Lifting the veil from the Security Council

Javier Perez de Cuellar told Chinmaya R. Gharekhan of India in 1991 that the U.N. Secretary-General's job had lost its charm now that the Cold War had ended and the Big Five would look to push their agendas through the Security Council.

Gharekhan sat at the Council for five years, first as India's ambassador and then as the special representative of Dr Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Throughout this period he kept a diary and has produced an engrossing account of the UNSC's functioning through the Iraq, Haiti, Rwanda and Bosnia crises. But it is his account of the Vatican-like election process for the Secretary-General that is the most revealing.



31 January 2006
The Hindu

Lifting the veil from the U.N. Security Council
An able chronicle of the U.N.'s exertions, from Iraq and Bosnia to Rwanda and Haiti

SIDDHARTH VARADARAJAN

The Horseshoe Table — An Inside View of the U.N. Security Council
Chinmaya R. Gharekhan
Pearson Longman, Delhi: 2006. Rs. 550.

If there is one arm of the United Nations that has seen its work escalate almost exponentially since the end of the Cold War, it is the U.N. Security Council (UNSC).

Freed from the deadlock of competing superpower vetoes, the UNSC — as the world body's principal instrument for the maintenance of peace and security — has started playing an increasingly active role as peacekeeper, `peacemaker' and even enforcer. Prior to 1990, the UNSC had passed a total of 646 resolutions, at an average of around 15 a year since the U.N.'s founding in 1945. That year, it passed 33, including the famous resolution calling on Iraq to vacate its aggression against Kuwait (UNSCR 660), and in 1991 — the year Chinmaya R. Gharekhan first sat around the Council's horseshoe-shaped table as India's ambassador — the number was 41. By the time Gharekhan left the U.N. at the end of 1996, the UNSC had passed another 366 resolutions. With the passage of a resolution this January on the situation in Cote d'Ivoire, the score today has reached 1652, making that a total of 1,006 resolutions passed since 1990.

Shrinkage in stature

But if the UNSC has seen a huge increase in the volume and scope of its work, the office of the Secretary General (SG) has perforce had to shrink in clout and stature, if not size. Javier Perez de Cuellar, who served as SG from 1981 to 1991, had more than an inkling of what was in store for his successors. The post had become unattractive and would become more so in the future, he told Gharekhan when the latter, in his capacity as the rotating head of the UNSC came to consult him on a matter. "I met him... to discuss the situation in northern Iraq but he chose to give vent to his frustration with the impending `new world order' and the place of the Secretary General in it," Gharekhan writes in his very readable insider's account of the Security Council's role in the first half of the 1990s. "He was particularly concerned about the dominance of the Five. `Why should I have 10 eyes all the time looking over my shoulder to see what I am doing?... It is amazing that in spite of all that is going on, so many people are still interested in becoming Secretary General! They must be very brave people'," Gharekhan quotes the Peruvian telling him.

Perez de Cuellar was right. His successor, Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt, flirted with bravery and came to grief. In his five years as SG, he alternated between defiance of the United States and its pushy ambassador, Madeleine Albright, and vain attempts at accommodation, only to pay the price. Alone among U.N. Secretary Generals, he was denied a second term, while his bete noire, Albright, who stooped as low as to try and convince Mrs. Boutros-Ghali to make her husband see `reason', went on to bigger and better things in the second Clinton administration.

Tragedies

Gharekhan's book — which draws liberally on the author's inside view, first as India's ambassador and then as Boutros-Ghali's special representative to the Security Council — provides an account of the improbably brave Egyptian's ouster as part of a narrative of the U.N.'s successes and failures from Iraq and West Asia to Bosnia, Rwanda and Haiti. It is an honest description of what happened, free of the victim's urge to clear his own name which mars Boutros-Ghali's own memoirs, Unvanquished: A U.N.-U.S. Saga (Random House, 1999).

Gharekhan's account of the UNSC's deliberations and consultations on the first Gulf War and its aftermath, as well as the evolving tragedies in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, provide many insights and details that specialists and laypersons familiar with the broad outlines will find enormously useful. But it is in the description of the 1991 and 1996 elections for SG — the first led to Boutros-Ghali's victory, the second to his ouster thanks to being vetoed by the U.S. — that this book breaks entirely fresh and fascinating ground. Peeling away the layers of mystique surrounding a process that has tended to be as opaque as the election of a Pope, Gharekhan provides a detailed and dare I say gripping account of the Tammany Hall-like games nations play to ensure that a candidate favourable to them in some way gets chosen for the top U.N. job. With the current incumbent, Kofi Annan, due to demit office at the end of 2006, prospective candidates and their backers would do well to read this book.

Relevance of the U.N.

If there is one omission in an otherwise comprehensive narrative, it is the Qana episode which, in my opinion, played a decisive role in ensuring Boutros-Ghali was denied a second term.

Qana was the tragic village in southern Lebabon where more than a 100 civilians who had taken refuge in a U.N. compound were killed by Israeli shells on 18 April 1996 during the notorious `Grapes of Wrath' operation launched by Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak. Boutros-Ghali set up an inquiry under the charge of a Dutch army officer, Major-General Franklin van Kappen. The inquiry report, finalised in the first week of May, suggested that Israel had deliberately targeted the U.N. compound and the civilians who had taken shelter there. Warren Christopher, who was the U.S. Secretary of State at the time, tried his best to get the SG to withhold the report or delete the offensive reference to Israel. Boutros-Ghali refused.

In his memoirs, Boutros-Ghali recounts his subsequent visit to Qana and how he wept upon meeting the villagers there. By contrast, Gharekhan's book is written with restraint, precision and even calm detachment. Individual bravery has its place in international diplomacy but he is a firm believer in the relevance of the U.N. to the contemporary world "despite the blow to its image and credibility" by Rwanda, Somalia and the Iraq-related events of 2003. His insider's account is bound to be considered a vital ingredient to the debate on reforming the world body.

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Pouring troubled water on oil

Regular readers of my pieces on energy issues would have noticed the key role India's oil minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar, was playing in pushing cooperation between India and China, Iran and other Asian countries. Why do I say 'was'? Because on January 29, the Prime Minister unceremoniously removed him from the oil ministry...












to the sound of popping champagne corks at the U.S. Embassy in Delhi and Reliance Petroleum headquarters in Mumbai, no doubt.

30 January 2006
The Hindu

Pouring troubled water on oil

Siddharth Varadarajan

The Cabinet reshuffle disrupts the gathering momentum on energy security while leaving unaddressed core areas of underperformance such as home and foreign affairs.

— Photo: S. Subramanium

PAYING THE PRICE FOR PERFORMANCE? Mani Shankar Aiyar who was moved out of the Petroleum Ministry.

UNDER NORMAL circumstances, a Minister is divested of his charge for one of three reasons: non-performance, dishonesty or promotion to bigger and better things. But these are clearly not normal times.

Mani Shankar Aiyar, who was stripped of his Petroleum, Oil and Natural Gas portfolio and demoted to Youth Affairs and Sports, is widely regarded as not just one of the best performing Ministers in the Manmohan Singh Government but the best. Only six months ago, both India Today and Hindustan Times — in their survey-based `report cards' on the United Progressive Alliance's first year in power — put Mr. Aiyar at the top of their list for his stewardship of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry. His performance was judged better than that of corporate favourites like P. Chidambaram and Kamal Nath. If non-performance or underperformance were the issue, then surely other Ministries should have been touched by the latest reshuffle, particularly Home, where Shivraj Patil's handling of his remit is seen as lacklustre at best, even by sections of the Congress party.

Mr. Aiyar brought to his Ministry a dynamism and vision, which opened new vistas for India on the energy security front. Earlier this month, he laid the foundations for a partnership with China whose potential is so significant that his visit made front-page news in financial dailies around the world. Moreover, his proposals for an Asian energy market and an Asia-wide hydrocarbon grid generated excitement in energy producing and consuming countries from Turkey, Kazakhstan, and Iran in the north and west to Korea and China in the east. With Mr. Aiyar's inexplicable ouster, a question mark has now been placed over the Manmohan Singh Government's commitment to these initiatives.

In the absence of official clarity, all we have to go by is the whisper campaign emanating from the Prime Minister's Office. That Mr. Aiyar was "all gas and no energy," that he got into a public spat with ONGC chief Subir Raha over the company's poor performance on the exploration front, and that many of the deals his Ministry sought to enter into — like ONGC Videsh Ltd's attempted purchase of a lucrative oil field in Nigeria — were hare-brained and ill-thought-out. The last objection went out of the window the minute the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) picked up the Nigerian field at a higher price than what OVL was going to pay and saw its own share price go up as a result. As for the ONGC issue, one could criticise Mr. Aiyar's handling of the matter but the core concerns he raised about the oil giant's performance inside the country are widely shared by industry watchers. In any event, none of these reasons adds up to a coherent explanation.

