United Nations MDG Award

On March 17th 2009, the world’s attention was focused on the United Nations as they paid tribute to individuals, organisations and nations working to implement the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). This prestigious award ceremony was held at the General Assembly hall of the United Nations headquarters in New York.

I was invited to this event by a friend. It was an unexpected opportunity - so I flew to America.

My first impression of the organisation of the event was bewildering. I was told security would be tight and needed to bring along several IDs. Furthermore, I was told that my partner Anthony was no longer on the gusts list prior to the event. After contacting a few people I know, only I got in. I felt it was appropriate to be dressed in a suit, in case I had the chance to meet a few UN diplomats. The place was heaving with UN officials, their name badges dandling around their necks.

The ceremony itself started late, but once it began, it was great. The concert had an array of musical talents and big names. Guests and celebrities included, Simply Red’s Mick Hucknall, Julian Lennon, Macy Gray and Sol Guy. Speeches were presented by Ambassador of Qatar, Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser, President of the General Assembly, Rev. Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, and Executive Director of the UN Office for Partnership, Amir Dossal, who I had the pleasure of meeting again as well as his assistant, whom I’ve had contact with.

Awards were given to individuals who had enhanced the implementation and action of the MDG. The effectiveness of the MDG is incredibly important to decrease poverty, gender inequality, child mortality, diseases, gap between north and south and supporting the world’s poorest and vulnerable people to name a few.

Special awards were presented to Dr. Kevin Cahill, who received the Lifetime Award for Humanitarian Achievement, and to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, accepting the MDG Lifetime Achievement Award. Desmond Tutu’s speech was very colourful, which had the crowd applausing loudly.

Macy Gray performed “I Try” , getting the crowd to get up and dance in celebration. It was great to meet people working for the UN. My neighbour Maho was exceptionally nice. I got inside feedback about what it was like to work in the UN from people who actually worked there. It was also nice to be greeted by Amir Dossal since first meeting him in London.

The highlights of the MDG Awards Inaugural Awards can be viewed by clicking on this link:
http://iclips.net/mdg_awards_plist.html

WILPF AGM: Gender Budgeting

Saturday 14th March

The WILPF UK AGM was presented by Vice Presidents Amy Barrow and Katherine Ronderos. Marion Boker, a consultant for Human Rights and Gender Issues from Germany, was invited to share a special presentation entitled “What Price for Peace: Gender Budgeting for Gender Equality.”

Summary of AGM

Members of WILPF celebrated the success of the Voices of African Women seminars, having networked with women from different countries. WILPF enabled women from Diaspora to engage with politicians in the UK and strengthen grassroot campaigns for the movement of African women in conflict. Having our campaigns assistant Sasha Jesperson on board has enabled WILPF to expand campaigning opportunities on a broader level. It was great to see interns and younger members on the executive committee, which should hopefully attract young women to join the organisation as active members. The ‘serious’ part of the AGM ended nicely with a musical rendition from Raised Voices, who are a political street choir.
Women of WILPF joined in with the singing about Palestine: “Free Palestine. What have they done? Take down the wall. Give back the land.”

Keynote Presentation

Marion Boker’s presentation about gender budgeting was quite a new angle, which neither I nor WILPF have much experience about. Boker stated that society needs social spending for health, better workplace, child care and education, as opposed to expenditure for war. Today, we have tools and enshrined rights to see that the government implement this. Finances for women’s needs are marginalised. In 2003, 0.04% of total European Commission Aid supported women-specific projects and programs, which clearly suggests that there is less for women and more for war. Failed budgetary on women is NOT an old metaphor. Figures for social spending have been constant from 1988 to present day, with only a small increase in 2002. Women have been fixed in traditional gender roles, such as looking after children and elderly – which of course earns women no money.

