FRENCH COMMENT ON U.S. PROPOSAL REGARDING THE 1267

C O N F I D E N T I A L PARIS 003382

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/18/2016
TAGS: KTFN PGOV PREL FR UNSC
SUBJECT: FRENCH COMMENT ON U.S. PROPOSAL REGARDING THE 1267
COMMITTEE

REF: A. STATE 65363

B. USUN NEW YORK 917

Classified By: ACTING POLITICAL COUNSELOR BRUCE TURNER, FOR REASONS 1.4
B/D


1. (C) Summary: Poloff met May 19 with officials from the MFA
to discuss proposals on UN sanctions issues, especially the
U.S. proposal on procedural protections and fairness in the
1267 Committee. French officials had two primary concerns
about the U.S. proposal: 1) a call for national governments
to reinforce their delisting mechanisms might run into
sovereignty objections by member-states, in addition to not
being effective; and 2) expanding the number of states
eligible to submit delisting petitions would make the
delisting procedure too cumbersome, and might potentially
lead to UNSC members being flooded with copy-cat requests for
delisting. The GOF officials added that, although their
proposal was meant to address UN sanctions regimes in
general, they would not be opposed to first focusing on the
1267 Committee. End summary.


2. (C) Julien Deruffe, the MFA's senior desk officer for
terrorism, opened discussion with an explanation of factors
France took into account in drafting its proposal. France,
said Deruffe, was opposed to the Danish proposal of an
independent ombudsman to deal with delisting, because of the
need to safeguard the confidentiality of information and
because decisions to list or delist were fundamentally the
prerogative of member states and should not be delegated to
the UN. Still, in order to respond to the concerns of
Denmark and other European countries, France proposed a
"focal point" to which all delisting petitions could be
addressed. Deruffe emphasized that this would simply be a
"mailbox" and that the final decision on delisting would
still be made by member states. France feared that expanding
the number of states eligible to submit delisting petitions
would encourage those being sanctioned to flood states with
duplicative petitions. Benoit Guidee, a desk officer in the
IO directorate, added that expanding the number of states
would also open up the procedure to political games. As an
example, he said that if Venezuela were elected to the UNSC,
it might constantly submit delisting petitions as a way to
call attention to its anti-U.S., anti-West agenda and impede
the work of the 1267 Committee. For these reasons, France
would like to take politics out of the procedure and work to
ensure its basic neutrality.


3. (C) Guidee said that the U.S. suggestion to call for
national governments to reinforce their delisting mechanisms
could run into objections by governments such as Russia and
China, would might consider this as interference in sovereign
matters. As a practical point, France had no objection to
the USG suggestion, said Guidee, although it questioned
whether such a call would in fact be helpful. States likely
to heed this call already have effective delisting
procedures, and those likely to ignore it are precisely the
ones that need to reinforce their national sanctions
mechanisms. As an example, said Guidee, a country like
Somalia would have no practical, short-term way to abide by
such a call.


4. (C) Deruffe and Guidee emphasized that France was eager to
work with the U.S. to come to a consensus. The GOF would not
be opposed, said Deruffe, to carving out an exception to the
"mailbox" method that would allow member states to directly
present delisting petitions to the 1267 Committee. They
proposed that our respective missions in New York further
discuss these issues. Guidee added that, whatever the final
product, it would be important for it to be "visible," so
that states such as Denmark and Sweden could show that
"something was done." Revised delisting procedures are of
vital importance to EU members, said Guidee, because they
fear the status quo could be successfully overturned by
European courts if delisting concerns are not met.
Please visit Paris' Classified Website at:
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm

Stapleton