I have a new post up over at 38 North looking at the role of the Panel of Experts supporting the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1718 (2006) — the resolution establishing sanctions on the DPRK.
I had originally intended to list the panel members in a box accompanying the article, but it didn’t work out. Here is the current roster:
(Each member is identified as having a specific expertise, which makes them sound like a sort of off-brand version of the A-Team.)
–John Everard (Coordinator), United Kingdom, “regional questions”
–Katsuhisa Furukawa, Japan, “nuclear issues”
–Erik Marzolf, France, “missile technology”
–Duk Ho Moon, Republic of Korea, “proliferation of weapons of mass destruction”
–William J. Newcomb III, United States of America, “finance”
–Alexander Vilnin, Russian Federation, “customs”
–Xiaodong Xue, China, “export control, nuclear materials”
Notice that the panel’s seven slots are occupied by representatives from the P5 plus Japan and South Korea. Guess who didn’t like this? Latin America and African countries.
Thanks to Wikileaks (none of these links are safe for work), we know Mexico and Costa Rica delayed the selection of a roster because it did not include a Latin American. Mexico and Costa Rica managed to enlist the support of Burkina Faso, Libya and Uganda, before relenting in exchange for a Latin American to get a slot on the Sudan POE. (As far as I can tell, this has not happened. It is unclear whether Mexico and Costa Rica subsequently negotiated another arrangement later or just got hosed over.)
It got me thinking, though. If you had to put a Latin American on the Panel of Experts, who would you pick?
It is a short bench of Latin Americans interested in arms control and disarmament — at least those outside of government. I participated in a Norway-funded meeting in Chile that tried to extend the debate about disarmament into Latin America.
I thought it might be fun to run nominations in the comments section.
Let me start with mine: Rodrigo V. Alvarez, executive manager of the Global Consortium on Security Transformation, based in Chile.
Who you got?
JR | July 17, 2012
Surely someone from Colombia could get some mileage out of having a crazy socialist cult of personality for a neighbor, right? Plus their experience with the drug war could be used to discuss what does (and doesn’t) work vis-a-vis smuggling and black markets. I don’t have any knowledge of their government, but surely you can find someone in Colombia’s government who would be ideal.
joshua | July 17, 2012
Jeff, your choice of illustration is a deft counterpart to Michael’s last post.
krepon | July 19, 2012
Where would this group fit in? A college mixer? Expedia.com’s call center in Equador? (Try getting your money back from these guys.)
Seriously, what was on TV back in the day? One guy is wearing a flannel shirt and leather jacket, another guy is bare-chested, except for the chains, looking like he has tickets to an Oakland Raiders game. Another guy looks like Uncle Charley heading out to the track, and is the last guy actually wearing an ascot?
MK
Jeffrey | July 19, 2012
The answer, obviously, is that the only place they fit as a group is “in the cocaine-addled brain of a mid-1980s television producer.”
kme | July 17, 2012
The country-of-origin identification for each member, on the other hand, makes them sound like an off-brand version of the Planeteers.
JohnLopresti | July 18, 2012
One approach to 1718 PoE reconstitution might have as a goal putting some new energy and technical expertise into increasing participation by member nations in the process of reporting incidents observed in commerce. The PoE 2012 report graphs on p.22 appear to show a need for that sort of re-emphasis.
The Flacso work seemed impressive. Though there was one Álvarez 2008 publication which seemed to be unavailable online:
http://issuu.com/flacso.chile/docs/rss_2008_5
“Armas nucleares: la incertidumbre de la no-proliferación y el desarme”
Bureaucrat | July 18, 2012
Furukawa’s on the POE? Nice. Whole group’s pretty solid actually.
Jeffrey | July 18, 2012
He’s good people. There is no question about their talent. It’s their situation that seems impossible to me.
Cameron | July 18, 2012
Ahhh, now we’re mixing TV shows? Fitting, since the only original Mission: Impossible that I recall took place in an unnamed Latin American country.
Gridlock | July 19, 2012
I love it when a UNSCR comes together.
Justman | July 19, 2012
Sergio Duarte (Brazil)….former UN head of the Office of
Disarmament Affairs.
Considering the fact that many members on the panel
represent countries who fought against DPRK in the
Korean War, it is a good idea to use experts from
countries that were not involved in the Korean War
for the sake of fairness and credibility.
It is incredible that the panel includes experts from ROK and US, who are still fighting against NK at this time.
The current roster looks like a fixed game with a gang of
five always dominating the panel.
Jeffrey | July 19, 2012
It’s not like the Russians and Chinese, who also have reps on the POE, were neutral during the Korean War.