East Timor has been on the UN's agenda for longer that many other trouble spots. It went onto the UN's decolonization agenda in 1960 when the UN General Assembly included East Timor on its list of Portuguese overseas territories about which Portugal was obliged to supply information. Portugal was, at most, only a reluctant participant in this process; it resented international discussion of its imperial affairs.
   Following the 1975 Indonesian invasion, East Timor has appeared on the agenda of several other UN bodies. For the purposes of this publication, the most important body is the International Court of Justice, which is dealt with separately.

   The UN General Assembly consists of all the UN member-states. It meets for the last four months of each year in its ordinary session. It adopts resolutions which are not binding on its members (except for domestic UN matters).
The General Assembly's 1975 session coincided with the de facto FRETILIN Government and the subsequent Indonesian invasion.

   The General Assembly adopted Resolution 3485 [XXX] calling for the withdrawal of Indonesian forces and recommended that urgent action be taken by the UN Security Council to protect East Timor's territorial integrity and the Timorese right of self-determination.

   Indonesia ignored the resolution. Because General Assembly resolutions, except for those pertaining to domestic UN business, are not binding on any government, Indonesia was free to ignore it without breaking its international obligations.
East Timor has languished on the UN General Assembly's agenda. Between 1976 and 1982, the annual General Assembly sessions adopted resolutions affirming the 1975 one. The majorities in favour of the resolutions gradually declined but Indonesia could never quite muster the numbers to knock East Timor off the General Assembly agenda.
For the past decade, East Timor has remained technically on the annual agenda but no substantial resolution has been adopted - a procedural device is used to carry it over to the next session. Indonesia has never quite felt confident enough to bring a substantive resolution to the vote to negate the 1975 resolution.

   Rather like Portugal itself, the world's governments at the UN have wavered between a luke warm interest in East Timor's fate and an indifference to it. Indonesia has played with a diverse range of cards: as a founder of the non-aligned movement it has worked with some Third World countries to get East Timor off the agenda. It has also exploited its relationships with the US, Japan and Australia for the same end.

   However, other UN member-nations could not quite let go of East Timor. The UN is sometimes the home of lame causes for which it cannot bring itself to perform a "mercy killing". This reluctance to perform mercy killings is, of course, sometimes vindicated by history.

   One such lame cause was German South-West Africa, which South Africa acquired after World War I under the League of Nations to administer as a Mandate, and which then became a Trust Territory when the UN was created in 1945. South Africa's administration was later revoked by the UN but South Africa ignored it. Each year the General Assembly adopted resolutions critical of South Africa's continued occupation. Each resolution was ignored by south Africa, and the major western countries did little to encourage South Africa to change its mind. It was another lame cause that the UN could not quite bring itself to drop. However, by the mid 1980s South Africa was spending US$1 billion per year fighting the South-West African People's Organization and overseas investors in south Africa were worried about the conflict's toll on the South African economy. South Africa began to look for a way out of the conflict. Events then moved rapidly. There was a UN-supervised act of self-determination (in which the Australian Electoral Office played an important role in handling the voting). Namibia, as an independent country, joined the UN in April 1990.

   Obviously the supporter of East Timorese independence hope that the Namibia story will be a precedent for their own cause.
 

    The Security Council deals with threats to international peace and security, and it is ready to meet at any time day or night. The Security Council has, under the UN Charter, far more power than the General Assembly. Under the UN Charter, all member-nations pledge themselves to follow Security Council resolutions (Article 25).

   Portugal complained to the Security Council about the invasion of its territory. The Security Council, on December 22 1975, adopted Resolution 384 [1975] calling for the withdrawal if Indonesia's forces. Indonesia ignored that resolution.
The resolution also requested the UN Secretary General to sen a representative for an on-the-spot assessment of what was happening. The Security Council discussed his report in April 1976. It was dissatisfied with Indonesian assurances that all was well, and so it again called for the withdrawal of Indonesian forces (Resolution 389[1976]. Indonesia has continued to ignore that instruction.

   On July 17 1976, East Timor was proclaimed the twenty-seventh province of Indonesia. The Indonesian Government informed the UN that East Timor was now an "internal matter" and it was no longer appropriate for the UN to consider it. (Article 2(7) of the UN Charter says that the UN cannot intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any country).

   But the UN has never recognized the integration of East Timor into the Republic of Indonesia and it regards Portugal as the administering authority.
 

   The Secretary General has been conducting private negotiations between Portugal and Indonesia (there are no East Timorese involved). Little progress has been made since this work began in 1982.

   The negotiations have been done as a belated consequence of the two Security Council resolutions, and the fact that Indonesia has not been able to get East Timor off the General Assembly's annual agenda. East Timor lingers on the General Assembly's agenda, even though it has not been subject to an explicit resolution since 1982. Therefore, the Secretary-general is obliged to do something about East Timor. The most recent round of these annual negotiations was held in New York in May 1995.
 