Until the Prime Minister comes forward to offer a public explanation of why this portfolio change was felt necessary, it will be hard for his handlers to dispel the public perception that powerful forces within and outside the country have prevailed over performance. It is also true that the oil ministry has always been considered important by ruling dispensations as a lubricant for party finances. Even if these forces and factors had no role to play in the reshuffle, there can be no denying the fact that Mr. Aiyar's ouster is likely to be reassuring to them. The opposition of the United States to many of the energy projects he was pursuing is well known. U.S. Secretary of State Condolezza Rice has said on more than one occasion that the Bush administration is dangling the carrot of civil nuclear cooperation in order to get India to stop looking at countries like Iran as sources of energy. Earlier this month, a written demand was made that India not invest in Syria. The common feeling will be that rather than issuing a demarche each time the Oil Ministry makes a move, the U.S. felt it would be better to lobby to get rid of the man at the root of this uppity behaviour. India is not a banana republic so this is presumably not what happened. But in politics, perceptions matter as much as reality. The new incumbent, Murli Deora, who brings with him the burden of proximity to not just private players like Reliance but also the U.S., will have to work hard to ensure that these perceptions are proved false.

If India's energy diplomacy suffers a setback as a result of Mr. Aiyar's removal, the slack is unlikely to be picked up by the Ministry of External Affairs so long as it continues to remain headless. The Prime Minister may make an able Foreign Minister as well but the modern demands of foreign policy require dedicated leadership. Apart from protocol-related issues — simply put, Foreign Ministers from many countries have indicated they would prefer to stay away from New Delhi for the moment rather than being fobbed off with Ministers of State — the lack of a full-fledged Minister is also taking its toll on the pro-activeness of India's external outreach. Even when Natwar Singh was the incumbent, the exclusively U.S.- and P-5-centric approach of the United Progressive Alliance Government meant vast swathes of the globe remained unvisited, particularly in Latin America and Africa.

The MEA's territorial divisions and secretaries are energetic and gung-ho; but the absence of direct political leadership means many important diplomatic initiatives are languishing.

© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu

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After Iran gas, U.S. tells India to back off Syrian oil

It's not just Iran the Bush administration wants India to keep away from when it comes to energy matters. Syria has also joined the list of countries Washington says India must not have any dealings with. In a demarche, the U.S. embassy in Delhi has asked the Indian government to reconsider its decision to invest in a major Syrian oil field in alliance with China.

28 January 2006
The Hindu

Front Page

U.S. tells India to back off Syria oil deal
Aide memoire handed over to Ministry

Siddharth Varadarajan

NEW DELHI: Taking strong exception to India's recent decision to buy a Syrian oilfield in partnership with China, the United States has asked the Manmohan Singh Government to "reconsider" its proposed investment.

A demarche to this effect was made earlier this month and an aide memoire outlining Washington's objections handed over to the Ministry of External Affairs by senior diplomats here. In December last, ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) and the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) teamed up to purchase a 37 per cent stake in the al-Furat oil and gas fields from Petro-Canada for $573 million.

The mature fields, jointly run by Shell, have proven reserves of 300 million barrels of oil equivalent. Indian officials consider the Syrian venture to be of enormous strategic significance, both for the value of the underlying assets and the role it will play in cementing the China-India partnership for acquiring oil and gas equities in third countries.

The U.S. aide memoire, a copy of which is in the possession of The Hindu, says: "The United States strongly opposes such investments in Syrian resources."

Pointing out that the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed two resolutions, UNSCR 1636 and 1644, "mandating complete cooperation by the government of Syria with the U.N.'s investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri," the U.S. note says: "Now is not the time to send mixed messages to the SARG [Syrian Arab Republic Government] either through investment deals or through any form of economic or political reward to the Damascus regime."

"Reconsider decision"

The U.S. is concerned that "the Syrian regime will seek to exploit news of any FDI at the moment as evidence that it is not isolated and therefore not comply with its UNSCR obligations." It adds bluntly: "We ask that you reconsider this decision to extend such a significant amount of investment in Syria".

It is not known whether the U.S. embassy in Beijing presented a similar note to the Chinese Government. Indian officials say the U.S. has been told that the Syrian investment will proceed as planned.

Coming on the heels of the Bush administration's opposition to gas imports from Iran, the demand is likely to intensify fears that Washington is leveraging its offer of civil nuclear cooperation to curb India's attempts to diversify its sources of energy.

"We are being told whom to do business with and where we should stay away from," a senior Indian official told The Hindu. "Today, it is Iran and Syria, tomorrow it may be Sudan or Myanmar or Venezuela or someplace else. At stake is not just our energy security but also our right to take decisions by ourselves."

The aide memoire says the U.S. encourages India "to send the Syrian Government a tough message that the international community — in which your nation plays a crucial and growing role — expects Syria to improve its behaviour before other states can resume normal dealings with it."

Conditions for Syria

Among the conditions the U.S. would like fulfilled before India gets involved in Syria are:

"Syria must cease its interference into Lebanese affairs, cooperate fully with UNIIC Mehlis's investigation [into Hariri's assassination], prevent the use of its territory by those supporting terrorism and the insurgency in Iraq, expel Palestinian rejectionist groups and take tangible steps to improve its domestic human rights record."

Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu

Reactions to my story: U.S. embassy in New Delhi, Bharatiya Janata Party

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Coming to terms with nuclear regime change

Reviled by some in India as the "ayatollahs of non-proliferation", Michael Krepon of the Stimson Center and Leonard Spector of the Centre for Nonproliferation Studies are leading the charge against the Indo-U.S. nuclear agreement in Washington. In an interview with me during a recent visit to Delhi, they spoke about the reasons for their opposition.

28 January 2006
The Hindu

Coming to terms with nuclear regime change
An interview with Michael Krepon and Leonard Spector

Siddharth Varadarajan

Condoleezza Rice has said offering nuclear commerce to India is the price Washington must pay to get the Indians to cut off energy links with Iran. Are you comfortable with this kind of trade-off?

Michael Krepon: It's odd for the Bush administration to suggest it's OK for India to import Iranian natural gas by tanker but not by pipeline. It's also odd to support a peace process in South Asia but to oppose infrastructure that can help with the peace process. That said, Iran does pose a serious challenge to the nuclear non-proliferation regime that is detrimental to U.S. and Indian national security interests. So we have to find ways to square this circle.

Leonard Spector: There is a timing issue too. Availability of gas from Iran will certainly come faster from either means — pipelines or ships — than even the signing of a nuclear agreement because the whole nuclear area is so difficult from the commercial standpoint, even assuming everything else was taken care of.

But in the medium to long term, from the carbon emissions point of view and because of hydrocarbon depletion, many argue nuclear power has to play a bigger role in India's energy mix. Why do you oppose nuclear cooperation with India in the form the Bush administration is proposing?

Leonard Spector: The problem is that in order to facilitate nuclear trade with India, it is necessary to change non-proliferation rules which have applied since 1978. I think the U.S. and virtually the whole spectrum of Congress and even critics like us would be prepared to do that if the deal were structured the right way and if the impact were both to improve relations with India and its energy situation but not to do damage to the non-proliferation regime.

But what kind of specific damage do you anticipate? Talk me through the worst-case proliferation scenarios you foresee if this deal goes through tomorrow.

Michael Krepon: The non-proliferation system is based on principles, standards, and norms. And the Bush administration's initiative with India seeks a country-specific exception to these. If the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) does not agree to a country-specific exception, then the rule of consensus, which is part of the system when it comes to nuclear commerce, would be broken. An exception would be made for India, other nuclear suppliers would make exceptions for their customers, China for Pakistan, Russia for Iran and then someone else for someone else. The regime will be negatively affected.

I don't see how. Domestic U.S. legislation since 1978 prohibits nuclear trade with India but until the NSG adopted additional rules in 1992 banning trade with countries unwilling to accept full-scope IAEA safeguards, nuclear commerce with India was perfectly legal and consistent with the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Today, it is only this rule that has to be changed, not the NPT, and I don't see how it damages the non-proliferation system.

Leonard Spector: I think your fundamental point is correct. This isn't the NPT but the supplier rule...

And that rule itself is a case of the wrong medicine being prescribed for the right disease. The disease was the IAEA's failure to find Iraq's secret nuclear programme before 1991, a country which had full-scope safeguards. Banning commerce with India, Pakistan, and Israel was to bark up the wrong tree.

Leonard Spector: I think the reason for the NSG rule was not the Iraq situation per se, because for many years the U.S. was trying to get this rule adopted. What you have had is a core framework, the NPT, and there have been add-ons built around it. So do you want to abandon that principle starkly, or in a way that does as little damage as possible to the regime that you've established. And I think there may be elements in the nuclear deal that may be modified, embellished or enhanced in a way that even if the rule is changed, the overall regime is strengthened.

Michael Krepon: I would propose a principled approach rather than a country-specific exception. So if the rules of nuclear commerce are to be changed to accommodate the new world in which we live, they ought to be changed in accordance with principles that apply to everyone. So, for example, one principle would be that if a country is a responsible international actor with respect to non-proliferation and on the question of terrorism, the rules might be changed. But we change those rules on the basis of the principle, not on the basis of a country exception.

But the `rule' you are proposing — if it is done that way — India would get through. Pakistan probably wouldn't but India would. So where is the hitch? Why are you against India accessing nuclear commerce?

