UN Resolutions

Who's violating UN resolutions?

United Nations Security Council resolutions are currently being violated by countries other than Iraq

by Stephen Zunes

from The Progressive Response, 7 October 2002, Vol. 6, No. 30

[10-7-02]

Introductory note from the Editor's of The Progressive Response: In its effort to justify its planned invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration has emphasized the importance of enforcing UN Security Council resolutions. However, in addition to the dozen or so resolutions currently being violated by Iraq, a conservative estimate reveals that there are an additional 91 Security Council resolutions about countries other than Iraq that are also currently being violated. This raises serious questions regarding the Bush administration's insistence that it is motivated by a duty to preserve the credibility of the United Nations, particularly since the vast majority of the governments violating UN Security Council resolutions are close allies of the United States. Stephen Zunes <stephen@coho.org>, University of San Francisco professor and Middle East Editor for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org), compiled the following partial list of UN resolutions that are currently being violated by countries other than Iraq. The cases are listed in order of resolution number, followed by the year in which the resolution was passed, the country or countries in violation, and a brief description of the resolution. Included here are a sampling of the resolutions that continue to be violated, followed by an explanatory note by Zunes.

1319 (2000) Indonesia
Insists that Indonesia "take immediate additional steps, in fulfillment of its responsibilities, to disarm and disband the militia immediately, restore law and order in the affected areas of West Timor, ensure safety and security in the refugee camps and for humanitarian workers, and prevent incursions into East Timor." Stresses that those guilty of attacks on international personnel be brought to justice and reiterates the need to provide safe return for refugees who wish to repatriate and provide resettlement for those wishing to stay in Indonesia.

1322 (2000) Israel
Calls upon Israel to scrupulously abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention regarding the responsibilities of occupying power.

1359 (2001) Morocco
Calls on the parties to "abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law to release without further delay all those held since the start of the conflict."

1402 (2002) Israel
Calls for Israel to withdraw from Palestinian cities.

1403 (2002) Israel
Demands that Israel go through with "the implementation of its resolution 1402, without delay."

1405 (2002) Israel
Calls for UN inspectors to investigate civilian deaths during an Israeli assault on the Jenin refugee camp.

1416 (2002) Turkey/Cyprus
Reiterates UNSC resolution 1251 and all relevant resolutions on Cyprus.

1435 (2002) Israel
Calls on Israel to withdraw to positions of September 2000 and end its military activities in and around Ramallah, including the destruction of security and civilian infrastructure.

Explanatory Notes:

This list deals exclusively with resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, a fifteen-member body consisting of five permanent members (the United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom) and ten non-permanent members elected for rotating two-year terms representing various regions of the world. The Security Council's primary responsibility, under the UN Charter, is for the maintenance of international peace and security. For a resolution to pass, it must be approved by a majority of the total membership with no dissenting vote from any of the five permanent members. Since the early 1970s, the United States has used its veto power nearly fifty times, more than all other permanent members during that same period combined. In the vast majority of these cases, the U.S. was the only dissenting vote. The preceding list, therefore, includes only resolutions where the United States voted in the affirmative or abstained.

This list does not include resolutions that merely condemn a particular action, only those that specifically proscribe a particular ongoing activity or future activity and/or call upon a particular government to implement a particular action. Nor does this list does include resolutions where the language is ambiguous enough to make assertions of noncompliance debatable, such as UNSC resolutions 242 and 338 on the Arab-Israeli conflict that put forward the formula of "land for peace," to cite the most famous. Similarly, it does not include broad resolutions calling for universal compliance not in reference to a particular conflict, particularly if there is not a clear definition. For example, in a resolution that proscribes the harboring of terrorists, there is no clear definition for what constitutes a terrorist. This list does not include nonstate actors, such as secessionist governments, rebel groups or terrorists, only recognized nation-states.

Furthermore, this list does not include resolutions that were also violated for a number of years that are now moot (such as those dealing with Indonesia's occupation of East Timor, South Africa's occupation of Namibia, and Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon). If these were also included, the number of violations would double. In most of these cases, the United States played a key role in blocking enforcement of these resolutions as well.

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