21 - 27 February 2002
Issue No.574
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 21 - 27 February 2002 Issue No.574 |
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This time next year
Hassan Nafaa* wonders what it will take for Arab leaders to meet regularly
The past half century has seen many attempts to create an institutional mechanism for allowing Arab leaders to meet on a regular basis. All these attempts failed because leaders would not abide by the resolutions convening the conferences in the first place. Only at the extraordinary summit held in Cairo on 23-24 October 2000 did a qualitative shift occur in modes of joint Arab action. The meeting, besides issuing the standard resolution over the need for regularly scheduled summits, also amended the Arab League Charter, introducing an "appendix pertaining to the periodic convention of the Arab League Council at the summit level." The appendix is now an integral part of the Charter.
The effect of this amendment was to transform Arab summits, at least in form, into a permanent Arab League institution with specific functions and responsibilities: "To deliberate on issues related to all aspects of Arab national security strategy, coordinate the higher policies of Arab nations with respect to issues of regional and international importance, consider the recommendations, reports and joint programmes brought before it by the Arab League Foreign Ministers' Council, and appoint the secretary-general and amend the Arab League Charter." In addition, Article 3 of the amendment states: "This institution shall convene at regularly scheduled intervals at a time specified in advance in accordance with this Charter." Accordingly, the summit must convene at least once a year, in March.
Originally, Arab cooperation was founded on no more than a minimal level of coordination among the policies of independent sovereign states, rather than upon the maximum level necessary for integration or unity. Consequently, notwithstanding the pan-Arab ideology prevailing at the time the Arab League was created, the structure of this organisation is very simple and relatively loose. It consists of a General Council (in which the level of representation remains unspecified), various functional committees (in which all member states participate), and the General Secretariat (which is not politically autonomous). The charter was painstakingly drafted so as not to impinge on the sovereignty of the member nations. It prohibits the League's intervention in domestic affairs. Unanimity is the principle ruling the decision-making process, and majority vote the exception. Because those who drafted the charter knew that the "minimal level" principle would not appeal to some of the League's members, they affirmed the possibility of increasing the degree of unification in organisational structure. The charter also urged member nations to establish an Arab court of justice rapidly.
Arab summit conferences have passed through three distinct phases. The first extends from the creation of the Arab League to 1964, during which time only two summits were held, and these on an emergency basis -- the first in 1946 to discuss the developments in Palestine and the second in 1956 to demonstrate solidarity with Egypt at the time of the Tripartite Aggression. The second phase, lasting from 1964 to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, was a good one for Arab cooperation. Of the 21 summits held during this period, 13 were ordinary and the remainder were extraordinary or emergency meetings. In the third and most recent phase, lasting throughout the 1990s, meetings ground to a virtual halt. Only two extraordinary sessions were held in this period, the first in 1996 after Netanyahu reached power in Israel and the second in 2000 following the outbreak of the Al- Aqsa Intifada. Iraq was not present at the former, but it was invited to and did attend the latter -- the first time its representatives had sat down officially with their counterparts from the rest of the Arab world since the early 1990s.
Arab summits have always been connected to the conflict with Israel. Indeed, developments in Palestine even prior to Israel's creation galvanised Arab leaders to muster their first meeting a year after the creation of the Arab League. In the 1960s, President Abdel-Nasser appealed for a summit in response to Israel's plans to divert the waters of the River Jordan. That session also marked the first attempt to transform the summit into a permanent Arab League institution. Even in the phase of stagnation following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, developments on the Arab- Israeli front formed the prime impetus behind efforts to revive Arab assemblies. The fear that Rabin's assassination and Netanyahu's rise to power in Israel would jettison progress on the Palestinian problem was instrumental in the success of attempts to realise Arab reconciliation. Another telling indicator of the intimate relationship between these high-level gatherings and the Arab-Israeli conflict is that more than 90 per cent of the resolutions such summits issue have a direct bearing on this conflict generally, and on the Palestinian cause in particular.
In a sense, therefore, the Arab summit appears to have served more as a vehicle for managing the Arab-Israeli conflict than as a mechanism for setting the Arab house in order. Certainly, these gatherings have done little to resolve properly Arab disputes, even when these disputes so obstructed cooperation that it was impossible to meet on time, or indeed at all. One would have expected more sincere and intense efforts to establish mechanisms for resolving Arab disputes; but this problem has been a shockingly low priority on summit agendas.
