The UN Security Council and Transitional Justice

The United Nations Security Council is an insufficiently understood source of support for transitional justice interventions on the ground. 

In the best-case scenarios, the Council has assisted national and local endeavors by amplifying the voices of domestic stakeholders, exerting pressure over recalcitrant actors, guarding the integrity of existing peace agreements from internal attacks, leveraging resources, and mandating supportive mechanisms. 

In other cases, the Security Council’s support has backfired, frustrating national efforts or eroding local capacity. 

Given these contrasting outcomes, a new report titled, ‘The UN Security Council and Transitional Justice’, edited by REBECCA BRUBAKER, seeks to provide a preliminary look, across five case studies, at the conditions under which support from the Security Council – as one of many actors in the UN’s transitional justice architecture – can positively impact transitional justice efforts on the ground.

Published by United Nations University’s Center for Policy Research, the report is written for a general audience, though should also be of interest to transitional justice specialists and those interested in the role of the Security Council.

This was a deliberate choice given a general finding through the research that outside the community of transitional justice theorists and practitioners, too little is known about this field. 

Diverging understandings of the definition and scope of transitional justice permeate both the chamber of the Security Council as well as key corridors of the UN Secretariat and the broader UN system.

To this end, it was thought useful to frame the findings from this exploratory project as part of a broader discussion on transitional justice, to help foster greater understanding and a more coherent, coordinated approach within the UN system.

This cross-cutting paper is divided into five parts. The first part offers an overview of the concept of transitional justice and its core components and then situates transitional justice concepts in the broader practice of international law. 

The second section provides a brief introduction to transitional justice and the UN system, examining the primary entities charged with supporting its implementation. 

The third section zooms in on one particular and, as of yet, understudied UN entity with regards to transitional justice – the Security Council. Drawing on recent work, it briefly touches on how the Council’s approach to transitional justice has evolved over the last three decades and the various debates within the Council on transitional justice’s relation to the Council’s broader work. 

The fourth section, as the core of the report, looks at the impact of Security Council strategy and actions on transitional justice efforts on the ground. Drawing from the case studies in this report, it describes the mechanisms used, the challenges faced, and the factors that facilitated impact in these cases. 

The paper concludes with a number of recommendations for the Security Council, the Secretariat, and transitional justice advocates as they think through whether, when and how to engage Council members on these issues going forward.

The paper is designed as a preliminary look at the issue of impact with the goal of sparking discussion and further research. The report and the adjoining case studies – which were completed in August 2020 – are a first attempt at identifying issues that deserve further deliberation.

The UN Security Council and Transitional Justice - UNU Collections

Increasing the Impact of the EU at the UN

With major powers undermining the rule-based international system, a global pandemic and the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU, the EU faces new challenges in the UN. At the same time, these shifting dynamics also create a unique opportunity to evaluate and strengthen the EU’s performance in the UN. 

In a new study published by Konrad Adenauer Foundation New York, SEBASTIAN BORCHMEYER AND WASIM MIR looks at how the EU and its Member States can build on this historic moment to further increase its impact in the UN.

Covid-19, coupled with recent geopolitical changes, have put the United Nations under unprecedented strain. The future of the UN is more precarious than at any time in its 75-year history. The European Union and its Member States have played a pivotal role in supporting the UN since its creation. 

A rule-based international system, with the UN at its core, is central to delivering the EU’s foreign policy objectives. An effective EU presence in the UN also helps ensure a stronger UN. Closer coordination, led by the EU Delegation, has increased the EU’s performance in the UN in New York over the last eight years but there is still more to do. 

One the one hand, the EU has become a strong voice and a node of influence across the UN System. On the other hand, because the UN remains primarily an organization centered around Member States, there are limitations on how the EU can operate and engage in the UN; this cannot be changed by the EEAS or EU Member States acting alone.

With major powers undermining the rule-based international system, and the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU, the EU faces new challenges in the UN. At the same time, these shifting dynamics also create a unique opportunity to evaluate and strengthen the EU’s performance in the UN. 

The study looks at how the EU and its Member States can build on this historic moment to further increase its impact in the UN. Specifically, the paper analyzes how the EU and its Member States operate in the United Nations General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council as well as how they interact with the UN Secretariat and New York-based UN Funds and Programmes. 

The authors make specific practical recommendations on how to enhance the EU’s performance in each fora with a view to generating an in-depth discussion amongst EU Member States. They hope that EU Heads of Mission in New York collectively consider these recommendations and identify those that can be implemented immediately and those that require further deliberation.

Increasing the Impact of the European Union at the United Nations in New York

The UN Security Council and Conflict Prevention

In this paper, RICHARD GOWAN explores how members of the United Nations Security Council can design and implement preventive diplomatic strategies in response to emerging, escalating and acute crises. 

The Council’s behaviour in crisis situations is often reactive and far from strategic. Council members regularly struggle with (i) uncertainty over conflict dynamics; (ii) divergent national interests; and (iii) the lack of clear policy options for managing a situation. 

These limitations reflect not only the inherently chancy nature of conflict prevention – which is always an uncertain business – but also the political limitations of the Council as a factious intergovernmental body. These limits mean that the Council is often only a supporting player, or not a player at all, in preventive efforts led by States or regional organizations. 

The paper, published by the United Nations University Center for Policy Research, provides options for building a degree of diplomatic coherence around a set of goals within the Council and with other actors, and how the Council can engage directly with actors in a conflict.

The Security Council and Conflict Prevention - UNU Collections

Purposes, Politicization and Pitfalls of Diplomatic Gift-giving to the United Nations

Viewed objectively, diplomatic gift-giving to the UN may appear to be non-reciprocal, in that the donor does not receive a tangible gift of equivalent value from the organisation. Yet it is clear that a significant majority of states have concluded that worthwhile benefits nonetheless accrue from this practice, writes LORAINE SIEVERS. 

