ACUNS Newsletter No. 4-2015 by Wilfrid Laurier University

enjoy as part of your ACUNS membership

quarterly Newsletter issue 4 > 2015

strengthening europeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s response to refugees: a road ahead

special feature

reinforcing the thin blue line: supporting un peacekeepers to meet the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s expectations

Agenda 2030, the Sustainable Development Goals, and the new multilateralism

connect with us

Q > contents quarterly

feature one

Strengthening Europe’s Response to Refugees: A Road Ahead | 3 Annalisa Ciampi | Professor of International Law, University of Verona (Italy)

special feature

reinforcing the thin blue line: Supporting UN Peacekeepers to Meet the World’s Expectations | 5 George Somerwill | Communications and Global Education Outreach Consultant, UN for All Educational Programs

feature two

AGenda 2030, the sustainable development goals, and the new multilateralism | 7

AM16

Naiara Costa Chaves | Advocacy Director, Beyond 2015, a global civil society campaign

details and updates

meeting the challenges of development and dignity 2016 acuns annual meeting

Thursday – Saturday > June 16-18, 2016 Fordham University, New York City

welcome to acuns

starting point

up2date news & opinions

Dynamic, thriving and purposeful secretariat staff Alistair Edgar Executive Director, ACUNS Associate Professor, Wilfrid Laurier University T > 226.772.3167 E > aedgar@wlu.ca

Brenda Burns, Co-ordinator T > 226.772.3142 F > 226.772.0016 E > bburns@wlu.ca

Gwenith Cross, Administrative Assistant T > 226.772.3121 E > gcross@acuns.org

Board members 2015-2016

ACUNS is governed by an international Board of Directors:

Chair: Lorraine Elliott, Australian National University

Past Chair: Abiodun Williams, The Hague Institute for Global Justice

Vice Chair: Roger Coate, Georgia College and State University Vice Chair: Margaret Karns, University of Dayton

membe r s Thomas Biersteker, Graduate Institute, Geneva Stephen Browne, Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, Graduate Center Eunsook Chung, Sejong Institute Cristián Gimenez Corte, Office of Legal Affairs, United Nations Mary Farrell, University of Plymouth Francesco Mancini, International Peace Institute Nanette Svenson, Tulane University

TO N O M I N AT E > See our ad on page 9 to nominate members for positions available on the Board as of June 2016.

A C U N S q ua r t e r l y ne w sle t t e r > issue 4 > 2 0 1 5

Travelling the globe isn’t a job perk, it’s a critical function of developing our network of experts which enables us to host workshops, support and promote the work of scholars and practitioners, engage in conferences and lectures and be an integral part of the dialogue that seeks to inform and find solutions to crucial and pressing global issues. Dr. Alistair Edgar, ACUNS

