U.N. advocated as mediator

Press, 24 July 1986, Page 8

U.N. advocated as mediator

The United Nations should play a more active role in settling international disputes, believes a visiting United States expert in mediation. Professor Jeff Rubin said yesterday that the unusual feature of the Rainbow Warrior settlement was not that the United Nations was consulted but that it was listened to. The Iranian hostage crisis in 1979 was an example of a conflict that intervention by the United Nations Secretary-General had not solved, he said. Professor Rubin teaches at Tufts University, Massachusetts, and also runs a programme on mediation at Harvard University. The United Nations was usually seen to be doing

virtually nothing, said Professor Rubin. He hoped that the SecretaryGeneral could intervene in more disputes to prevent the use of violence. Third-party mediation by such agencies as the United Nations would allow nations to settle their differences without “loss of face,” he said. The United Nations might have to acquire more international legitimacy if both parties were expected to agree to its rulings. It was difficult to see disputes such as the future of the Middle East or South Africa being settled by such mediation, said Professor Rubin. It was ironical that the serious disputes, those which most threatened a nation, had little chance of being settled by mediation, he

said. Hostage crises were the most obvious examples of conflicts that could be settled in a Rainbow Warrior fashion, provided the United Nations was seen to have more legitimacy.

Professor Rubin also agreed that there was an international double standard over the meaning of the term "terrorism.”

“I think it is the height of hypocrisy for a nation to defend its own actions which result in destruction as acceptable behaviour but to define other examples as terrorism,” he said.

No organisation would describe its own actions as terrorist, said Professor Rubin. For this, reason he used the term very carefully-