings on political/humanitarian developments and on the chemical weapons file, as well as the bimonthly informal interactive dialogue on the implementation of resolution 2642;

Yemen, the monthly meeting on developments;

“The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian Question”, the monthly meeting; and

Lebanon, consultations on the implementation of resolution 1701.

The Council is expected to meet on two European issues in November. It will hold the semi-annual debate on Bosnia and Herzegovina and reauthorise the EU-led multinational stabilisation force (EUFOR ALTHEA). There are also likely to be one or more meetings on  Ukraine.  

The only Asian issue planned in November is the consultations on the report of the 1718 DPRK Sanctions Committee.

The Council is expected to receive a briefing from chairs of the 1267/1989/2253 Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da’esh) and Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee, the 1373 Counter-Terrorism Committee and the 1540 Committee. The Council is also expected to renew the mandate of the 1540 Committee.

The Security Council and General Assembly will both hold elections for the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in November.

The annual Finnish workshop on “Hitting the Ground Running” is scheduled to take place on 17-18 November.

Other issues could be raised in November depending on developments.

Source: Security Council Report

The thirty-third meeting of the Emergency Committee under the International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR) on the international spread of poliovirus was convened by the WHO Director-General on 12 October 2022 with committee members and advisers attending via video conference, supported by the WHO Secretariat. The Emergency Committee reviewed the data on wild poliovirus (WPV1) and circulating vaccine derived polioviruses (cVDPV) in the context of global eradication of WPV and cessation of outbreaks of cVDPV2 by end of 2023. Technical updates were received about the situation in the following countries and territories: Afghanistan, Algeria, Malawi, Mozambique, Pakistan, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the United States of America and Yemen.

Wild poliovirus

The committee was concerned that since its last meeting in June 2022, Pakistan has reported twelve WPV1 cases all from southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province in Pakistan. Nine cases were from the district of North Waziristan, two from Lakki Marwat and one from South Waziristan bringing the total number of cases in 2022 in Pakistan to 20. Furthermore, there have been 31 additional positive environmental samples detected in districts in KP, Punjab, Sindh and Islamabad, bringing the total to 33 (65 isolates detected in 2021). However, no human polio case has been reported outside of southern KP. The committee noted that the key challenges which are driving transmission in southern KP include the complex security situation leading to inadequate campaign quality and missed children, community resistance (eg fake finger-marking without vaccination, refusals due to various reasons, vaccination boycotts), lack of female frontline workers, weak health infrastructure and service delivery, and sub-optimal routine immunization. Another challenge faced in the most recent campaign was the impact of widespread flooding.

The committee noted that although the ongoing WPV1 outbreak in Pakistan led to a risk of spillover into Afghanistan, there is no evidence of cross-border transmission to date in 2022. Two cases have been reported to date in 2022, one in Paktika province and a second in Kunar province in the East. The polio programme in Afghanistan has gained and sustained access across the country including nearly 3 million children previously inaccessible for almost four years. There remain approximately half a million missed children mostly in the southern region, due to the continued implementation of the mosque to mosque campaign modality. There are also clusters of refusals mainly in the South-East and East regions. Pockets of insecurity pose a threat to polio workers noting that eight vaccinators were killed on 24 February 2022 during a campaign.

The committee was very concerned about continued WPV1 transmission in the Tête province of northern Mozambique. Genetic sequencing confirms that all the viruses are related indicating the outbreak is due to international spread through a single importation event. While the quality of the rounds in the multi-country immunization response is improving, coverage has been insufficient to halt transmission. Furthermore, while synchronization of activities has been agreed upon by all countries involved in the response, it has yet to be implemented in practice. Zimbabwe has yet to conduct any immunization response although it shares a border with the outbreak zone in Tête. Surveillance activities have also been insufficiently coordinated across borders, with Mozambican citizens coming to Malawi for medical care for acute flaccid paralysis and being notified in Malawi rather than Mozambique. Surveillance in Mozambique relies on case finding during campaigns with a lack of active surveillance between campaigns. Other challenges include multiple emergencies, frontline worker fatigue and and high population movement within the subregion.

The committee noted with concern that several frontline health workers were killed in Afghanistan in February 2022, and commended the dedication of health care workers in all countries who are responding to these outbreaks.

Source: World Health Organization

Delegates voiced sharp differences today about the work of the Human Rights Council as the General Assembly took up the intergovernmental body’s annual report. While some praised its efforts over the past year to curb human rights violations through the creation of special mechanisms and emergency sessions, other delegates said the Geneva-based intergovernmental body applies double standards that ignore their impact on developing countries.

