New UN envoy to Libya Ghassan Salame reveals action plan for Libya's transition period

New UN Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) Ghassan Salame has finally outlined his action plan for moving Libya through the transition period with a new constitution and elections next year for the presidency and parliament.

Salame notes that six years ago Libyans were promised a transition but the transition is continuing with no end in sight unless action is taken. Salame does not explain why. He does not mention that the House of Representatives (HoR) has twice refused to vote confidence in the UN-brokered Government of National Accord(GNA) as required by the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA). The last negative vote was on August 22, 2016 and a new cabinet was to be suggested within ten days. Nor is there any mention of the role of Khalifa Haftar the commander of the Libyan Armed Forces who from the first refused to recognize the GNA. He was so obstructive that there were plans to sanction him by the EU:"Two military leaders in the east of Libya, who say their forces will not respect any peace accord, also face sanctions. They are General Khalifa Haftar, commander in chief of the eastern forces and air force head Fakir Jarroushi. " Of course nothing of the sort happened. Haftar continued and met with many foreign leaders. Indeed he is now regarded as an indispensable part of the political solution: "Italy, along with France, the UK and other Western states and the UN have swung round to the view that Hafter, previously seen as an impediment to peace in Libya, has to be part of the political set-up." Salame does not even deign to mention Haftar by name let alone discuss his role in helping the transition to fail by refusing to recognize the GNA. This must be forgotten.

Also forgotten is UN Resolution 2259 of 2015: "Through the unanimous adoption of resolution 2259 (2015), the 15-nation body endorsed the 13 December Rome Communiqué to support the Government of National Accord as the sole legitimate Government of Libya. It called on Member States to cease support to and official contact with parallel institutions claiming to be the legitimate authority, but which were outside of the Political Agreement. " Yet many international authorities have dealt with members of the rival House of Representatives (HoR) government which does not recognize the GNA. There was great press coverage of a supposed crucial meeting and agreement in Paris hosted by France which included Khalifa Haftar who commands not the armed forces associated with the GNA government but those of the HoR parallel government. No one seems to bother to comment on the fact that the agreement is not between two rival heads of governments but between the head of the GNA and a military commander on the other side. It is not toothless UN resolutions that count but power. Supposed supporters of the GNA are led to ignore resolutions they supported. In all Salame's outline of his plan, I cannot find one explicit mention of the GNA except for noting that the advisory Hight State Council must be represented at a conference to consider amendments to the LPA.

The first stage in Salame's plan is described as follows:" The first stage in the process must therefore be to amend the Agreement. There is a broad consensus on the issues requiring amendments. Next week, on the basis of article 12 of the LPA, I am convening, in the UNSMIL offices, a drafting committee to formulate these amendments."

Salame does not explain what article 12 says or how it justifies convening a drafting committee to formulate amendments to the LPA. I am eager to see what the experts on Libya from various think tanks have to say about this. They may face some difficulties. The UN before has been involved in skirting parts of the LPA as illustrated in this post. The links to the LPA or Skhirat no longer take you to the text of the LPA but to the UN Support Mission in Libya website. A search for the text does not reveal the text. Fortunately, I have a copy of the text. The first problem is that there are two articles 12, one in the main text and one in the additional provisions. Here is the one in the main text:Article (12)The legislative authority of the State, during the transitional period, shall be undertaken by the House of Representatives, which was elected in June 2014; it shall practice its competencies based on the Constitutional Declaration and its amendment as per this Agreement.

This would seem to indicate that the HoR not the UN should be calling the conference. Anyway the HoR does not accept the sole legitimate government the GNA and so is not yet the legislative authority until it votes confidence in the GNA. How does this section justify the calling of a conference to make amendments? It does not even mention making amendments.

The other article 12 is in Additional Provisions: 

"Article (12)All institutions stipulated in the Libyan Political Agreement shall derive their legitimacy from the Constitutional Declaration and its amendment as annexed to this Agreement after its endorsement and adoption in its entirety, signing and entry into force. Should it be necessary to introduce subsequent amendment to the Constitutional Declaration that affects, whether directly or indirectly, the Agreement or any of the institutions that emanate from it, the House of Representatives and State Council shall commit to achieve consensus among themselves to agree on the format of such amendment. The final endorsement of this amendment shall be given by the House of Representatives, without amendment, based on the mechanism stipulated in the ConstitutionalDeclaration."

Perhaps this is the section that Salame is using as his basis for calling the group to draft amendments. The amending process referred to is only of the Constitutional Declaration not to the GPA. Notice that before there can be any amendments the Constitutional Declaration must have been amended and added to the agreement. The HoR has not yet done this or even adopted the agreement. The HoR would need to have done this before the amendment process could even take place. Neither article 12 can be a basis for whatever Salame is doing.

 In spite of continuing to spout the line that the LPA is the basis for future developments it would seem that violating the terms of the LPA is what will be happening. Note that Salame does not even bother to tell you who is to be the drafting committee. According to article 12 it should be the HoR and State High Council who draft the amendments by consensus. Salame talks of the two being at a conference to consider the draft amendments but also adds other stakeholders. Salame has simply added the process of drafting amendments but there appears to be nothing about that in the LPA. Note that this process is to be a Libyan process according to Salame but who decides who drafts the amendments and who will attend the conference to consider them? The UN it would seem.