In the domain of conflict resolution, these meetings have been able to produce at most a few ad hoc committees charged with smoothing ruffled feathers. The Casablanca summit of 1985, for example, formed a Saudi-Tunisian committee to mediate between Jordan and Syria and between Iraq and Syria, and a committee comprising Morocco, the UAE and Mauritania to mediate between Iraq and Libya and between the PLO and Libya. The participants called upon the disputing parties to respond to such efforts "in the spirit of brotherhood." Despite this lofty appeal, none of the parties concerned took the committees seriously. In fact, the summit made no effort to follow up on their activities or even ask them to submit a report to the following session.
As for mechanisms of Arab cooperation, the Casablanca summit of 1965 merely passed the Charter of Arab Solidarity, a vague exercise in rhetoric the very promulgation of which reflected the ideological conflict then prevailing. That this charter did little to calm tensions at the time is clear in the fact that the Arabs could not reconvene until after the 1967 War.
Perhaps most surprising of all is that summits addressed only three conflicts between Arab parties: the Palestinian-Jordanian crisis of 1970, discussed at the extraordinary session held in Cairo on 27 September; the Lebanese civil war, discussed first in Riyadh in October 1976 and then at the Eighth Arab Summit, held in Cairo from 25 to 27 October of that year; finally, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which triggered an emergency meeting in Cairo on 9 and 10 August 1990. While the 1970 meeting was reasonably successful in containing the Palestinian-Jordanian dispute, the 1976 summits were far less successful in containing the crisis in Lebanon, and the 1990 summit failed entirely to resolve the crisis in the Gulf. Furthermore, even considering the summit as a mechanism designed primarily to deal with the Arab-Israeli conflict, it has not always succeeded in channelling efforts to serve either the interests of the Arab world as a whole or those of the Arab parties most immediately involved in the conflict.
The reason Arab conferences have proved so ineffective is that the summit was never institutionalised in the full sense of the word. The Arab League Charter's amendment to provide for routine annual meetings has now raised widespread hopes that these meetings will come to constitute a truly viable institution. We should guard against confusing periodicity with institutionalisation, however. Effective action demands a systematic approach; but that is not the only factor. At least as important are such factors as the array of regulations and standards governing business (including clarity and precision in delineating targets, responsibilities and powers); transparency in the decision-making process; and the existence of criteria that govern the assessment and monitoring of performance.
Even before such regulations are brought into play, however, enhancing political cooperation requires that the Arabs address a number of fundamental issues. The first pertains to the identity and status of this institution. The summit should not be perceived merely as a mechanism for managing the Arab-Israeli conflict, but rather as the highest decision-making body within an integrated structure responsible for organising all facets of cooperation. Those involved at this level of the decision-making process cannot perform effectively in the absence of a solid hierarchy that clarifies responsibility and accountability. We must therefore reconsider the entire Arab League structure in terms of components that should be developed and those that are now redundant, and in terms of the redistribution of powers and responsibilities across the board.
A second issue must be addressed, pertaining to the way summits conduct their business and take decisions. Leaders cannot do what is expected of them at a conference if the problems to be resolved and all available solutions have not been examined thoroughly beforehand. In addition, in advance of any summit, meetings at the ministerial and prime ministerial levels should clear up outstanding issues apart from those that must be settled at the highest decision-making level.
The gravest problem facing cooperative endeavours resides not in the inability to take the necessary decisions or to secure the necessary majority for approval, but rather in the failure to implement resolutions and to attribute responsibility for such failure. Therefore, the third fundamental issue that must be addressed is the need to regulate the implementation of resolutions and pinpoint the factors obstructing implementation. This issue alone will provoke sensitivities, given the nature of regimes in the Arab world -- a good reason for the Arab world to adopt realistic goals that can be put into effect and cumulatively bring about a qualitative change. Unrealistic and emotionally inspired resolutions may give joint action a sudden boost, but this effect will be cosmetic in large part, and cooperation will soon sputter and die. This is what the participants meeting in Beirut should avoid at all costs.
*The writer is professor of political science at Cairo University.
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