Roudi Baroudi| The Daily Star
Energy: The peoples of our region deserve to live in peace
An Open Letter to U.N. Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon
His Excellency Ban Ki-moon
Secretary-General, United Nations
760 United Nations Plaza
Manhattan, New York, USA
March 22, 2016
Dear Mr. Secretary-General:
Welcome to Lebanon, which helped found the United Nations, and continues to believe in its ideals, but now needs a generous dose of action.
I refer to a small but critical section of this country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) that abuts the one claimed by neighboring Israel, a far larger power that has used military force against this country dozens of times over the past few decades, including a 28-year occupation in much of the South. These actions, the vast majority of them unprovoked or grossly disproportionate with whatever prompted them, have killed tens of thousands of people, repeatedly displaced hundreds of thousands more, and struck fear into the hearts of millions. The cost of the physical destruction amounts to tens of billions of dollars, as does that of lost economic growth. In addition, countless Lebanese have been left with no choice but to seek employment and business opportunities abroad, forcing many families to live apart for years on end, a fate whose cost cannot be calculated in monetary terms.
Although it has been more than a decade since the last major confrontation, Israel’s military continues to violate Lebanese territory – on the ground, in the air, and at sea – on a daily basis, so the threat of further aggression is never far from the Lebanese mind. And now what should be cause for celebration is instead a reason to worry even more: The prospect of substantial oil and gas deposits in and around the overlap between our respective EEZ claims means that a new casus belli has to be considered, one in which the stakes could not be higher.
Your Excellency,
As we all know, the United Nations was built on the ashes of the most destructive war in human history, its founders determined to reduce the scope for future conflicts by providing an international forum for the peaceful resolution of disputes. Unfortunately, while the Lebanese still take enormous pride in having been one of 51 original founding member-states of the U.N. in 1945, we have spent most of the intervening seven decades living with war or the near-constant threat thereof. U.N. diplomacy, peacekeeping and development assistance have been indispensable in mitigating some of the consequences of these wars, but now the organization has a chance to prevent one altogether.
The facts are relatively straightforward. The overlap between the Lebanese and Israeli maritime claims consists of some 840 square kilometers, less than 10 percent of Lebanon’s entire EEZ and an even smaller proportion of Israel’s, but its oil and gas potential is significant, and uncertainty over this tiny patch of seabed carries unhelpful and even dangerous implications for a far wider area. The obvious solution is to settle the dispute in a timely manner, thereby reducing the threat of war, encouraging investment and getting on with the business of developing a resource that promises enormous socio-economic benefits for all of the peoples involved. Western diplomatic sources indicate that Israel has already unofficially recognized that two-thirds of the overlap belongs to Lebanon, so one short-term formula would be to have the remaining third and a surrounding buffer zone be declared off-limits to exploration and production until a permanent solution can be arrived at.
The problem is that, plainly, Lebanon and Israel cannot reach such an agreement on their own. The two countries have remained technically at war since 1949, have no official diplomatic relations whatsoever, and regard one another with mistrust bordering on paranoia. Even if Lebanon wanted to activate such relations, its vulnerability to destabilization by outside forces means it could not do so without similar moves by larger regional states.
Indirect negotiations are the only option, and while officials from the United States have reportedly made progress in separate discussions with their Lebanese and Israeli counterparts, yet another obstacle complicates this effort too: Israel is one of three countries in the region – along with Syria and Turkey – that have neither signed nor ratified the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the very mechanism that most governments rely on to settle maritime disputes.
Sir,
The peoples of our region deserve to live in peace. The hydrocarbons beneath the eastern Mediterranean seabed offer hope that all of us can attain a new era of prosperity, one that breaks the cycles of poverty and violence that do none of us any good. The United Nations has an indispensable role to play in making sure that the resources in question are a fuel for social and economic development, not a cause for more war.
U.N. diplomacy would not have to start from scratch. Cyprus has good relations with both Lebanon and Israel, and most of the delineation between its EEZ and the other two has been settled, either officially or unofficially. That leaves only the southern tripoint, where all three EEZs come together, to be defined, and this is where U.N. action can have a truly historic impact. This may mean convincing one or more governments to sign UNCLOS, negotiating a “neutral zone” to keep the peace until a final agreement is reached, and/or policing the demarcation lines to prevent violations by both sides, but none of these is outside either the purview or the capability of the United Nations.
Excellency,
I know you can perceive both the potential for positive outcomes if the U.N. commits itself to this process and the risk of more war, poverty and suffering if it does not. I trust, too, that you appreciate the U.N.’s opportunity to live up to its Charter, and yours to burnish your own legacy, by making full use of its good offices. Most of all, I hope you will succeed – because if you do, we all do.
Sincerely,
Roudi Baroudi
CEO, Energy and Environment Holding Concerned citizen, Lebanese Republic
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