Santiago: Power game did me in
Senator blames failure on ‘realpolitik’ in UN
By Michael Lim Ubac
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:20:00 11/09/2008
Filed Under: Foreign affairs & international relations, Diplomacy, Politics, Treaties & International Organisations
MANILA, Philippines—Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago on Saturday blamed her failure to win a seat in the 15-member International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the “power game” among rich and powerful nations.
“It was a hard campaign, but ultimately it was a power game,” said Santiago in a statement she issued after arriving in Manila at midnight on Friday from New York.
Santiago, for whom no less than President Macapagal-Arroyo had campaigned, also took a swipe at the UN.
She said the UN “keeps advocating gender balance but now in the ICJ there are 15 judges without a single woman judge. This shows the UN does not advance international interests as much as the national interests of powerful countries.”
Santiago failed to win the needed votes despite a year-long hard-fought campaign.
She was edged out by the candidate from Somalia, Abdulqawi Yusuf, in the final round of voting, according to Hilario Davide Jr., the Philippines’ permanent representative to the UN.
Santiago was the only woman candidate to fill the five vacancies in the 15-seat ICJ, the principal judicial organ of the UN also known as the World Court.
She would have been only the second Filipino to sit in the ICJ after Supreme Court Chief Justice Cesar Bengzon was elected to the body in 1966.
Davide said Santiago was as a strong candidate in the initial phases of the balloting.
She emerged in the top five in the first round of balloting in the General Assembly but failed to get enough votes in the Security Council to win the last of the five contested seats.
This forced both UN bodies to go into subsequent rounds of voting to determine who among the four remaining candidates would fill the remaining vacant seat.
Santiago had the support of member states that felt a woman should sit in the ICJ. But this apparently was not enough.
“In the end, it was regional representation and not gender balance that determined the final outcome,” said Davide.
African representation
“Member states felt Africa needed to be represented in The Hague [where the ICJ is headquartered] since Asia was already able to secure a seat with the reelection of Jordan in the first round,” he said.
“The Philippine delegation led by Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo and Davide put up such a brave battle that after the first round of voting, after four judges had already been elected, my votes compelled the voting to reach four rounds,” said Santiago in her statement.
She said she missed election by a “hairsbreadth” after “winning in the popular General Assembly, but losing in the elite Security Council.”
The “narrow and colorful defeat” makes the ICJ an all-male enclave, despite the UN advocacy for gender balance, she said.
She said the developed states tended to vote for countries where they had interests to protect such as investments, natural resources and a big export market.
RP has no such cards
“As a developing state, we have no such cards to play,” Santiago said.
“Big countries like China and France refused to support the Philippines while small countries like Indonesia and Vietnam remained our staunch allies to the end. Probably none of the big powers voted for the Philippines,” she said.
The big powers—the five permanent members of the Security Council—are the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia and China.
“Reportedly, the US considers the Philippines negligible in world affairs. The UK and France prefer to support former colonies, where they have big investments.
“China has big investments to protect in Jordan. Moscow is sore at the Philippines because we did not vote for it in the last Security Council elections. All this is realpolitik,” Santiago said.
Santiago, a former professor of international law, said realpolitik referred to “politics based on the national interest and on power, in other words, practical politics.”
“Powerful states promote international law only when it works in their favor. For example, they advocate gender balance on paper, but reject it when it hinders their own national interests,” she said.
Santiago noted that in the General Assembly, while 143 states had promised in writing to vote for the Philippines, she eventually received only 107 votes.
This was “still the required majority,” but showed that “some states cannot be trusted to keep their promises,” she said.
“In the same manner, the Philippine mission received nine written promises to vote for the Philippines in the Security Council, but only five voted for me. Fortunately, I was already warned that UN diplomacy can be accompanied by betrayal, because of the practice of secret balloting,” she said.
Santiago said that if the Philippines plans to nominate another candidate to the ICJ three years from now, the government should start the “process of mutual exchange of favors at this time.”
“One strategy is that each time a country approaches the Philippines for a favor, our government should immediately ask for a commitment to the ICJ or any other international organization.
“Another strategy is to strengthen solidarity among the 10 Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) member states so that we shall form a united power bloc. But the best way is to work at increasing Philippine power in international terms,” she said.
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