In this picture:
Justin Oliver Zinda (Brunel Law Student 2008-11)
at TEIMUN 2009 – The Hague (Netherlands).
THE ORGANISATION AND MY EXPERIENCE OF TEIMUN 2009
The theme of this year’s TEIMUN conference was "Seeking a balance in a changing world order". This covered the power shift that is going on in today’s world, including in international organizations like the United Nations. The conference was organised around 7 councils focusing on different topics as illustrated in the table below:
Sustaining aid to the developing world during a global recession
The future of Tibet and ensuring protection of human rights for Tibetans
Developments in the field of information and telecommunications in the context of international security.
Council Two: - Security Council: (file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/lw08joz/Local%20Settings/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.IE5/YMFYXH88/Security%20Councilhttp:/www.un.org/Docs/sc/)
- The Situation in Eastern D.R. Congo
- The Implications of Small Arms on global conflict
Council Three - Economic & Social Council: (http://www.un.org/ecosoc/ )
- Failing States
- Prevention of Human Trafficking
- International monitoring mechanisms
Council Four: - Human Rights Council: (Homepage of the Human Rights Council)
- Human Rights violations in Sudan
- The Impact of Good Governance in the Promotion of Human Rights
- The right to life and death penalty
Council Five - North Atlantic Council: (file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/lw08joz/Local%20Settings/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.IE5/YMFYXH88/North%20Atlantic%20Councilhttp:/www.nato.int/docu/handbook/2001/hb070101.htm)
- The situation in Afghanistan
- The Future of NATO's Partnerships
Council Six: - United Nations Environment Programme: (Homepage of the United Nations Environmental Programme)
- Policies for agricultural development and land use to support/enhance food security and economic development in Africa
- MDG7: The Poverty Environment Initiative
- Climate Change and National Security
Council Seven: - International Court of Justice: (http://www.icj-cij.org/)
- The legality of the use of force in the South Ossetian conflict.
TEIMUN participants were asked to choose up to 3 councils and then were allocated to one council of their choice. I chose, in order of preference, the International Court of Justice and the Security Council. I was assigned to my first choice – the ICJ where we heard, debated and decided on:
THE CASE: GEORGIA v THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
(Although inspired by true events, this case is fictional)
- South Ossetia was, during the Soviet era, an autonomous region of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, seeking greater autonomy from Tbilisi. The region is made up from ethnic Georgians (30%) and Ossetians (70%). In 1990 South Ossetia proclaimed full sovereignty, which resulted in armed conflict between separatists, Georgia police and paramilitaries in 1991-92. During this conflict, which led to de facto secession of South Ossetia from Georgia in 1992, the sporadic Russian involvement was overwhelmingly in support of the separatists. A ceasefire was eventually brokered by Russian and Georgian leaders and a trilateral Joint Peacekeeping Force (JPKF) was set up, composed of Georgian, Russian and Ossetian units ostensibly operating under a joint command.
- From the late 1990s, the Russian government offered South Ossetian and Abkhazian residents citizenship and passports for foreign travel. Passport holders could travel freely into Russia and were entitled to Russian pensions and other social benefits. Russia, by this time, considered itself a guarantor of stability in the region. In negotiations between Tbilisi and Tskhinvali, Russia strongly supported a formal agreement on the non-use of force. Form August 2004 it also begun to emphasise an obligation to protect the large number of Ossetians to whom it had given Russian passports.
- In January 2004, Mikheil Saakashvili was elected President of Georgia. The restoration of Georgia’s territorial integrity was one of his top priorities and his government set about recovering South Ossetia, through undermining the sources of income of the secessionist de facto leadership and attempting to win the hearts and minds of Ossetians through the provision of aid packages and cultural initiatives. Also as part of the efforts to re-integrate South Ossetia, the Georgian ministry of interior conducted aggressive anti-smuggling missions in 2004 which led to renewed hostilities. South Ossetian militia branded this move, which involved sending 300 special-forces fighters into the territory, an invasion in violation of the 1992 Sochi agreement and intense fighting followed between Georgian forces and South Ossetian militia.
