Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has issued a call to abolish the death sentence, as a new US report shows that its use is decreasing there and that several states are considering ending its use. The 20th anniversary of the international death penalty treaty was marked by Pillay’s appeal in Geneva. The treaty calls for the universal abolition of capital punishment. Pillay’s office says that 140 countries no longer carry out the death penalty, and 72 countries have ratified the treaty’s Optional Protocol, which bars the death penalty.
The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), a monitoring group in Washington, DC in the US, shows in its annual report that 106 death sentences were issued in the US in 2009, down from a post-1976 high of 328 in 1994.
Update 2 18:55 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev late Friday 4 December issued this joint statement after a week of high-level negotiations in Geneva:
”Recognizing our mutual determination to support strategic stability between the United States of America and the Russian Federation, we express our commitment, as a matter of principle, to continue to work together in the spirit of the Start Treaty following its expiration, as well as our firm intention to ensure that a new treaty on strategic arms enter into force at the earliest possible date.”
The treaty officially expires Saturday 5 December 2009. The two countries have said in recent weeks that while they were working towards completing a draft for a new treaty by the time the old one ends, it would more likely be the end of 2009 before a draft could be ready. The new statement avoids setting a deadline, but reinforces the commitment of both sides.
A spokesperson for the US Mission in Geneva said that “The US and Russia are continuing to work hard to complete the new Start Treaty and our delegations are making significant progress toward that end, nonetheless, some difficult issues remain.”
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Russia and the US are close to signing a new treaty to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start), which expires Saturday 5 December, Russian news agency Ria Novosti reports late Friday, although it is unlikely the pact will be signed before the end of the year. The agency sites Russian military sources and says the two sides will meet again Saturday in Geneva. According to Ria Novosti, “The chief of the Russian General Staff said earlier that the ongoing talks had run into disagreements on inspection and verification procedures.”
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The United States heads into the Cartagena Summit, which opens Sunday 29 November in Colombia, now saying that it is continuing to review its policy on signing the international Mine Ban treaty. The US is sending a sizeable official observer team to the summit, with groups from the State Department, Pentagon, US Agency for International Development and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Cartagena Summit is the second review of the 1997 Ottawa Convention that bans the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of antipersonnel mines. More than 1,000 delegates, including several heads of state, will participate in the summit, which will assess progress made in clearing the world of landmines.
Cause of US shift unexplained
The US said in a statement issued Wednesday 25 November that it is still reviewing its position on signing the 10-year-old Mine Ban treaty – the opposite of what it said the previous day, but it was unclear if the statement was a correction of an error, a change in tactics ahead of the Cartagena Summit that opens 29 November in Colombia, or a change of heart following harsh criticism.
US to be observer only at Cartagena summit
Demining demonstration in Tirana (photo: Cartagena Summit)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The United States will be attending the Cartagena Summit on a Mine-free World in Colombia 30 November as an observer only, following a review and recent decision not to sign the landmine treaty, US State Department spokesperson Ian Kelly said at a daily briefing in Washington Tuesday 24 November. The summit is the Second Review Conference of the Ottawa Convention, informally known as the landmines ban treaty. CNN reports that the decision comes as a surprise to observers who believed the US has been considering joining the 156 other nations who have signed the treaty, citing Human Rights Watch’s reaction. The decision also dashes hopes of the Geneva-based Cartagena Summit secretariat that the US would soon be a party to the treaty.
The official name of the treaty is the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Antipersonnel Mines and on Their Destruction. It’s also often referred to as the AP (anti-personnel) Mine Ban Convention. It entered into force in 1999. China and Russia are the only other major powers not to have signed the convention.
Not in interests of US defense needs
Kelly’s response when asked why the US is not signing the treaty was that “we made our policy review and we determined that we would not be able to meet our national defense needs, nor our security commitments to our friends and allies if we sign this convention.”
What landmines do: an eloquent image
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Good progress has been made in reducing the number of landmines throughout the world, but much more work remains to be done, with 70 countries still having mines or explosive remnants of war, concludes the Landmine Monitor Report 2009: Toward a Mine-Free World, an annual report published Thursday 12 November by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. This year’s report includes a 10-year summary since the reports began in 1999. The group is the research and monitoring programme of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines.
Eighty percent of the world’s countries are party to the treaty but the report notes that “Thirty-nine countries—including China, India, Pakistan, Russia, and the United States—have yet to join the treaty, but most are in de facto compliance with many of the treaty’s key provisions. In recent years, Myanmar and Russia are the only states using antipersonnel mines. Use by non-state armed groups decreased from a high of 19 countries in 2001 to seven countries in 2008.”
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss government has suspended its 20 August 2009 agreement with Libya designed to improve relations and is restricting visas issued to Libyans. The Federal Council (cabinet) noted in a press release Wednesday 4 November that Tripoli has refused all collaboration and that “the two Swiss citizens, who were taken in violation of international law, are still being held in an unknown area. The Libyan authorities refuse to allow anyone to visit them.”
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Federal Councillor Ueli Maurer, head of the Swiss Federal Department of Defense, Civil Protection and Sport, DDPS, and the German ambassador to Bern, Axel Berg, signed a new treaty governing military service of dual-nationals from both countries. Dual-nationals are obliged to do their military service only in one country and can choose which country, although normally they will be expected to do so in their country of residence.
The treaty foresees that service requirements comprise actual military service or a military tax. Since Switzerland does not recognize civil defence service as a legal alternative to military service, completing this in Germany would not be recognized. Switzerland has treaties of this kind with France, Italy and Austria already.
Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, Swiss minister for justice and police, press conference on UBS settlement
Update 4 23:15, Update 3 16:40, Update 2 16:27, Update 1 16:12
Ed. note: UBS shares dipped slightly during the afternoon, but began to rise slowly on the Swiss stock market during the press conference. In related news, Doug Shulman, the US Commissioner of Internal Revenue, who led comments by the US on the UBS case, took up his duties as the new chair of the OECD Forum on Tax Administration 18 August.
Bern and Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The seven members of the Swiss Federal Council (cabinet) Wednesday afternoon 19 August gave a press conference on the settlement in the UBS case. The government issued the following statement:
UBS New York headquarters
Update 2 Florida, USA; Bern and Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The bell hasn’t yet quite tolled for anyone in the US court case where the IRS is asking for names of UBS bank clients. Judge Alan Gold in Miami late Friday 7 August, Swiss time, gave the two governments another week, until 12 August and at their request, to hammer out details of an out of court settlement.
Reactions were mixed, with the Financial Times reporting that “Friday’s setback caused confusion” for investors, arguing that the “failure” to reach an agreement will hurt UBS shares. Swiss media were more phlegmatic, viewing the delay as an acceptance that a resolution of several technical issues requires more time, which the judge has given.
