The meeting explored, defined and emphasised the importance of the linkages implicit in the title of the conference. If the law is a seamless web, so is the strategy against apartheid, racism and denials of self-determination. The institutions created to pursue the various parts of this indivisible strategy, the legal instruments generated by these institutions, and the forms and forums of implementation that have developed, must be scrutinised with a view to making them into a more coherent, mutually reinforcing whole.
In addition, this unified strategy must be made relevant to the broader development strategy for the implementation of a New International Economic Order, for beneath apartheid, racism and denials of self-determination lie many of the same factors that make for economic subjugation.
Further, there must be an examination of the linkage between the strategies pursued by the public institutions of the international community, the strategies pursued by Governments in discharge of their international and national legal obligations, and the efforts of private or non-governmental groups including churches, trade unions and public interest law firms. These parallel efforts can and must support and reinforce each other more effectively.
Next, the meeting of experts emphasised with clarity and unanimity the high priority States should accord, individually and collectively, to their normative obligation to use all means to bring to an end the supreme and continuing evils of apartheid, racism and denials of self-determination. In the case of apartheid and forceful denials of self-determination, this means that States have a duty to assist the South African liberation movement, the authentic representative of the people of South Africa, and have a right to render that assistance either through the United Nations or directly to those recognised as the instruments of that liberation.
Similarly, there is a duty on the part of the international community to examine means by which existing mandatory sanctions against South Africa can be made more effective, particularly by developing more reliable means for the timely detecting and exposing of violations.
References were made to the correlation between the critical situation of human rights in South Africa and Namibia and the volume and intensity of assistance accorded to the racist regime. In this regard participants mentioned that those who supported a State in the commission of acts of apartheid were in violation of their international obligations.
Efforts should also be directed towards strengthening the economies, and thus the resistance, of front-line States.
Many participants also expressed the view that priority should be given to the enhancement of sanctions to embrace all intercourse with South Africa, whatsoever. It was a widely shared view that the Security Council’s Committee established by Resolution 421 (1977) concerning the Question of South Africa should establish an enforcement secretariat and, perhaps with the help of UNITAR, develop the expert techniques necessary to effective detection of violations of those prohibitions on trade with South Africa (in weapons, etc.) which had already been ordered by the Security Council. In addition, it was proposed that the Security Council request the Secretary-General to appoint a group of experts to study, within a relatively short, fixed time, the feasibility of a broader range of sanctions, including problems involved in imposing them, probable effectiveness, and means of enforcement. On receipt of that report, the Security Council should proceed to its implementation unless South Africa had substantially complied with its previous resolutions concerning Namibia and apartheid.
It was repeatedly pointed out that the international community had a moral and legal obligation to provide training to displaced Namibians and South Africans, thereby hastening and preparing for the day of liberation. In the view of the participants, States which did not contribute to those programmes were distinctly in violation of their international obligations.
The meeting considered and approved the view that apartheid, racism and denials of self-determination should come to be perceived as violative of the most fundamental norms governing international conduct. The meeting heard various views as to the legal consequences this might entail. Among the views expressed on this subject were these:
First, no State might under any circumstances justify a violation of peremptory norm of jus cogens, nor is any treaty, agreement or unilateral act valid which conflicted with such a norm.
Third, persons with a violating State who refused to carry out its unlawful dictates and escaped its jurisdiction were entitled to special consideration as refugees.
Fourth, those engaged in combat against such a regime, if captured, were entitled to treatment as prisoners of war.
Fifth, civil transactions which lead a party to be enhanced or to profit by the illegal regime should not be recognised by legal institutions of other States.
Sixth, those directly involved in the illegal conduct should be subject to civil or criminal penalties wherever found. One example cited was the United States law permitting suit for damages by aliens in United States courts for violations of the law of nations committed anywhere.
Many participants in the meeting urged that the relevant organs and committees of the United Nations, perhaps with the aid of UNITAR, study further the legal consequences flowing from persistent, serious violations of the norms prohibiting apartheid, racism and denials of self-determination. Many participants called upon States which had not already done so to ratify the relevant conventions which declared those violations to be offences against fundamental international law and crimes ergo omnes.
It was emphasised that combating apartheid, racism and all forms of racial discrimination was an integral part of the struggle to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms. Participants also stressed that world-wide adherence to international human rights instruments such as the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid would help ensure the eradication of these evils.
It was also observed that, especially as to the norm of self-determination, the United Nations itself must conduct itself in such a manner as to give that norm priority in all applicable circumstances. Refusal to implement the norm against some States for political reasons would make it impossible to establish the fundamental nature of the norm as jus cogens, thereby undermining an essential part of the overall strategy.
The meeting considered with approval ways in which the domestic law of States, such as Sweden, had been revised to control and discourage investment in South Africa, and expressed the view that the States not yet equipped with such laws should so arm themselves as a matter of urgency.
Similarly, States should be encouraged to adopt laws which would permit the appropriate United Nations agencies to monitor compliance with sanctions by obtaining through national judicial or administrative processes the needed access to records of entities engaged in international transactions that might violate sanctions against South Africa.