Panelists Debate International Law in Lebanon

Panelists discuss the United Nations and International Law in Lebanon and the Middle East

Panelists at the American University of Beirut were split among defenders and critics on whether or not the United Nations was complying with international law in Lebanon and the Middle East.

Organized by the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs (IFI), the discussion, entitled "The United Nations and International Law in Lebanon and the Middle East," was held in West Hall on December 5 and attracted a large audience.

The panel, moderated by IFI Director Rami Khouri, included Geir Pedersen, the personal representative of the United Nations secretary general for Lebanon; Karim Makdisi, assistant professor of political studies and international relations at AUB; and Timur Goksel, lecturer in political studies at AUB and a former UNIFIL senior adviser.

While the 1990s were a period of hope for a strong UN, which issued a tough resolution for the use of force against the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, the United Nations' credibility was called into question after the September 11 attacks, which prompted the United States to wage a "war against terror," said Makdisi.

"George Bush infamously challenged the UN at the General Assembly, saying that if it did not support the United States' impending attack on Iraq, the UN would face irrelevancy…That's a very important challenge," said Makdisi. Later, Bush challenged the UN again by saying that the world was divided into good and evil and there was no room for neutral ground. Makdisi added that despite its initial lack of authorization of the US attack on Iraq, the UN later turned into a "defacto collaborator" of the US occupation of Iraq.

Timur Goksel, the former senior adviser to UNIFIL, noted that any peace-keeping force needs two things to be able to operate: a local authority to refer to and one central command.

Geir Pedersen, the UN secretary-general's representative in Lebanon, said that when the UN was first established, it was very easy to deal with international law. "The UN's role was to keep the peace and avoid war," he said. Later, other issues came up and the UN found itself needing not just to protect borders but the individuals within those borders. So it started intervening on behalf of issues relating to human rights, genocide, and global warming.