Peace & Justice

Photo: María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés (centre right), President of the 73rd session of the General Assembly, listens as Secretary-General António Guterres (centre left) addresses the high-level plenary meeting to commemorate and promote the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons (26 September). At left is Izumi Nakamitsu, Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs (ODA). UN Photo/Ariana Lindquist

UN High-Level Meeting Reflects Broad Support for Total Nuclear Disarmament

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – The United Nations has pursued the goal of nuclear disarmament since the adoption of the very first General Assembly resolution in 1946. But aware that countries possessing nuclear weapons have well-funded, long-term plans to modernize their nuclear arsenals, in 2013 the UN declared September 26 as the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

Commemorating that Day against the backdrop of a deteriorating global security environment and to mobilize international efforts towards achieving a nuclear-weapon-free world, the General Assembly convened a high-level plenary meeting on September 26 at the UN in New York.

: Santo D. Banerjee; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 30 September 2018

Photo (from left to right): Ms. Kaoru Nemoto, Director of the United Nations Information Centre in Tokyo; Mr. Nobuharu Imanishi, Director of Arms Control and Disarmament Division, MOFA; Ms. Masako Toki, Education project manager at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey; Ms. Mitsuki Kudo, Nagasaki Youth Delegation 2018. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri.

Japan Considers Ways of Shedding the Straitjacket and Go the Whole Hog for Nuclear Abolition

The following is a revised version of the article posted on September 30, 2018.

By Katsuhiro Asagiri

TOKYO (IDN) – Japan's profound interest in the international community's efforts to help usher in a world free of nuclear weapons was underlined in the run-up to the commemoration of the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons on September 26, which was observed first time in 2014 in accordance with a decision of the UN General Assembly.

Two events marked the efforts of Japan's civil society to avail of the day to enhance awareness of the complete elimination of nuclear weapons, and enable the country shed the straitjacket of compulsions imposed by the North Korean threat, delicate relations with China and the U.S. nuclear umbrella.

: Katsuhiro Asagiri; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 30 September 2018

Photo: Karin Landgren, Executive Director, Security Council Report moderates a discussion with UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and Tanya Gilly-Khailany, Co-founder, SEED Foundation and former parliamentarian, Iraq. Credit: UN Women/Ryan Brown

Far from Optimal Progress in Women's Meaningful Participation in Peace Processes

By Jeanette Richter

NEW YORK (IDN) – The UN Security Council Resolution1325 (UNSCR 1325), initiated by Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, former Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the United Nations as the President of the Security Council in March 2000, drew the focus of a side event on the margins of the 73rd UN General Assembly on September 26 at 'German House' in New York.

The Permanent Missions of Germany, Spain and Namibia to the United Nations, in partnership with UN Women, convened ministers, UN officials and civil society organizations to discuss progress made in the women, peace and security (WPS) agenda and ways to increase women’s meaningful participation in peace processes, as well as protect them from conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence, especially through the WPS Focal Points Network.

: Rita Joshi; UN INSIDER; 30 September 2018

Photo: High-Level Meeting participants. Credit: Kazakh Permanent Mission to the UN

Kazakh Initiated Global Coalition Aims at Terrorism-Free World

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – In the first voluntary political declaration of its kind adopted at the global level, UN Member States have reiterated in the Code of Conduct for the Achievement of a World Free of Terrorism their commitments to strengthen international cooperation to reach the common goal of eradicating a crucial threat to national, regional and international security.

The Code of Conduct, proposed by President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan at the jubilee 70th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015, proclaims the advent at the global level of a broad coalition of countries united in the shared goal of achieving a world free of terrorism.

