Tag: <span>Antonio Guterres</span>

Nuclear weapons Appeals

The NPT and Broader Human Security.

Featured Image: Castle Romeo nuclear test (yield 11 Mt) on Bikini Atoll. It was the first nuclear test conducted on a barge. The barge was located in the Castle Bravo crater. By United States Department of Energy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

“Nuclear weapons are unique in their destructive power, in the unspeakable human suffering they cause, in the impossibility of controlling their effects in space and time, in the risks of escalation they create, and in the threat they pose to the environment, to future generations, and indeed to the survival of humanity.”

– Jakob Kellenberger, then President of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons; (known as the NPT Review to its friends); began on 1 August 2022 at the United Nations in New York.  The Secretary- General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres opened the Review by stressing that :

“From the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula. To Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  The clouds that parted following the end of the Cold War are gathering once more.”

Jakob Kellenberger

 Jakob Kellenberger (born 1944), President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) since 2000 at Dies academicus 2003 of the University of Fribourg. By Charly Rappo, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons.

Antonio Guterres

Antonio Guterres By Quirinale.it, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons.

As I chaired the representatives of the non-governmental organizations (NGO) at the 1975 and the 1980 Reviews, then held in Geneva, I have a feeling of repeating myself, especially as I participated in the 1985 and 1990 Reviews, after which the Reviews moved to New York.

As the Reviews were not U.N. meetings but were held in U.N. buildings, we were able to negotiate a greater role for NGOs at the review conferences than at the U.N. disarmament meetings.  Yes, there was a time when the U.N. had a Conference on Disarmament which held regular meetings. In addition, there were three U.N. General Assembly Special Sessions of Disarmament, 1978, 1982, 1988.  Disarmament has largely disappeared from the U.N. Agenda, and NGOs are forced to hand out arms control proposals to government U.N. missions, one step away from distributing pornography.

General Asembly

Image by Basil D Soufi, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

U.N. General Assembly: Can It Provide the Needed Global Leadership?

Military Spending Remains Constant.

The month-long NPT Review aims at having a final resolution highlighting the discussions.  This final resolution must be agreed upon by consensus making bold proposals difficult.  These proposals might be agreed upon if there were majority-minority voting but impossible by consensus.  Another major difficulty is that there are crucial States outside the NPT framework: India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea.

The world’s nuclear arms race arose as a classic case of the security dynamic – a situation in which one State tries to make itself more secure by building weapons and military forces which it says are defensive.  NGOs have constantly stressed that money spent on the nuclear weapons industry would be better spent on public health, climate stabilization and ecologically-sound development.  However, military spending remains constant.  NGOs have also stressed during the Reviews the need for developing confidence-building measures.  But confidence remains in short supply.

The debates and the results of the NPT Review merit being watched closely.

Ending the nuclear weapons era will require dedication, sustained effort and increased cooperation among NGOs. NGO action and cooperation led to the treaties on chemical weapons, land mines and cluster weapons.  Developing the framework for a broadly defined human security is the next major step.  The debates and the results of the NPT Review merit being watched closely.

 

René Wadlow, President, Association of World Citizens.

Here are other publications that may be of interest to you.

World Refugee Day.

World Refugee Day.

June 20 is the United Nations (UN)-designated World Refugee Day;  marking the signing in 1951 of the Convention on Refugees. The condition of refugees and migrants has become a “hot”…

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Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace Education of World Citizenships.

International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace.

photo by 995645 in Pixabay.

24 April; International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace was established by the U.N. General Assembly and first observed on 24 April 2019.

The resolution establishing the Day is in part a reaction to the “America First, America First” cry of the U.S. President Donald Trump; but other states are also following narrow nationalistic policies and economic protectionism.

The Day stresses the use of multilateral decision-making in achieving the peaceful resolution of conflicts. Yet as the U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said:

“Multilaterism is not only a matter of confronting shared threats, it is about seizing common opportunities.”

António Guterres

The UN General Secretariat António Guterres (2019). By Cancillería Argentina, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

United Nations.