I write this commentary, as often seems to be the case, while I am ‘in transit’ between ACUNS events and programs. This morning, I am in the Frankfurt Airport lounge, en route to Oslo for the ACUNS-ASIL Workshop hosted by the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI). In previous years the workshop has been held in July, but this year we have rescheduled it in October, and will be doing the same for 2016 when it will be held at Jindal Global University, in Sonipat, India in early October. Appropriately, we have removed ‘Summer’ from the workshop name, since that labels the event as a northern hemisphere program. We’ve made a similar change to our quarterly Newsletter. Prior to Oslo, your ED attended the 15th East Asian seminar on the UN System, at Fudan University, Shanghai, where I was privileged to engage with members of the Japan, Korea, and China UN Studies Associations – JAUNS, KACUNS and CANUNS – and with UNA China. Several members of these associations also are ACUNS members, of course; and we are pleased to note that the Shanghai UN Research Association (SUNRA) is joining ACUNS as our newest institutional member. Immediately following the East Asian seminar, I accepted an invitation to speak at Tokyo University, hosted there by ACUNS member Professor Daisaku Higachi. From Tokyo, a quick flight to Toronto – celebrating the election of a new Prime Minister who we all hope and trust will have a better, more positive policy towards the United Nations and multilateral engagements – was followed by a one-day visit to New York for the ACUNS-TECONY seminar, “From Paris Climate Agreement to Care for Our Common Home.” The travel sketch above is given not to mark the travel as such, but to illustrate that ACUNS’ international network of members, and collaborative programming, continues to thrive. It is truly a global association and a dynamic one at that. As a reminder, the Council secretariat also is busy with outreach efforts as we focus attention on the Call for a new host institution/secretariat for 2018-23. To date we have had several inquiries, and we hope to have more. The Call can be found on our homepage, and at http://acuns.org/host2018/. If you are part of, or know of, an institution that might be interested in taking on the roles and functions of the secretariat, feel free to contact me directly at aedgar@wlu.ca or contact any of our Board members who can refer you to us in turn. Issue 4 of our Newsletter features articles by Annalisa Ciampi of the University of Verona (Italy), George Somerwill, a consultant for the UN for All Education Programs, and Naiara Costa Chaves from Beyond 2015, a global civil society campaign. We hope that you are inspired by the insight and relevancy of their pieces, and consider, as members, to contact us with ideas for future submissions to the Newsletter, or to submit pieces of writing for us to include in editions over the coming year. Last, but certainly not least, I am pleased to introduce you to our newest member of the secretariat, Gwenith Cross. You may already know Gwenith, a doctoral student who has been the editor of our Book Reviews for the past three years. Now, she joins us full-time as Administrative Assistant, replacing Denoja Kankesan who has taken an internal move to a new position within Wilfrid Laurier University. We wish Denoja the best in her new post.

acuns . o r g 2

arriving at a solution Feature story > annalisa ciampi professor of international law, university of verona (Italy)

Strengthening Europeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Response to Refugees: a Road Ahead

On September 22, 2015, European Union leaders agreed to relocate 120,000 people in dire need of international protection who had arrived or were arriving in Greece and Italy en route to other EU states over the next two years. The decision observed that this number corresponded to approximately 43 per cent of the total number of third-country nationals who were in clear need of international protection and who entered Italy and Greece irregularly in July and August 2015; and also that this plan constituted fair burden sharing between Italy and Greece on the one hand, and the remaining Member States on the other, given the overall available figures on irregular border crossings in 2015.[i] [i] Council Decision establishing provisional measures in the area of international protection for the benefit of Italy

and Greece (22 September 2015) at http://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-12098-2015-INIT/en/pdf. [ii] See e.g. UNHCRâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Global Trends Report: World at War (May 2015), at http://unhcr.org/556725e69.html.

feature one

the principle of non-refoulement – the cornerstone of international refugee law – prohibits a refugee’s forcible return to his/her country of origin.

ccording to the UNHCR, the number of refugees and migrants crossing the Mediterranean sea to reach Europe since the beginning of the year is over 442,400, of whom the vast majority landed in Greece as well as in Italy – 82 per cent of them from the world’s top 10 refugeeproducing countries, led by Syrians. The estimated number of dead and displaced people is around 3,000. Checked against earlier data,[ii] these numbers show that the refugee crisis in Europe is not a new nor temporary phenomenon, bound to pass in a few months (or even in a one-year span). Moreover, the current migration flows include people fleeing civil wars and persecution i.e. persons typically qualifying for asylum under the 1951 Refugee Convention, but also persons leaving their country in search of a better life (known as economic migrants). The Geneva 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees provides for the right of asylum for those fleeing a well-founded fear of persecution on the ground of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. The principle of non-refoulement – the cornerstone of international refugee law – prohibits a refugee’s forcible return to his/her country of origin. Syrians typically qualify for refugee protection, for Syria is a war torn country where the conflict made millions of victims over the last four years; the same is true of Afghanistan and Eritrea. The distinction between refugees and economic migrants is less obvious for people coming from other countries (e.g. Albania and Macedonia, which are European countries and EU candidates or Senegal, Morocco and Ivory Coast, considered amongst the most stable African countries). Under EU law, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights provides for the right to asylum in Article 18 and the prohibition of refoulement in Article 19. Article 78 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU) provides for the creation of a Common European Asylum System (CEAS) that must respect states’ obligations under the 1951 Geneva Convention. Several legislative instruments have been adopted to implement this provision. They apply to most EU member states and some neighboring states, but not to the UK and Ireland. No true CEAS, however, has yet been put into place. The Dublin Regulation aims to determine rapidly the Member State responsible for an asylum claim, in order to prevent asylum seekers from submitting asylum applications to multiple member states. Usually, the responsible Member State will be the state through which the asylum seeker first entered the EU. There, migrants have an obligation to register and stay until their asylum requests have been processed - the procedure can take up to two years. Because of the routes migrants take, this has put a disproportionate burden on countries such as Italy and Greece, thus adding a very substantial legal burden to that already arising from their geographical position and the geopolitics of the

