UN Security Council Moves Slowly Ahead on Syria

In a small incremental but constructive step forward, the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved a humanitarian aid resolution on July 14th regarding embattled Syria. The purpose of the resolution is to enable increased access to civilians in difficult-to-reach areas by authorizing the delivery of humanitarian assistance across more national borders and internal conflict lines.

The resolution authorizes United Nations humanitarian agencies and their partners to use routes across conflict lines and as well as across four additional border crossings without requiring formal Syrian government consent. These border crossings include two on the Turkish-Syrian border, one on the Iraqi border and one on Syria’s border with Jordan. The Turkish border crossing is particularly important since the Syrian government has accused Turkey of serving as a transit point into Syria for what the Assad regime calls foreign terrorists and their arms. It has used such accusations as a pretext to interfere with humanitarian shipments coming from Turkey. This resolution is aimed at discouraging such interference, although it does require that the Syrian government be given notice of the shipments. The resolution declares that all parties to the Syrian conflict “shall enable the immediate and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance directly to people throughout Syria, by the United Nations humanitarian agencies and their implementing partners, on the basis of United Nations assessments of need and devoid of any political prejudices and aims, including by immediately removing all impediments to the provision of humanitarian assistance.” 6.5 million Syrians are displaced inside the country and 4.5 million are living in hard-to-reach areas. It is estimated that the additional access called for by the resolution, if implemented without Syrian government interference as the resolution requires, will help humanitarian deliveries reach as many 2 million people whom have not received secure food supplies or access to basic healthcare, including medicine and surgical supplies, for many months.

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UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will be responsible for establishing a monitoring mechanism, to last at least the next six months, for the purpose of ensuring the humanitarian nature of all aid convoys entering Syria, meaning that they will be searched for any illicit transfer of arms. A prior Security Council resolution on humanitarian aid passed last February was ignored. A subsequent draft resolution that would have referred any party to the conflict committing serious human rights or humanitarian law violations to the International Criminal Court was vetoed by Russia and China. The current resolution, sponsored by Jordan, Luxemburg and Australia, was negotiated for weeks before Russia and China agreed to go along. According to a UN ambassador involved directly in the negotiations, it was uncertain right up to the morning of the vote whether it would be passed or not. There is certainly no guarantee that this current resolution will fare any better than the one passed last February. Although it states that further “measures” will be taken by the Security Council if necessary, another resolution would be required to impose sanctions or authorize collective military action under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which will most certainly be vetoed by Russia and most likely by China. Moreover, there is no provision in the resolution for ensuring the security of the humanitarian convoys which in the past have been attacked by both the Syrian regime and the armed opposition. And UN Syrian Ambassador Bashar Jaafari, while welcoming "sincere efforts to ease the burden" of suffering, did not pledge Syria’s unconditional cooperation and adherence to the resolution. Instead, he devoted most of his remarks to the Security Council to the bashing of externally sponsored “terrorists” and their state benefactors. He also started his remarks off topic by condemning what he characterized as Israel’s ongoing “savage” attacks in Gaza. That’s outrageous to say the least, considering his own country’s indiscriminate barrel bombing of civilians, use of chemical weapons and employment of starvation as a weapon of war, amongst its multiple crimes against humanity and war crimes. Whether the Security Council has any better luck with this latest humanitarian resolution than it did the last time around remains to be seen. But at least it took a small step forward, coupled with the positive outcome of the destruction or removal of all of Syria’s declared chemical weapons by the deadline prescribed by the Security Council in a resolution it passed last year.