Michael Krepon: That would be one principle, but it's not the only one. I would propose crafting a set of principles that do not do violence to a system that 185 countries now adhere to. It makes no sense to wreck a system 185 countries belong to in order to favour one country that does not. I think this issue can be addressed in a satisfactory way so that the international community and the U.S. Congress are not faced with a stark either-or choice — either you favour India, or you do serious damage to the non-proliferation system. That's not a good choice.

I want to look at your scenario of country A helping country B. Let us set aside the case of Iran for the moment, because legally speaking, there's nothing the U.S. and India are proposing to do that would alter the rules Iran as a member of NPT and Russia as a member of NSG have to adhere to in their commerce...

Michael Krepon: No, we are thinking of changing those rules because of the India deal.

But Iran is a member of the NPT, it has accepted full-scope safeguards and Russia can sell anything it likes. So to come back to my question, how would the world be more insecure if safeguarded fuel and facilities were to come to a firewalled civilian programme in India and even Pakistan from America and China. How would this make the world more unstable?

Leonard Spector: India undertook activities which the U.S. condemned many years ago, i.e. to pursue nuclear weapons and keep the option open and move it along. I think, in principle, we are still unhappy this happened and that India continues to have that programme. But we want to find a way to move forward. One way is to set a very high barrier which says we will reconsider cases like India if a country has a decade of disciplined export behaviour, if a country has demonstrated its readiness to apply international export control regimes, if the country is pro-active in supporting global non-proliferation norms, something like that. India would meet this test because its behaviour has been exemplary for a long period of time. Pakistan would not, but it might do so at a later stage. The point is to say we are prepared to make an exception but only because India has done so much in terms of helping non-proliferation externally.

So if this condition is embodied in the exception the U.S. wants to introduce in its domestic law and at the NSG, would you then support the deal with India?

Michael Krepon: It depends. There is another condition. If one engages in nuclear commerce with country X, then the facilities and equipment should be safeguarded for the duration, not temporarily, so that X doesn't move those into a military programme later. So I think a second condition — and the Bush administration itself has articulated this — is that if commercial activities are entered into, those facilities should be safeguarded in perpetuity.

Robert Joseph introduced that on November 2 but there is a grey area about whether in-perpetuity safeguards are being proposed only for imported fuel and facilities — I don't think India would object — or to indigenous facilities as well.

Michael Krepon: I think this is the subject of negotiations.

Leonard Spector: There are no domestically produced facilities. These are Canadian designs. This technology was actually imported from Canada, the first reactors were built with Canadian assistance in Rajasthan, and India in effect reverse-engineered these facilities.

For certain reactors, perhaps, but with very major modifications. These cannot be called Canadian.

Leonard Spector: Well, I don't know to what extent, so I would say that safeguards in perpetuity should apply to these as well. But I appreciate the point you are making implicitly... I wouldn't agree but you might consider splitting the difference: perhaps we can look forward, not back at material that was produced.

So you would be comfortable with an agreement which says India is not obliged to make a past accounting for all plutonium ever produced in these to-be-safeguarded facilities?

Leonard Spector: That could be the basis for discussion, but there would be one reactor where I would have a problem, CIRUS, which was provided with a peaceful use pledge. So I would also articulate, as one of the principles, that a country should not be in violation of a nuclear trade agreement as I feel India is in respect to CIRUS. But these are elements to work with, they need to be addressed.

I understand from my meetings with Indian interlocutors that India will not go beyond the four corners of the July agreement to accept, for example, a ban on fissile material production. But if one looks within the four corners itself, there is room for non-proliferation rules to be adopted.

Such as?

Leonard Spector: If you brought CIRUS out of the military and into the civilian list, you would constrain a certain amount of fissile production right there. And it wouldn't be a ban or cut-off but a partial restriction.

What about the breeder, which is a domestically designed civilian facility?

Leonard Spector: The more that goes into civilian the better. There could be some trading — you could have a reactor, may be this one, where both sides agree that a decision can be made a little later. One exception, not a host of exceptions. But my impression is that the breeder is not suitable for military purposes, it's probably a reasonable option to put on the civilian side to try and build a package that looks attractive to Congress.

Both of you gentlemen are lovingly called `ayatollahs of non-proliferation' by establishment-oriented commentators here.

Michael Krepon: That is a very objectionable term because these so-called ayatollahs, myself included, wish to improve U.S.-India relations, we wish to do so without demolishing the non-proliferation system.

Name-calling really does not do service to the efforts of those who are trying to balance these two objectives. Name-calling is something that schoolboys do, it is not something that helps to find solutions.

© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu

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India casting a wide net in its hunt for energy

But tactic calls for political dexterity.

[A story I wrote on the request of the International Herald Tribune about the emerging tension between India's quest for nuclear energy cooperation from the United States and its plans for an Asian energy grid involving, besides others, Iran.]

25 January 2006
International Herald Tribune, p. 12

India casting a wide net in its hunt for energy
But tactic calls for political dexterity

By Siddharth Varadarajan
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2006

DAGANG, China: On a wintry January afternoon, India's oil minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar, toured the latest frontier in his country's search for energy security: an aging oil field near Tianjin that pumps out as much crude today as it did in the 1960s.

Indian fields of similar vintage are only half as productive. People in the Indian oil industry say Chinese technologies for improved and enhanced oil recovery could raise their output and help reduce the country's import burden.

A landmark agreement, signed in Beijing on Jan. 12, has cleared the way for India and China to collaborate not only in technology but also in hydrocarbon exploration and production, a partnership that eventually could alter fundamental equations in the world's oil and natural gas sector.

Last year, India lost to China in a costly and bitter battle for PetroKazakhstan, a Canadian company that produces oil in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan. But, confounding international predictions of an escalating rivalry, Indian and Chinese oil companies have agreed to place joint bids for energy assets in other countries.

In December the state-controlled oil companies China National Petroleum and Oil & Natural Gas, of India, jointly bid for Petro-Canada's interest in Al Furat Petroleum, a joint venture with Syrian Petroleum and Syria Shell Petroleum Development.

If successful, the China-India alliance could pose a challenge to hydrocarbon-producing countries and rival corporate contenders alike.

"When companies from the two sides submit a joint bid, no project would be beyond our reach, " Aiyar told Ma Kai, chairman of China's National Development and Reforms Commission, shortly before the two men signed the memorandum of understanding on Jan. 12.

Not only the Indians, undoubtedly junior players in any head-to-head clash with the Chinese, see benefits in cooperation.

For India, the agreement with China capped an extraordinary year on the energy front. In the past 12 months, it reversed a longstanding policy and opened negotiations with Iran and Pakistan on a natural gas pipeline, and it reached a preliminary agreement with the United States to resume civilian nuclear cooperation after a hiatus of more than 30 years.

And the international unit of Oil & Natural Gas, called ONGC Videsh, or OVL, plans to build on its presence in Russia's Sakhalin-1 oil field, India's largest overseas investment. OVL now wants to buy into the more lucrative Sakhalin-3.

With Iran and Pakistan as transit routes, Central Asian oil and natural gas suddenly seem more accessible too. The government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India has begun to talk of an Asian gas grid and oil market, and its proposals are finding traction both with major oil importers like China and South Korea and with producers.

An ambitious $22.5 billion project, introduced in New Delhi in November at an Asian energy ministers' round table, would call for the construction of five separate pipelines.

"Asian energy architecture will generate greater stability and predictability in the market", says Talmiz Ahmed, a senior diplomat seconded to India's oil ministry. "And that's good for both buyers and sellers".

Most audacious of all is a proposal to convert the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which Washington intends to deliver Caspian resources to the West, into a feeder for Asia. The idea is to extend it to Eilat, Israel, where the oil would be loaded onto tankers for shipment through the Red Sea.

But as New Delhi moves to consolidate its gains on diverse energy fronts, it is being forced to confront the challenges of political reality.

Major Western oil companies have commercial concerns, and the United States has geopolitical ones, especially because Iran would be a vital part of an Asian energy network.

In a world where control over energy sources and transportation serves as a proxy for strategic power, the Indian government has begun asking itself a basic question: Is it possible to deal with both Washington and Tehran?

For the Bush administration, at least, the answer seems to be no. For example, the U.S. offer of civilian nuclear cooperation last year was largely intended to help wean India from a growing fixation on Iranian gas.

It may have been a coincidence that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice first publicly expressed interest in nuclear cooperation with India during a press conference in Delhi last February, at the same time that she made U.S. opposition to the Iran-India pipeline known. But Rice recently reaffirmed the U.S. stand.

"We can't say to the Indians, on the one hand, you can't - we'd rather you weren't - engaged in energy relations with, for instance, Iran," she told reporters in Washington on Jan. 5, "but by the way, civil nuclear is closed off to you."

For some U.S. and Indian analysts, the Bush administration's stand is troubling and even irrational, despite the challenge posed to U.S. national interests by Iran.

"It is odd to suggest that it's O.K. for India to import Iranian natural gas by tanker but not by pipeline," said Michael Krepon, president emeritus of the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington, which studies security issues.

In India, the pipeline has the enthusiastic backing of the Oil Ministry. It also has generated positive expressions of interest from Gazprom of Russia and South Korean companies.

At the same time, its detractors are growing, as is the pressure from the United States to isolate Iran. Law and order is deteriorating in Pakistan's troubled Baluchistan Province, where the pipeline would run.