   East Timor has also appeared on the agendas of other UN bodies, such as the Commission on Human rights and it Sub-commission. Annual sessions have been marked by Indonesian lobbying to get East Timor off their agendas. Some years it has had the numbers to do so, and some years it has not.

   At present, the tide of international opinion is flowing against Indonesia. This may be seen in three developments.
First, 1990 saw the end of the Cold War. The Cold War was the central defining event of international relations between 1945 and 1990. All foreign policy matters were viewed in the context of where a country stood vis-a-vis the US and USSR. The two super powers and their immediate allies used to overlook human rights violations if committed by their own friends, and instead concentrated on the violations committed by their opponents. Many Third World countries also had their own policies of selective indignation. Indonesia had a good hand of cards: links with both the Third World and the First World (via the US).

   The end of the Cold War has changed international relations. The US can no longer use the larger dangers posed by the USSR as an excuse for overlooking human rights violations committed by US allies. In short: there may be a new era whereby human rights violations are examined on their own merits and not through the prism of the higher politics of the Cold War. Indonesia is no longer seen as a bulwark against communism, and so the US may be more critical of its human rights policies.

   The second development took place in august 1990: Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Countries such as the US and Australia, which had long ago ceased criticizing Indonesia's invasion of East Timor, were suddenly enraged by Iraq's invasion. As the Australian Prime Minister (Bob Hawke) said at the time of the Iraqi invasion:

   "Big countries cannot invade little countries and get away with it." (Quoted in Australian Council for Overseas Aid book, East Timor: Towards a Just Peace in the 1990s, Canberra 1990, p1)

   The international community's opposition to the Iraqi invasion meant that Indonesia had no chance of resisting East Timor's continuation on the 1990 UN General Assembly agenda. countries were unwilling (no matter how sympathetic they may be to Indonesia) blatantly to overlook East Timor while expressing anger over Kuwait.

   The third development occurred on November 12, 1991, when Indonesian forces shot into a crowd of people at the Santa Cruz cemetery in East Timor's capital of Dili. A memorial mass had been held for Sebastiao Gomes, a youth shot dead by troops in an incident on October 28, and this mass was followed by a pro-independence demonstration. Just what happened and how many mourners were killed remain unclear.

   This was East Timor's "Sharpeville". Other massacres had taken place since 1975 but this was East Timor's first televised one. In this television-oriented age, an event does not take place if there is no camera to film it. East Timor had been neglected by the major media outlets (those based in the US and UK) between 1975 and 1989: it was not important for US and UK financial interests, its inhabitants do not speak English, and Indonesia had had to close it off from the world while it conducted its military operations.

   East Timor started to become more visible in October 1989, with the visit of the Pope. Indonesia is the world's most populous Moslem nation and Catholics constitute only 3 per cent of the population. All papal trips attract considerable media attention, and each papal word and gesture is subject to close scrutiny. He visited Dili but did not kiss the ground (a gesture reserved for visiting independent countries - and he evidently regarded East Timor as part of another country). As The New York Times journalist reported, he was careful not to offend the Indonesian Government:

   "Pope John Paul II wound up a long trek across Indonesia today, telling Roman Catholic bishops to speak out against human rights abuses but trying to reassure the Government that Catholics present no threat." ("Pope, Ending Indonesia Visit, Issues Careful Plea on Rights" The New York times, October 14 1989).

   The Pope did nothing to encourage the East Timorese to continue to resist the Indonesian invasion - but his mere presence in Dili obliged the media to pay some attention to East Timor. the trip sensitized them to East Timor.
There were foreign journalists back in Dili in November 1991. they were sent to report on a long-awaited Portuguese Parliamentary Mission (which in fact was cancelled a few days prior to the massacre). One of the journalists (a New Zealand citizen) was killed in the Santa Cruz massacre and an American journalist received a fractured skull (ironically by a soldier using an American-made rifle). Journalists got film and radio material back to the UK and US and then onto the international networks.

