At
UN
on Climate, Statement in Play Amid Encroachment Fears,
AOSIS to Meet
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
July 18 -- While Germany has been pushing on climate change
for a Security Council Presidential Statement after the July 20
meeting, numerous Council members expressed doubt to Inner City Press
on Monday
night.
“It's as if
they
think only the Security Council can deal with anything,” one
Council member complained. The Non-Aligned Movement has been lobbying
against Security Council jurisdiction over climate change.
Meanwhile
some
small island states, many in the Pacific, see the seas rising and
want the Council and its powers under Chapter Seven of the UN charter
to be invoked. That is the tension, within the Association of Small
Island States or AOSIS: which ones need the Council's involvement, on
issues like their fishing rights even if their land is overrun, and
those aligned with NAM.
"The Brits in
2007 said it wouldn't be a precedent," one member told Inner City Press
of a UK sponsored Council meeting in that year. "Now they're citing it.
So we say no."
Germany
still
believes a Presidential Statement is possible, saying it has been
calling Moscow and Beijing. But such a Statement require unanimity,
and other capitals must be called. And there it is harder for the
administration of Angela Merkel to exert pressure.
“She was
against
nuclear power and then for it,” a Council member told Inner City
Press. “Now she is against it again. Investors need more constancy
than that. We can put words on paper, but what do they want the
Council to do?”
Here is the
German mission's concept paper, click here.
Merkel, Ban Ki-moon and guard, climate PRST not shown
The
initial
proposal was for a brand new Special Representative of the Secretary
General, to report to the Council every six months. Even an AOSIS
member told Inner City Press, “too expensive.” Now the idea is
Secretary General reports, and language that makes clear the Council
is not encroaching on other bodies.
On
July 19 there is
an AOSIS meeting at 9 am, then Germany has called a meeting of
Permanent Representatives at 10. “If they had a PRST, they wouldn't
need a Perm Rep meeting,” a Council member told Inner City Press. But
hope springs eternal -- and the seas are rising. Watch this site.
* * *
At
UN
for Mandela, Diplomacy Instead of Park Bench Painting, Obits in
the Air
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
July 18 -- Nelson Mandela's birthday was celebrated in New
York on Monday, in the morning in Central Park and at night at South
Africa's mission to the UN on 38th Street.
While
Ambassadors'
car idled on the street below, upstairs the Permanent Representatives
of countries like Venezuela, Brazil, Rwanda, Portugal and Namibia
milled around, with red and white wine, cheese cubes and chicken
wings, listening to African music.
A
Central Park
attendee told Inner City Press that park benches had been painted.
South African TV had interviewed a number of attendees, to broadcast
birthday greetings. The Deputy Permanent Representative of a P-5
country told South Africa's charge, you have a living hero, we don't.
But
what would
Mandela do? The call Monday was for volunteerism. But for many
diplomats, their work was at the UN. They said Mandela would
understand.
Nelson & Winnie Mandela @ UN 1990 w/ de Cuellar & Dinkins
Many
media outlets
are compiling in advance obituaries for Mandela. Some rightly find
this ghoulish. Why not run appreciation while the man is still alive?
Watch this site.
* * *
, 
in