One hour after Trygve Lie arrived in New York as the first Secretary-General of the United Nations in March 1946; the Ambassador of Iran handed him the complaint of his country against the presence of Soviet troops in northern Iran. From that moment on; the U.N. has lived with constant conflict-resolution tasks to be accomplished. The isolated diplomatic conference of the past; like the Congress of Vienna in 1815 after the Napoleonic wars has been replaced by an organization continually at work on all its manifold problems. If the world is to move forward to a true world society; this can be done only through an organization such as the U.N; which is based on universality, continuity and comprehensiveness.

Today’s world society evolved from an earlier international structure based on states and their respective goals; often termed “the national interest”. This older system was based on the idea that there is an inevitable conflict among social groups: the class struggle for the Marxists; the balance of power for the Nationalists. Thus; negotiations among government representatives are a structured way of mitigating conflicts; but not a way of moving beyond conflict.

The U.N. Charter.

However; in the U.N. there is a structural tension between national sovereignty and effective international organization. In the measure that an international organization is effective; it is bound to impair the freedom of action of its members; and in the measure that the member states assert their freedom of action; they impair the effectiveness of the international organization. The U.N. Charter itself testifies to that unresolved tension by stressing on the one hand the “sovereign equality” of all member states and; on the other; assigning to the permanent five members of the Security Council a privileged position.

We the Peoples.

However; what was not foreseen in 1945; when the U.N. Charter was drafted was the increasing international role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). “We the Peoples” in whose name the United Nations Charter is established; are present in the activities of the U.N. through non-governmental organizations in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council. NGOs have played a crucial role in awareness-building and in the creation of new programs in the fields of population, refugees and migrants, women and children, human rights and food. Now; there is a strong emphasis on the consequences of climate change; as the issue has moved beyond the reports of climate experts to broad and strong NGO actions.

This increase in the U.N. related non-governmental action arises out of the work and ideas of many people active in social movements: spiritual, ecological, human potential, feminist, and human rights. Many individuals saw that their activities had a world dimension; and that the United Nations and such Specialized Agencies as UNESCO provided avenues for action. Thus; as we mark the International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace; we recognize that there is the growth, world wide, of a new spirit which is inclusive, creative and thus life-transforming.

Rene Wadlow, President, Association of World Citizens.

Here are other publications that may be of interest to you.

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Cyprus Apelaciones

Chipre: ¿Hacia una confederación no territorial?

Fotógrafo oficial del ejército británico, dominio público, a través de Wikimedia Commons.

Tres días, 27-29 de abril de 2021, de conversaciones “informales” sobre el futuro de Chipre se llevaron a cabo en Ginebra bajo el liderazgo del Secretario General de la ONU, Antonio Guterres. No ha habido negociaciones formales sobre el tema desde 2017. La reunión patrocinada por la ONU con representantes de greco y turcochipriotas, así como representantes de Grecia, Turquía y el Reino Unido, la antigua potencia colonial, fue para determinar si hay suficientes terreno común para comenzar las negociaciones a finales de este año.

Antonio Guterres pidió a las partes que “sean creativas en su pensamiento”, pero la creatividad ha escaseado. Sin embargo, la atmósfera geopolítica se ha vuelto más tensa desde 2017 con las tensiones entre Turquía y Grecia por las fronteras marítimas y el uso potencial de los recursos naturales.

Chipre se ha dividido entre grecochipriotas y turcochipriotas desde 1974, turcochipriotas en el norte, grecochipriotas en el sur con una zona de amortiguamiento monitoreada por la ONU que los separa. Todavía hay unas 40.000 tropas turcas en la zona turcochipriota. La misión de mantenimiento de la paz de la ONU (UNFICYP) ha estado en Chipre desde 1964 cuando los fuertes disturbios entre las poblaciones griega y turca fue un indicador de que las cosas podrían empeorar y provocar hostilidades entre Grecia y Turquía.

