If neither the Taliban nor other Afghan authority submit credentials this year, the Credentials Committee will obviously not be called upon to make a decision. The Assembly’s procedural rules do not say that where a member state fails to submit credentials, the previously-credentialled representative remains provisionally seated; as such, in such a scenario Afghanistan’s seat at the General Assembly would presumably go temporarily unoccupied. Conversely, if either the Taliban and/or other authority claiming to represent Afghanistan submit credentials, based on the above precedent, it would appear most likely that the Assembly will defer its decision. This could be on the understanding that, as for Afghanistan in 1996-2000, Afghanistan’s previously-credentialled representative continues to participate in the work of the General Assembly; alternatively, as for Cambodia in 1997, it could be on the understanding that Afghanistan’s seat will go temporarily unoccupied.
humanity and violations of international humanitarian law
Whatever the Assembly’s procedural rules may say about the credentials overseas chinese in europe data process, from a human rights perspective, the Taliban is still a pariah regime. As recently expressed by human rights experts, the Taliban’s military offensive has been ‘marked by a relentless campaign of direct targeting of civilians, civil society and journalists, summary executions, assassination of human rights defenders, arbitrary detention, mass executions of civilians, and unlawful restrictions on the human rights of women and girls.’ That statement urged states to have the ‘moral courage’ to act, as the Taliban ‘overruns … Afghanistan and engages in acts that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity’.
According to the International Law Commission (ILC), states have an obligation to cooperate to end serious breaches of peremptory norms of international law. It is reasonably well established that the prohibition of crimes against humanity is a peremptory norm (see here and here), as are the basic rules of international humanitarian law (here and here). As such, if states have reason to believe that the Taliban are seriously breaching those norms, they are obliged to cooperate to bring those breaches to an end. International law provides scarce guidance regarding precisely what states are obliged to do to fulfil their obligation to cooperate, however the ILC has said that ‘where an international organisation has discretion to act, the obligation to cooperate imposes a duty on the members of that international organisation to act with a view to the organisation exercising that discretion in a manner to bring to an end the breach of a peremptory norm of international law.’
When the time comes to consider whether to accord the Taliban the privilege of representing Afghanistan in the General Assembly, states should be mindful of this obligation. Of course, it is unlikely that refusing to recognise the Taliban’s credentials would in itself suffice to stop the Taliban committing heinous crimes. However, if the Taliban is indeed seeking international recognition, it seems reasonable to suppose that denying them a seat at the table at the General Assembly might be one thing the international community could do to incentivise better adherence to international human rights and humanitarian law.