- In 2005, president Saakashvili, as part of his plan to strengthen national sovereignty and influence, revived the Georgian nuclear program. This program provided for the establishment of research sites and uranium processing facilities, including a uranium enrichment plant. Gergian’s first nuclear power plant, “Tbilisi I”, was expected to be operational by the end of 2007. In October 2005, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1735 under chapter VII, demanding that Georgia suspend its uranium enrichment activities.
- One month after the UNSC Resolution 1735 was passed the Georgian President, speaking at a military parade celebrating the anniversary of the declaration of Georgia as autonomous state declared, “As the leaders of our glorious nation before us, we will remove the yoke of foreign influence and oppression. We must let our enemies know that we can defend ourselves. Every step you take is in defence of our country and you should work hard and at great speed. Moreover, the international community must understand that Georgia will not accept any limitations on its sovereignty nor will we allow baseless accusations to go unanswered.
- A week later the permanent representative of Georgia to the United Nations passed a letter to the Secretary General declaring that Georgia would no longer allow visits by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) observers to its nuclear facilities and calling upon the Secretary Council to remove any sanctions that were imposed under Security Council Resolution 1735.
- In 2006, Human Rights Watch reported that humanitarian situation in South Ossetia and Abkhazia had deteriorated and was continuing on a spiral of rapid decline. They reported that open armed conflict had broken out between the local militia known as the Ossatian Liberation Army (OLA) and Georgian government forces. These violent confrontations led to massive refugee flows from South Ossetia and Abkhazia into neighbouring Russia. There were also reports of Georgian soldiers setting alight ethnically Ossetian villages and pillaging homes, with local militia carrying out similar reprisal attacks on Georgian towns. This pattern would continue, with increasing severity and largely ignored by the international community, for the next two years.
- Meanwhile, the OLA had firmly established itself in the Russian administered territory of North Ossetia. This group was allegedly responsible for passing arms and providing training for paramilitary forces that mounted attacks against Georgia authorities in South Ossetia and in ethnically Georgian villages near the South Ossetian border. The OLA is reported to be financed by units of the Russian army, while the leader of OLA is a former colonel in the Russian army. The United Nations, US senate and other national governments added the OLA to their list o terrorist organisations. A freezing order imposed by the Georgian government and recognised by many Western nations, but not by Russia, froze any traceable assets belonging to the OLA. Russia vehemently denied any allegations which link it to the OLA.
- On March 10 2008 Georgia tested “Horizon 16”, a ballistic missile. Russia intelligence reported the missile carried a pseudo-nuclear warhead, claiming that the test was incontrovertible proof that the Georgian nuclear program has reached its final stages, and that Georgia’s nuclear weapons capacity was imminent. On the same day, the Russian President declared: “We cannot turn a blind eye from the risk Georgia poses to international peace and security and in particular to Russia. Nor we can abandon our citizens in South Ossetia, who face an imminent danger to their lives and to their property. If the Security Council fails, then we will have no choice other than to solve this problem ourselves”.
- The Security Council convened the next day. The UK, US and Russia, tried to persuade the Council to permit immediate military action against Georgia’s nuclear facilities and against Georgian troops in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. However, the Chinese delegate and the delegates of five non-permanent members opined that coercive measures were not appropriate at that time. In a vote taken 9 States were in favour of an attack and 6 (including the Chinese) against it.
- The first half of 2008 saw tensions escalate further again. There were frequent violent attacks and mutual recriminations between Georgia and South Ossetia forces while the tide of refugees continued to flow out of the conflict zones. Russian air force jets conducted over flights in violation of Georgian airspace to “cool hotheads in Tbilisi” and to prevent Georgia seeking a military solution to the territorial dispute. Following this, Russia sent 8000 troops on military exercises near the South Ossetian border and Georgia’s response was to concentrate its entire artillery brigade in the city of Gori, near the South Ossetian administrative capital.
