Who Has the Right to Represent Myanmar at the UN?

From April 12 to 16 of this year, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) convened the 64th meeting of the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna, Austria. Representing Myanmar at the conclave was Lt. Gen. Than Hlaing, the chief of the Myanmar Police Force and deputy home affairs minister, who appeared via video link in a black suit to discuss his government’s efforts to eradicate the illegal drug trade.

The general’s presence at the meeting caused an immediate controversy, and not only because of the Myanmar military’s long-running and multifaceted involvement in the country’s narcotics business. Than Hlaing’s appearance marked the first time that a senior figure of the military regime that seized power in a coup on February 1 had participated in a U.N. forum, kicking up some complex diplomatic questions.

As a coalition of 410 Myanmar civil society groups pointed out in a subsequent statement, Than Hlaing is very much a junta man. Appointed to his two posts on February 2, the day after the coup, “he commanded the commission of extreme brutality and acts of violence against peaceful protesters, members of the Civil Disobedience Movement, and other innocent individuals who have been killed, detained, and tortured.”

Indeed, the fact that the meeting was held via video link due to the COVID-19 pandemic saved the EU from the awkward situation of hosting an individual that it had already sanctioned for “serious human rights violations” committed in the aftermath of the coup.

The civil society groups alleged that Than Hlaing’s presence at the meeting amounted to the United Nations’ de facto recognition of the coup government, and seemed to contradict the call from senior U.N. officials, including Christine Schraner Burgener, the secretary-general’s special envoy for Myanmar, that the world should “not lend legitimacy or recognition to this regime.”

The organizations called for the UNODC “to immediately end all ties with the illegitimate military junta and recognize the National Unity Government as the legitimate governing body representing the people of Myanmar.”

“The U.N. has not only failed to act as the brutal military junta commits crimes against humanity,” the statement added, “it is now acting to legitimize and offer a platform to those who are murdering innocent people by the hundreds, including children.”

Jeremy Douglas, the UNODC’s regional representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, later said that the invitation to the event was sent out before the coup, and that Than Hlaing’s presence “does not in any way indicate a change in the position of the Secretary-General or the U.N. in Myanmar, the region, or globally.”

The controversy over the UNODC conference touched on an anguished diplomatic question thrown up by the coup: namely, who has the right to represent Myanmar at the world body?

To be sure, not all military takeovers prompt such questions. Myanmar’s case has been complicated by the sheer extent of the public opposition to the coup government, and the open opposition of the man who represents Myanmar at the United Nations. In late February, Kyaw Moe Tun, Myanmar’s ambassador to the U.N., gave an emotional address to the General Assembly, in which he publicly broke with the junta, raised a three-finger salute in solidarity with anti-coup protesters, and pledged loyalty to the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), a group of lawmakers chosen at last November’s election. The following day, the junta fired Kyaw Moe Tun from his post, appointing a deputy in his place. (A significant number of other Myanmar diplomats posted overseas have also since come out against the coup.)

This question of legitimacy and representation has sharpened since April 16, when the CRPH announced the formation of the National Unity Government (NUG), which brings together former NLD officials and representatives from ethnic armed organizations, in order to compete with the junta for international recognition.

The diplomatic showdown seems likely to play itself out before the U.N. General Assembly’s Credentials Committee, a nine-member body currently headed by Tanzania, which will hold its annual meeting in August.

As Rebecca Barber, a research fellow with the Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, wrote in late February, the committee’s vote could go a number of different ways. The first possibility is that the committee simply accepts the junta as Myanmar’s legitimate representative to the United Nations. This is not a foregone conclusion, however; Barber points out that the General Assembly has no automatic obligation to accept the military junta’s choice of ambassador, and could conceivably vote to recognize the NUG or the former NLD government.

History suggests that the Credentials Committee’s vote will be heavily influenced by the behind-the-scenes lobbying of key U.N. member states. But even for those Western nations that have been most outspoken in their condemnation of the coup, the question of Myanmar’s representation remains far from clear-cut. While Kyaw Moe Tun has received warm and supportive comments from Western officials, including Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., no foreign nation has yet formally recognized the NUG.

This reflects a simple reality: However illegitimate in the eyes of the Myanmar people and much of the world, the coup government retains more or less effective control over the organs and coercive power of the state. In a world of sovereign nation-states, this remains the overwhelming consideration. It also reflects the zero-sum nature of diplomatic relations. Any foreign government willing to formally recognize the NUG would likely be forced to close its embassy in Yangon or Naypyidaw, effectively preventing them from representing their nations’ interests in Myanmar.

This question will also been colored by strategic competition, and the desire by competing nations not to give an undue advantage to their rivals. As long as China accords diplomatic recognition to the coup government, the same will probably be true of Japan and India, wary of conceding ground to their East Asian rival.

This fraught calculus makes it possible that the U.N. Committee will end up opting for a third option. According to Barber, then U.N. can vote to defer its decision on credentials, with the effect “either that the incumbent delegation continues to provisionally occupy the member state’s seat, or that the seat remains temporarily unoccupied.” An example of the former case took place in the case of Afghanistan during 1996-99, while Cambodia’s seat was vacant during the country’s political crisis in 1997-98.

In this difficult equation, the most mutable variable is the unstable situation inside Myanmar. A dramatic change, such as a split in the military, or the eventual slow collapse of the junta administration, might create the conditions in which foreign governments decide throw their weight behind the NUG. Conversely, if the anti-coup protests peter out and the junta consolidates its control, they could quickly accede to its fait accompli. Until then, the most likely outcome is that the nations with a key stake in Myanmar will kick the diplomatic can a little further down the road.