In
UNSC,
Luxembourg
Gets N. Korea,
Sudan Goes to
Argentina,
Seoul
& Horn
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 7 --
As five
countries
joined the UN
Security
Council on
January 1, and
five left
after serving
two year
terms, who
would chair
the Council's
various
sanctions
committees had
to be
decided.
On
January 1, new
member Rwanda
tweeted that
it would chair
the Libya
Sanctions
Committee,
previously
held by
Portugal, and
the Working
Group on
prevention of
conflicts in
Africa,
previous held
by South
Africa, which
has left the
Council and
re-assigned
its ambassador
Baso Sangqu to
Addis Ababa. Click
here for
that Inner
City Press
story.
South
Africa's other
committee, on
Counter-Terrorism,
has been given
to
Morocco, which
has one more
year on the
Council.
Similarly,
Liberia
sanctions have
been given to
Pakistan, with
one year left.
Then
on January 6,
Australia
announced it
would chair
on sanctions
on Iran
(previously
held by
Colombia) and
Al
Qaeda /
Taliban,
previously
held
by Germany.
But
what of the
rest? Well,
the Sudan
sanctions
committee,
which some
predicted
would pass
from US cally
Colombia to
South Korea,
has gone
instead to Argentina.
Somalia
and
Eritrea have
been given to
South Korea, a
major shipping
power.
Iraq and
Kuwait has
gone to Togo,
as has the
sanctions
committee on
Lebanon /
Hariri (1636).
The
1718 Committee
on DPRK /
North Korea
has gone to
Luxembourg,
which
also picks up
Children and
Armed Conflict
from outgoing
Council
member
Germany, and
"Documentation
and Other
Procedural
Questions,"
previously
Portugal's.
That Committee
concerns among
other things
the Security
Council's
openness -- in
the first
instance, to
other member
states of the
UN, but
ultimately, we
push
for, to "we
the peoples,"
under the UN
Charter. Watch
this
site.
, 