Officially, the Indian government is still committed to the project if it is financially viable. But officials fear that going ahead would have negative consequences for civil nuclear cooperation with the United States.

Negotiations with Washington on the nuclear front are delicately poised over New Delhi's proposals for the separation of its civilian and military nuclear facilities. This separation is a requirement of the agreement last summer between Bush and Singh and a key condition before the United States will change its domestic laws to allow nuclear commerce with India.

For the Chinese, who generally are not enthusiastic about the prospects of growing cooperation between the United States and India on the nuclear or any other front, New Delhi would be making a major strategic mistake if it were tempted by the nuclear offer into walking away from Iran and the proposed Asian pipeline grid.

"If India can make a deal with the United States on nuclear energy, this would not be a bad outcome for it, since it could at least get something it needs," Liu Xuecheng, a senior research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies, said in an interview in Beijing this month. "But this should not be at the cost of pipelines."

Pointing to the uncertainties of American policies, Liu said that if India gave up on Iran in the hope of securing a U.S. nuclear deal, it might end up with nothing.

"It would lose its strategic pipeline, and the U.S. could also abandon the nuclear deal at some point in the future," he said. "Pipelines from Iran and Central Asia are a strategic lifeline for Indian energy security. There is no other alternative."

Siddharth Varadarajan is deputy editor of The Hindu in India

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Energy the key in the new Asian architecture

Pipelines bring mutual dependencies and hasten regional integration. India must not let the strings attached to the U.S. offer of nuclear cooperation — or its usual insecurities — choke off this process.

25 January 2006
The Hindu

Energy key in the new Asian architecture

Siddharth Varadarajan

IN THE energy business, more than in any other aspect of international economic activity, fortune favours the brave. While the Indian establishment spent five years agonising over whether it should go ahead with the construction of a natural gas pipeline from Iran to India via Pakistan, China took just 10 months to propose, construct, and operationalise a 1,000 kilometre oil pipeline from Atasu in Kazakhstan to Alashankou in Xinjiang. No sooner was that project completed a few months ago than China indicated its eagerness to lay a gas pipeline along the same route as well. "We completed the 4,500 km-long pipeline from Xinjiang to Shanghai in just two and a half years," Chin Geng, president of the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) told India's Petroleum Minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar, and a group of top Indian executives in Beijing earlier this month. The Indian side was suitably impressed.

Though a recent convert to the cause of pipelines, India is seeking to compensate for its earlier lack of interest with an ambitious proposal for an Asian gas grid that would take these two connections — Iran-India and Kazakhstan-China — and extend them in a way that links Asia's major energy producing and consuming regions to one another. "The energy-short countries of Asia are located cheek-by-jowl in the immediate vicinity of their energy-abundant Asian cousins," Mr. Aiyar said in a speech on India and China's joint quest for energy security. "Yet, if you compare a pipeline map of Europe with a pipeline map of Asia, Asia today looks almost naked."

At the meeting in New Delhi in November of principal North and Central Asian energy producing and consuming countries, India unveiled an ambitious $22.4 billion pan-Asian gas grid and oil security pipeline system. The grid has four principal elements. The first would extend the existing Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline system — originally conceived by the U.S. as a means of shipping Central Asian hydrocarbons westward — down to the Red Sea via Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, allowing Caspian crudes to be exported easily to the Indian Ocean littoral. Second is the famous Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline, with the possibility of two additional sourcing spurs, one from the Caspian-Turkmenistan region to Iran, the other from Turkmenistan via Afghanistan. The third element would be a pipeline system connecting eastern India to Myanmar and south-western China with one connection running from Sittwe on the Burmese Bay of Bengal coast to Mizoram, Manipur, and Assam into China, eventually connecting up to the West-East China gas pipeline near Shaanxi, the other from Yangon to Kunming. The fourth element would involve the laying of pipelines that would connect the Sakhalin deposits in Russia to Japan, China, and South Korea. (See map)

Pipelines aim to deliver gas, crude or products between discrete points but this does not mean they have to be a zero sum game. The underlying economic logic of a grid is that the capital costs can be more easily absorbed and amortised and energy supplies calibrated to match demand variations in the consuming countries without too much effort. But there is a political logic as well. As Asian grid will create mutual dependencies, giving countries a stake in the political and economic stability of one another, and hasten the process of regional integration. If at all Asia is to make progress towards creating an Asian counterpart to the International Energy Agency (IEA) and develop a regional market for energy with its own price markers, the construction of physical infrastructure such as pipelines is essential.

Virtually all the Chinese energy officials and scholars this reporter interacted with on a recent visit to Beijing seemed convinced the route to greater Asian cohesiveness lies through cooperation in the energy sphere with India and other countries.

The Chinese strategic community is aware of the pressure being exerted on India by the United States to curtail its links with Iran and believes the U.S. policy towards Iran has the potential of upsetting the Asian applecart. "The U.S. is trying to coordinate with all countries around Iran in order to isolate it," says Liu Xuecheng, director of the Beijing Centre for American Studies and a senior fellow of the China Institute for International Studies. "India and China have good relations with the U.S. but must follow their own strategy on Iran. If India gives up on Iran in the hope of securing nuclear energy from the U.S., it may end up with nothing. You would lose your strategic pipeline and the U.S. might also abandon the nuclear deal at some point in the future. Pipelines from Iran and Central Asia are a strategic lifeline for Indian energy security."

"The nuclear deal offered by the U.S. makes sense from the Indian perspective," says Zhai Dequan, deputy secretary general of the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, "but India should be on guard against American conditions." As an ancient civilisation, he adds, "India cannot be manipulated by anyone. It has its own way of doing things." Dr Liu agreed that if India could make a deal with the U.S. on nuclear energy, this would not be a bad outcome. "It could get something it needs. But this should not be at the cost of pipelines."

Chinese scholars see the emerging U.S. policy towards Asia as motivated, in part, by the emergence of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation as a framework for all-round cooperation — from anti-terrorism, to economic interaction, including energy. "With India, Iran and Pakistan joining the SCO as observers, I think the U.S. already sees that happening and they don't want this grouping to emerge in a big way because it will pose a strategic challenge to the U.S. in this region," says Dr. Liu. The U.S., he says, appears to be basing its regional strategy for the moment on the creation of a four-country alliance linking itself, India, Japan, and Australia "based on cold war logic."

According to Dr. Liu, Washington has four priority areas in Asia for making new political inroads — Mongolia, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka — and three "targets", i.e. Iran, Syria, and North Korea. "If I am right in my analysis, then it would seem to me that the U.S. needs India to work with it to accomplish its goals." India, on the other hand, is also crucial to any strengthening of the cooperative process in Asia, particularly at the "mid-level" where there are two processes: one is the Northern Asian Process with the SCO at the core, and the other is the Southern Asian Process with the emerging East Asian Summit at the core. "China and India are in both so we bear great responsibilities to promote both processes."

Though they do not explicitly say so, the Chinese appear unsure of the degree of Indian commitment to the SCO. Given the Bus administration's apprehensions about the grouping and the new direction in Indo-U.S. strategic relations, they believe India would not want to send the wrong signals to Washington by embracing the organisation too enthusiastically. Partly due to this uncertainty, China is not contemplating a formal "upgrade" of status for any of the three SCO observers any time soon on the plea that the "rules" for expansion of membership have yet to be adopted.

As far as the larger regional oil and gas question is concerned, the question assumes importance because of Beijing's apparent preference for the SCO as the vehicle through which Asian energy cooperation should eventually be pursued. But even here, the emphasis is on the bilateral to begin with. "It is my opinion," says Dr. Zheng Ruixiang, a specialist on South Asia at the CIIS, "that first you have the bilateral, then trilateral and finally multilateral." In other words, whatever shape the Asian energy architecture takes in the long run, a strong partnership between India and China would have to lie at its foundation. A partnership based on each country acting on the basis of its own enlightened self-interest and not the diktats or blandishments of outside powers.

© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu

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The Asian axis of oil

The new Sino-Indian partnership in oil and gas could serve as the foundation for an Asian Energy Union and much more.

24 January 2006
The Hindu

India, China and the Asian axis of oil

Siddharth Varadarajan

In less than a year, India and China have managed to confound analysts around the world by turning their much-vaunted rivalry for the acquisition of oil and gas assets in third countries into a nascent partnership that could alter the basic dynamics of the global energy market.

At stake is not just the issue of joint acquisition, although the most important of the agreements signed in Beijing on January 12 during the visit of Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar envisages ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) and the China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) placing joint bids for promising projects elsewhere. Rather, the prospects for Sino-Indian cooperation across the length of the hydrocarbon chain could pave the way for the creation of an Asian energy market and architecture -- an Asian axis of oil – with major geopolitical consequences for the United States.

The international market for hydrocarbons is not a free market and has never been one. There is a suppliers' cartel – the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries – and a well-organised market driven primarily by demand in the advanced industrial economies of the world, all members of the OECD. Trade is conducted in dollars, which effectively ensures that countries around the world hold their foreign reserves primarily as greenbacks. And prices are set on the basis of Western benchmark crudes like West Texas Intermediate and Brent, neither of which represent anything but a small fraction of the oil that is extracted and traded internationally. So strong is the monopsonist power of the U.S. and Europe that oil exported to Asia from the Persian Gulf costs as much as $2 a barrel more. This is the so-called Asian oil premium.

