Press BRIEFING on 2004 treaty ratification event

 

Treaties on the protection of civilians will be the focus of the 2004 ratification event taking place during the General Assembly’s annual high-level debate; it was announced this afternoon at a Headquarters press briefing.

Making the announcement were Palitha Kohona, Chief of the Treaty Section in the Office of Legal Affairs; Mark Bowden, Chief of the Policy Development and Studies Branch in the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA); and Cate Steains, Policy Advisor for OCHA.

The treaty event will run from 21 to 24 September in the Kuwaiti boat area near the Assembly Hall entrance.

Introducing the theme, Mr. Kohona said civilians were increasingly the primary targets in armed conflicts.  He noted the anniversary of last year’s attack against the United Nations in Iraq and the string of violent actions taking place against civilians across the world as evidence.

Recalling the first treaty event during the Millennium Summit, he said the purpose was to promote signing and ratification of the instruments themselves, as well as to enhance the international rule of law.  The core multilateral instruments had been summarized in a book form with their status and norms presented in context.  That had created a multilateral framework for protecting civilians and it covered every aspect of human interaction.

Those treaties include six instruments receiving special attention, such as the Genocide Convention of 1948 and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.  Also included are treaties and protocols related to civilian welfare and arms, human rights, transport and trafficking, refugees and stateless persons.

Mr. Bowden said the framework had never been more relevant to OCHA’s humanitarian work.  Civilians were under greater threat than ever.  Situations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Sudan and Burundi showed sexual violence on the rise, due to changes in armed conflict.  Civilians had been mutilated in Sierra Leone.  Other threats were commercial exploitation, the use of anti-personnel mines and new weapons of warfare, such as plastics-based dirty landmines.

In response to a question, he said there was a difference between modern threats to civilians and those in historically cataclysmic conflicts, such as world wars.  The sheer numbers of people affected by low intensity warfare was higher.  Millions of people, for example, had been displaced by conflict in Africa’s Great Lakes region.  Also, humanitarian workers themselves were being targeted to disrupt delivery of assistance.

Also, he said, the Geneva Convention of the early twentieth century had been the first ever step to regulate the rules of warfare.  The framework presented in the book was a much needed, easily understood and clear set of tools for protecting civilians.  Many governments were interested in protecting civilians, but there was insufficient awareness about where responsibilities lay.  The United Nations was growing ever more aware that protecting civilians was a core responsibility for it, including through the Security Council.

Challenged on the efficacy of the instruments when dangers to civilians were increasing, Mr. Kohona said the signing and ratifying of instruments was a first step.  The real objective was to achieve implementation of the obligations taken on by becoming a signatory.  That required the cooperation of governments, civil society and the media to take the legal and other steps of implementation.

Further pressed on the usefulness of the instruments, when the United Nations couldn’t protect civilians in situations of violations to the norms of a signed convention, Mr. Bowen said, “intervention isn’t always protection”.  Law was an agreement to a set of normative steps.  It formed the basis for conscience, and for measuring against an agreed-upon standard.

Mr. Kohona added that the norms of international law were taken for granted over time, like the presumed operation of a telephone.  The world noticed when a norm was violated and took action when the breach was unacceptable.

“Legal obligations carry weight”, Ms. Steains summed up.

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