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PLP Research| THE ROLE OF ARAB LEAGUE IN SOLVING THE SYRIAN CRISIS AND THE CURRENT EXTENT OF THE POWERS OF THE ORGANIZATION

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1. PLP Research| THE ROLE OF ARAB LEAGUE IN SOLVING THE SYRIAN CRISIS AND THE CURRENT EXTENT OF THE POWERS OF THE ORGANIZATION
2. New Investment Law | What role could the Egyptian Investment Law no.72 of 2017 play to improve the investment environment in Egypt?

Presented By: Abdelrahman Magdy

Introduction:

March 2011, Syrian Security forces shot dead peaceful protestors in the southern city of Deraa demanding release of political prisoners[1]. April 2013, the Syrian president Assad is accused of using chemical weapons against the opposition[2]. In March 2018, The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed that more than 511,000 people had been killed in the Syrian war since it began in 2011[3]. The number of Total Registered Syrian Refugees has reached 5.5 million refugee around the world[4].

And like any other war, the Syrian war has developed over years. The Syrian civil war is not only the most prominent event in the Middle East, but also the major global humanitarian crisis either due to the huge number of people who still suffer from the ongoing conflict as we previously mentioned, or because the USA, Russia and other powerful countries became deeply involved in this war.

 

Therefore, a number of international and regional organizations tried to find a peaceful solution but the    United Nations’ Security Council of failed to adopt a resolution that would have condemned the “grave and systematic human rights violations” committed by the Syrian regime due to the Russian and Chinese vetoes[5]. Also, the regional organizations, which are supposedly competent to resolve such disputes, namely the Arab League, could not handle the situation due to many factors as three other countries of the region faced similar major turmoils even before


 

[1] Syria profile – Timeline, (last checked) 24 April 2018, https://bbc.in/2S14qa2

[2] Alicia Sanders-Zakre, Timeline of Syrian Chemical Weapons Activity, 2012-2018, Posted: June 29, 2018, (last checked) 12 August 2018, https://goo.gl/XBzY3v

[3] Angus McDowall, Syrian Observatory says war has killed more than half a million, posted MARCH 12, 2018 , (last checked) 12 August 2018, https://reut.rs/2Fz4b3G

[4] Operational portal refugee situations, Syria Regional Refugee Response, (Last checked) 02 Aug 2018, https://bit.ly/2qLp698

[5] Security Council Fails to Adopt Draft Resolution Condemning Syria’s Crackdown on Anti-Government Protestors, Owing to Veto by Russian Federation, China, posted: 4 OCTOBER 2011

(Last checked) 12 August 2018),  https://bit.ly/2gLPxIl

the protests start in Syria; including Egypt that lies at the heart of the Arab world and is home to the Arab League headquarters[1].

In spite of the unstable situation in most Arab states back then in 2011, The Arab League agreed to suspend Syria’s membership on Saturday, accusing the government of President Bashar al-Assad of violently suppressing civil, threatening economic and political sanctions if the Syrian government did not comply

By reviewing the history of LAS’s decisions during political disputes as the case with the civil wars in Yemen and Lebanon, the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein’s regime, the political tensions between Egypt and Libya during Sadat’s presidency, we would notice that The Arab League never played a decisive or significant role in resolving any of these crises or disputes, but it reflected the positions and interests of member states and their points of view[2].

Consequently, the powers of The Arab League are limited as it became obvious that there is a crucial need for the creation of a powerful regional organization that can foster regional cooperation. The Syrian conflict ultimately paved the way for the intervention of a number of international powers as USA, Russia and Turkey all solidified their military presence in Syria and infringed its sovereignty with little action taken by the Arab countries. So, it is my view that the LAS shall be subjected to some changes to ensure some degree of cooperation and an effective decision-making mechanism to achieve regional peace and security.

Therefore, in this paper will address the decisions taken by LAS and its role in resolving the Syrian crisis as an example for the extent and the limitations of its powers. Then, the paper focuses on discussing the reasons why the decisions of LAS are not effective and why the organization cannot exercise its functions freely. Afterwards, a comparative analogy will be made to assess the organization efficacy of two regional organizations, namely the European Union (EU) and the League of Arab States. Lastly, the paper concludes with a number of suggestions that will supposedly improve the dire situation in Syria, and elsewhere in the region.


 

[1] Bechara Nassar Charbel, Role of Arab League in Syrian Crisis, 12 Sep 2011, (last checked) 12 August 2018  https://bit.ly/2ySiPg7

[2] ibid.