- Skirmishes between Georgian and South Ossetian forces were at the of erupting into all out war in July when police officers were killed on both sides in a bomb blast and sniper fire, automatic and mortar weapons were used and any civilians remaining in the area begun to evacuate to Russia. Tbilisi continued to mass its forces near the South Ossetian border and the evening of August 7 Georgian forces launched a massive shelling of Tskhinvali and surrounding villages. Assaults by ground and air forces followed.
- The position of the Georgian government is that the purpose of the shelling was to suppress firing positions from which South Ossetian militia had been firing upon Georgian peacekeepers and villages. The Georgian government further states that it received intelligence on the morning of August 7 that Russian forces were moving into South Ossetia. In light of this information, the attack was launched also in part to prevent a full scale Russian invasion. Russian authorities maintain that these troop movements were a routine part of the normal rotation of peacekeeping troops stationed in South Ossetia.
- The following day Russian ground forces from the 58th Army crossed into South Ossetia, while artillery hit targets in South Ossetia and parts of undisputed Georgian territory and aircraft bombed Georgian nuclear facilities. Russian forces were joined by South Ossetian forces consisting of several elements that also participated in the fighting: South Ossetian Ministry of Defence and Emergencies, South Ossetian Ministry of Internal Affairs, South Ossetian Committee for State Security, volunteers, and Ossetian peacekeeping forces. The stated purpose of the military intervention was to neutralise the nuclear threat, protect Russian peacekeepers stationed in South Ossetia and also to protect those residents who had become Russian citizens in recent years.
- On the 9 August the Georgian President called upon the Security Council to condemn what he described as an unlawful and aggressive attack by Russia on Georgian’s Sovereignty. However, the international community responded with silence. Georgian commanders ordered their troops to withdraw from South Ossetia on August 10 and two days later Russian forces moved into and occupied undisputed Georgian territory south of the administrative border with South Ossetia, including the city of Gori. In a separate operation from the west, moving through the breakaway region of Abkhazia (also supported by Russia), Russian forces occupied the strategically important cities of Poti, Zugdidi, and Senaki in western Georgia. In accordance with August 15 ceasefire agreement between Russia and Georgia brokered by the French European presidency Russian forces completed their withdrawal from undisputed Georgian territory on October 10 and in March 2009, following further talks, Russian forces had completely withdrawn from Georgia.
- Following the Russian withdrawal, a group of Georgian journalists, investigating the legality of the OLA, drove to a location near the Russian border in South Ossetia on 14 May 2009. Their vehicles were hit by rocket propelled grenade fire from across the border. After the initial salvo, armed fighters forcibly dragged survivors across the border into North Ossetia. The burning frames of the journalists’ vehicles were found some hours later by a military patrol.
- On 17 May 2009 a videotape was released to Georgian news networks showing a dishevelled and disoriented person identifying himself as one of the abducted Georgian journalists. He said that he was being held by a branch of the OLA and urged his government meet their demands and ‘halt the aggression against the free people of Ossetia’. The videotape was digitally enhanced using sophisticated software by a non-governmental organisation called “Doctors of the World”. The enhanced images revealed in the background what seemed to be a partially clothed man, hanging form chains by his wrists, and a wall thermometer showing a temperature of 4 degrees Celsius.
- The Georgian government the next day sent in a team of Special Forces units into North Ossetia on a mission to recapture and release the journalists. The Tbilisi Register reported that the operation was a success and that there were no casualties. Upon their return, the journalists were immediately taken to hospital where they were examined by doctors. The results of medical examinations determined that they were undernourished, sleep-deprived and had bruises around their wrists, but that they had incurred no injuries likely to leave any long term or permanent effects.
- The following day, the Georgian government reported to the Security Council that the hostage rescue operation had been undertaken as an act of self-defence against the terrorist group OLA after the Russian government had proven itself to be unwilling or unable t secure the timely release of the Georgian nationals help under terrible conditions, in violation of their human rights.
On 20 June 2009, Georgia and the Russian Federation jointly submitted a case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, requesting the Court to resolve the following issues:
- Whether the use of force by the Russian Federation against Georgia was lawful; and
- Whether the treatment of the Georgian journalists was consistent with international law and whether it can be attributed to Russia.
