Developments and
news pertaining to Asia in various areas of IL
Law of
the Sea
–
Need for
coastal integration in South Asia (The
Hindu, 21 October 2009)
India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh share the
resources of the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean and the
Arabian Sea. Since the 1970s, India’s maritime
boundaries have been demarcated with many countries, but
these remain seriously unresolved with Pakistan and
Bangladesh. It is not easy to demarcate sea boundaries.
The process is also tied closely to the lives of
millions of fishermen across the globe. South Asian
coasts need to demarcate borders clearly for the
well-being of the coastal communities, fisheries and
also for the peaceful exploitation of deep sea
resources. More possibilities, therefore, need to be
explored for greater coastal, bilateral and regional
integration.
International
humanitarian law, peace and security
–
Israel rejects UN report approval (BBC, 6 November 2009)
Following the Goldstone report which found that both
Israel and Palestine had "committed actions amounting to
war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity" in the
Gaza hostilities that began in December 2008, the United
Nations General Assembly (UNGA) passed Resolution
A/RES/64/10,
giving Israel and the Palestinians three months to
undertake “independent, credible investigations” into
the serious violations of international humanitarian and
human rights law committed during the conflict.
An Israeli foreign ministry statement has called the UN
endorsement "completely detached from realities on the
ground". It also said the 18 votes against the
resolution, including the United States (US), and the 44
abstentions, including many European countries, were the
"moral majority", presumably over the 114 states that
had voted in favour.
Resolution
A/RES/64/10 is not yet available online; please see
Meeting Record/Press Release
GA/10883
for more details on the proceedings.
See an op-ed critique of UN (in)justice
here.
Environment –
Climate-Agreement Deadline May Slip to End of 2010
(Bloomberg, 6 November 2009)
The long-awaited agreement on climate change scheduled
for the
Copenhagen Climate
Change Conference
from 7 to 18 December
continues to be hampered by unresolved negotiations. It
may well be delayed by a year due to the delay in
states’ pledging to cut carbon emissions or providing
financial aid to help developing nations in their
climate change efforts.
Yvo de
Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention
on Climate Change has expressed his concern, saying, “I
don’t think we can get a legally binding agreement by
Copenhagen… I think that we can get that within a year
after Copenhagen.”
Kunihiko Shimada, principal negotiator for Japan, shares
a similar view – that the broad outlines and issues
would be agreed upon this year with further negotiations
in the next, such that a final agreement could be ready
at the end of 2010. Another Japanese negotiator, Akira
Yamada, has stated that while Japan is
looking to scale up existing
climate aid of an aggregate US$10 billion pledged for
2008 through 2012, a final
pledge cannot be made yet because it is still studying
how to generate funds for helping poorer nations to
adapt to warmer temperatures and cut their own
emissions.
Human rights and development
–
Sri Lanka steps up
return of war-displaced - U.N. (Reuters, 5 November
2009)
Zola
Dowell, head of U.N. Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said that from August to
the end of October around 90,000 people moved back to
their areas of origin, with 30,000 returning just in the
last 10 days. Dowell told Reuters that people were
“being moved back to their districts of origin, but due
to the ongoing mine risks, many were not able to
immediately go back to their actual homes”. Returnees
were therefore moved to “schools and churches and other
buildings” and had “relative freedom of movement”.
Nonetheless, aid workers are not allowed to have a
full-time presence there to ensure the provision of
food, water and adequate sanitation as the government
fears that
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) cadres
could infiltrate the organisations as they did in
wartime.
Karzai says he's
addressing corruption (Reuters, 8 November 2009)
Now
that Hamid Karzai will be President of Afghanistan for
another 5 years after his opponent in the run-off
election, Abdullah Abdullah, withdrew on 7 November,
Karzai has publicly declared he will
fight corruption. Saying also that he had begun tackling
corruption within his government with some officials
having already been sent to prison, he added that while
external cooperation for development would be welcome,
the Afghan government would “like [their] partners to
have a lot of respect for Afghan sovereignty [as]
Afghanistan is extremely sensitive about that”.
Myanmar diplomat:
Junta may free Suu Kyi soon so she can take part in
elections (Canadian Press, 9 November 2009)
Following the meeting by US Assistant Secretary of State
Kurt Campbell with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Min Lwin, a
director-general in the Myanmar Foreign Ministry, has
told the Associated Press that "there is a plan to
release her soon ... so she can organize her party",
hinting at the possibility of Suu Kyi’s participation in
Myanmar’s 2010 elections. Suu Kyi's party, the National
League for Democracy, has not yet decided whether to
take part in the polls, which it says would be held
under a constitution established last year by
undemocratic means. It is unclear if Suu Kyi would be
allowed to campaign as Myanmar's constitution includes
provisions that bar Suu Kyi from holding office and
ensure the military a controlling stake in government.
Trade and investment
–
APEC
members enjoy de facto integration: report (Xinhua, 9
November 2009)
The impact of membership of the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) on trade is comparable to that of a
free trade agreement, even without a binding agreement,
says a report released Monday by the APEC Secretariat.
The report's analysis reveals that APEC members trade
with each other more than they do with other free
trading agreement partners and much more with trading
partners who are both members of the APEC and members of
the World Trade Organization. There has been a five-fold
increase in trade within the APEC since its
establishment in 1989 and 67 percent of total APEC trade
is intra-regional – a larger proportion than that which
occurs in the European Union. Philip Gaetjens, director
of the APEC Policy Support Unit, the team responsible
for the report, said, “This provides analytical evidence
that the APEC achieves results.”
Please click
here
for a summary of the trade report.
APEC gives trade a
big boost (Straits Times, 10 November 2009)
Economic cooperation is set to be further enhanced with
the plan to make it cheaper and faster to do business
within the APEC region. This project, led by Singapore,
New Zealand, the United States, Japan, South Korea and
Hong Kong, aims to share expertise and experience in the
5 main areas
of starting a business, getting credit, enforcing
contracts, trading across borders and dealing with
construction permits.
International
organizations
–
The President of the
International Court of Justice, addressing the General
Assembly, welcomes the growing trust and respect of the
international community for the Court (ICJ Press Release
2009/31, 2 November 2009)
The President of the International Court of Justice (ICJ),
Judge Hisashi Owada, in addressing the United Nations
General Assembly in early November, welcomed the fact
that “over the past decade, the trust and respect of the
international community for the activities of the Court
as the principal judicial organ of the United Nations
have been growing”.
President Owada
highlighted that the cases submitted to the Court had
involved States from all continents and the issues
ranged from “classical issues as territorial and
maritime delimitation and diplomatic protection, to
issues of increasing relevance to the contemporary
international community like human rights, the status of
individuals, international humanitarian law and
environmental issues”. This reflected truly “the
universal character of the principal judicial organ of
the United Nations”.
President Owada stated that “the increased recourse to
the International Court of Justice by States for the
judicial settlement of their disputes points to the
consciousness among political leaders of the importance
of the rule of law in the international community” and
stressed the importance of the rule of law; that while
“law does not replace politics or economics… without it
we cannot construct anything that will last in the
international community”. He further stated that only 66
states have recognized the compulsory jurisdiction of
the Court which “can only be utilized in cases where it
is accepted by both parties to a given dispute”. It was
therefore desirable to broaden this particular basis of
jurisdiction through wider state acceptance of the
Optional Clause.
Please click
here
for the Report of the International Court of Justice (1
August 2008 – 31 July 2009).
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