The UN Human Rights Council has decided to send a fact-finding mission of five "highly qualified persons" plus the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Sudan to make recommendations to the government of Sudan and the Darfur insurgencies. This is an important step to bring to an end a conflict which began in 2003 and is growing more destructive each day.
The United Nations " spells – and it ought to spell – the end of the system of unilateral action, exclusive alliances, and spheres of influence, and the balances of power and all the other expedients which have been tried for centuries and have always failed" said President Roosevelt after the Crimean Conference where plans for the UN were laid. Yet today most of the expedients that Roosevelt said had always failed are back in full force. We see this clearly in the field of human rights.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for urgent actions to address the disastrous impact of cluster munitions – warheads that scatter scores of smaller bombs, especially when used in populated areas as happened in this summer’s conflict in Lebanon.
Mr Annan was addressing the start of the Review Conference on the Convention on Prohibitions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects – the "Inhumane Weapons’ Convention" to its friends – on 7 November 2006 in Geneva. He stressed that "Recent events show that the atrocious, inhumane effects of these weapons – both at their time of use and after the conflict ends – must be addressed immediately so that civilian populations can start rebuilding their lives."
Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber -JJ-SS as he was known to headline writers and his numerous friends and enemies in the French media- was a bright star of life in the 1950s, although he only died on 7 November 2006 at the age of 82.
With a political sky darkened by the nuclear weapon test of North Korea and the growing tensions over the nuclear program of Iran, a ray of sunlight comes from Central Asia.
After difficult negotiations regarding the composition and command of an expanded Unifil to guard south Lebanon and to consolidate a fragile cease-fire, at the end of August, the UN Security Council voted on resolution 1706 to constitute a 22,500 member UN peacekeeping force - mostly military with some additional civilian police - for Darfur, Sudan.
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