Into this dismal equation must be added two further constants. First, the role of speculators who trade in oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange and International Petroleum Exchange and who have propelled oil prices to absurdly high levels. This problem is only going to get worse. "There's a tremendous amount of speculative money going into energy futures," James Cordier, president of Liberty Trading Group in Tampa, Florida, told the Associated Press earlier this month. Second, the huge and growing U.S. military presence in Asia that underpins the petro-dollar-unipolar system and is a major source of instability and violence. The position of Asia couldn't be more abject. A continent which hosts the world's largest producers and fastest growing consumers of energy is forced to play second fiddle, relying on institutions, trading frameworks and armed forces from outside the region in order to trade with itself. Such a situation makes for unstable politics and bad economics, not to speak of atrocious geography. Central Asia is close to China and Iran but the U.S. has spent the better part of a decade trying to make sure pipelines carrying oil and gas from there only go westward. Gas pipelines connecting Iran to India make financial sense but the threat of U.S. sanctions means this project might not get off the ground. If the 21st century is to be an 'Asian century', Asia’s passivity in the energy sector has to end.

Objective circumstances favour change. Central Asia has emerged as a major producer and India and China are two of the fastest growing economies in the world. Traditional suppliers, too, have much to gain from an Asian market, especially if this means greater stability and predictability in prices. Saudi Arabia may like high prices but not prices which are “unreasonably high”. It is not a coincidence that the first overseas tour of King Abdullah is to China, India, Pakistan and Malaysia and that his agenda, at least in Beijing and Delhi, involves important energy-related initiatives like the proposed oil reserve facility in Hainan island.

For the new India-China energy partnership to work, however, both countries must be prepared to invest the political capital necessary. There are traditional suspicions to contend with, besides the fact that commercial cooperation between companies, even if publicly owned, can run into practical difficulties on the ground. Individual deals will still be contested and should not be the cause of unnecessary heartburn, the recent reports of Myanmar offering gas to China being a case in point. There is also the negative role of the U.S., which sees India as the weakest link in the emerging Asian chain. Today, Washington is trying actively to divert New Delhi away from the task of creating new regional architecture by dangling the nuclear carrot and the promise of world power status in alliance with itself. India will have to resist these allurements if the Asian project is to go anywhere.

At the core of the new Sino-Indian energy partnership is the proposal for OVL and CNPC to place joints bids for facilities in third countries. Last December, the two companies successfully bought the al-Furat oilfields in Syria and are today reportedly working on an acquisition in Russia's Udmurtia Republic. There were bitter fights in the past – in Kazakhstan, for example, OVL lost out to the Chinese – and there are some areas where China will outshine India simply because of its deeper pockets and greater strategic élan. A case in point is the China National Overseas Oil Corp decision earlier in January to purchase the Akpo field in Nigeria weeks after the Manmohan Singh government vetoed OVL's proposed acquisition of the lucrative field as too "risky". However, the scope for synergy between the two countries is tremendous.

Though some Western analysts are dismissive of Chinese and Indian efforts to acquire "equity oil" – why buy the field when you can always buy the oil on the spot market, they ask – it is this element of the partnership which is likely to prove most irksome to established oil majors in the first instance. Both Chinese and Indian oilmen see the advice against equity oil as self-serving, given that similar counsel could easily be given to the Western oil majors making the same energy acquisitions around the world. As Mr Aiyar told Ma Kai, chairman of China's powerful National Development and Reforms Commission, shortly before the two men signed their MoU, "When companies from the two sides submit a joint bid, no project would be beyond our reach". Senior Chinese oil executives enthusiastically reciprocated these sentiments. "We should go forward together and bid", Chen Geng, president of CNPC, told Mr Aiyar. "Otherwise it is the third party which wins".

Apart from acquiring equity oil and gas, there are other areas where companies from the two countries are planning to cooperate. The Chinese have pioneered oil recovery technology which helps maintain production at ageing oilfields like Dagang and Daqing at levels far higher than Indian fields of comparable vintage. The Chinese side also excels in basin evaluation and drilling rigs. Indian companies have an advantage in IT-enabled exploration and production services. There is scope to work together but this would mean the Indian security establishment being less paranoid about the involvement of Chinese expertise in domestic, particularly offshore, energy locations. The two countries also need to join hands to develop new energy transport mechanisms, including pipelines within the region and the use of backhaul cargoes in very large crude carriers (VLCCs) and swaps to jointly source crudes from distant sources like West Africa and Venezuela.

Asian oil market in Euros?

Above all, India and China need to keep in mind the big picture – the evolution of an Asian market for crude and products with long-term supply contracts and stable prices, and, eventually, an Asian Energy Union. As Mr Aiyar pointed out in a lecture to Chinese energy specialists in Beijing, the European Union started life as a coal and steel union before growing eventually into a full-fledged economic and political community. Could energy play the same role in Asia with India and China serving as sheet anchors in the way France and Germany did in Europe? With India and China committed to building strategic petroleum reserves, South Korea offering to work on an 'Inter-Asia Oil and Gas Transportation System', and Iran planning its own hydrocarbon bourse, such an idea is no longer far-fetched.

Linked to an Asian oil market is the billion euro question of non-dollar denominated energy trade. Asian countries collectively hold more than two trillion dollars worth of foreign reserves, the overwhelming share of which is in dollar-denominated instruments. Prudential norms suggest the diversification of the Asian reserve portfolio is overdue. In China, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE has signalled its intention to explore the more “efficient use” of the country’s forex reserves and in India, commentators like S. Venkitramanan have suggested the RBI start thinking along similar lines.

One way to sustain this shift would be to consider yen or euro-based trading in energy. The economic dynamism of Asia for the foreseeable future suggests what is needed is a strategic rather than tactical change in the composition of reserves. The huge and unsustainable deficits being run by the U.S. are undermining the “oil standard” that has been central to the hegemony of both the dollar and Washington for more than three decades. Relying on the dollar for energy trade will hurt Asia’s producers and consumers alike in the long run. An Asian oil market trading in European euros. Now surely that's a good recipe for a multipolar world.

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Indo-U.S. nuclear deal: Safeguards for breeder reactors a key obstacle

Exclusive: A close look at the state of negotiations between India and United States on the implementation of last July's Indo-U.S. nuclear deal suggests things are not going as smoothly as the two governments are suggesting. In particular, Washington is refusing to accept New Delhi's stand that its indigenous fast breeder programme will not be subjected to IAEA inspections.

21 January 2006
The Hindu

Safeguards for breeder reactors a key obstacle

U.S. unwilling to accept Indian stand

Siddharth Varadarajan

New Delhi : As India and the United States concluded their third round of technical talks on the planned separation and safeguarding of Indian civilian nuclear facilities this week, the status of the country's fast breeder programme is emerging as a key obstacle to the conclusion of an agreement acceptable to both sides, The Hindu has learnt.

According to sources familiar with the ideas exchanged by both delegations, the U.S. team, headed by Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, is unwilling to accept India's position that the fast breeder, as an R&D programme, will not be put on the list of civilian facilities that are offered up for safeguards and inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

"Nothing unique"

The American delegation is understood to have argued that there was nothing unique or distinctive about the fast breeder technology, which warranted an exception being made for it. They argued that if Japan could agree to subject its Joyo experimental breeder reactor and Monju prototype reactor to IAEA safeguards, there was no reason why India could not.

Both reactors have been under safeguards since their inception and today are subject to full-time advanced verification systems such as `neutron coincidence counters', radiation monitoring systems and fuel flow monitors, in addition to video surveillance. If India does not accept safeguards on its breeders, the U.S. argues, it will be very hard to get the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to sign off on a rule change enabling nuclear commerce with India.

Thursday's meeting here was apparently the first time the Indian side formally got to learn of America's insistence on safeguarding the 20-year old Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) and Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam, near Chennai. Even as recently as December last, following the conclusion of the second round of talks, well-placed Indian officials told The Hindu that the breeder issue had never been raised by the American side.

At Thursday's discussions, however, the Japanese analogy for safeguards cut no ice. The Indian side pointed out that there was no basis to compare India with Japan when the July 18, 2005 agreement spoke of India assuming "the same responsibilities and practices and (acquiring) the same benefits and advantages as other leading countries with advanced nuclear technology, such as the United States." Japan was a non-nuclear weapon state under the NPT and the status of its safeguards agreement with the IAEA had no bearing on what India should do.

India also believes that the breeder technology plays a much less important part in Japan's overall nuclear energy mix than it does in Indian plans. Unlike the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, which has the freedom to source components and technology from any part of the world, India's Department of Atomic Energy has had to rely on its own resources and technologies.

Allowing IAEA inspections will seriously compromise the quality and scope of ongoing research, nuclear scientists who have worked closely on and led the breeder programme told The Hindu .

"Moving fuel from one section to another would then require informing the IAEA in advance, waiting for their inspector to arrive and approve, and then executing the task concerned," said one former DAE scientist. Asked at what stage he would be willing to offer the breeder technology for inspections, another senior retired nuclear official said there was no reason to ever subject breeder reactors to safeguards. "Of course, if we decide to use some of the spent plutonium from imported light water reactors in a breeder, that particular reactor can come under safeguards under the principle of pursuit."