EU borders. The premise thereof is that the EU is an area of open borders and freedom of movement, with 22 of its 28 EU Member States participating in the Schengen area, where border checks are abolished. As a matter of fact, the Dublin system doesn’t work, and today the whole EU passport-free Schengen zone is at risk. Germany was the first country to suspend the Dublin Regulation in August 2015, on the basis of the so-called sovereignty clause, which allows EU member states to invoke humanitarian considerations to process requests of asylum seekers outside the country of first entrance. To deal with the large and growing influx of migrants, Germany was also the first country to reintroduce border controls on September 13, 2015. This has set in motion a domino effect in the passport-free Schengen zone, with Austria deciding to do the same while Slovakia and the Czech Republic have reinforced their borders. Croatia, an EU member that does not participate in Schengen, also shut its borders. Hungary, an EU member and a Schengen partner, sealed its frontier with Serbia, a Schengen external border. Under EU law, in the case of “unforeseeable” circumstances, member states can reintroduce border controls within the Schengen zone for 10 days, with a possibility of extending it up to two months. Since 2013, Schengen had only been suspended six times. The Summer of 2015 probably will be remembered in Europe for the economic crisis prompted by Greece’s unsustainable public debt. But the current migratory crisis has shown worldwide one of Europe’s most serious paradoxes. Not only does the EU recognize that asylum is a fundamental right, and that granting it is an international obligation of all its 28 Member States, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) also offers an important remedy to redress or even prevent a breach of the Convention to any individual within the jurisdiction of its 47 Council of Europe member states (including the 28 EU countries) claiming to be a victim of his/her rights.

Continued on page 9 >

A C U N S q ua r t e r l y ne w sle t t e r > issue 4 > 2 0 1 5

acuns . o r g 4

It is essential that contingent commanders understand that public attitudes towards the UN depend entirely on the quality of the UN’s leadership at all levels, both military and civilian.

reinforcing the thin blue line: Supporting UN peacekeepers to meet the World’s Expectations

SPECIAL FEATURE

In May of this year, I spent two weeks, along with a group of three senior former United Nations military peacekeepers from Nepal, India and the United States, as an instructor in a training mission at the Bangladesh Institute of Peace Support Operations Training (BIPSOT). The training school is located 35 kilometres north of Dhaka and our task was to deliver a two-week training course covering all aspects of peacekeeping, to middle ranking military officers drawn from across Asia. Each of them would sooner or later become a contingent commander within a UN peacekeeping mission. UN peacekeeping today, like the UN in general, is under the permanent glare of the international media spotlight. Over recent years, most recently in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, UN peacekeepers have appeared in the media for all the wrong reasons. Allegations of peacekeeper wrongdoing, often, though not always, are related to sexual exploitation and abuse of women or children. And yet, in a very imperfect world, UN peacekeepers carry out a seemingly impossible task always in conflict zones – a mission that no individual nation wants to undertake. It may be a cliché, but very often UN peacekeepers are the ‘thin blue line’ doing their best to prevent chaos in remote corners of the world. Because they belong to no single individual country, it is too easy for UN Peacekeepers to sometimes become the world’s political football – criticized by many and defended by few. These men and women, in order to have any chance to do their work properly, require training. This was what took my fellow instructors and me to Bangladesh this year. There were no women on this course, although there are increasing numbers of military women participating in UN peacekeeping missions around the world. Each of the 25 participants had been chosen by his national military leadership to be ready to command a national contingent of his compatriots as part of a larger UN peacekeeping mission anywhere in the world. The majority of the participants were from Bangladesh, currently the UN’s largest contributor of peacekeeping troops, but ten participants were drawn from other frequent UN troop-contributing countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam.

