15 May 2014

SHARES News Items Overview: 16 April 2014-15 May 2014

This is our News Items Overview of 16 April 2014-15 May 2014, a summary of recent news relating to shared responsibility.

• Mexico’s finance minister stated that the US must ‘share responsibility’ for tackling the illegal drug trade between Mexico and the US.
• The UNSC requested the UN Integrated Peacebuilding Office in the CAR to be incorporated into the new established UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in CAR. Ban Ki-moon said the international community does not only have an opportunity, but an obligation to act.
• The Nation reported that Pakistan’s Foreign Office Spokesperson said that protecting the Pakistan and Afghanistan border is the shared responsibility of both countries. Currently, Pakistan is protecting and managing the border.
• The UNSC marked the 20th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda and adopted a resolution, calling on all states to meet their responsibility to prevent genocide and other severe crimes and to protect and promote human rights. The UNSC president in 1994 apologised for what the UN failed to do.
• Responding to Australia’s policy of returning boatloads of refugees back to Indonesia (which is used as a transit state to cross over to Australia), the Indonesian government called on other states to stop ‘shifting responsibility’ for asylum-seekers, stating that ‘shared responsibility requires coordination and cooperation’.
• US President Obama is expected to announce an agreement with the Philippines, that would offer American ships and planes extensive access to bases in the region. The New York Times reported that such an agreement could antagonise China. The US presence could give it more capacity to help its allies in territorial disputes with China.
• The Chinese Foreign Ministry is investigating reports that a chlorine canister with the name of its largest arms producer, Norinco, was shown in a video that presumably documents a chlorine bomb attack in Syria in April.
• UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon accused all parties in Syria’s civil war of obstructing the delivery of aid to civilians and urged the UNSC to take action to implement Resolution S/RES/2139.
• The Dutch Minister of Defence maintained that the Netherlands did not facilitate illegal liquidations with drones by the US, and that the Dutch government has no indications that information gathered by the Dutch military intelligence agency (in the context of NATO’s anti-piracy mission off the coast of Somalia) was used.
• The Republic of the Marshall Islands filed lawsuits in the ICJ against nine nuclear-armed states for violating their disarmament obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and customary international law. Additionally, a lawsuit was filed against the US in a US Federal District Court.
• Last year, an Armenian asylum seeker committed suicide in the NL. He was under the supervision of the Dutch Immigration and Naturalization Service, who were aware that he had psychiatric problems. He was not given specialist help since he fell under the Dublin Regulation, making Germany responsible for him.
• A letter by the Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade acknowledged that Syria bought resources for its chemical weapons programme from two Dutch companies. It is unclear whether the NL will start an investigation into the matter.
• Human Rights Watch released a report saying that Bulgaria summarily returns Syrians, Afghans, and others from within Bulgaria and at the border with Turkey. To prevent further arrivals, Bulgaria deployed extra police officers at the border and Frontex supplied guest guards from various EU member states.
• The New York Times reported that the US blacklisted eight Chinese companies, a Dubai company and two Dubai executives for evading restrictions on transactions with Iran regarding weapons, oil and banking.
• Twenty-eight Honduran and international NGOs and civil society groups expressed their concerns over a proposed USD 15m loan to the commercial bank Davivienda in Honduras by the bank’s private lending branch. The proposed investment was classified as ‘medium risk’, although it was admitted that child labour and land disputes could be potential impacts.  
• Despite weaker Al-Qaeda leadership in Pakistan, Al Qaeda’s affiliates in Somalia, Syria, Yemen and West Africa are exerting increasing influence in their regions.
• The Ukrainian Energy and Coal Industry Minister said that his country could not guarantee the storage of necessary amounts of gas during summer for further transit to Europe. According to Russia’s Energy Minister, Europe bears equal responsibility for ensuring that the needed amount of gas transitions through Ukraine to Europe.
• The US signed a 20-year lease concerning its military base in Dijbouti. Camp Lemonnier is the only American installation on the continent and represents a hub for training and counterterrorism operations in Yemen and Somalia.
• The UNGA President and the UN Secretary-General both called for a comprehensive, robust yet flexible accountability framework to ensure development progress beyond 2015. The framework must be able to hold different actors to account, while taking into account their different capacities and responsibilities.
• The Indonesian foreign Minister said concerning the Australian policy that the region should be looking at ‘shared responsibility’ for the irregular movement of refuges, ‘not shifting responsibility’.
• The Guardian reported that the British Ministry of Defence revealed that British officers are based on the US military base in Djibouti, from which drone strikes against presumed terrorists in Yemen are launched.
• The Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime urged the international community to ‘come together at the highest political level’ to end wildlife and forest crime, warning that ‘species risk being wiped out over the next decade – and we will all bear responsibility for those losses.’ It is a shared responsibility to prevent such losses.