At the heart of the U.S. insistence on safeguarding the fast breeders is its reluctance to accept India as a nuclear weapons state, scientists familiar with the programme's potential weapons application say. Though India wants breeders for civilian purposes, a breeder reactor can also be used as a "laundry" to breed weapon-grade Pu-239 from reactor grade plutonium (Pu-240) generated by pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs). Placing the breeder programme under safeguards, then, ensures that the reactors are never used as a "laundry", effectively limiting India's ability to produce fissile material through this route.

Though the breeder programme has emerged as a potentially intractable issue, news from the technical talks was not all bleak. There was some forward movement on the question of CIRUS, the Canadian supplied 40 MW research reactor which has been a mainstay of the Indian nuclear weapons programme despite a `peaceful use only' pledge at the time of its purchase. The American side has given ample indication of its willingness to let bygones be bygones, provided India is also able to convince Canada about the reactor's final disposition.

One of the arguments the American side must contend with is that if India is forced to convert CIRUS to a purely civilian facility, its strategic programme would likely require the construction of a brand new research reactor whose capacity — i.e. throughput of fissile material — would probably be more than 40 MW because of economies of scale.

All told, the prospects of a substantial agreement on separation and safeguards being reached before the visit to India of President George W. Bush look slim, though Indian and U.S. officials continue to insist this is the deadline they are working towards. With Prime Minister Manmohan Singh likely to visit Washington in 2007, however, there is already talk of next year being a more realistic timeframe for resolving outstanding issues.

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Make the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal more transparent

If the civil-military separation plan is good enough to share with a foreign power, it is certainly good enough to share with the Indian public.

19 January 2005
The Hindu

Make the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal more transparent

Siddharth Varadarajan

THE INDO-U.S. working group on civilian nuclear cooperation will meet for the third time on Thursday with the American response to the Indian separation plan topping the agenda for discussion. During the last round of technical talks in Washington in December, Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran — who heads the Indian side — handed over a document specifying the underlying principles that will cover the proposed separation of India's civil and military nuclear facilities. The U.S. side, led by Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, chose not to respond to the Indian document at that time and is likely to present to India this week a detailed response and, possibly, a counter-plan.

Though the Manmohan Singh Government has kept its separation plan under tight wraps in India, the document has been circulated among select U.S. Senators and Representatives. Indeed, feedback of sorts has already started coming. At a seminar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC last week, Sharon Squassoni of the Congresional Research Service (CRS) suggested that the Indian plan would not pass muster on the Hill. "Reportedly, the first separation plan for separating the facilities was not credible or defensible. And also reportedly India has not yet contacted the International Atomic Energy Agency to talk about safeguards. Those are the two things that need to happen," PTI quoted her as saying. Ms. Squassoni is the principal author of the CRS report on the July 18, 2005 deal, a report that raised a number of "proliferation" concerns about the prospects of Indo-U.S. nuclear cooperation. Either she has seen the plan herself or has received feedback from those who have. Though Ms. Squassoni is a known critic of the deal, it is reasonable to assume that her characterisation of the plan would be shared — or at least exploited — by members of the official American negotiating team.

The Indo-U.S. nuclear agreement had spoken of India assuming "the same responsibilities and practices and (acquiring) the same benefits and advantages as other leading countries with advanced nuclear technology, such as the United States." These "same responsibilities and practices" were then spelt out, inter alia, as: "identifying and separating civilian and military nuclear facilities and programs in a phased manner and filing a declaration regarding its civilian facilities with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); taking a decision to place voluntarily its civilian nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards; (and) signing and adhering to an Additional Protocol with respect to civilian nuclear facilities."

U.S. reinterpretation

In the intervening months, the United States has attempted to reinterpret this fairly straightforward language in several ways and introduce new conditions. First, it said the separation of civilian and military facilities had to be "credible, defensible and transparent." None of these conditions obtain for the separation of civilian and military facilities in the U.S. or the other "leading countries with advanced nuclear technology." Then it said the separation plan had to pass muster in the U.S. Congress. Finally, it said the placing of civilian nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards had to be done mandatorily and in perpetuity, rather than voluntarily as the July 18 statement clearly says. In addition, the Bush administration has made it clear that the deal's success is also linked in some way to the wider strategic realignment it is trying to engineer in Indian foreign policy. Joining hands against Iran is one issue that has already come to the fore. No doubt Washington has other expectations as well.

Though the Indian atomic establishment appears to have overcome its initial reservations about the July 18 agreement, there is a broad consensus among the scientists on at least three issues. First, under no circumstances should the agreement — and the conditions that come with it — compromise India's technological independence in the nuclear field. According to them, India's own reserves of uranium as well as its indigeneous reactor programme will enable it to produce at least 207 gigawatts of electricity by 2052, or around 15 per cent of the projected national requirement of 1350 GW. For this to happen, the country needs to preserve its independence in heavy water reactors, fast breeders, and accelerator driven systems. Thus, all experimental and research facilities should be kept off the civilian list for safeguards purposes, including the fast breeder reactor.

Secondly, the flexibility required for keeping the costs associated with India's strategic programme down to a minimum must be preserved. Thirdly, the safeguards agreement and additional protocol should not compromise proprietary technology and information, nor should they involve the principle of pursuit or the accounting of past materials balances. Here, the U.S. additional protocol — including the so-called "Brill letter" stipulating additional constraints on what the IAEA can inspect — would serve as the appropriate model.

From the perspective of the scientists, there is no reason why sui generis safeguards cannot be crafted to address India's concerns about its autonomous technology development as well as the very reasonable concerns of any future partner that cooperation provided to the Indian civilian nuclear sector not leak out to its military programme. These could take the form of `in perpetuity', INFCIRC-66 type safeguards for imported facilities, while something approximating the U.S.-style voluntary safeguards is applied to all indigenously developed facilities.

Unlike New Delhi's strategic community — which tends to believe India is in urgent need of U.S. assistance in the nuclear field — our nuclear scientists feel India has a huge edge in human resources and that the U.S. stands to benefit a great deal from the initiation of bilateral nuclear cooperation. The U.S. has not built a new reactor since 1979 and has a gap of at least two generations when it comes to those with hands-on experience of running a nuclear power plant from the start.

The Canadians too have recognised India's expertise in refurbishing the Candu reactors and would be interested in an Indian role in their own nuclear industry. In short, the scientific consensus is that India is coming to the nuclear table from a position of strength and should be well placed to resist any untoward pressure during its negotiations with the U.S. on the fine print of the July 18 deal.

There is one last issue for the Manmohan Singh Government to consider. If the separation plan is good enough to hand over to a foreign power and circulate in its capital, there is no earthly reason why the same should not be made public in some form on this side as well. The U.S. excels in using dissent within and outside its political system as a tactic in tough negotiations with foreign countries. The Indian Government must now do the same.

The more informed comment and discussion there is, the better will be the degree of public understanding about the technical and political contours of the nuclear agreement. If the Government is confident about the correctness of the path it is going down, there should be no hesitation in encouraging the widest possible debate. Conversely, unnecessary secrecy can only lead to the assumption — right or wrong — that the Government has something to hide.

© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu

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India, Iran and the nuclear challenge

Siding again with the U.S. and its allies in their illegal pressure on Iran will weaken India's hand on the civil nuclear cooperation and energy fronts.

16 January 2006
The Hindu

India, Iran and the nuclear challenge

Siddharth Varadarajan

IN THE next few weeks, the Manmohan Singh Government will face its second major test on the Iranian nuclear front. For the United States and its European allies appear determined to refer Teheran to the United Nations Security Council for pursuing a civilian nuclear energy programme in defiance of Washington's diktats. The provocation for the latest western hysteria is Iran's decision to conduct research experiments on uranium conversion and other aspects of the civilian nuclear fuel cycle. These experiments are taking place in facilities that are fully safeguarded by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Moreover, these activities are in no way prohibited under either the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) or Iran's Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA, published by the Agency as Infcirc 214.

Article 4 of Infcirc 214 states: "The safeguards provided for in this Agreement shall be implemented in a manner designed: (a) To avoid hampering the economic and technological development of Iran or international co-operation in the field of peaceful nuclear activities, including international exchange of nuclear material; (b) To avoid undue interference in Iran's peaceful nuclear activities, and in particular in the operation of facilities; ... "

It is worth noting that Infcirc 214 — the primary legal covenant governing relations between Iran and the IAEA — explicitly rules out the Agency doing anything that might hamper Iran's technological development in the field of peaceful nuclear activities. Conducting research and experiments on the nuclear fuel cycle clearly falls under this category. Nevertheless, the U.S. as well as Britain, France, and Germany (the so-called European-3 or E-3) now want the IAEA Board of Governors to convene on an emergency basis with the aim of referring Iran to the UNSC for the crime of being in non-compliance with its safeguards obligations.