La compleja situación política tiene tres Estados como “potencias garantes”: el Reino Unido, que fue el amo colonial hasta 1963, y Grecia y Turquía, que crearon las tensiones en primer lugar. 

El diablo está en los detalles.

Los grecochipriotas sostienen que Chipre debería ser un Estado y no dos, que este único Estado sería de naturaleza federal y que este Estado reunido sería parte de la Unión Europea. Pero el diablo está en los detalles;”. El primer “detalle”, pero crucial, son las fronteras geográficas de las áreas griega y turca. Dada la naturaleza emocional y compleja de la situación, las divisiones geográficas sin fronteras “naturales” son un tema que puede generar verdaderos desacuerdos. Además, las fronteras también pueden servir de excusa si el verdadero desacuerdo es otra cosa.

El líder de los turcochipriotas, Ersin Tatar, propone un modelo de dos Estados “viviendo uno al lado del otro en buenas relaciones de vecindad”. Ersin Tatar es apoyado de cerca por el presidente turco Recep Tayyip Erdogan, y algunos ven las propuestas turcas como una vía para la influencia “neo-otomana” de Erdogan en el área.

Existe un acuerdo previo de que cuando finalmente haya una propuesta firme, la propuesta se presentará tanto a la población grecochipriota como a la turcochipriota en referendos simultáneos. Por lo tanto, los negociadores deben tener en cuenta las actitudes populares de ambas partes para que el acuerdo sea mutuamente aceptable. La esperanza es que “ha llegado el momento” de un acuerdo cuando tanto Grecia como Turquía están preocupados por otros problemas en la volátil región y muchos chipriotas están cansados del statu quo.

Chipre con-federal.

Hay dos aspectos de las negociaciones sobre los cuales la Asociación de Ciudadanos del Mundo ha hecho propuestas dado el interés de larga data de la Asociación en desarrollar estructuras constitucionales apropiadas. En primer lugar, por razones comprensibles, el término “federal” se utiliza ahora con mayor frecuencia en lugar de “con-federal”. En el caso de Chipre, “un Chipre confederal” podría ser el mejor término, una forma más flexible de unión, en la que tratar los problemas en el nivel más local posible sería la estructura constitucional.

A menudo se piensa que las fronteras  son “naturales e inviolables”, incluso si son sólo fronteras en la mente. Las actitudes hacia las fronteras a menudo perpetúan el conflicto. Las fronteras son un reflejo del pasado más que del futuro. 

Hoy, existe una necesidad de cooperación entre comunidades. Por tanto, puede existir la posibilidad de una confederación chipriota basada no en divisiones geográficas sino en funciones, tales como iniciativas económicas, derecho de la tierra, estado personal en relación con el matrimonio, la separación y la herencia. Esta con-federación basada en funciones tiene potencial para resolver conflictos. Existe el precedente del Imperio Otomano de diferentes reglas legales para las personas que viven en la misma área.

Sin embargo, la ideología neo-otomana puede no ser el mejor enfoque para el estrés en las actuales negociaciones de Chipre. Chipre tiene una de las fuerzas de la ONU más antiguas que mantiene separadas a las dos comunidades. Un enfoque con-federal puede ser una chispa de esperanza de avances para unirlos.

Rene Wadlow, Presidente de  Asociación de Ciudadanos del Mundo.

Aquí tienes otras publicaciones que pueden ser de tu interés.

Burma’s Crumbling Junta

Burma’s Crumbling Junta

February first marked the anniversary of the military coup which overthrew the government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021.  She was in practice the leader of the government but…

World Humanitarian Day: A Need for Common Actions.

World Humanitarian Day: A Need for Common Actions.

Featured Image: Photo by Wylly Suhendra on Unsplash. The United Nations General Assembly has designated 19 August as “World Humanitarian Day” to pay tribute to aid workers in humanitarian service…

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Cyprus Appeals

Cyprus: Toward a Non-territorial Con-federation?

