Global Policy Forum

By Thalif Deen

A coalition of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) is pressing United Nations member states for an emergency session of the U.N. General Assembly to try and resolve the ongoing crisis concerning Iraq. The coalition argues that the 15-member Security Council is deadlocked over how to deal with the alleged presence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq and says the issue should be turned over to the Assembly. Some U.N. member states are also reportedly working on such a move behind the scenes.

The New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, which is leading the coalition campaign, has written to all 191 member states urging them to meet as soon as possible to consider the threat to international peace arising from the impending war against Iraq. ''If the U.N. Security Council cannot agree on Iraq, the whole issue should logically be moved to the General Assembly, which is a more democratic body,'' Centre President Michael Ratner told IPS on Friday.

Ratner said that the 191-member General Assembly, not the 15-member Security Council, really represents the will of the international community. The United States, he charged, is known to cajole, arm-twist and offer economic and military aid to member states in order to get votes in the Security Council. ''But how many countries can the United States bribe in the General Assembly?'' he asked.

At a closed-door meeting of the Security Council on Monday, 11 of 15 members wanted more time for U.N. arms inspectors to continue their search for WMD in Iraq. The inspectors were dispatched to the country late last year after the Security Council, under enormous U.S. pressure, unanimously passed a resolution re-starting the inspections, which ended when Iraqi President Saddam Hussein expelled inspectors in 1998.

France, Russia and China - three veto-wielding permanent Security Council members, along with Pakistan, Angola, Germany, Mexico, Chile, Guinea, Cameroon and Syria - supported further inspections. The only countries supporting the United States in its call to end inspections were Britain, Spain and Bulgaria.

If the United States does not receive Security Council authorisation for a war, it has threatened to launch a unilateral military attack on Iraq. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is scheduled to address the Security Council next Wednesday to try and convince members that Iraq has violated the resolution obliging the country to reveal its WMD.

In calling for a meeting of the General Assembly, Ratner cited a precedent of what has come to be known as the ''Uniting for Peace'' resolution, adopted by the General Assembly in November 1950 authorising U.N. enforcement in the Korean war. According to that resolution, ''if the Security Council, because of lack of unanimity of the permanent members, fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security in any case where there appears to be a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately with a view to making appropriate recommendations to members for collective measures, including in the case of a breach of peace or act of aggression the use of armed force when necessary, to maintain or restore international peace and security''.

Under this resolution, the General Assembly will virtually take over the mandate of the Security Council to enforce international peace and security. Jules Lobel, professor of international politics at the University of Pittsburgh, said the General Assembly has the right to act under current circumstances. ''U.S. actions represent a clear threat to peace,'' he said, adding that, ''the United States is ignoring international law. In this situation, the General Assembly must act.''

According to Ratner, ''this resolution has been used effectively in the past to prevent war and guarantee peace ... the Security Council is clearly stymied on Iraq. 'Uniting for Peace' may provide the last hope to avoid an aggressive war by the United States''. Since 1950, when the resolution was adopted with the strong support of the United States, 'Uniting for Peace' has been used 10 times. The United States used it to pressure the then Soviet Union to cease its intervention in Hungary in 1956.

A spokesman for the president of the General Assembly, told IPS on Friday that there has been no formal request for an emergency session of the Assembly. But an Asian diplomat said there were ''behind-the-scene moves'' to bring the Iraqi issue before the body. The issue would most likely be taken up by the 115-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), the largest single political grouping at the United Nations, he added. The current chairman of NAM is South Africa, whose former president Nelson Mandela blasted the United States on Thursday for threatening a military attack on Iraq. ''One power with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust,'' Mandela said of U.S. President George W. Bush. ''If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America,'' he added.

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