Under the Safeguards Agreement, Iran is obliged to accept safeguards "on all source or special fissionable material in all peaceful nuclear activities ... for the exclusive purpose of verifying that such material is not diverted to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices." On its part, the IAEA has "the right and obligation" to ensure that safeguards are applied on all such activities "for the exclusive purpose of verifying that such material is not diverted to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices."

Over the years, Iran (like South Korea, Taiwan, Egypt and a few other countries) had failed to report to the IAEA — and hence ensure safeguards upon — a number of nuclear-related transactions and activities. These instances were thoroughly investigated by the Agency's inspectors and the relevant files on these closed. Thus in his report to the IAEA Board of Governors on September 2, 2005, Director General Mohammed el-Baradei noted that "all the declared nuclear material in Iran has been accounted for, and therefore such material is not diverted to prohibited activities." Dr. el-Baradei said, however, that the IAEA was not yet in a position to conclude that there were no "undeclared" nuclear activities taking place in Iran — a reqquirement that stems not from the safeguards agreement but only from the Additional Protocol that Iran said it would voluntarily adhere to in 2003.

Despite this finding, the Board of Governors — acting under the pressure of the U.S. and the E-3 — voted on September 24 last year to find Iran in non-compliance with its safeguards agreement in the context of article XIIC of the IAEA Statute. Conveniently overlooked was the fact that article XIIC, as well as articles 18 and 19 of Infcirc 214, define non-compliance essentially as diversion of safeguarded material for prohibited purposes, something Dr. el-Baradei had explicitly ruled out. As a sop to countries uncomfortable with the manner in which the Iranian question was being unduly politicised, the board decided to keep in abeyance the timing of the referral of Iran to the U.N. Security Council mandated under XIIC. However, this sop was meant only as a temporary expedient to be withdrawn at the first convenient moment. And that moment, as far as Washington is concerned, has now arrived.

Given the current composition of the 35-member Board of Governors, the U.S. should have no difficulty in garnering the votes needed to send the Iran docket to the Security Council. Though what will happen after is anyone's guess, the U.N.'s experience with Iraq suggests that coercion and punitive measures do not help matters when it comes to allaying international concerns about the possible presence of illegal nuclear weapon-related facilities in any given country. In Dr. el-Baradei's words, the IAEA is not yet in a position to declare that Iran has "no undeclared nuclear activities or facilities." If the IAEA's inability to make such a declaration were to become grounds for reporting a country to the Security Council and threatening it with sanctions, no less than 106 countries -- as emphasised by the European Union last year -- would have to be put in the dock because they have either not signed or not yet ratified or implemented the Additional Protocol.

If the aim is really to ensure Iran has no undeclared nuclear activities — an urgent and laudable aim, one might add — the best way to accomplish it is to ensure the continuation of IAEA inspections. Sites suspected of hiding clandestine facilities could be targeted for surprise or short-notice inspections. But if the aim is to maintain the veil of ambiguity as a future casus belli, referring Iran to the UNSC would be the logical step to take because Washington is desperate to "trap" Teheran into severing its links with the IAEA or declaring it will no longer allow inspections — the one route through which its innocence can be established.

For the Manmohan Singh Government, the latest drive to refer Iran to the UNSC and impose sanctions as punishment poses a particularly difficult legal and political challenge. In September last year, India voted for the IAEA resolution but also provided an "explanation of vote" in which it stated that it did not believe Iran was in non-compliance or that the Iranian nuclear programme had given rise to questions that were within the competence of the Security Council. Nothing has happened since September to invalidate these two reservations.

If anything, the November 2, 2005, report of Dr. el-Baradei was reasonably upbeat on Iranian cooperation, which was why the E-3 wisely decided not to press for an immediate Security Council referral. And the resumption of safeguarded nuclear research — though marking an end to Iran's voluntary, self-imposed suspension of all fuel cycle-related activity — can hardly be called a violation of IAEA safeguards.

One could, at best, question Teheran's political wisdom in choosing to end this suspension at the present time but not its sovereign right to do so. If India's vote against Iran last year surprised the world and created a political storm at home, voting again now would make a mockery of the country's formally stated positions and question, once again, the Government's commitment to an "independent foreign policy."

This week, when U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns arrives in New Delhi, the Iranian issue is likely to figure almost as prominently as the planned separation of India's civilian and military nuclear facilities. Though motivated by larger strategic considerations, last July's landmark U.S.-India deal on civilian nuclear cooperation is also inextricably linked to the Iran question as far as the Bush administration is concerned. In a press conference on January 5, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice could not have been more explicit about the linkage when she was asked about the reasons why the nuclear deal with India was so important to Washington: "We can't say to the Indians on the one hand, you can't — we'd rather you weren't — engaged in energy relations with, for instance, Iran, but by the way, civil nuclear is closed off to you."

Apologists for the first IAEA vote against Iran last September say that if the Americans are insisting on an `either-or', it is in India's interest to choose nuclear cooperation with Washington over hydrocarbons from Iran. What they do not realise is that a country of India's strength has the political and diplomatic ability to get both. What they also do not realise is that the slightest indication of Indian willingness to allow the U.S. to dictate its strategic choices will only lead to Washington trying to extract even more.

India's vote against Iran last year, for example, led the U.S. to try and impose new conditions that ran counter to the letter and spirit of the July 18 nuclear agreement. Among these were the demand that India accept in-perpetuity safeguards and give up its claims — as recognised in that agreement — to exactly the same rights and obligations in the nuclear field as the U.S. With the negotiations on civilian-military nuclear separation keenly poised, the Manmohan Singh Government should resist the temptation to blink for the second time.

© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu

See also my earlier series of articles on Iran and the IAEA:

The Persian Puzzle I: Iran and the invention of a nuclear crisis (21 September 2005)
The Persian Puzzle II: What the IAEA really found in Iran (22 September 2005)
The Persian Puzzle III: The world must stand firm on diplomacy (23 September 2005)
The unravelling of India's Persian puzzle (27 September 2005)
When bullying is not enough, try disinformation (21 November 2005)

Siddharth Varadarajan won the coveted Elizabeth Neuffer Memorial Prize Silver Medal for excellence in journalism, 2005, for his series of articles on the Iran nuclear issue. The prize is awarded by the United Nations Correspondents Association for coverage of the U.N.

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Dateline Beijing: Despite U.S. pressure, India still committed to Iran pipeline

The American embassy in Delhi issued a demarche before the last round of talks between India, Pakistan and Iran expressing its displeasure at the proposed pipeline project. And Condoleezza Rice has once again stressed the explicit link between the U.S. offer of civilian nuclear cooperation to India and its demand that New Delhi cuts its energy ties with Iran. However, the Indian government appears to be sticking to its own plans. For now, at least.

14 January 2006
The Hindu

'India fully committed to pipeline project'
Aiyar denies media reports of withdrawal

Siddharth Varadarajan

BEIJING: Firmly denying media reports that New Delhi had decided to withdraw from the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project, Petroleum and Natural Gas minister Mani Shankar Aiyar on Friday said the country was "fully committed" to the venture.

"It is completely wrong to suggest that I or anyone else in authority has advocated India's withdrawal from the project." The reports circulating were false.

Factual position

Describing the factual position, the Minister said the three parallel tracks of bilateral negotiations between India and Pakistan, India and Iran and Pakistan and Iran led to a situation where the three countries were now contemplating trilateral discussions. As the February 2005 Cabinet decision, authorising preliminary discussions on the project, envisaged only bilateral working groups, Cabinet clearance was needed for participation in trilateral talks.

India was still reviewing the project structure and various options would be taken to the Cabinet for approval. "While advocating a series of other options, my Ministry is obliged to recall the already authorised option of purchasing Iranian gas at the border without being involved in the project itself," Mr. Aiyar said.

Officials said that as the three countries moved to give concrete shape to the pipeline proposal, the level of opposition from the United States administration had perceptibly increased. Last December, just before the final round of bilateral meetings in New Delhi between India and Pakistan and Iran, senior U.S. Embassy officials visited the Oil Ministry to hand over a demarche opposing the project.

On January 6, seeking to justify the July 18 Indo-U.S. nuclear cooperation agreement to a domestic audience, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice explicitly linked Washington's offer of civilian nuclear cooperation to its insistence that India back off from Iran.

"We can't say to the Indians, on the one hand, `you can't — we'd rather you weren't engaged in energy relations with, for instance, Iran, but by the way, civil nuclear is closed off to you," she said.

© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu

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Dateline Beijing: India and China have taken a major step forward on the energy front

If implemented, the agreement on joint bidding for energy assets in third countries will further reduce the dominance of the United States and Western majors in the oil and gas sector worldwide.

13 January 2005
The Hindu

India, China primed for energy cooperation
Framework established for joint bids, joint exploration for oil and gas

Siddharth Varadarajan

• Overall and company-specific MoUs signed
• Rivalry will be disadvantageous to both countries: Aiyar
• India looking at hydrocarbon assets in over 50 countries

Beijing: India and China took a key step towards enhanced energy cooperation by creating a framework under which their state-owned oil and gas companies can evolve and submit joint bids for acquisition of assets in third countries. If implemented successfully, the framework will not end all competition between Indian and Chinese energy companies overseas. But Indian officials are hopeful that the countries will be able to put behind them the bruising battles for acquisition of oilfields in Kazakhstan, Angola and Nigeria, which benefited only the sellers there.

