“The United Nations Security Council is expected to decide this week on whether to renew its legal mandate for Syria\u2019s cross-border humanitarian response. The Security Council vote has the potential to remake the life-saving humanitarian architecture that has been built around the country\u2019s years-long civil war.<\/p>\n
The Security Council\u2019s decision may also\u2014despite efforts by backers of renewal to cast it as a purely humanitarian measure\u2014have real political significance. Since 2014, the Security Council has sanctioned cross-border aid without the consent of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, a powerful symbol of Syria\u2019s disintegration and broken sovereignty. The re-centering of the international humanitarian response in Damascus would be another step towards restoring the Assad regime\u2019s international legitimacy and effective political control.<\/p>\n
If the Security Council ends this humanitarian framework, it will be another symbolic victory for the Assad regime. But it will also complicate and endanger the humanitarian aid that millions of Syrians rely on\u2014and with which the regime is likely to interfere if it can reassert its hold on aid delivery. It was the regime\u2019s intransigence and abuse that originally prompted the United Nations to suspend the normal rules of state sovereignty. Now, with no real improvement in its conduct, the regime is poised to claw back control over aid to populations it considers hostiles and enemies of the state.<\/p>\n
Humanitarians are just hoping to continue providing aid to millions inside Syria, and to keep their own principles mostly intact.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re afraid of getting sucked into a political and diplomatic conversation we have very little control of, and being forced to pronounce ourselves in favor of non-humanitarian compromises,\u201d one humanitarian source told me.\u00a0<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0Like more than a dozen other humanitarians and donor-country diplomats, he spoke to me on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the upcoming vote and so as not to threaten his organization\u2019s continued work.<\/p>\n Since July 2014, United Nations Security Council resolution 2165 and its various successor resolutions have enabled the delivery of assistance to millions in areas unreachable from Damascus. UNSCR 2165\u2019s mandate has allowed UN agencies to provide assistance themselves and to play a key coordinating role in the broader response, as well as lending international legitimacy to cross-border work by local and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs). But 2165 has only been renewed in year-long installments, and the current mandate expires on January 10. A Security Council vote to renew the resolution is, as of this writing, expected to be held on Tuesday, December 19.<\/p>\n Renewal essentially depends on the vote of permanent member of the Security Council and Assad-regime ally Russia, and no one has a really reliable sense of what Russia wants. In advance of the vote, Russia has taken a critical line on renewal, complaining about aid diversion and the measure\u2019s violation of Syrian sovereignty. \u201cThis mechanism cannot be maintained in its current form,\u201d\u00a0Russia\u2019s UN envoy said last month.<\/a><\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Most expect that 2165 will be renewed\u2014this time. But even an extension is likely to be only a temporary reprieve, sources told me: a conditional renewal for six months or a year before the resolution is allowed to expire totally. And no one knows for sure. It remains possible that Russia will just veto a renewal outright, leaving humanitarians scrambling to reorganize the response before January 11.<\/p>\n Either way, the humanitarians and donors involved in the cross-border response are swimming against a current that runs, inexorably, towards Damascus. For millions of Syrians caught in that vortex, cross-border assistance provided under UNSCR 2165 has been,\u00a0in the words of a top UN relief official<\/a>, a \u201clifeline.\u201d<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThese [relief] organizations will be going, at some point, back to the origin,\u201d a humanitarian told me. \u201cCross-border will die. What concerns me is the way it will die.\u201d<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n The Security Council passed UNSCR 2165 in July 2014<\/a>. The resolution was an expression of international frustration with the Assad regime\u2019s obstruction of aid to besieged and other insurgent-held areas. It came after an earlier resolution aimed at opening up humanitarian access had been ignored.<\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n The original Security Council resolution<\/a>\u00a0authorized UN agencies and their implementing partners to provide cross-border assistance \u201cwith notification to the Syrian authorities\u201d\u2014not advance permission from Damascus.<\/span>6<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0It permitted the use of four official border crossings, \u201cin addition to those already in use.\u201d That latter clause arguably legitimated the use of unofficial border points such as Fish Khabour, the sole operational crossing to Syria\u2019s northeast.<\/span>7<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0The resolution also mandated the creation of a monitoring mechanism for cross-border UN assistance.