‘Elaborate modalities’ to implement Palestine, Kashmir resolutions: Pakistan urges UNSC

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) – Urging the UN Security Council (UNSC) to “actively promote” resolution of conflicts and disputes, Pakistan demanded the UN “elaborate the modalities” to secure “consistent implementation” of its resolutions on Palestine and Jammu and Kashmir.

Munir Akram, Pakistan’s top diplomat to the UN in New York, told a UN Security Council briefing on Thursday: “The (UN Security) Council has not been able to secure consistent implementation of its own resolutions, such as the resolutions relating to Palestine or Jammu and Kashmir.”

The UNSC was hearing from participating UN members on the "rule of law in the maintenance of international peace and security."

Pointing to Palestine and Kashmir, Akram told the UNSC: “In these cases, the right to self-determination has been suppressed brutally and foreign occupation has been allowed to persist over several decades. It is essential to elaborate the modalities through which this principle (of right to self-determination) can be implemented universally and consistently in the contemporary context.”

The briefing was held as Ecuador, Japan, Malta, Mozambique and Switzerland assumed their non-permanent member seats of the UN Security Council.

Japan is currently the rotating UNSC chair for January and the briefing session was chaired by the country’s Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi.

The UNSC has five permanent and 15 non-permanent members.

Akram said the UN Charter has set out fundamental principles – including self-determination of peoples, sovereignty, equality and territorial integrity of states and non-interference in their internal affairs.

“The (UN) Security Council has a special responsibility to implement the (UN) Charter’s purposes and principles. The council’s resolutions and decisions, whether adopted under Chapter VI or VII of the Charter, are legally binding since the member states are obliged, under Article 25 of the Charter, to implement the decisions of the Security Council,” the veteran Pakistani diplomat stressed.

While the UN Security Council has been “unable to ensure consistent and universal implementation and respect for the central principles of the UN Charter,” Akram said the UNSC, however, “has, to its credit, never endorsed or authorized the unilateral use of force.”

“Yet, it was often unable to actively prevent the use of force e.g. in the Middle East in 1956, 1967, and 2003. The Security Council should act preemptively to prevent conflicts before they erupt. To this end, the council should be enabled to meet automatically – without a procedural decision – on any item on its agenda,” he suggested.

Urging the UNSC to “actively promote the resolution of conflicts and disputes, not simply manage them, much less ignore them,” he said: “It should fully utilize the several instrumentalities available under (UN) Charter for the pacific settlement of disputes.”

“The (UN) secretary-general should be less reticent in exercising his authority under Article 99 of the Charter. No party to a conflict or dispute should be able to refuse the secretary-general’s ‘good offices’; nor reject mediation and arbitration. And, the remit of judicial mechanisms, especially the ICJ (International Court of Justice), should be fully utilized e.g. by making the court’s jurisdiction mandatory on issues that are on the agenda of the Security Council,” the Pakistani diplomat explained.