Evidence of this is found in the statistic that more than 140 of the UN’s 193 Member States have given at least one gift. However, the fact that approximately 50 countries have not done so suggests that gift-giving to the UN is regarded by the diplomatic community as optional, and not essential to developing a respected profile at the organisation, SIEVERS writes in ‘Purposes, Politicisation and Pitfalls of Diplomatic Gift-giving to the United Nations’ published in the The Hague Journal of Diplomacy.

Within the broad range of cultural activities carried out by Member States, it is virtually impossible to isolate the impact of a particular gift. Nonetheless, decor and furnishings given to the UN may have a longer-lasting effect than an expensive reception or concert which, once over, may soon be forgotten. Norway’s donation of the Security Council Chamber, and its later renovation, have been sources of enduring prestige. These were highlighted as part of Norway’s campaign for a 2021-2022 seat on the Council, and in fact Norway’s campaign logo was the stylised heart of the chamber’s decorative fabric.

In some instances, gift-giving to the UN can be an equaliser. A small state may donate a relatively inexpensive handicraft which, because of its uniqueness and workmanship, may gain more positive attention than another state’s costlier gift. One fairly modest donation which is widely appreciated comes from the island of Palau (population 17,900). It is a 1.5-meter wooden eel which narrates a story through intricate carvings on both sides and has been deemed worthy of display in the high-traffic area outside the Trusteeship Council.

In other instances, gift-giving can accentuate inequalities. The Capital Master Plan renovations created opportunities for redecorating the Delegates Lounge, the Security Council Consultations Room and an adjacent area, but these projects fell well outside the reach of smaller states and rather were financed, respectively, by the Netherlands, the Russian Federation and Turkey.

Overall, it would be too narrow to conclude that states evaluate their own, and others’, gifts to the UN solely on the basis of direct national gain. Each gift to the organisation adds to the collective backdrop of the daily formal and informal conversations which take place there. As Michael Adlerstein, chief architect of the Capital Master Plan, has observed: ‘The delegates enjoy the collection. It is their art, and it is their house’.

Sievers, L. (2021). Purposes, Politicisation and Pitfalls of Diplomatic Gift-giving to the United Nations, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 16(1), 110-119. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/1871191X-BJA10065

Recommendations to Advance the Action for Peacekeeping Agenda

This document offers a consolidated and prioritized list of key recommendations that have been formulated collectively by the CHALLENGES FORUM partnership and its international stakeholders to catalyse and support further action by Member States, the UN Secretariat, and Field Missions in their efforts to advance the UN’s Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) agenda and deliver more effective peace operations.

These recommendations align with the two strategic objectives that the Challenges Forum partnership has agreed to implement from 2019 to 2023. The first is focused on the effective implementation of the development and reform of UN peace operations and related regional partnerships. The second objective has a more specific focus on ensuring that the UN and regional partners have more effective mission leadership and strategic and operational management capacity.

These recommendations are intended to support the holistic implementation of A4P through mutually reinforcing recommendations, drawing on the commitments made in the Declaration of Shared Commitments by Member States, regional organizations and the UN Secretariat. 

Since these recommendations have emerged from discussions among the Challenges Forum over the last two years in parallel with the A4P agenda, some of them may already be partly implemented (for example, measures have been put in place to strengthen performance and training through the Light Coordination Mechanism, as well as the Comprehensive Performance Assessment System). 

The recommendations in this paper are intended to complement those already being implemented by the Secretariat and Member States as part of the A4P agenda. This list is categorized according to the eight thematic areas guiding the A4P agenda.

Challenges Forum Consolidated Recommendations to Advance the Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) Agenda

Beyond the Veto: Roles in UN Security Council Decision-Making

The formal rules governing the UN Security Council offer little insight into how negotiations are conducted on a day-to-day basis. While it is generally assumed that permanent members dominate negotiations, JESS GIFKINS investigates avenues for influence for elected members and the UN Secretariat. 

Institutional power is used to show how permanent members adopt dominant positions in negotiations extending far beyond their Charter-given privileges, he writes in the journal Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations. 

Dominance of permanent members is moderated, however, by the legitimacy that support from elected members brings to a resolution. Similarly, the UN Secretariat can use its legitimated authority to influence decisions. 

In his article, ‘Beyond the Veto: Roles in UN Security Council Decision-Making’, GIFKINS argues that informal practices are key in understanding how power and influence are allocated in the Council and it forms a building block for future analyses of Security Council practices. This argument also has implications for the perennial reform debates and the prospects for informal reform.

Gifkins, J. (2021). Beyond the Veto, Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations, 27(1), 1-24. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/19426720-02701003

Climatizing the UN Security Council

Since 2007, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has debated the security implications of climate change on several occasions. In this article, LUCILE MAERTENS addresses these debates by exploring two interrelated questions: What drives the continuous efforts to place climate change on the UNSC’s agenda and to what extent do the UNSC’s debates illustrate an ongoing process of climatization? 

To answer these, the article draws on the concept of climatization, which captures the process through which domains of international politics are framed through a climate lens and transformed as a result of this translation. 

It suggests that climate change has become a dominant framing and an inescapable topic of international relations and that the UNSC debates follow a logic of expansion of climate politics by securing a steady climate agenda, attributing responsibility to the Council in the climate crisis, involving climate actors and advocating for climate-oriented policies to maintain international security.

Maertens, L. Climatizing the UN Security Council. Int Polit (2021). 

https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-021-00281-9