British Army official photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Three days, 27-29 April 2021, of “informal” talks on the future of Cyprus were held in Geneva under the leadership of U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.  There have been no formal negotiations on the issue since 2017.  The U.N.-sponsored meeting with representatives of Greek and Turkish Cypriots as well as representatives of Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom – the former colonial power – was to assertain if there is enough common ground to start negotiations later this year.  Antonio Guterres called on the parties to “be creative in their thinking” – but creativity has been in short supply. However, the geopolitical atmostphere has grown more tense since 2017 with tensions between Turkey and Greece over maritime boundaries and the potential use of natural resources.

Cyprus has been divided between Greek and Turkish Cypriots since 1974, Turkish Cypriots in the north, Greek Cypriots in the south with a U.N. monitored buffer zone separating the two. There are still some 40,000 Turkish troops in the Turkish Cypriot area.  The U.N. peacekeeping mission (UNFICYP) has been in Cyprus since 1964 when bad rioting among the Greek and Turkish populations was an indicator that things could get worse and lead to hostilities between Greece and Turkey themselves.

The complex political situation has three States as “guarantor powers” – the United Kingdom which was the colonial master until 1963 and Greece and Turkey which created the tensions in the first place. 

The Devil is in the details.

The Greek Cypriots hold that Cyprus should be one State and not two, that this one State would be federal in nature, and that this re-united State would be part of the European Union. But “the Devil is in the details;”. The first but crucial “detail” is the geographic frontiers of the Greek and Turkish areas.  Given the emotional and complex nature of the situation, geographic divisions with no “natural” frontiers are an issue which can cause real disagreements. Moreover, frontiers can also serve as an excuse if the real disagreement is something else.

The leader of the Turkish Cypriots, Ersin Tatar, proposes a two-state model “living side-by-side in  good, neighborly relationships”. Ersin Tatar is closely supported by the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and some see the Turkish proposals as an avenue for Erdogan’s ” Neo-Ottoman” influence in the area. 

There is a prior agreement that when there is finally a firm proposal, the proposal  will be presented to both Greek and Turkish Cypriot populations in simultaneous referendums.  Thus the negotiators must take into consideration the popular attitudes on both sides so that the agreement is mutually acceptable.  The hope is that “the time is ripe” for agreement when both Greece and Turkey are preoccupied with other issues in the volatile region and  many Cypriots are tired of the status quo.

A con-federal Cyprus.

There are two aspects of the negotiations on which the Association of World Citizens  has made proposals given the Association’s long-standing interest in developing appropriate constitutional structures.  First, for understandable reasons, the term “federal” is now most often used rather than “con-federal”.  In the case of Cyprus “ a con-federal Cyprus” might be the better term, a looser form of union, one in which dealing with issues at the most local level possible would be the constitutional structure.

Borders and frontiers are often thought to be “natural and inviolable” even if they are only borders in the mind.  Attitudes toward borders are often conflict-perpetuating.  Borders are a reflection of the past rather than of the future. 

Today, there is a need for cross-communal cooperation. Thus there may be a possibility for a Cyprus con-federation based not on geographic divisions  but on functions, such as economic initiatives, land law, personal status concerning marriage, separation and inheritance. Such a functionally-based con-federation has conflict-solving potential.  There is the Ottoman Empire precedent of different legal rules for people living in the same area.

However, neo-Ottoman ideology may not be the best approach to stress in the current Cyprus negotiations. Cyprus has one of the oldest UN forces keeping the two communities apart. A con-federal approach  may be a spark of hope for advances in bringing them together.

 

Rene Wadlow, President, Association of World Citizens.

Here are other publications that may be of interest to you.

Burma’s Crumbling Junta

Burma’s Crumbling Junta

February first marked the anniversary of the military coup which overthrew the government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021.  She was in practice the leader of the government but…

World Humanitarian Day: A Need for Common Actions.

World Humanitarian Day: A Need for Common Actions.

Featured Image: Photo by Wylly Suhendra on Unsplash. The United Nations General Assembly has designated 19 August as “World Humanitarian Day” to pay tribute to aid workers in humanitarian service…

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