Under the umbrella of an overall memorandum of understanding signed here on Thursday by Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Mani Shankar Aiyar and China's National Development and Reforms Commission Chairman Ma Kai, five company-specific MoUs were also signed to begin the process of operationalising cooperation.

Speaking to reporters, Mr. Aiyar stressed that joint bidding in third countries was only one aspect of what was being envisaged. "This is full-spectrum, full-scope cooperation extending across the entire hydrocarbon chain." Developing domestic sources of gas and oil was a priority for both China and India, which was why equal emphasis would be laid on collaborative efforts in the fields of exploration, exploitation and enhanced oil recovery.

Accordingly, Mr. Aiyar said, India was "ready to extend and receive partnership with China" in upstream exploration and production as well as downstream activities such as refining and petrochemicals, marketing of petro products, transmission and city distribution of gas, laying of national and trans-national energy pipelines as well as in other areas.

The two MoUs Gas Authority of India Limited signed with the China Petrochemical Corporation and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation specifically envisage cooperation in exploration in the two countries and other parts of the world.

Explaining the logic of India and China seeking to place joint bids for overseas oil acquisitions, Mr. Aiyar said unbridled rivalry between Indian and Chinese companies was to the disadvantage of both, regardless of who eventually won the bid. "If there is sufficient exchange of information well in advance and well on time, combined with mutual trust and confidence," there could be many occasions where India and China could work together to their mutual advantage.

Among the MoUs signed was one between ONGC Videsh Ltd and the China National Petroleum Corporation for timely exchange of information. Last month, India and China jointly acquired oil assets in Syria but Mr. Aiyar declined to identify any of the countries where joint bidding might take place in the future.

India is currently looking at hydrocarbon assets in more than 50 countries. "There will still be competition between us [in some places]. This is not a question of working out a theology ... but success [in a joint bid] will feed upon itself."

The Minister denied there was any connection between record high oil prices internationally and the growing Chinese and Indian demand for imported energy. Blaming speculators for the "irrational" price, he said India and China could actually work together to bring about a more rational market for oil in Asia.

Hydrocarbon cooperation between the two countries should be seen in the "larger context" of pan-Asian energy cooperation. By diversifying crude sources through the use of existing and new pipelines, for example, Asian countries might be able to escape the "Asian premium" implicitly levied on Persian Gulf oil sales to the region. The final aim, he said, was to move towards an Asian energy grid. He conceded that "at this stage" such a grid seemed "a fanciful idea" but added that it needed to be fleshed out.

Asked about the possibility of extending the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline to China, Mr. Aiyar said India needed much more information about the requirements of gas in southwest China and the economics of alternative modes of transhipment before it could really consider moving down that track.

"But this is an issue which we should think about."

© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu

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When power subverts the law

Two seminal books question the possibility of international criminal justice in a unipolar world













10 January 2006
The Hindu

When power subverts the law

Siddharth Varadarajan

HOW AMERICA GETS AWAY WITH MURDER — Illegal Wars, Collateral Damage and Crimes against Humanity: Michael Mandel; Pluto Press, 345, Archway Road, London N6 5AA. £ 14.99.

GLOBAL JUSTICE OR GLOBAL REVENGE? — International Criminal Justice at the Crossroads: Hans Kochler; Indian Society for International Law and Manak Publications in association with SpringerWien NewYork, B-7, Saraswati Complex, Laxmi Nagar, New Delhi-110092. Rs. 400.

Four decades after the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals, the end of Cold War rivalry led to renewed interest in the architecture of international criminal law. The blatant violation of international humanitarian law in the armed conflicts which erupted during the break-up of the former Yugoslavia led the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to create, in August 1992, an ad hoc judicial body called the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The tribunal was armed with a sweeping mandate to investigate and prosecute all war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on the undivided territory of that country by soldiers, commanders and civilian leaders alike. The UNSC followed this action up by the establishment of another ad hoc tribunal to prosecute cases stemming from the 1994 genocide in Rwanda (ICTR).

The two books under review critically examine these and other legal efforts to protect human rights and conclude that the quest for a system of international criminal justice, which can stop or punish grave breaches of humanitarian law, has been fatally compromised by power politics. Kochler, a well-known international legal scholar who served as the U.N.'s observer to the Lockerbie bombing trial, believes the answer lies in the newly created International Criminal Court (ICC).

Despite its manifest shortcomings, the ICC represents a paradigmatic shift in the quest for universal jurisdiction but its ability to deliver will depend crucially on how it negotiates its way through the thicket of international power politics.

Five modes of justice

In making his case, Kochler provides a remarkably lucid yet detailed account of the developing idea and practice of international criminal justice since the 19th Century. He identifies the five possible modes for international criminal justice: ad hoc tribunals established by victorious war powers or the UNSC such as Nuremberg, the ICTY and ICTR; universal jurisdiction by national judiciaries such as Spain's attempted prosecution of the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet or a Belgian court's attempt to indict Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon; special courts in domestic jurisdictions established by international agreement, such as the Lockerbie court set up under Scottish law in the Netherlands to try two Libyan intelligence agents for the bombing of a PanAm airliner, or the proposed genocide courts in Cambodia; special courts set up by agreement between the UNSC and a member state, such as Sierra Leone; and the ICC.

The exercise of universal jurisdiction by national judiciaries stems from the First Geneva Convention which sets out the obligation of a state to bring individuals who have committed "grave breaches" of the Conventions "regardless of their nationality, before its own courts." (Article 49) But despite its promise, Kochler concludes that the exercise of universal jurisdiction by national judiciaries runs the risk of creating "international legal anarchy" and can hardly be free from the taint of politics.

Politicisation

All ad hoc attempts up to and including the Nuremberg and Tokyo war crimes trials, Kochler argues, suffer from a basic flaw: the separation of powers so essential for justice ("No one can be judge in his own case.") was violated. While its classification of crimes— including the supreme international crime of aggression— remains Nuremberg's enduring legacy, Kochler points out that its methods and manner of proceedings can hardly be considered a model for an international court today.

He argues that the ad hoc tribunals set up by the UNSC suffer from the same defect: they are established in a discriminatory manner, are in violation of the principle of the separation of powers and lead to the politicisation of justice — an argument Michael Mandel makes with devastating legal precision in How America Gets Away with Murder.

A distinguished professor of law at York University in Canada, Mandel was involved in a celebrated but unsuccessful attempt to get the ICTY's prosecutor to open an investigation against NATO commanders and leaders for their illegal bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999. His account of the functioning of the two ICTY prosecutors — Louise Arbour and Carla del Ponte — and some of its judges provides a shocking insight into the arbitrary and politicised nature of the tribunal.

This is hardly surprising since both prosecutors had been pre-screened by the U.S. and the Security Council. Ms. Arbour refused to even countenance complaints that the killing of civilians by NATO bombs was a violation of the ICTY statute. Ms. del Ponte was little better. She appointed a committee to look into incidents like the deliberate attack on the RTS radio and television station in Belgrade and the bombing of a passenger train on the Grdelica bridge in Serbia — incidents that Amnesty International labelled war crimes. The NATO refused to reply to any questions put to it but that did not prevent the committee from coming up with a predictable report declaring there was no need for the ICTY to open an investigation against the U.S.-led military alliance. Its main argument: it found the explanations given by NATO press releases and statements during the war to be credible!

State of justice

Though the ICTY and NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia form the core of Mandel's highly readable and meticulously referenced book, he too surveys the state of international justice and comes up with assessments broadly similar to those of Kochler. On the ICC, however, Mandel is less sanguine, emphasising the numerous compromises that were made in the negotiation of the Rome Statute to accommodate the concerns of the U.S. Indeed, he says the whole drive for international criminal justice has been "very good at legitimating war and bad at promoting peace."

Kochler recognises the shortcomings but nevertheless argues that it is only the ICC which is capable of delivering impartial justice. "The ICC is the maximum achievable within the present world power politics, which is why the U.S. opposes it." Washington's primary concern is to ensure its leaders, soldiers and citizens are never hauled up before the court. Despite not being a party to the ICC, however, the court's jurisdiction would apply to U.S. nationals accused of violating its statute on the territory of countries which are a party to the court.

It is this "principle of territoriality" which gives the court some bite. Had Iraq been a signatory to the ICC, the illegal U.S. invasion in 2003 would still not have been covered because the crime of aggression was left undefined. However, U.S. forces could theoretically have been hauled up before the ICC for their numerous violations of the laws of war.

Lesson

For both Kochler and Mandel, the U.S. notion of sovereign immunity is not compatible with modern international law. Writes Kochler: "The U.S. engages in an inconsistent policy of insisting on the immunity of its leaders for acts of state everywhere, while demanding the prosecution of foreign leaders for war crimes committed in exercise of their official functions."

The key lesson is that universal jurisdiction can only be exercised in a framework that is itself universal, hence Kochler's support for the ICC. But he adds that there must be proper rules and procedures, unlike the ICTY which allows judges from countries which waged war against Yugoslavia to stand in judgment against that country's leaders. The statute of the ICC represents "only an imperfect separation of the court's judicial powers from executive authority including that of individual states but most importantly the Security Council."

© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu

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