UNITED NATIONS, April 5: The administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, Mark Malloch Brown, said on Friday that the United States as an occupying power in Iraq didn’t have authority over Baghdad’s oil riches.
Mr Brown told reporters that the US will have to go back to the bitterly-divided UN Security Council for approval to tap Iraqi oil revenues for reconstruction or to award contracts to modernize the oil industry.
The Bush administration has made oil central to its postwar plans, choosing a former US oil executive to resuscitate Iraq’s oil industry and saying it wanted to use the nation’s vast reserves to finance rebuilding.
Iraq’s oil is currently sold under the UN oil-for-food programme, which is controlled by the Security Council. The proceeds go into a UN-run escrow account and are used primarily to buy food, medicine and humanitarian supplies. Even though no oil was being shipped at the moment, only the Security Council can change how it is sold — and what the money is used for.
Similarly, any US-led administration in Iraq would not be entitled under international law to award American companies major contracts to modernize and run Iraq’s oil industry, Mr Brown said.
“Under the Geneva Conventions, which will be the only international legal framework unless and until there was a new Security Council resolution, you are only as the occupying power able to deal with day-to-day administrative decisions,” he said.
Meanwhile, the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Friday wrapped up his week-long briefings of all UN member states on the current humanitarian situation in Iraq.
“We basically discussed the humanitarian situation and the efforts that are being made by the United Nations, and of course there were also questions about post-conflict Iraq,” Mr Annan told reporters following his meeting with the Latin American and Caribbean Group; he had met the African Group earlier on Friday.
“We briefed them on our efforts to get assistance to Iraq, wherever we can, but this would depend on means and access. Wherever we have access, we will try and reach the needy and we will do cross-border and cross-line operations.
The UN chief said the meeting also touched on the question of the post-conflict situation and what the UN will do.
“The exact nature and extent of that role is being discussed now among the members, but the UN has had quite a lot of experience with situations like this, and I hope the members will rally in trying to assist the people of Iraq, and Iraq. However this war ends, we will be ready to play our part,” he said.