By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, April 26 -- On the African political declaration in the UN General Assembly on Friday, the United States offered support, and then criticism.
Ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis said it didn't have enough on accountability, and shouldn't have spoken of Security Council reform as that is a matter for the “inter-governmental negotiation.”
The European Union said much the same, that the process of negotiating the declaration was too fast, and that the result didn't speak enough (at least for the EU) about the Responsibility to Protect and the International Criminal Court.
(The US said “accountability" instead of ICC - since it is not a member of the ICC.)
Inner City Press has learned that the draft declaration was presented to the EU, Norway and US, and they proposed inclusion of Protection of Civilians and R2P, among other things -- but NOT the International Criminal Court as such. But their proposals were rejected, in the African Group.
The EU threw in another issue, which Inner City Press has been hearing about but only off the record: that the EU wants African countries to be more open to non governmental organizations' participation, particularly on human trafficking.
Norway, which had indicated it might co-sponsor in some way the African declaration, ended up speaking and saying it supported it. In the morning, an AU representative told Inner City Press that it would be an African declaration, facilitated by South Sudan and South Africa and introduced by the Democratic Republic of Congo.
There's a lot of talk of respect for Africa, but then always the same complaints. Watch this site.