According to Boker, CEDAW are strongest on gender budgeting and are campaigning for this. The financial crisis is naturally offering new challenges which need to integrate around gender budgeting. Boker affirmed that the G7/G20 should be open for women and gender experts to implement an early warning system to crises and gender budget analysis for a more rounded conclusion. Violence against women, gender pay gap, unemployment and other situations are all increasing in stages of crisis and will continue to grow unless voices in parliament about these problems are heard.

A report in February 06 2009 from CEDAW in Geneva reported that:
“The UN Committee is concerned by the impact of the financial crisis on the rights of women and girls.”

This presentation has made WILPF consider gender budgeting and analysis into our general campaign and logistics.

Workshops

After the presentation, 3 workshops, which members of WILPF are working on, were present. The working groups below can be joined by anyone who is interested. Please contact the WLPF office or myself (about the VAW group) for more information: office@ukwilpf.org.uk

• Women, Peace and Security
• Global Economic Justice
• Violence Against Women

As WILPFs co-coordinator of the Violence Against Women working group, I co-facilitated the workshop with Katherine Ronderos. We were fortunate to have two very special Sara Elizabeth Avilez Tome and Maria Amalia Reyes Cartagena from Honduras, to share their experience of violence. These women were in the UK for 2 weeks to raise awareness of gender violence in Honduras. Katherine led the discussion in Spanish, followed by English translations.

Before the interview with the women, a DVD was shown to highlight Sara Elizabeth’s experience, presented by 21^st Century. Every 20 days, women are victims of physical abuse or killed by loved ones. Domestic violence is at an unprecedented level in Honduras and due to the level of cases, the police are being trained to think with a 'gender perspective' in order to handle the number of complaints. Furthermore, women are recruited into the police for thorough research and attention to these cases, as sexual violence was seen as a taboo.
Honduras has a population of 7 million people. Since 2007, 10000 cases of domestic violence were reported, which increased by 3.8% in 2008 but these numbers only reflect those who have reported it. Although the Honduran government have outlawed violence against women in 2007, the law is only now being implemented.

Response from the government has been limited and domestic violence is the last stage of action before women are assassinated by their spouse. Sara Elizabeth is working with women and NGOs to identify forms of violence and encourage other women to speak up about their experience before things can get worse.
The topic of patriarchy sparked fresh conversation. Participants suggested that new education need to be in place to teach children at a young age on how to treat people, eradicating old patriarchal attitudes. Sara Elizabeth and Maria agreed that the attitude of men wanting to be ‘more superior’ were spurred by old patriarchal influences and is still one of the biggest factors in Honduras. Women need to understand that these treatments and behaviour is not ‘normal’, and need support, education and awareness.

Sara Elizabeth and Maria are in partnership with CORN to strengthen community support at grassroot level in providing emotional support. Legal promoters provide training about legal instrument to report cases and support for long term processes. They hope to help women break the circle of violence based on economic dependency on their partner by starting micro-business projects like beauty courses, t-shirt making, tailouring etc. Current financial crisis makes it difficult to compete with imported products, which brings them back to their violent partners, however this is the beginning of a growing project, that can hopefully be encouraged by NGOs, and the government.

Working for a world free of nuclear weapons

"Working for a world free of nuclear weapons – what can the United Nations and civil society do?”
CND Southern region meeting, Winchester
Saturday 7^th March

Our chairman, Vijay Mehta, was invited by the southern region of CND to present a talk based on nuclear disarmament at their AGM. His wife Shanti and me as ACT-UN’s Campaigns Officer accompanied Vijay to Winchester, and it was the first time for the party to visit such a delightful town.

Despite being a small town, Winchester is packed with historical buildings and people young and old. When walking through the town to reach the meeting destination, it was welcoming to be surrounded by live music played by buskers and students alike. With these renditions, Vijay was more than ready to present his speech about what the UN and civil society can do about nuclear weapons.

The meeting was chaired by David Hougley, who is the treasurer of CD Southern Region. The event kicked off with Vijay’s speech, followed by the rest of the AGM after the break.

