“... Too often, the Security Council’s engagement is inadequate, selective, or after the fact. The tragedies of recent years in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Darfur are cases in point. In the case of Rwanda in mid-1994, the Security Council was unable to move much beyond hand wringing, with the result that 800 000 people lost their lives in the span of a few months. In the Second Congo War, the Security Council’s efforts in the interest of diplomacy and peacekeeping were not enough to prevent the deaths of an estimated 3.8 million people.
And whatever the lessons learned from these admitted failures, the more recent case of Darfur continues to suffer from the inability of the Security Council to muster sufficient peacekeeping troops and sufficient resources to prevent the continuing atrocities.
In specific cases of arms control, the Security Council’s efforts have not been very systematic or successful.
** In the case of Iraq, the Council for over a decade imposed a series of blanket economic sanctions - which were manipulated to the advantage of the ruthless regime in power, and resulted in the death and suffering of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. The Council could not later agree, in 2003, on either the need for or the timing of the use of force in Iraq.
** In the case of India and Pakistan, the Council in 1998 requested both countries to stop further nuclear testing and the development of their nuclear weapons programme. The resolution was not implemented by either country.
** In 1981, Israel was also requested to submit all its nuclear facilities to IAEA safeguards. The resolution was not implemented.
** The case of North Korea was reported to the Council first in 1993, and again in 2003, in connection with North Korea’s decision to withdraw from the NPT.
While the Council in 1993 adopted a resolution asking North Korea to reconsider its decision to withdraw from the Treaty, it was not able to agree on how to respond to the North Korean decision to finally withdraw in 2003.
I should also note here that the Security Council has not engaged itself in the whole question of formulating a system for the "regulation of armaments", as mandated by Article 26 of the UN Charter. This is, admittedly, a complex assignment, given that the five permanent members of the Council are also the five nuclear-weapon States recognized by the NPT. But for the Council’s approach to be equitable - a key to its credibility - this mandate cannot continue to be ignored.
In sum, when dealing with threats of nuclear proliferation and arms control, the Security Council has too often fallen short. It has made little effort to address nuclear proliferation threats in context, by dealing with the ‘drivers’ of insecurity that give rise to proliferation. It has not responded or followed up effectively to the emergence of new countries with nuclear weapons. And it has not exercised its arms limitation mandate. It is clearly time for the Security Council to be reformed, expanded and strengthened, as part of the current efforts to reform and revitalize the United Nations...”
IAEA Secretary General Mohamed ElBaradei
Taken from Speech given on March 25, 2006 - Karlsruhe, Germany
(Courtesy of IAEA.org)
Read speech in full HERE...
Read more on topic at:
>>> newKerala.com......
... The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohammed ElBaradei has called for an urgent reform of the UN Security Council, saying it has too often failed to effectively address international crises...
IAEA chief criticizes UNSC for bungling, urges reform
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