Abu Dhabi: An Arab quartet boycotting Qatar is pushing for UN Security Council sanctions against Doha.
Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt accuse Qatar of supporting terrorism and interfering in their internal affairs.
Egypt currently sits in one of the Council’s rotating seats, and has been the main voice pushing for the council to investigate Qatar’s connections to terrorist organisations, a renowned international lawyer said on Thursday.
“Egypt has requested that the Council launch an investigation into accusations that Qatar paid a $1 billion (Dh3.67 billion) ransom to an Iraqi terrorist group to release kidnapped members of its royal family, although Qatar has denied this claim,” Robert Amsterdam, whose blend of political advocacy and international law has led to his retention by several world leaders, told Gulf News.
Amsterdam said at the UN Security Council, Egypt is the leader in suggesting that the Council should vote to impose sanctions against Qatar for violating counter-terrorism resolutions.
The release of UAE videos that implicate Qatar as a country that has undeniably failed to comply with the UN Security Council’s counter-terrorism resolutions may persuade other Council members to join Egypt in pursuing sanctions.
Amsterdam, however, thinks it is very unlikely that the UN Security Council will impose sanctions on Qatar based upon the counter-terrorism resolutions.
“The Security Council has existing sanctions on Al Qaida, Daesh, the Taliban, and groups and individuals with ties to these entities, and has imposed an arms embargo on Iran. For Qatar to face UN sanctions based on violation of the counter-terrorism resolution, the council would first have to identify a direct link between Qatar and individuals or groups already identified on the UN terrorist blacklist, or find Qatar has breached the arms embargo on Iran,” Amsterdam said. Amsterdam added if either of these links were found, imposing sanctions would still be difficult; it would require either consensus Security Council approval behind closed doors or a vote, which would require nine votes in favour of sanctions and no vetoes by the Council’s P5 (The United States, Britain, France, Russia, and China).
Egypt’s UN permanent representative said that Security Council inaction on this issue may be motivated by the economic interests of other Council members, who stand to benefit from business with Doha. Omar Ghobash, the UAE’s ambassador to Russia, told BBC’s Hardtalk programme last month that Qatar tipped off Al Qaida fighters about a UAE military operation in Yemen, enabling them to carry out a suicide bomb attack injuring Emirati soldiers.
Ghobash said the discovery of the incident was among the factors behind the decision by the UAE and its allies last month to sever diplomatic, trade and transport links with Qatar over its support of extremist groups.
He cited additional evidence of Qatar’s support of terror groups including voice recordings and videos implicating Qatar.
Amsterdam said the videos could also push Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries to suspend Qatar’s membership in the Council.
“The coalition’s bylaws say that a member country may call for an extraordinary session of the GCC Supreme Council in order to hold a vote on the suspension of another country’s membership. If the session is seconded by a second member state, at least four of the six member countries attend, and the meeting is chaired by a member state that is not directly involved in the conflict. In this case, either Kuwait or Oman would have to agree to chair and preside over any meeting with a vote to suspend Qatari membership in the GCC,” Amsterdam said.
Dr Ayman Salama, Professor of International Law, said Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt may file a motion with the Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee, demanding that Qatar along with persons and entities, blacklisted by the four countries, be put on the UN Sanctions List, in view of the court rulings against a number of them from Egypt’s courts.
Retired general Mahmoud Mansour, the founder of Qatari intelligence, said Egypt will submit to the International Criminal Court documents and videos proving Qatar’s funding of terrorism.
“Egypt’s evidences include former Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign minister, Hamad Bin Jassim’s role in supporting Al Qaida, Al Nusra Front, Daesh, terrorists operations in Darfur, Niger, Cameroon, Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia,” Mansour said.
The Hague-based court has global jurisdiction to prosecute and bring to justice those responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
Dr Saeed Al Lawindi, an international relations expert at Al Ahram Institute, said Qatar has also violated the Riyadh Arab Agreement for Judicial Cooperation.
He explained that under the agreement, enforced in 1985, each party is required to extradite persons found on its territory charged with having committed a crime by the competent authority or convicted of having done so by a judicial body of any other contracting parties.
Egyptian rights advocates and politicians have also recently called for filing compensation lawsuits in international courts against Qatar for its support of terrorist attacks in the country.
“The [Egyptian] parliament should pass legislation on compensation for terrorism victims similar to the American JASTA law,” Hafez Abu Saeeda, the head of the non-governmental Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights,” told a Cairo conference on legal support for victims of terrorism.
He was referring to the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, passed by the US Congress last year, allowing families of victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York to sue foreign countries linked to the assaults.
Abu Saeeda said that a team of Egyptian, Arab and foreign lawyers will be formed to sue terror-sponsoring countries, noting that they could go to The Hague-based International Criminal Court that previously handled similar cases.
UN Resolution 1373
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373 requires all member states to counteract terror activities by domestic measures such as criminalising the financing of terrorism, freezing funds of anyone associated with terrorism, and denying any form of financial support to terrorist groups.
The resolution also calls on member states to coordinate and share information with other states in combating terrorism.
The UN Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 2133 in January 2014, reaffirming its decision that all states should prevent and suppress any financing of terror groups. The resolution’s preamble calls on states to coordinate and assist the appropriate parties in kidnapping and hostage situations, and to get the private sector on board with anti-ransom policies.