<\/p>\n UNSCR 2165 also allowed notification-only cross-line assistance\u2014that is, across conflict lines from regime-held areas to opposition-held areas\u2014but no aid agencies ultimately acted on that permission.<\/p>\n UN agencies have used the 2165 mandate to deliver cross-border assistance from Jordan, Turkey, and Iraq to sections of Syria that have fallen out of central state control. Under the UN mechanism, UN-supported humanitarian cargoes are inspected and sealed before crossing into the country, and some NGOs also use the UN\u2019s cross-border logistics capacity. UN agencies have also partnered with local Syrian and international NGOs to provide cross-border aid, funding them through sub-grants. And the UN has played a key leadership and coordination role in the broader cross-border response, establishing a \u201cWhole of Syria\u201d architecture and a set of \u201cclusters\u201d to coordinate relief actors.<\/p>\n UN-supplied aid is only a fraction of the cross-border aid response. Cross-border aid predated UNSCR 2165, and it also includes humanitarian assistance from NGOs, relief from Gulf charities, and Western-funded \u201cstabilization\u201d assistance for civil society, basic services, and governance. Much of this is sustained remotely through cash transfers, or enters Syria as commercial cargo and is not checked by the UN monitoring mechanism.<\/p>\n But UN assistance is nonetheless vital. According to the UN Secretary-General\u2019s most recent reporting, in October the UN delivered food aid to more than 797,700 people via cross-border convoys.<\/span>8<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0This is in addition to other UN assistance and the systemic impact of the UN\u2019s coordination role on the broader cross-border relief effort, which supports millions. Cross-border beneficiaries were reached consistently\u2014not intermittently, as with cross-line assistance from Damascus. According to the most recent Security Council briefing by UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock, on average, just over a quarter of beneficiaries included in bi-monthly access plans actually received cross-line aid, as the government declined to allow UN convoys to proceed.<\/span>9<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0Lowcock said in an October briefing that, on average, only 10 percent of people in besieged opposition-held areas were reached with UN assistance each month this year. Key items, including medical supplies, are regularly removed from aid convoys.<\/span>10<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOur experience with cross-line operations from within Syria,\u201d Lowcock said in October, \u201cleads us to believe that it would be impossible to reach those people in a sustained manner from within Syria.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe renewal of the resolution is essential to save lives,\u201d he reiterated last month.<\/p>\n The nonrenewal of UNSCR 2165 would put a halt to UN cross-border assistance and have a larger systemic impact on the cross-border response, including on the international legitimacy and acceptability of cross-border aid generally.<\/p>\n Humanitarians told me that as late as this summer, no one was worried about the renewal of UNSCR 2165. By this fall, though, it had become a major concern and a preoccupation of humanitarians and donors\u2014albeit a quiet one.<\/p>\n There has been a conscious collective effort to avoid bringing too much public attention to 2165, even as, privately, it has been the talk of the aid community.<\/span>11<\/sup><\/a><\/span>Backers of renewal have mostly avoided activist-y letters or public statements, and instead relied on closed-door meetings and advocacy in New York.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re trying to keep a lid on this,\u201d one humanitarian told me. \u201cBy upping the attention, we give Russia leverage we don\u2019t want them to have.\u201d<\/span>12<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Humanitarians have even avoided creating formal contingency plans, the existence of which might signal their readiness to yield on \u201ctechnical rollover\u201d\u2014un-amended, year-long renewal. \u201cPlan A is a technical rollover,\u201d said the same humanitarian, speaking last month. \u201cOur line is that there is no Plan B.\u201d<\/span>13<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n The Security Council\u2019s three permanent Western members\u2014the United States, Britain, and France, the \u201cP3\u201d\u2014favor technical rollover, as do many non-permanent members. The Syrian government, unsurprisingly, is against it.\u00a0The Syrians claim<\/a>that most cross-border assistance ends up in the hands of \u201cterrorist groups\u201d and that these crossings are used to arm militants.<\/span>14<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n But the swing vote, the only one that really matters, is Russia. Last December, Russia voted for the passage of UNSCR 2332, the latest renewal of 2165. But that vote came after a bruising fight in the Security Council over Aleppo,\u00a0whose rebel-held eastern neighborhoods were collapsing<\/a>,<\/span>15<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0and Russia might have had its fill of international reprobation. In 2017,\u00a0Russia just repeatedly vetoed<\/a>\u00a0attempts to renew the internationally sanctioned mechanism to investigate chemical weapons attacks in Syria\u2014a sign that Moscow may be done caring about global outrage.<\/span>16<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Russia has signaled, in public and private, that it wants to see the end of UNSCR, at least as it currently exists.