Georgia claims:
- The use of force by the Russian Federation was illegal pursuant to Article 2(4) of the UN Charter.
- The treatment of the journalists by the Ossetian Liberation Army (OLA), attributable to the Russian Federation, was in violation of international human rights law.
The Russian Federation claims:
- The use of force against Georgia was justified and consistent with the UN Charter and its purposes: firstly, Russia was under a humanitarian obligation to intervene in Georgia in light of the grave human rights violations and the responsibility to protect victims of atrocities; second, the action taken was justified, under article 51 of the Charter, as self-defence in light of the nuclear programme being pursued by Georgia and following the attacks on Russian peacekeeping forces and Russian nationals living in South Ossetia.
- The treatment of the journalists was entirely lawful and consistent with international human rights law and in any event the actions of the OLA cannot be attributed to Russia.
End.
At the International Court of Justice, participants were simulating Honourable Judges from different countries. I was acting as the Honourable Judge from Brazil and therefore from hereon I will be referring myself as The Honourable Judge from Brazil.
After hearing pleadings from representatives from Georgia and The Russian Federation, including a statement from the actual Georgian Ambassador to The Hague, we then engaged ourselves into intense debates on the case and international laws. In the end, after 7 days, we came up with a judgment which ruled that the use of force by the Russian Federation was indeed illegal. However, some Honourable Judges dissented and were allowed, as per the rules of procedure for the ICJ, to write their own dissenting views which had to be attached to the final judgment. I was one of those who dissented and my view can be found here below:
A DISSENTING VIEW OF THE HONOURABLE JUDGE FROM BRAZIL – MR JUSTIN ZINDA
The issue is whether or not the use of force by the Russian Federation was illegal. This Court has decided that it was indeed illegal. The Honourable Judge from Brazil however, is of the opinion that this decision was taken per incuriam. His dissenting view stems from the fact that the Court considered conditions for self-defence, pre-emptive self-defence and humanitarian reasons in a cumulative way and this, the Honourable Judge from Brazil believes to be erroneous. He is of the view that only conditions prior, during and immediately after the start of the use of force should be considered when adjudging the issue of the legality of the use of force.
Had the issue been on the legality of the way force was used, the Honourable Judge from Brazil states, this would have been a completely different matter. What happened after the force has begun to be used is irrelevant in this question before this Court, but all acts afterward could be relevant to other accusations that may arise from the use of force.
The reasons the Honourable Judge from Brazil is certain that this Court has erred on a point of law are twofold: first, this Court considered conditions for self-defence, pre-emptive self-defence and humanitarian reasons in a cumulative way; and, secondly, the failure by the Russian Federation to present a full defence arising from the right of self-determination by the people of South Ossetia, as illustrated in the facts of the case.
The Honourable Judge from Brazil inferred from the facts that the Russian Federation used force to support, sua moto or otherwise, the South Ossetia right to self-determination. Georgia attacked South Ossetia to stop the latter further its move to self-determination. The Honourable Judge from Brazil is disturbed by the fact that Georgia itself having enjoyed in the past the right for self-determination by successfully achieving its independence from the former USSR is now finding it unacceptable to allow the same right to South Ossetia.
In terms of Article 2(4), the use of force by a people with the right of self-determination was not covered by the prohibition in Article 2(4) and states have the right to assist people in their struggles for self-determination. The use of force by Georgia, argues the Honourable Judge from Brazil, therefore was in itself unlawful, amounting to aggression and a breach of Article 2(4); if so, the Honourable Judge from Brazil insists, the people of South Ossetia can be said to have the right to use force in self-defence, not just in response to violent repression by Georgia but in order to drive out the ‘repressive’ power. So this issue, argues the Honourable Judge from Brazil, is related to debates concerning the international nature of self-determination conflicts and the applicability of Chapter VII of the UN Charter and the humanitarian law on international rather than internal armed conflict. There are many examples for this debate such as the case of Tanzania intervening in Uganda to drive out Idi Amin and the Mozambique case, on one hand; and the condemnation of the use of force by Portugal, South Africa and Israel against those seeking self-determination, on the other hand.