The Peacekeeping Operations Contingent Commanders Course (PKOCCC) is part of the Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI), a US-funded program that started in 2004 following that year’s G8 summit. The program’s goal is to strengthen the United Nations’ overall ability to effectively conduct peacekeeping operations by providing training to peacekeepers from troop-contributing nations that request it. In 2004, when the program started, the goal was to have US forces train peacekeepers from other nations. But in subsequent phases of the program starting in 2009, instructors were drawn from former UN peacekeepers (mostly retired military or civilian officers) coming from many nations, including a small number of Canadians. The course closely follows a syllabus based on the UN’s own requirements and is designed and updated in co-operation with senior management from the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO). Specifically, the GPOI aims to strengthen the professionalism of all UN peacekeepers. As well as buttressing their purely military skills, future leaders are trained in such skills as post-conflict peacebuilding, civil-military co-operation, and humanitarian project support. Each of the instructors at BIPSOT 2015 PKOCCC, one of whom was a former UN Force Commander, had a broad range of UN experience. Responsible for delivering specific areas of the syllabus, all instructors worked together to oversee the practical and fictional post-conflict scenario – known as Exercise Blue Commander – in which participants worked in teams to put into practice the concepts which they had learned in the formal presentations. As well as the exercise, large group discussions dealing with such matters as gender issues, child protection, and human trafficking were also facilitated.

> george somerwill communications and global education outreach consultant, UN for All Education programs

Much of the material in the PKOCCC is strictly practical in nature, (e.g. the challenges of a multinational command, or the role and tasks of the military in a peacekeeping mission). This is critically important to a contingent commander about to lead his or her men into a conflict zone. The military aspects may be already familiar to an experienced Lieutenant-Colonel, but many other aspects of the course deal with issues that are sensitive, both politically and within the media. As such, those issues may be new to an aspiring contingent commander who has only worked within their own country. Each PKOCCC instructor at BIPSOT used his own experience to reiterate the importance of all UN staff strictly adhering to the Peacekeepers’ Code of Conduct. As a Communications/Public Information professional, I emphasized that the personal behaviour of individual UN staff within peacekeeping missions must always reflect the highest standard. It is essential that contingent commanders understand that public attitudes towards the UN depend entirely on the quality of the UN’s leadership at all levels, both military and civilian. Since the UN is a global organization, bad behavior in any one part of the organization will reflect negatively on the UN globally, as the international media broadcasts the story around the world. At the same time, it is important to note that not every allegation of impropriety leveled at UN peacekeepers is based on fact since, in some countries and in some media, the UN has become a useful ‘political football’. Another important area of knowledge for any military officer aspiring to leadership within a UN peacekeeping operation must include attitude and cultural awareness. Working within peacekeeping missions, I have sometimes noted that civilian and military UN staff often have little or no Continued on next page >

acuns . o r g

S i g n u p f o r o u r e > u p da t e b y b e c o m i n g a m e m b e r !

member publications All instructors worked together to oversee the practical and fictional post-conflict scenario – known as Exercise Blue Commander – in which participants worked in teams to put into practice the concepts which they had learned in the formal presentations. As well as the exercise, large group discussions dealing with such matters as gender issues, child protection, and human trafficking were also facilitated.

