Yes, Madam Chair, I would support such a resolution by the UN General Assembly. We could get a preponderant vote in the UN General Assembly because we have to appreciate that Russia and China are isolated. The UN Security Council resolutions that they vetoed, 13 members of the UN Security Council supported. The United Nations Human Rights Council proposed a commission of inquiry and it was only Russia, China and Cuba that opposed it and 43 supported it. Again, they were isolated.
A UN General Assembly resolution would show that the preponderant membership of the international community is in support of some of the elements that I and my colleagues have mentioned this evening and would further isolate Russia and China and exercise a kind of diplomatic leverage that perhaps could shame them into supporting a UN Security Council resolution.
I will continue with some of the elements, as the member for Ottawa Centre invited me to do. This resolution, pursuant to the Annan peace plan, should mandate an inclusive political dialogue and process that genuinely respects the legitimate aspirations of the whole of the Syrian people, including the large majority that are not Alawi and in which, as the UN plan put it, “citizens are equal regardless of their affiliations, ethnicities or beliefs” and with a view to President Assad stepping down as part of that process.
The international community needs to leverage, as I mentioned, Russia and China. We need to do so in such a way that Russia in particular has to appreciate that if it seeks to be part of a Middle East peace process, as it always has aspired to do, and if it seeks legitimacy as a superpower, which it aspires to be, then it must conduct itself as a legitimate superpower would, as one that cares about peace in the Middle East would and, thereby, not veto such a UN Security Council resolution.
In the event that it would continue to seek to veto such a resolution I will invoke here as a recommendation the Kosovo precedent. This was referred to by the member for Ottawa Centre. When Kosovo occurred, we did not have a unanimous resolution that authorized intervention at the time. We had only a majority at the time because Russia had vetoed it as well. We even have a larger and more significant majority now for a resolution with regard to Syria than we had with regard to Kosovo. I would recommend that in the event that we do not get full unanimity, then we should adopt the Kosovo precedent.
In conclusion, Syria is a case study of the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine: first, the notion of the principle of sovereignty as responsibility, a country's responsibility to protect its citizens; second, and this I take up with my colleague from Ottawa Centre, the responsibility to remember the lessons of history, le devoir de mémoire of the dangers of indifference and the importance of the responsibility to even prevent atrocities to begin with; third, the dangers of inaction in the face of mass atrocity and the responsibility to act in order to hold the perpetrators accountable; fourth, the danger of impunity and the responsibility to bring the perpetrators to justice.
As UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon has put it, “loss of time means more loss of lives”. Tragically, we have not yet done what needs to be done in order to save lives.