菅直人の国連顧問就任と国連の対北制裁破り |
菅直人が貧困削減を目指す国連の「ハイレベル・パネル」メンバーに選ばれたという。国連の無意味さが、改めて印象づけられた形だ。
菅に一片の良心が残っているなら(ありえない仮定だが)、今後支給されるはずのファースト・クラス航空券などすべて返上し、貧困者救済に回すよう手配すべきである。
なお国連の新開発目標の一つという「インターネット接続など情報環境の格差克服」の予算が、世界知的財産機構(World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO)を通ずるパソコン供与の形で、北朝鮮にも回っていた事実が明らかになった(下記、FOXニュースの英文記事参照)。
日本政府は、こうした国連による事実上の対北制裁破りに対し、分担金支払い(アメリカに次ぎ日本が2位)の凍結などを掲げ、強く再発防止を迫らねばならない。
イザ!ニュース
菅前首相らが助言役に 国連の新開発目標づくりのメンバー
2012.8.1
国連は7月31日、貧困克服などを定めた国連ミレニアム開発目標(MDGs)の期限後の目標づくりを助言する「ハイレベルパネル」のメンバーを発表、英国のキャメロン首相らとともに菅直人前首相も選ばれた。
MDGsは、国際社会が2015年までの達成を目指す数値目標。00年の国連ミレニアムサミットで採択された。貧困削減のほか飢餓の減少、母子保健など各国が取り組む課題を定めている。
国連は新開発目標について「インターネット接続など情報環境の格差克服」「都市への人口集中対策」などを含め検討を続けている。(共同)
FoxNews.com
EXCLUSIVE: Experts charge UN high-tech shipment to
By George Russell
July 26, 2012
The obscure branch of the United Nations that shipped sophisticated computers and other high-tech equipment to
John Yoo, a national security expert during the first Bush administration and now a University of California, Berkeley, professor who specializes in international and U.S. constitutional law, says that the equipment shipped by the Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organization, or WIPO, “would allow North Korea to carry out simulations necessary to design highly sophisticated nuclear warheads…without the need for testing.”
Yoo’s charge is at odds with the preliminary conclusion of the U.S. State Department on the same issue. A State Department spokesman said Wednesday that it “doesn’t appear” that WIPO’s actions -- which involved sending the equipment and paying for it via
Yoo’s opinion was echoed by other proliferation experts, including former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton and a former top-level expert at the State Department who now heads an important anti-proliferation center in
Any conclusion that WIPO’s actions did not violate repeated U.N. Security Council sanctions against the insular communist regime, Yoo said, “would assume that the agencies of the United Nations have a mandate to violate the very measures necessary to protect international peace and security -- as determined by the Security Council, the only arm of the United Nations empowered to take steps to prevent such threats.”
For its part, the State Department declared that its own judgment was a “preliminary assessment,” and that it would await a ruling by relevant U.N. sanctions committees looking into the issue. Those committees were not consulted by WIPO’s director general, Francis Gurry, before the controversial equipment was shipped to the North Korean capital,
The very notion that even fully informed U.N. sanctions committees -- which were unsuccessful in halting the notorious Oil for Food scandal involving former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein -- will turn up much is questionable, according to
“Unfortunately, these committees have been where sanctions go to die,” Bolton told Fox News. “It is a complete abdication of responsibility, not to mention a signal of embarrassing weakness, for the
In an Op-Ed piece in The Wall Street Journal,
For his part, Yoo was emphatic that the WIPO shipments, which took place in late 2011 or early 2012, and were revealed by Fox News last April, were in violation of even stiffer
The State Department, however, is also shying away from that conclusion, as spokesman Victoria Nuland said yesterday. State, she declared, is “seeking more information from WIPO so that we can conclude our own work on whether there was any violation of
Whether the
State Department spokesperson Nuland sidestepped a question at the daily briefing yesterday as to whether the small U.N. agency was providing “enough cooperation.”
Nuland’s reply: “Well, we are continuing to work with them and that is a conversation that is ongoing.” She cited a number of “positive steps” taken by the agency in the wake of the cash-for-computers revelations -- but only on future projects, not those that have already taken place. One of those steps is a “commission that will have an external and independent auditing ability’’ to vet projects -- but only in the future.
The under-the-radar shipments of Hewlett-Packard computers and servers by WIPO shipments took place in late 2011 or early 2012, and were financed through the
Hewlett-Packard has declared that the shipments of laptops, printers and servers violated the company’s strict ban on exports of its high-tech equipment to such rogue regimes.
When the State Department began investigating the
According to Yoo, the equipment transfer gives the regime of fledgling leader Kim Jong Un a significant boost in hardware and software “that could quite conceivably contribute” to
That alone, he argues, is enough to cross the threshold of the first U.N. sanctions resolution against North Korea (known in UN-speak as DPRK, for Democratic People’s Republic of Korea), enacted in 2006. That resolution urges U.N. member states to prevent the “direct or indirect” supply of goods and technology “which could contribute to DPRK’s nuclear-related, ballistic missile-related or other weapons of mass destruction-related programs.”
Yoo emphasizes the world “could,” which, he says, means that the U.N. sanctions resolutions were intended to “cover a broad, non-exhaustive list of items and circumstances.” He also noted that other Security Council resolutions explicitly called on “relevant United Nations bodies and other interested parties,” as well as nation-states, to cooperate “fully” in the sanctions efforts.
Yoo offered his legal opinion jointly with another
Click here to view the legal memorandum.
Their contentions were backed up by a sanctions expert who is not involved in the whistle-blower imbroglio: Mark Fitzpatrick, head of the Non-proliferation and Disarmament program at
“Dr. Yoo's argument is correct,” Fitzpatrick emailed in response to questions from Fox News based on the
The fact that
The administration quickly canceled a freshly-minted deal to ship some 264,000 tons of food aid to the poverty-stricken rogue country. The satellite launch subsequently did not take place.
For its part,