MPub

Visual Politics of War Edited by Ibrahim Saleh and Thomas Knieper | Cambridge Scholars Publishing This book marks a new and agonizing departure into the terrain of 21st century war. During the last century war has become increasingly waged against civilians. This horrifying shift has prompted the development of a form of war reporting, which is not about technology and hardware, but about human suffering, which fuels public outrage. Table of contents of Visual Politics of War include: Truth And Lies In The War On Terror; Impact of Post-Liberal India-Narratives of War; Emotional impact of war photographs; Can Robot Journalists Replace Human Journalists in the Coverage of Wars?; Media, Culture, and Power in Egypt; The death of Muammar al-Gaddafi; Peace Journalism in IBEROAMERICA: Mexico and Spain Newspapers Coverage of Conflict; South Asian English newspapers and the war on terror in Afghanistan; How Reporting Conditions Shape Textual & Visual Frames of the “Af-Pak War;” The Geopolitics of Visual Representation in News: The Case of Boko Haram.

The United Nations as a Knowledge System Nanette Svenson | Routledge

Continued from previous page > experience of dealing with each other. Both sides, especially at the middle levels, sometimes hesitate to cooperate. Yet, it is precisely at this level that success within a peacekeeping mission – strengthening civil-military relations – depends on maximum cooperation. Training contingent commanders in being culturally aware of their civilian counterparts, both within and outside the mission, is a positive step toward removing barriers to cooperation at the mission level. This year’s Contingent Commanders Course at BIPSOT was just one of many ongoing educational opportunities under the auspices of the Global Peace Operations Initiative. The military officers who attend these courses greatly benefit and build their expertise from all the hands-on training available, and in order to provide the most insight and knowledge available the instructors come from military and civilian peacekeeping backgrounds. Being the only civilian instructor on a course such as this can sometimes be challenging, and yet most of these future peacekeeping leaders express enthusiasm to collaborate with their civilian counterparts in a UN mission. I remain optimistic that it opens a new perspective about the broader work of the UN for young mid-career military officers. Peacekeeping is one of the UN’s many tasks around the world that has the highest public profile. We owe it to the young uniformed men and women who do this work – as well as to those civilians who will ultimately rely on them for security – to provide them, to the best of our ability, with the knowledge they need to fulfill the expectations the world holds.

* George Somerwill is a Canadian former United Nations staff member who worked for the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) in a number of peacekeeping and other UN operational areas from 1996-2011. His UN work took him to Angola, Iraq (the Oil-for-Food Program), Pakistan, Ethiopia and Eritrea, Sudan and Liberia. He retired from the UN in 2011 as Director of Communications for the UN Mission in Liberia.

A C U N S q ua r t e r l y ne w sle t t e r > issue 4 > 2 0 1 5

This book seeks to explore how the UN has generated, warehoused, disseminated, structured, packaged, expanded, transferred and leveraged its vast resources of accumulated information and experience throughout the decades and, particularly, since the start of the 21st century with the introduction of more connective information and communications technology. It examines the overarching objectives that have guided such activity and divides UN knowledge management into three distinct, but often overlapping and intertwining, categories: • knowledge for social and organizational learning; • knowledge for norm setting; and • knowledge for creation of products and services Svenson brings together these multiple aspects of UN knowledge management to present a holistic view of how the organization utilizes its global intelligence to educate, advocate and serve member countries’ development. Instead of looking at the UN as an international bureaucracy or as a peacekeeping, policymaking, humanitarian or development entity, this work studies the UN as a generator and purveyor of information, learning and experience in all of these areas. The United Nations as a Knowledge System will be key reading for all students and scholars of international organizations.

value our work? interested in helping?

Help to secure ACUNS’ future. Support the Friends of ACUNS endowment. Your gift will help to ensure the financial future of ACUNS and the continuation of its programs. Contributions are tax-deductible.

TO make a donation > Please send your donation to:

FRIENDS OF ACUNS,

Why not consider donating your book royalties to the Friends of ACUNS?

c/o Jean Krasno, Yale University, 31 Hillhouse Avenue, New Haven, CT 06511 Friends of ACUNS is incorporated under New York State and federal law as a not-for-profit public charity with 501(c)(3) status.

acuns . o r g 6

Ownership, ACTION, and engagement

> n a i a r a co s ta c h av e s advocacy director, Beyond 2015 A global civil society campaign

Feature story

agenda 2030, the sustainable development goals, and the new multilateralism

Between September 25-27 the United Nations convened the long awaited Sustainable Development Summit [i] where more than one hundred and fifty Heads of State and Government met to adopt the post-2015 sustainable development agenda, otherwise known by the document’s official name “Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”[ii] The outcome document also includes the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)[iii] and its 169 targets, and potentially starts a paradigm shift in one of the main pillars of the United Nations.

