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Egypt Unveils Reforms To Boost Arab League
Aiming to strengthen the Arab League, widely seen as ineffective after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Egypt unveiled a package of reforms Monday, July 28, hoping to save the 58-year-old organization. Government daily Al-Ahram published the complete text of the Egyptian government's initiative, which seeks mainly to reform voting procedures, as well as set up a "security council" and an Arab court of justice.
| All the things we like best about the UN. That'll certainly make it more effective. Ummm... That'll have to be a sharia court of justice, won't it? Yep. That'll work... |
In its initiative, Cairo said that although the League charter required a unanimous vote, deemed "essential" when the organization was founded in 1945, today it was "an obstacle to taking vital decisions ... resulting in paralysis".
| If everybody has a veto, then nobody's gonna make a decision. (Who're you calling indecisive?) |
Instead, Egypt wants to see the 22-member Cairo-based organization adopt majority voting.
| Except that it's un-Islamic. Better just to have a caliph, ain't it? |
Cairo also wants an "Arab security council" or "decision-making forum" to be set up to deal with security and defense issues across the Arab world. In addition, Egypt is calling for the establishment of an Arab court of justice, tasked with ruling on regional conflicts, and an "Arab parliament" for political and financial oversight of the League. The Egyptian government wants a body tasked with resolving conflicts, to be set up immediately, as was agreed at a 1996 Arab summit and sanctioned by foreign ministers in 2000.
| "Nope. Nope. Immediately, that's much too soon. We gotta talk about this, discuss it... A curse on your moustache!" |
The document, however, does not specify what form such a body would take.
| If it did that, the arguments could start immediately. This way, they have to wait until they convene. |
Cairo also calls for greater inter-Arab economic cooperation and the appointment of a "secretary general" to supervise reforms.
| That's another secretary general, other than Amr Moussa? Or is he fired? |
Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2003-07-29 |