\u00a0In a statement at the Security Council last month<\/a>, Russia\u2019s UN envoy Vassily Nebenzia made public complaints that Russia had already made privately about aid diversion and insufficient monitoring of cross-border assistance. He said that, thanks to talks sponsored by Russia in Kazakhstan\u2019s capital Astana, the volume of cross-line convoys has increased. In addition, he stressed, 2165 violates Syrian sovereignty. The resolution \u201cis an unprecedented and extreme measure that must now be reassessed,\u201d Nebenzia said.<\/span>17<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Humanitarians are emphatic that \u201cde-escalation\u201d agreements, including those concluded in Astana, have not improved cross-line access. \u201cThe paradox is that cross-line access doesn\u2019t really exist, and now we\u2019re talking about stopping cross-border,\u201d one told me.<\/span>18<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0They also stress the robustness of the UN monitoring mechanism, on the border and at delivery points.<\/p>\n What exactly Russia wants in exchange for renewing 2165 is unclear. They have floated some amendments and trades in private, including discussion of a new monitoring mechanism. But if the mechanism concentrates on the border, it would seem set up to fail; it wouldn\u2019t capture most non-UN NGO assistance, much of which is based on cash transfers into Syria and local procurement of goods.<\/p>\n Or Russia may just want to close out UNSCR 2165 and move forward. On December 11,\u00a0Russian president Vladimir Putin visited Syria\u2019s Hmeimim Airbase<\/a>\u00a0to declare victory in the fight over the Islamic State and order a partial withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria.<\/span>19<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0Russia is trying to turn the international focus to Syria\u2019s political process and post-war reconstruction. The expiration of 2165 would be a major symbolic step towards the international re-legitimization of the Assad regime and normalcy.<\/p>\n The Russian mission to the UN did not respond to a request for comment prior to publication.<\/p>\n Donor governments and humanitarians are working for UNSCR 2165\u2019s renewal, but it\u2019s not clear how they can affect Russia\u2019s thinking. Even if Russia appears to negotiate, both sides may just be working towards a position Russia has already decided in advance.<\/p>\n As of this writing, the pro-renewal camp has deliberately avoided politicizing the debate over 2165. \u201cWe see this as a purely humanitarian mechanism that gets aid to the people who need it the quickest, and closest, and most effective way,\u201d said one Western diplomat. \u201cIt\u2019s not a political thing, from our perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen the Council discusses this issue, it should be on the basis that it is a purely humanitarian tool,\u201d he said.<\/span>20<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n The most likely scenario at the time of this writing seems to be renewal of six months to a year with what could be considered a \u201csunset clause\u201d\u2014for example, a requirement that the UN Secretary-General report on how to improve the assistance monitoring mechanism, which would lay the groundwork for either a substantial revision of 2165 or its end. After this abbreviated renewal period, Russia could decline to renew again.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t believe it\u2019s not going to be renewed. It would be too much of a headache for everyone,\u201d said one humanitarian. \u201cI think Russia is quite aware right now that cross-border intervention is serving their interests, although it threatens the territorial integrity of the Syrian government.<\/p>\n \u201cThey can live with it for a couple months,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think it will be renewed past the summer.\u201d<\/span>21<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Russia evidently wants UNSCR 2165 to conclude, but an alternative humanitarian mechanism doesn\u2019t yet exist. The humanitarian community is unprepared for an abrupt end to 2165. Six or nine more months, though, might get them partway there.<\/p>\n \u201cIf 2165 is extended a couple months,\u201d the same humanitarian told me, \u201cthat could give people a big kick in the ass to work out an alternative way to do operations.\u201d<\/span>22<\/a><\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n Still, there are limits to how much relief agencies can adapt to the end of internationally sanctioned cross-border access.<\/p>\n The worst scenario is that UNSCR 2165 is abruptly vetoed this week and aid organizations are caught flat-footed. In that case, a humanitarian told me, \u201cPlan B is not a plan\u2014just a Titanic moment, where we have to distribute life vests. And I guess the UN will be the orchestra. Just keep playing.\u201d<\/span>23<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n But the termination of 2165 seems inevitable, either now or next year. Meanwhile, the reasons why the cross-border aid effort exists\u2014and why a newly Damascus-centric response would be disastrous\u2014will not change.<\/p>\n The Damascus relief hub does not have the capacity to compensate for the cross-border response, humanitarians told me. The main obstacle is access\u2014specifically, the impenetrable Syrian government bureaucracy that humanitarians must navigate to secure permissions for cross-line aid convoys. This multi-layer authorization process has not been meaningfully reformed or relaxed, and no humanitarians I spoke to expected it to improve.