Around 1541 the “Fig Leaf Campaign” was begun by Catholic fundamentalist, Cardinal Carafa. Between 1758 and 1759, Pope Clement XIII delicately covered the offending parts of even more sculptures in the Vatican’s collection with fig leaves.
Under instruction from Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Australia’s UN ambassador James Larsen has continued this tradition of distraction by cover-up in pushing for a new Declaration for the Protection of Humanitarian Personnel.
The Declaration is designed to provide support and protection for human rights defenders in the context of their work. The proposal was announced with grandiosity as a solution to a problem that is glaringly obvious. It is directly related to the attack, deliberate or otherwise, on Australian UN aid worker, Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom. In reality, it is not a step on a grand new policy. It is a fig leaf of distraction which brings no credit to its movers.
Humanitarian aid workers do not need a new set of pretty words authored by Australia or anyone else to assert protection from adverse regimes. Such protections already exist.
The Declaration on human rights defenders was adopted by consensus by the General Assembly in 1998. It was a collective effort by a number of human rights non-governmental organisations and some state delegations helped to ensure a strong, useful and pragmatic final text. The adoption of the Declaration by the General Assembly by consensus represented a very strong commitment by states to its implementation.
As recently as May, the Security Council adopted a resolution calling on states to respect and protect United Nations and humanitarian personnel in accordance with their obligations under international law.
Consistent with these existing provisions, the Australian proposal aims to provide for the protection of civilians, including the protection and respect of humanitarian personnel who assist and protect the victims of armed conflict, and notably provide the food, water and medical care that civilians in conflict zones need to survive. Perhaps in the arcane world of UN procedural negotiations these represent a significant change, but for others it is a fig leaf covering the need for enforcement of already existing declarations.
Like the fig leaf, the Australia initiative is designed to cover the obvious and unpalatable fact that the existing protections already written into UN agreements are being almost daily ignored by the Israeli military and some others. The Australian initiative seeks to obscure rather than reveal these transgressions with the fig leaf pretence that a new set of written protections to replace those so egregiously and studiously ignored.
There seems to have been no serious consideration given to Australia leading an aggressive campaign to support the enforcement of the already existing agreements that cover the neutrality of UN and humanitarian aid workers and their protection. Rather than support the enforcement of existing UN conditions, Australia has chosen, with a unwarranted level of self-righteousness given is silence on Gaza war crimes, to undermine those conditions by promoting a new statement that does little to substantively expand the current protections.
But what it does do, if adopted, is ensure that the proposal will enter a lengthy UN process of discussion prior to adoption. And then there is an even longer process to achieve ratification by UN member countries. All in all, these changes advanced by Australia with some degree of urgency could take three to ten years to be ratified and adopted if the progress with other UN proposals is any guide.
Enforcement of the existing UN protections and the shaming of member countries which do not abide by these protections provides a faster path to preventing these transgressions. It would also actually show that Australia is serious in its support for existing UN structures.
The continued and persistent abuse of these agreements by a UN member nation cannot be effectively countered by a new set of proposals to replace those that can, and should, be enforced. Rogue nations, as Israel has become, who defy UN conventions do not get to change those regulations. Australia gains no credit from its attempts to shelter behind the fig leaf fiction that the solution is new regulations rather than the enforcement of existing agreements.
Wong’s Australian fig leaf is designed to cover Australia’s lack of support for the enforcement of the existing agreements and protections for humanitarian aid workers and, as such, shows the low level of support for the UN as a mechanism for managing global affairs.
Cardinal Carafa would be pleased with this cover that delays confronting offensive activity from a UN member state.
Daryl Guppy
Daryl Guppy is an international financial technical analysis expert. He has provided weekly Shanghai Index analysis for mainland Chinese media for more than a decade. Guppy appears regularly on CNBC Asia and is known as "The Chart Man". He is a former national board member of the Australia China Business Council. The views expressed here are his own.
Contributions to Pearls and Irritations
Your contribution will fund quality independent comment and analysis in Pearls and Irritations
Contribute
