Why is the UN’s Syria commission giving policy advice?
The UN-backed expert group assigned to examine the Syria conflict has come out with another report, which provides important detail on the conflict. The UN’s Human Rights Council created the ponderously named Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic in August 2011. Brazilian academic-turned-diplomat Paulo Sergio Pinheiro leads the commission, which also ...
The UN-backed expert group assigned to examine the Syria conflict has come out with another report, which provides important detail on the conflict. The UN's Human Rights Council created the ponderously named Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic in August 2011. Brazilian academic-turned-diplomat Paulo Sergio Pinheiro leads the commission, which also includes former Yugoslav tribunal prosecutor Carla del Ponte, an American who has worked as a UN refugee official and administator, and an international law professor from Thailand.
The UN-backed expert group assigned to examine the Syria conflict has come out with another report, which provides important detail on the conflict. The UN’s Human Rights Council created the ponderously named Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic in August 2011. Brazilian academic-turned-diplomat Paulo Sergio Pinheiro leads the commission, which also includes former Yugoslav tribunal prosecutor Carla del Ponte, an American who has worked as a UN refugee official and administator, and an international law professor from Thailand.
The great majority of the report does what human rights reports often do very well. It compiles, synthesizes, and assesses violations committed during the conflict. Its sections on chemical weapons will receive the most attention, but it also catalogues a list of more traditional horrors, including execution, rape, and indiscriminate bombardment. But in its concluding section, the report veers into policy recommendations. First, the report’s authors opine on the proper way to end the conflict:
Increased arm transfers hurt the prospect of a political settlement to the conflict, fuel the multiplication of armed actors at the national and regional levels and have devastating consequences for civilians…While the nature of the conflict is constantly changing, there remains no military solution. The conflict will end only through a comprehensive, inclusive political process. The international community must prioritise a de-escalation of the war and work within the framework of the 2012 Geneva Communiqué.
Second, the authors conclude that accountability for crimes committed must be an element of any political solution:
The discussions surrounding the prospect of an international conference have been silent on the issue of accountability. While such diplomatic efforts may signify a significant step towards breaking the impasse in Syria, the imperative to stop the violence cannot obscure the reality that there can be no enduring peace without justice.
These assertions–that there can be no military solution, that arming the rebels won’t help achieve a negotiated solution, and that lasting peace is not possible without accountability–strike me as highly questionable. The background of the experts does not really equip them to render judgement on these questions, particularly the first two. Perhaps most troubling, they are essentially value judgements thrown in at the end of a report that otherwise sticks to the facts.
David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist
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