Letters | Let the UN mediate an end to the Hong Kong protests

The peaceful protest march on August 18 had been preceded by 10 weeks of increasingly violent clashes between the police and protesters. Even more alarmingly, China’s People’s Armed Police has been holding riot control manoeuvres in Shenzhen. Yet despite the rising tensions, no one seems to be willing to step forward to help defuse the situation by engaging directly with the main protagonists, namely organisers of the protests and the Hong Kong government.

After all, the Sino-British Joint Declaration is a legally binding bilateral treaty registered with the UN. If the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres were to visit Hong Kong and discuss the situation with both parties in the stand-off, the UN could then assess whether the two signatories and guarantors of the Sino-British treaty are discharging their respective obligations under the treaty. It just so happens that these two signatories, namely Britain and China, are two of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Furthermore, such an initiative would be in keeping with the functions and powers of the Security Council. Two of the relevant ones are stated under the United Nations Charter: to “investigate any dispute, or any situation which might lead to international friction” and to recommend methods of adjusting such disputes or terms of settlement.