: J Nastranis; THE WORLD; Central Asia; 29 September 2018

Photo: (From left) Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa, the President of South Africa; María Fernanda Espinosa, the President of the General Assemby; and Secretary-General António Guterres unveil the statue of Nelson Mandela at the UN Headquarters in New York. UN Photo/Cia Pak

Nelson Mandela Peace Summit Rebukes 'America First' Strategy

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – South African President Cyril Ramaphosa couldn't be prouder as he unveiled a life-size statue of Nelson Mandela on September 24, a day before the start of the General Debate of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA73) and the opening of a day-long historic 'Nelson Mandela Peace Summit', a high-level plenary meeting convened by the President of the General Assembly, María Fernanda Espinosa.

The focus of the Peace Summit was on Global Peace in honour of the centenary of the birth of Nelson Mandela, a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary and political leader, who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 27 September 2018

Photo credit: The International Criminal Court.

Why the International Court for War Crimes Is Essential

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Last year the office of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) released a report which for the first time explicitly named U.S. military forces and CIA operatives in secret prisons as possible war crimes culprits for the alleged use of torture and rape. Because the American soldiers were based in Afghanistan which is an ICC member the ICC has broad jurisdiction over crimes committed by combatants on Afghan soil.

(However, since the U.S. is not a member it can't be prosecuted for alleged crimes committed in non-member ICC countries – for example in Iraq or Syria. It can also refuse for any of its citizens to be prosecuted on its own soil.)

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 25 September 2018

Photo: Riccardo Petrella, Professor Emeritus of the Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve, speaks to UNRIC at the debate "The Geopolitics of Water" on 14 March 2013 in Brussels. Screenshot of Vimeo.

The Earth is the Common Home of All Inhabitants

Viewpoint by Riccardo Petrella*

ROME (IDN) – The first vast work of "worldwide" occupation and predation of the Earth and its inhabitants was that begun in the sixteenth century by a number of European states (Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, England and France). After the First World War, new actors – no less conquerors and predators than the former (in particular, the United States, Soviet Union, Japan and Germany) – extended and intensified the work of occupation and exploitation of the planet and the world.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 25 September 2018

Photo: The leader of the opposition armed forces, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO), Riek Machar, shaking hands with his chief military and political opponent, the President of South Sudan, Salva Kiir to make a fresh joint commitment to peace for the sake of their people. Credit: UNMISS

South Sudan Moves from Despair to Hope after New Peace Deal

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – South Sudan, caught in brutal civil conflict for years, has engaged the United Nations three times since the South Sudan government and opposition groups signed a Revitalized Peace Agreement on September 13.

The country gained its independence from the Republic of the Sudan in 2011, after two civil wars – in 1955, four months before Sudan achieved independence and in the wake of President of Sudan Gaafar Nimeiry in 1983 declaring all Sudan an Islamic state under Shari'a law, including the non-Islamic majority southern region.

: J Nastranis; THE WORLD; Africa; 18 September 2018

Photo (left to right): North Korea's Kim Jong-Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

A Rapper Accompanies South Korean President to Pyongyang

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK | SEOUL (IDN) – South Korean President Moon Jae-in will visit Pyongyang, the capital city of North Korea from September 18-20, 2018 with a view to encouraging Kim Jong-Un to break the deadlock in nuclear talks between North Korea and the United States. Moon played a crucial role in President Donald Trump and Kim coming together for the summit meeting in June.

Moon's office said on September 16 that the President will be accompanied by 52 government officials, politicians, business leaders and selected representatives from various other fields, according to the South Korean Yonhap News Agency.

: J Nastranis; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 17 September 2018

Photo: UNGA73 President María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe.

Upcoming UN General Assembly Promises a Whiff of History

Fourth Woman President in 73 years – 18-year-old Female Activist to Speak at High Level Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – The 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly opening on September 18 promises to be historic. Not only because its President, María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, the Foreign Minister of Ecuador, is the fourth woman on the top in the history of the UN’s main deliberative and policy-making body.

But also because on September 26, the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, 18-year-old environmental and children's rights activist Kehkashan Basu will address the General Assembly. Espinosa has selected her to speak as one of the two representatives of global civil society.