[i] Information about the UN Summit on Sustainable Development can be accessed here: https://sustainabledevelopment. un.org/post2015/summit. Web-site checked on September 1, 2015 [ii] Outcome document “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” available here https:// sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/ transformingourworld. Consulted on September 1, 2015. [iii] The SDGs are: Goal 1. End poverty

in all its forms everywhere; Goal 2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture; Goal 3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages; Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all; Goal 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls; Goal 6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all; Goal 7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all; Goal 8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all; Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation; Goal 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries; Goal 11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable; Goal 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns Goal 13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts; Goal 14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development; Goal 15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss; Goal 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels; Goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.

feature two

this is a universal framework and its goals and targets are “indivisible, interlinked and integrated.”

T people can actually claim their space as active agents of change and clearly engage in setting policies that affect their lives.

he new Agenda brings a series of innovations compared to its predecessor, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). First, this is a universal framework and its goals and targets are “indivisible, interlinked and integrated”. The SDGs also cover all three dimensions of sustainable development - economic, social and environmental - and several of the goals have an approach towards “getting to zero” or of promoting universal access to rights and services. Finally, in Agenda 2030, UN Member States agreed to leave no one behind, which will demand a real effort to tailor policies and actions towards the needs and priorities of the poorest and most marginalized. Another novelty was the intergovernmental process that defined Agenda 2030 itself, considered the most inclusive and participatory in the history of the UN, with millions of peoples, organizations and stakeholders from all over the world consulted in its several phases. Although it is important to recognize that organizations and groups with resources to send representatives to New York had more chances to influence the process, the access to draft papers, the webcast of plenary sessions, the connections with negotiators, the use of social media and of spaces created by the United Nations (especially the UN Department for Economic and Social Affairs, UN DESA, and the UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service, UN NGLS) facilitated the participation of those who were not in the negotiation rooms. Unfortunately, the rhythm of the negotiations and the lack of translated documents beyond English also generated some challenges for the wide engagement of civil society, especially from developing countries.

Is the post-2015 development agenda the beginning of a new multilateralism era where people can actually claim their space as active agents of change and clearly engage in setting policies that affect their lives? The post-2015 process was an example of the new approach of civil society, social movements and stakeholders in the “information era”, as described by Castells in his “The Information Age” (1999). It was characterized by decentralized interventions integrated into networks and by new multiple ways of exchanging and interacting between the different movements and constituencies including via social media. Additionally, a high level of interest, engagement and investment, combined with the disposition of Member States, as well as with the systems put in place by the United Nations, allowed for an intergovernmental process that was under detailed scrutiny of the public. This was later translated into a high level of “ownership” of the Agenda by social actors. More than an end in itself, the participation during the formulation of the Agenda 2030 was key to set the tone about the level of partnership between CSOs and public sector for the upcoming implementation of the Agenda. The main challenge comes now, with the adoption of the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the start of the implementation in all countries of the world. Governments are expected to “nationalize” (and sub-nationalize) the framework through national plans, multi-sectorial institutional arrangements and appropriate allocation of resources. Transparent, inclusive and participatory accountability systems must be set up at the national level, supported by

Continued on page 9 >

A C U N S q ua r t e r l y ne w sle t t e r > issue 4 > 2 0 1 5

acuns . o r g 8

arriving at a solution Strengthening Europe’s response to refugees: the road ahead

Agenda 2030, the sustainable developmnt goals, and the new multilateralism

Continued from page 4 >

Continued from page 8 >

As recently as September 1, 2015, for example, the European Court of Human Rights found Italy in breach of its human rights obligations in a case concerning the detention and repatriation to Tunisia of clandestine migrants who had landed on the Italian coast in 2011 during the events linked to the “Arab Spring”.iii

strong monitoring schemes at regional and global levels. The engagement of stakeholders should not be seen as merely a tool, but rather as a critical element in making the commitment to “leave no one behind” a reality. In order to accomplish this objective, capacities will need to be strengthened and new ones will need to be created in all places.