 

FIRST: LAS role in resolving the Syrian crisis

Upon its establishment in 1945, The Arab League incurred the responsibility of maintaining the regional peace and security. The Arab league acted as the main regional organization for the Arab countries as its charter states that the organization “has as its purpose the strengthening of the relations between the member-states, the coordination of their policies in order to achieve co-operation between them and to safeguard their independence and sovereignty”[1].

As the organization is responsible for maintaining the sovereignty of the states, LAS has undertaken many procedures to face the Syrian crisis and to ensure peace and security within the borders of the state, and in this section, I will focus on the organization’s efforts to offer solutions to end the conflict. The proposed resolutions were proof of the limitations to the organizations’ powers and were evidently insufficient to solve several other disputes.

It’s worth mentioning that the aforementioned limitations stem from the articles of the establishing charter itself, decision-making procedures and some other political factors but we are going to discuss the most important legal factors in our point of view later on.

In November 2011, Syria has been suspended from the Arab League due to its failure to end the violence caused by the Syrian brutal government crackdowns on pro-democracy protests, this decision had been taken after a warning was given to the Syrian national government to stop the its crackdown on peaceful dissent[2]. The organization’s decision to exclude Syria was followed by economic and political sanctions imposed on the Syrian government. “We are calling all Syrian opposition parties to a meeting at the Arab League headquarters to agree a unified vision for the transitional period” said the Qatari prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr bin Muhammad Al Thani.

We can notice that these early decisions were not effective enough to deter the Syrian government from carrying out brutal attacks on innocent civilians such as the use of chemical weapons, which paved the way for foreign intervention and later on the diminishing of the opposition.

Wael Merza, the secretary general of the opposition Syrian National Council, told al-Jazeera the decision “Unfortunately, knowing the nature of the regime, we know that violence will be even more harsh in the coming few days,”[3] as he predicted that the LAS decision would led to more tensions on the ground in the short term.


 

[1] The charter of League of Arab States, Article II, 22 March 1945,  https://bit.ly/2CWwqaO   

[2] David Batty and Jack Shenke, Syria suspended from Arab League, published: 12 Nov 2011, (last checked) 12 August 2018,  https://bit.ly/2srGEcd

[3] ibid.

 

The role of Arab league was supposedly to deter the Syrian regime from continuing to carry its systematic attacks on civilians but that never happened.

In 2013, the Arab foreign ministers debated the possibilities of awarding Syria’s vacant seat in the organization to the opposition Syrian National Coalition[1]. In my opinion, this move came late as it took place while the civilians were suffering from the lack of humanitarian assistance and were killed by ISIS and other terror bandits including their national government itself.

SECOND: Two major obstacles to ensuring an efficient Arab league

As we explained before, LAS suffers an inefficiency of the decision-making process due to a number of factors. However, I am going to discuss the main reasons or obstacles hindering the achievement of regional peace and security. The two main obstacles are the organization’s charter itself as well as its decision-making mechanisms.

 

OBSTACLE ONE: The current provisions of the charter of the League of Arab States

According to ARTICLE II of the abovementioned charter, one of the purposes of LAS is to maintain the regional peace, security, and integrity, but we if we thoroughly examined the rest of the charter, there are few guarantees to achieve such ends, in contrary they are considered as obstacles.

We shall begin with article V that states that “Any resort to force in order to resolve disputes between two or more member-states of the League is prohibited. If there should arise among them a dispute which does not concern a state’s independence, sovereignty, or territorial integrity, and if the parties to the dispute have recourse to the Council for the settlement of this dispute, the decision of the Council shall then be forceable and obligatory.”

The issue with this article is that it doesn’t afford enough guarantees to deter the member states from resorting to military means as it doesn’t grant the organizational mandate to intervene properly to resolve the dispute which in turn affects its overall reputation and capacity.


 

[11] ibid.

 

This was very obvious when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, a war that ended with an Iraqi victory, largely due to the lack of cooperation between member-states in defending Kuwait. The American intervention in the Middle East started when Hussein refused to withdraw his forces from Kuwait, which he had declared as an integral part of Iraq, as some 700,000 allied troops, primarily American, were deployed in the battlefield[1]. In this case the only decisive solution was to the use of force.

Another thing is that the article prevents member-states from addressing the member states’ concerns regarding the respect of their territorial sovereignty, and I find it hardly comprehendible that the charter falls short to state a reviewing mechanism in this regard. This is why I believe that this article is the main reason for the inefficiency of the organization.

Another example is article VIII which provides that “each member-state shall respect the systems of government established in the other member-states and regard them as exclusive concerns of those states. Each shall pledge to abstain from any action calculated to change established systems of government.”

This misinterpretation of this provision affected the organization’s capacity to intervene in the Syrian conflict as the Arab leaders considered their intervention as a breach of Syria’s sovereignty, which eventually led to the intervention of other global powers.