Before highlighting the current threats that nuclear pose in today’s world, Vijay most fittingly congratulated CND members in their efforts to campaign against nuclear. It is true that CND have been campaigning for a nuclear free world for over 50 years, however there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to innovate global disarmament. Vijay reflected how proliferation of nuclear in India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel is inciting fear in civil society and causing political violence, becoming the “hallmark of new terrorism”. Nukes are continuously being upgraded, overlooking pledges signed in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by major nuclear powers. Truth be known, nuclear weapons has no utility and only exist as a power symbol, which ironically only threatens security.

In an effort to incite positive action, Vijay reminded the audience of the 5 Point Proposal towards a nuclear free world, which was put forward by Ban Ki-Moon last year.

1/ Urge NPT states to fulfil their obligation under the treaty agreeing on a framework which is backed by a strong verification system (investment in verification R&D)
2/ Security Council to start dialogue to freeze nuclear weapon capabilities and make own disarmament commitments
3/ New efforts to bring a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty into force without preconditions, by having nuclear weapon free zones
4/ Nuclear weapon states to encourage wider dissemination of information for greater transparency on use of obtained nuclear weapons
5/ New efforts against terrorism, limitation on nuclear production and trade, new weapons ban including missiles and space weapons

Permanent members of the Security Council are made up of nuclear state powers, nonetheless by enhancing Article VI of the NPT, signatories of the treaty are obliged “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race...under strict and effective international control”. However, the UN has much to do to prove they are more than just a ‘talk-shop’ in regards to committing to disarmament.

Civil society and organisations like ACT-UN and CND are more committed to envisioning a world without nuclear weapons. Vijay highlighted a 13 step action point to what individuals can do (please see main handout which can be found on the ACT-UN website). Many initiatives have been made by organisations in tackling and taking this issue to national and international parliament. Although there is a chance to prevent proliferation by limiting available sources, the UK and other nuclear powers have to recognise that their own weapons and policies are part of the overall problem. By uniting our voice into one, we can at least see that the UK acts to moving towards being nuclear free.

The presentation ended with a very active question and answer session, particularly rousing curiosity on how to encourage local mayors to become “Mayors of Peace”, which was initially started by the Mayor of Hiroshima. Remember, as Dalai Lama said “If you think you are too small to change the world, try sleeping with a mosquito”, which apparently one of Vijay’s favourite quotes.

International Dispute Settlement: Developments and Challenges

UNA Westminster

“International Dispute Settlement: Developments and Challenges”

7^th Ruth Steinkraus-Cohen International Law Lecture

4^th March 2009

This event hosted by the Westminster branch of United Nations Association was held at SOAS. I attended not because it was a large UNA meeting but for simple nostalgic reasons of revisiting my university, and had little knowledge of what the main event was about.

I was astonished to learn that the topic was on International Law and was co-hosted by the Bar Association. Therefore, over half the audience was made up of lawyers and I knew at that moment I would not understand the lecture.

Before the main speaker began, I was greeted by a man sitting in front of me. He was very welcoming and eager to know who I was. Little did I know, I was speaking to a Prince – Prince Mohsin Khan Ali of Hyberdad, and had given me his number asking me to call him early morning if given the opportunity. Also, I found two people within the crowd whom I recognised and knew me, which was great.

The lecture was given by Professor Maurice Mendelson QC, who specialises in public international law including international litigation, arbitration and negotiations with the government. He covered some historical context of the International Court of Justice with how inactive it was during the 60-70s compared to now. He spoke of the law side of the United Nations and how most states break or bend the rules if they feel they can get away with it. If that is the case, laws that have been implemented are not stringent enough to punish those that break the law at will, highlighting the problems and challenges of inconsistency. He stated that “International law is a fragmented system” as governments cannot force states to agree to treaties for universal participation, which is one of the problems. For example, no mechanism for law exists in Gaza, which caused great hardship for its people.

From what I gathered from this incredibly specialised lecture was that the development of international law requires evolution with United Nations aid. The UN is universal governmental body thereby international law should be strengthened and implemented accordingly within member states.