<\/p>\n When the regime does okay cross-line convoys, it removes key items, caps relief quantities, and rounds down UN population estimates. Thus, even the limited numbers of successful relief convoys can be deceiving. \u201cAccess has become the metric of the success of the response,\u201d said the same humanitarian, saying that just because convoy goes in doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s delivered what\u2019s most needed. \u201cThe convoy is counted as \u2018reached.\u2019 It\u2019s a volumetric extrapolation.\u201d<\/span>24<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n A secondary obstacle is that many rebel-held areas are resistant to receiving aid via Damascus, which they see as having political strings attached. They are unfriendly in particular to the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, which is regarded as a political actor.<\/p>\n The cross-border and the cross-line response are complementary. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to push the message that both [cross-border and cross-line] should continue,\u201d said another humanitarian. \u201cThe worst-case scenario is that the resolution is not renewed, but there also isn\u2019t more access from Damascus. It would be a disaster for this population.\u201d<\/span>25<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cFor us, cross-border is not preferred,\u201d said another. \u201cBut we\u2019re concerned about the lack of any other viable mechanism.\u201d<\/span>26<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n While nonrenewal of UNSCR 2165 would not be good, its precise impact is unclear. The ramifications for the UN seem mostly known. UN agencies will likely be obliged to base out of Damascus and halt cross-border activities. But for the broader cross-border response, there are a number of variables at work, including the respective reactions of NGOs, donors, and neighboring countries. How much will each of these parties be willing to flout Syrian sovereignty and law, particularly when the Syrian regime-state is making a comeback?<\/p>\n For example, the unofficial Tal Shihab crossing on Syria\u2019s southern border with Jordan \u201cis being used by [international NGOs] thanks to, let\u2019s say, a flexible approach by the Jordanians,\u201d said one humanitarian. \u201cThat\u2019s a liberty that\u2019s been agreed to by the Jordanians. The question is how much the Jordanians would like to maintain that unofficial border crossing and put themselves in what would probably be a confrontational stance with the Syrians.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not in 2013, 2014 anymore, when everyone was betting on Bashar\u2019s regime falling down.\u201d<\/span>27<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Many donor countries seem likely to continue their support for cross-border humanitarian assistance. And local and international NGOs could continue working, although they will likely be hit by the loss of UN funding for cross-border programming. Some organizations use the UN mechanisms at the official crossings and lack permissions to send relief through unofficial crossings, which will likely be strained by additional use. And without international legal legitimacy, these NGOs will be vulnerable. Their cross-border activities are illegal under Syrian law, so, for legal cover, they will depend on the goodwill of Syria\u2019s neighbors and their appetite for violating Syrian sovereignty.<\/p>\n Both Turkey and Jordan seem to have recognized that the project of regime change in Syria, in which they participated, has failed. The two countries would both prefer cross-border aid to continue to avoid destabilizing these border areas and setting off new refugee flows, and Turkey has now occupied and taken more direct ownership of sections of Aleppo and Idlib. But Turkey, at least,\u00a0has already cracked down on relief NGOs<\/a>,<\/span>28<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0Jordan\u2019s position on the Assad regime is ambiguous<\/a>.<\/span>29<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0If reduced cross-border access drove NGOs to, for example, rely more heavily on informal cash transfers to local partners and inside-Syria procurement of supplies, that might be enough to make either country nervous about money changing hands unaccountably and push them to run out more relief organizations. Their staff might be in danger of arrest or deportation.<\/p>\n The unofficial Fish Khabour crossing with Iraq poses its own challenges. It is the main artery of support for Syria\u2019s northeast, which is now controlled by America\u2019s local Kurdish partners in the military campaign against the Islamic State. Because Turkey has closed its border\u2014it considers that Kurdish force a grave terrorist threat\u2014relief and stabilization assistance runs through Fish Khabour. If the end of 2165 imperils NGOs\u2019 ability to send in staff and supplies, that could in turn undermine U.S.-led post-Islamic State stabilization efforts.<\/p>\n The United States might have to make a special diplomatic effort to keep Fish Khabour open and to ensure that whatever Iraqi force is manning the crossing\u2019s other side keeps traffic running. The Assad regime specifically objects to the use of Fish Khabour. In an October letter to the UN Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council, Syrian UN envoy Bashar al-Jaafari claimed that Fish Khabour is not covered by UNSCR 2165 and said its use violates Syrian sovereignty. Yet his letter omitted the \u201cin addition to those already in use\u201d clause that has been used to justify aid through Fish Khabour.