It is my view that the organizations’ charter should be amended to ensure that it is properly implemented in a way that preserves the regional peace and security and promotes the organizational integrity of the Arab League as a political entity.

These are some of the provisions that need amendment, there are other crucial provisions related to the voting system in the organization and we are going to discuss them in the next section.

 

OBSTACLE TWO: The voting system and the decision-making process

Article VII of Arab League charter provides that “Unanimous decisions of the council shall be binding upon all member-states of the League; majority decisions shall be binding only upon those states which have accepted them.”

We can notice that only unanimous decisions of the council, excepting the majority decisions, are binding upon member-states. We shall also take into consideration that there are no military sanctions or penalties that are imposed upon member-states who refuse to act in accordance to or comply with the Council’s unanimous decisions, therefore there is no sufficient deterrence that could be enforced in this case.


 

[1] Iraq invades Kuwait, (last checked 22 August 201, https://bit.ly/2JYBf23

 

Another defect that could be found in this article is that majority decisions are not binding on member states. As I fully understand that the article supposedly offers guarantees to respect the sovereignty of each member-state and its independence, however, it also fails to foster the cooperation between the member states to ensure the implementation of the organizations’ decisions.

Furthermore, the Arab States shall take serious certain steps towards the implementation of the Treaty of Joint Defense and Economic Cooperation between the States of the Arab League in June 17, 1950. An effective defense pact is needed to ensure that the maintaining of the regional peace and security could be achieved through regional mechanisms to limit the foreign interventions.

The decision-making process in the League lacks efficiency, with member states’ common interests as the only stimulator for mutual cooperation. Thus, The Arab League is confined to the limited acts and authority over member-states, with minimum agreements as its outcome. The European Union’s experience as an effective regional organization suggests that there must be a supra-national institution to resolve conflicts, supervise the development and implementation of the policies, and regulate the behaviors of relevant nations[1]

Therefore, I will briefly compare the roles and powers of both European Union and The Arab League to highlight the structural differences between the two organizations.


 

[1] Wanli Chen & Jun Zhao, The Arab League’s Decision-making System and Arab Integration , (Last checked) 12 August 2018.

 

THIRD: The European Union as an example of an effective regional organization

Joining the European Union has many benefits. This part will focus on summarizing the advantages and privileges of obtaining an EU membership as well as discussing the disadvantages of both organizations as an indication of the existence of some weakness points of each.

The European Union was founded in November 1, 1958. It is widely believed that the EU’s legacy of effectively promoting continental peace and security has indeed provided member-states with greater influence on the international affairs[1], as the cooperation between the European states reached unprecedented levels and this results in more influence for each member-state and giving each state more power in its individual international dealings.

Another main advantage which The Arab League lacks is that each nation in the EU maintains sovereignty[2] and security as keeping the sovereignty of each member-state is a high concern for the Union and this was obvious in Brexit agreement, maintain security and the current structure all of them are priorities and the organization is vested with the power to achieve these ends, in contrast to the situation in the League of Arab States which lacks the tools and methods of achieving these purposes.

The economic factor is a crucial one also and as we mentioned before that Arab league misses real cooperation in this field too, 1. Tax Free Trading Among Members[3] as countries are allowed to trade with each other without taxes on imports or tariffs or any other costs so the trade could flow easily and smoothly and needless to say that this degree of economic integration is highly needed between LAS state and we can notice that the main reason for most Arab countries conflicts were arose because of financial matters as in the case of Iraq-Kuwait war 1990.


 

[1]Brandon Gaille, 18 Advantages and Disadvantages of the European Union, Feb 1, 2018, (Last checked 12 August 2018), https://bit.ly/2EzRWDD

[2] ibid

[3] Eleven Advantages and Disadvantages of the European Union, (Last checked) 12 August 2018, https://bit.ly/2q3j0Rz

 

Conclusion

As the main peaceful way to resolve the Syrian disputes lies in the hands of the Arab countries. An effective Cooperation between Arab states would provide solutions not only to the Syrian crisis but also to any other Arab conflict such as the Palestinian conflict as well as any future conflict.

 

Therefore, I suggest the following:

 

  1. The Charter of Arab League shall be amended in the scope of the provision we presented above.
  2. The Treaty of Joint Defense and Economic Cooperation Between the States of the Arab League shall be immediately applied to promote regional peace and security,
  3. Fostering economic growth in MENA are by concluding tax free trade agreement,
  4. Undertake all sufficient proceedings to improve the decision-making mechanism in the League of Arab States.

 

Peace is the greatest end that every country in the whole world should seek to achieve by all available means. Fostering economy, culture and effective cooperation all are means to achieve peace, an end which is too hard to achieve but is not impossible.

 

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