Presenting the report of the Council’s activities from 1 October 2021 to 7 October 2022, its President, Federico Villegas (Argentina) said that amid an increasingly complex geopolitical context “the Council has continued to come together to address a multitude of recurrent as well as emerging human rights issues and respond to urgent situations, and I must say that I am proud what we have achieved collectively,” he said. Over the course of its three regular sessions, the Council adopted 100 resolutions, President’s statements and decisions and 67 of these were adopted without a vote.

The Council also held three special sessions and two urgent debates to address human rights situations needing urgent attention, he said, including a session in November 2021 on Sudan and another in December 2021 on Ethiopia. In March of this year, following an urgent debate on the human rights situation in Ukraine stemming from the Russian Federation aggression, the Council decided to establish the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine. It also appointed a new Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation to monitor information from all relevant stakeholders, including Russian civil society both inside and outside the country. Detailing other action, he said the Council established a group of three human rights experts mandated to conduct thorough, independent investigations into all alleged human rights violations and abuses committed in Nicaragua since April 2018.

General Assembly President Csaba Kőrösi (Hungary) said the world’s contemporary crises make the Council’s work even more urgent to meet the goals of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet events on the ground have significantly eroded public trust that the body’s actions will lead to better outcomes for the people and the planet. “It is high time for us to change this experience,” he said, prodding it to take swift action to promote the protection of human rights.

Speakers voiced concern about a myriad of human rights situations from the Chinese Government’s campaign against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang and abuses by the military in Myanmar to the war in the Ukraine and Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land. Some called for action to address Islamophobia, with Pakistan’s representative stressing it has been mainstreamed in the political discourse of certain political parties and Governments.

Venezuela’s delegate, speaking on behalf of the Group of Friends in Defence of the Charter of the United Nations, expressed concern about the proliferation of mechanisms and procedures which pretend to make “impartial” assessments of the human rights situations in certain States. Most lack the due consent and participation of the State in question and base their reports on secondary, tertiary and other sources, which are partial or lack credibility, he said.

Echoing that concern, Gerardo Peñalver Portal, Cuba’s Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs, said selectivity, punitive practices and double standards contribute to the manipulation of human rights against the South, which leads to distrust in the Council. The protection of all human rights should be based on universality, objectivity and non-discrimination, he said, stressing that there are human rights violations in developed countries.

On that point, the speaker for the Russian Federation said that under pressure from Western States, the Council adopted a whole host of flagrantly politicized resolutions over the last year including one on the human rights situation in his country. It is increasingly clear that the West wants to transform the Council into a “so-called closed club of supposed real democracies”, who establish rules for the rest of the world, violations of which will be harshly punished.

Countering that view, the United States delegate said such resolutions are intended to protect human rights globally. She said the devastating impact of the Russian Federation’s unjust war against Ukraine led her Government to work with Ukraine and other cross-border groups to set up the Commission on Inquiry on Ukraine.

The speaker for Ukraine, stressing the critical importance of investigating abuses in order to prevent impunity, said the Commission of Inquiry has found reasonable grounds to believe there have been many violations of humanitarian law, including war crimes. Accountability is needed and she called on all partners to bring all perpetrators to justice.

The European Union’s delegate, in its capacity as observer, was among delegates voicing support for the many resolutions that had created various special mechanisms. He said success must be measured not only by ending, but by preventing, human rights violations and holding perpetrators accountable, stressing the need to help the persecuted in Iran and the persecuted Uyghurs and to improve the situation of Afghan women and girls.

While supportive of the Council’s ability to respond swiftly to several emerging human rights challenges, such as in Ukraine and Afghanistan, the representative of Switzerland said he regretted the Council did not hold a debate on the situation in Xinjiang in China, which constitutes crimes against humanity. He endorsed the creation of a new mechanism to address the situation in Yemen.

Speaking on behalf of a Group of States, Yemen’s delegate said ongoing international support for the national mechanism in his country, including through substantive capacity-building and technical assistance, helps the Yemeni people. It ensures human rights monitoring, investigation and accountability. He condemned the Houthi movement’s decision to deny the National Commission of Inquiry formal access to the areas they control.

Also speaking today were representative of Finland (on behalf of the Nordic countries), Maldives, Argentina, Honduras, Qatar, Namibia, Georgia, Liechtenstein, China, Croatia, Kuwait, Portugal, Egypt, Malaysia, Poland, Algeria, Mexico, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, India, Belarus, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, Syria, Chile, South Africa, Morocco, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Romania.

Source: UN General Assembly