<\/span>30<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0The crossing figures into Syrian objections both to foreign occupation of Syrian territory and international support for allegedly separatist, non-state governance structures.<\/p>\n But all these reverberations will seemingly shake the relief effort regardless of Tuesday\u2019s vote. UNSCR 2165 cannot last forever. The normal international order does not accommodate this sort of exceptional humanitarian measure. Eventually, the millions of Syrians in areas outside regime control will suffer\u2014although, with luck, not yet.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we thought this was something durable, we were wrong,\u201d a humanitarian told me. \u201cIt was always temporary.\u201d<\/span>31<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Relief organizations are already reorienting towards Damascus, humanitarians told me, and applying for registration to work under the Assad regime. They want to serve needy Syrians where they are; by now, most are living in areas of regime control.<\/p>\n But the regime has not somehow gotten more magnanimous or accommodating as its fortunes have improved. \u201cThe Syrian government has been getting more arrogant with NGOs,\u201d said one humanitarian. \u201cThey say, if you want to operate from Damascus, you need to accept A, B, C, and D. Are we ready to accept?\u201d<\/span>32<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI doubt they\u2019ll forgive, and I doubt they\u2019ll forget. You will be marked,\u201d another told me, discussing NGOs that had operated cross-border from Syria\u2019s neighbors and that actually manage to register in Damascus.<\/p>\n \u201cSo you\u2019ll have a tier of NGOs who have been in Damascus, and will get preferential treatment for access, and a tier in Damascus who will basically be procurement agencies for [the Syrian Arab Red Crescent],\u201d he said. \u201cLife will be fucking miserable, they\u2019ll make them pay.\u201d<\/span>33<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n This return to Damascus will only further subvert humanitarians\u2019 sacrosanct principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence. For years, it has been debatable whether the Syrian aid response was \u201cprincipled.\u201d Some humanitarians maintain that when NGOs split between one cohort in Damascus and another operating cross-border from Syria\u2019s neighbors and, arguably, chose sides in the country\u2019s war, neutrality and impartiality were finished. But operating from Damascus under a revanchist Assad regime will mean a new level of compromise.<\/p>\n \u201cUltimately, what [Damascus wants] to achieve is total control of humanitarian action,\u201d a humanitarian told me. \u201cThe principle of impartiality, they don\u2019t know about that. They want to be sure assistance is delivered as a peace dividend, not based on needs.\u201d<\/span>34<\/a><\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n The shift of the international humanitarian effort to Damascus is a reflection of the regime\u2019s mounting strength and centrality, but it is also, in real terms, an integral part of that power dynamic.<\/strong><\/p>\n The shift of the international humanitarian effort to Damascus is a reflection of the regime\u2019s mounting strength and centrality, but it is also, in real terms, an integral part of that power dynamic. Humanitarians are not observers to the Syrian war, they are participants.<\/p>\n \u201cWe should be careful considering the Syrian government the final winner,\u201d said another humanitarian. \u201cIf we think this is the future, the final outcome, we\u2019re probably empowering this government.<\/p>\n \u201cThere needs to be some reflection,\u201d he continued. \u201cAre we changing history with our actions? We\u2019re probably not the biggest actor, but there are repercussions to what NGOs do.\u201d<\/span>35<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n In a country in which assistance is now a major part of the economy, aid flows mean economic and political power. A post-2165 Syria with a single relief hub in Damascus\u2014as opposed to several, including ones in Gaziantep, Amman, and Deirik\u2014is a Syria with a single center of political gravity, towards which all the country\u2019s restive peripheral regions will find themselves drawn. The end of UNSCR 2165 and the reordering of the humanitarian response is another step towards the return of Syria as a single, integral country ruled by the regime from Damascus.<\/p>\n UNSCR 2165 was a suspension of the normal rules of an international system premised on state sovereignty and legitimacy. It couldn\u2019t last.<\/p>\n That system broke down in Syria as the state and country fell apart. Now the regime-led Syrian state is reconstituting itself, and the walls of that system are being rebuilt around it. Inside, Syrians will be trapped.<\/p>\nThe humanitarians and donors involved in the cross-border response are swimming against a current that runs, inexorably, towards Damascus.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
The Genesis of the UN Cross-Border Response<\/h2>\n
Security Council Maneuvering<\/h2>\n
After UNSCR 2165<\/h2>\n
Humanitarian Aid and Political Power<\/h2>\n
Notes<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n
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