On the basis of this argument, the Honourable Judge from Brazil believes that, had the Russian Federation put this defence of the South Ossetia right for self-determination and had the Court not made an error of law, the use of force by the Russian Federation would not have been ruled illegal.
Honourable Judge from Brazil
Justin Oliver Zinda.
End.
A POSITION PAPER FOR THE SECURITY COUNCIL ON THE SOUTH-OSSETIA CASE
In councils, other than the International Court of Justice where people had to remain impartial, participants were asked to prepare a position paper to represent a country and try to defend its foreign policy. The paper then had to be read to all participants in one’s chosen council before any debates could start in earnest. Although the South Ossetia case was not a topic for the Security Council, it was envisaged that it would be included as an urgent crisis point in the Security Council discussions. Having put the Security Council as my second choice, I also had to prepare, prior to the conference, a position paper for Brazil as outlined here below:
BRAZIL POSITION PAPER
ON
THE SOUTH OSSETIA CONFLICT
The International Court of Justice
TEIMUN 2009
The Hague – July 2009
Dear Mr. President,
Brazil is extremely concerned with the allegations submitted before this court jointly by Georgia and the Russian Federation. My country has unequivocal views on the issues raised and I am here to present our position.
On the question of the military intervention by the Russian Federation against Georgia, Brazil totally rejects the use of force for settling disputes between nations but supports settling of disputes by peaceful means. That is why my country advocates mediation as a way of settling disputes in accordance with Article 33 of the UN Charter.
Mr. President,
When a country is a victim of aggression and seeks support from the Security Council, it must receive assistance. Failure to act is tantamount to accepting the principle of ‘might is right’ and this will erode the credibility of the Security Council.
Brazil would like us to remember that peaceful settlement of disputes was the core reason for the creation of the League of Nations after the First World War. We know too well why the League of Nations failed in its endeavours and the Second World War is witness to that failure.
There were many reasons for this, but the main one was the inability of the League of Nations to enforce any of its decisions. To solve this problem, we created the United Nations after the Second World War. This time the Security Council, unlike its predecessor – The League of Nations, has power by Article 42 of the Charter to sanction the use of force to settle disputes.
Mr. President,
We cannot afford to fail again. When the United Nations were formed, it is worth quoting from the preamble that we - the founding nations - agreed to unite our strengths to maintain international peace and security, and to ensure, by the acceptance of the UN principles that armed forces shall not be used, save in the common interest.
Mr. President,
Regarding the treatment of the Georgian journalists, Brazil condemns any blatant disregard for international humanitarian law. All states are bound by this law and when it is not respected, it is up to the international community to ensure accountability. That is why Brazil supports the idea that war criminals can now be brought to justice at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. However, this should apply to every nation, otherwise those accused will often claim it is the victor’s justice brought for reasons of revenge.
Mr President,
Brazil hopes the Security Council will do its utmost best to uphold the principles of the United Nations and Human Rights.
Thank you.
Justin Oliver Zinda
Honourable Judge from Brazil.
End.
CONCLUSION: WHAT HAS TEIMUN 2009 GIVEN ME?
The TEIMUN conference gave me the opportunity to experience the workings and decision-making process of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) through role-playing in the simulated ICJ and interviewing at the ICC, respectively. It helped me gain a multilateral view of world affairs and develop my public speaking and debating skills, all of which I will greatly need in order to succeed in my new chosen career as a Barrister. I would therefore recommend that anyone planning to embark on a career in law or international relations follow in my footsteps and experience TEIMUN 2010.
In addition to developing the aforementioned skills, you will network with many like-minded people from all over the world you cannot even begin to dream of. Well, if that is not incentive enough, what about having a new rich ‘facebook’ with inspiring new friends from every corner of the globe?
==========oOo==========
In this picture [left to right]:
