Small Nations' Push For UN Treaty On Crime vs Humanity Outfoxes China, Russia

In mid-October, Russia, China and other autocratic countries sent a letter to a top UN diplomat expressing their “shock” at the maneuverings of other countries in the UN over a major new piece of international law, Robbie Gramer and Anusha Rathi reported for Foreign Policy.

Photo Insert: With Mexico in the lead, those countries bucked the normal procedures and traditions of consensus in a key UN committee that oversees international law, opening the door for the adoption of the first-ever UN treaty on crimes against humanity.

An unusual coalition led by Mexico, Gambia, and Bangladesh jumpstarted the process of creating a first-ever UN convention on crimes against humanity over the fierce objections of Moscow, Beijing, and their allies—who had stalled the process for three years.

Moscow and Beijing got outfoxed. With Mexico in the lead, those countries bucked the normal procedures and traditions of consensus in a key UN committee that oversees international law, opening the door for the adoption of the first-ever UN treaty on crimes against humanity.

In 2013, the International Law Commission (ILC), a body of legal experts charged with drafting proposed new conventions for the UN to consider adopting, added crimes against humanity to its ever-growing to-do list.

In 2017, it drafted an initial set of articles for such a convention, and in 2019, it formally sent the draft to the UN Sixth Committee, the body that oversees international legal issues. Russia and China killed the draft in 2019, 2020, and 2021.

But a new coalition of countries decided to buck that trend in 2022. When the Sixth Committee met in October, Mexico and its allies took the draft resolution already written up by the ILC and introduced it to the committee, assigned coordinators from the outset without waiting for approval from the states that opposed the initiative, and set a timetable for debating the resolution before Moscow and Beijing could mount any opposition.

What Mexico did was all aboveboard, if untraditional, according to the rules of the Sixth Committee. Pedro Comissário Afonso, Mozambique’s ambassador to the UN, who held the rotating chair of the Sixth Committee, said the panel “carefully considered the concerns” of Russia and its allies but “the procedures and practices of the Sixth Committee are being followed, and honored.”

The resolution initially had eight co-sponsors: Mexico, widely seen as the leader of the initiative, Bangladesh, Costa Rica, Colombia, Gambia, the US, UK, and South Korea. Then, dozens of other countries signed on.

“It went from one to eight to 86 co-sponsors,” said Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch (HRW), an international nonprofit organization.

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