   The public relations aftermath of the massacre was badly handled by the Indonesian Government. Previous East Timor massacres had come and gone, and there had been little international reaction. the Government expected the same this time. It misunderstood the impact created by the film footage. the Government conveyed an impression of being haphazard in finding out what had happened and in punishing those responsible. the mourners who took part in the protest at the cemetery received harsher prison sentences that did the soldiers who carried out the killings.
Taken together, these three developments mean that East Timor is unlikely to disappear back into political obscurity. It may not become a leading political crisis - but equally it will not return to be quite so neglected as it has been. As the journalist Adam Schwarz has commented:

   "The increasing attention paid around the world to the right of self-determination and to human rights issues will ensure that East Timor remains a drag on Indonesia's foreign policy profile. Much to Jakarta's dismay, a resolution passed by the UN Human Rights Commission in May 1993 censured Indonesia for its poor human rights record. Surprisingly, support for the resolution came from the United States, which for many years had voted in similar forums in support of Indonesia. the newly installed Clinton administration, however, voted for the censure resolution and its example was followed by 21 other countries." (Adam Scharwz, A Nation in Waiting: Indonesia in the 1990s. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1994, p.223)

   (ed. - In June 1997 the UN Commission on Human Rights passed resolution 1997/63 consolidating its previous stance on East Timor and Indonesia, and putting pressure on Indonesia to comply with its own undertakings to the UN with regard to human rights in East Timor. Further, this resolution sought to further efforts for a comprehensive and internationally acceptable solution to the question of East Timor.)
 

   In February 1991, Portugal instituted proceedings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Australia in a dispute concerning "certain activities of Australia with respect to East Timor."

   The ICJ is the UN's principal judicial organ. Its seat is at the Peace Palace in The Hague, The Netherlands. It began work in 1946, when it replaced the Permanent Court of International Justice. which had functioned in the Peace Palace since 1922.

   The ICJ has a dual role: to settle, in accordance with international law, the legal disputes submitted to it by countries, and to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by UN bodies.

    The ICJ is composed of 15 judges, elected to nine-year terms of office by the UN General Assembly and Security Council sitting independently of each other. It may not include more that one judge of any nationality. Elections are held every three years for one-third of the seats, and retiring judges may be re-elected. The members of the ICJ do not represent their governments and are independent of political influence.

   The roots of the ICJ go back to an era - at the beginning of this century - when visionaries believed that war could be outlawed and that governments could settle disputes by using an international court.

   This vision is still a long way from reality.
   First, many governments have been unwilling to accepts that the ICJ has an automatic right to hear cases brought against them ("compulsory jurisdiction"). Only about 60 countries (about one-third of the UN's membership) have accepted the ICJ's compulsory jurisdiction. Ironically, many of the ICJ's judges come from countries whose governments do not accept the ICJ's compulsory jurisdiction.

   This is an example of the problem of national sovereignty: governments cannot be forced into accepting international obligations against their will. Thus, in the mid-1970s, for example, France said that nuclear testing in the South Pacific was a matter of national security and that it did not accept that the ICJ had the right to interfere in its nuclear testing programme. It boycotted the ICJ case brought by Australia, Fiji and New Zealand (although coincidentally it stopped testing in the atmosphere).

   Australia is one of the 60 recognising the ICJ's compulsory jurisdiction. But Indonesia has not accepted the ICJ's compulsory jurisdiction and so Portugal is unable to take it to the ICJ.

   Second, only nations can be parties to an ICJ case. This means that only countries can bring a case and only countries can be defendants. In Australia, for example, there are occasionally statements that Aboriginal groups will take Australia to the ICJ; they cannot. Similarly the East Timorese have no right - at present - to take a case to the ICJ. Also, a country cannot take a non-nation-state entity to the ICJ (such as an oil-drilling transnational corporation - although it could try to take the country which has the TNC headquarters on its territory).

   Third, there is no international enforcement system. Once an ICJ decision is made, there is no automatic "police force" to follow it up. the matter could be referred to the UN Security Council but here it would be vulnerable to the veto system of the five permanent members.

   Fourth, not every dispute may be suitable for the handling by a court system. An example concerns the Suez Canal in the late 1950s, when Egypt was refusing the canal to be used by ships trading with Israel; the US was on good terms then with both Israel and Egypt, and urged both to take the dispute to the ICJ. Both refused since the ICJ would give a clear decision and neither side wanted to risk a clear judgement against it (governments sometimes prefer a blurred result).

   Finally, there are problems over the procedural aspects of the ICJ, such as evidence. In the municipal legal systems, the lower courts deal with facts (what actually happened?) and the higher (appellate) courts deal with matters of interpretation of the law. The ICJ has to deal with both. Compared with the evolution of some municipal legal systems which have evolved over the centuries (such as England's), the ICJ system is still new and unsophisticated.

   ICJ judges area often appointed with an appellate court, academic or government background, with an interest in treaty creation (which is useful for appellate work). But they may have limited experience in the work of lower courts in sifting the evidence.

   There is an assumption that governments provide evidence honestly, and so the ICJ sees its task as to weigh up the legal arguments of both sides. But there is a risk that the evidence may be accidentally or deliberately false. ICJ judges are drawn from all over the world and so there may also be cultural differences in how the evidence is interpreted.
To sum up, the ICJ is still a long way from what its architects hoped for it. But, compared with only (say) a century ago, some progress is being made in international law and international legal institutions.