Europe today is at the forefront in the protection of individual human rights, but it has struggled – and at times, failed – to cope with collective/global challenges. Faced with the recurring tragic events in the Mediterranean and the unprecedented migratory flows at the EU external borders, the provisional measures so far adopted by the EU are insufficient. The Dublin system, and the perverse logic that underpins it, remains in place. The temporary and exceptional relocation mechanism over two years from the frontline member states Italy and Greece, entails only a temporary derogation from the rule according to which these countries would otherwise have been responsible for the examination of an application for international protection. The Decision is intended merely to address an emergency situation, and is all the more unsatisfying as adopted by majority voting (with Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary voting against and Finland abstaining, while Denmark and the United Kingdom are not participating). Finally, the measures agreed upon relate to asylum seekers only. The rights of asylum seekers, however, are only a part of the problem to be addressed. The decision leaves it to the affected Member States to deal with the enormous mass of economic migrants and their repatriation or resettlement, in spite of the principles of solidarity and fair sharing of responsibility between the Member States, which should govern the Union policy on asylum and migration (Article 78(3) TFEU). * Annalisa Ciampi studied law (LLB and PhD) in Italy (Florence and Rome) and at Harvard Law School (LLM). She is currently a full professor of International Law at University of Verona (Italy) and a visiting professor at Monash University Faculty of Law (Prato Campus). Prior to Monash University, she was a visiting professor at Université Panthéon - Assas (Paris II) (Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales) and the European University Institute (Academy of European Law). She published extensively in the fields of international law. Her areas of expertise include international law, the law of the European Union, human rigths, international criminal law and the interface between law and literature. [ii] ECrtHR, Khlaifia and Others v. Italy

(application no. 16483/12), at http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-115507.

acuns . o r g

the engagement of stakeholders should not be seen as merely a tool, but rather a critical element in Making the commitment to “leave no one behind” a reality.

Finally, the test of respecting the universal, interlinked and indivisible nature of Agenda 2030 will demand a multi-sectoral approach to its implementation and monitoring, which goes beyond the siloed engagement of the MDGs. This adaptation will need to happen within governments and amongst stakeholders, including civil society. The United Nations will also need to adjust or become “fit” for its new purpose of supporting its Member States in achieving these ambitious Goals.

Moreover, we expect that the inclusive and open modalities set by the post-2015 process will inspire the following intergovernmental processes at the United Nations, bringing “We, the peoples”, closer to the multilateral space. The current global and local challenges demand such as openness.

* Naiara Costa Chaves is an International Relations Analyst from Brazil currently serving as the Advocacy Director of Beyond 2015, a global civil society campaign. Prior to that, she worked for the Governments of the United Kingdom and Brazil. She also served the United Nations for more than ten years at the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

seeking nominations: acuns board of directors

Nominate or be nominated. AS OF JUNE 2016 multiple positions will be open on the ACUNS Board of Directors. Board members will serve from 2016 – 2019. ACUNS members are invited to nominate qualified individuals, including themselves, for these positions. All nominees should be members of ACUNS. Please send nominations with: • Curriculum vitae • Bio (300-500 words) • A short supporting statement outlining what the nominee will bring to ACUNS.

TO NOMINATE > All nominations will be accepted from January 1, 2016 to March 31, 2016. Nominations should be sent to bburns@wlu.ca. Questions? Please email admin@acuns.org or call (1) 226.772.3121

A C U N S S ec r e t a r ia t > Wilfrid Laurier University, 75 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3C5

S i g n u p f o r o u r e > u p da t e b y b e c o m i n g a m e m b e r !