The Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League

Chapter 6 The Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League

Elisabeth Johansson-Nogués

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC),1 with 57 member states and representing approximately 1.5 billion Muslims, is the second largest intergovernmental organization in the world after the UN.2 The OIC was accepted as an ‘observer member’ in the UN General Assembly and of its subsidiary organs in 1975 and it is the only UN group whose unifying denominator is religion. The League of Arab States (Arab League; LAS) is a much smaller grouping in comparison. It consists of 22 member countries and represents an estimated 356 million inhabitants of diverse confessions.3 The Arab League is one of the oldest regional groupings in the UN setting, having been present at the 1945 San Francisco Conference. The LAS Secretary General was invited to attend sessions of the General Assembly as an observer in 1950.4 This chapter will outline the group composition, function, internal dynam- ics and key issues for these two different organizations within the framework of the UN. It will use the analytical framework developed by Laatikainen (chapter 2) on the role of political and informal groups in multilateral settings to derive further insights. The chapter is structured in the following manner. The first section will provide insights into group composition and functioning.

1 OIC member states: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Brunei-Darussalam, Burkina-Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Comoros, Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Maldives, Mali, Malaysia, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Suriname, Syria (suspended since 2012), Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Togo, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Yemen. 2 This chapter falls within the VISIONS research project (Visions and practices of geopolitics in the European Union and its neighborhood) funded by the National R+D Plan of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (CSO2017-82622-P). 3 LAS member states: Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria (suspended since 2011), Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. 4 C. Maksoud, “Diminished Sovereignty, Enhanced Sovereignty: United Nations-Arab League Relations at 50.” The Middle East Journal 49, no. 4 (1995): 582–94.

The second and third sections will address participant perception and key issues/agenda, respectively. The final section will test the analytical parameters of political groups and explore how OIC and LAS map out as political groups in the multilateral context.

1 OIC and LAS Group Composition and Functioning

The Organization of Islamic Conference came about in the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War and the 1969 attack on the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, one of the holiest sites in Islam. Muslim leaders from around the world met in Rabat in 1969 with the intent to form an entity which could become ‘a collective voice for Muslims and protect Muslim interests’.5 In 1973 the OIC Constitution came into effect and the intergovernmental organization’s ability to act as a recognized group within the UN was confirmed in 1975. The entity changed its name to Organization of Islamic Cooperation in 2011. In terms of its functioning, the OIC rests on a light institutional structure. The Islamic Summit (Kings, Heads of State and Government) meets every three years to consider major initiatives. The Council of Foreign Ministers holds annual meetings to review policy implementation and to propose concrete areas of cooperation. The Council of Foreign Ministers is assisted by the General Secretariat, its permanent committees and some specialized organs.6 In the UN setting, OIC coordination is supported by the different OIC delegations accredited to the United Nations, whether in New York, Geneva, Vienna or Paris. The Ambassadors of OIC member states to the UN hold monthly meetings on the first Tuesday of each month to discuss current issues on the OIC and UN agenda. The monthly rotating Chair of the OIC Ambassadors is tasked with chairing meetings and introducing UN resolutions on the OIC’s behalf. The monthly chair also acts as coordinator for the co-sponsors of UN resolutions and the drafter of resolutions, sometimes in coordination with previous or future chairs. The organization, it has been noted, is run on a modest budget, composed of mandatory dues from member states and additional voluntary funding.7

5 N. S. Sheikh, The New Politics of Islam: Pan-Islamism Foreign Policy in a World of States. New York: Routledge Curzon, 2003, p. 36. 6 OIC permanent committees include the Al-Quds Committee, on matters related to Jerusalem, and three committees concerned with science and technology, economy and trade, and information and culture. Specialized organs under the OIC banner include the Islamic Development Bank and the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. 7 The mandatory dues are not regularly paid and hence the OIC budget has suffered from fre- quent shortfalls. I. Hossain, “The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC): Nature, Role, and the Issues.” Journal of Third World Studies 29, no. 1 (Spring 2012): 287–314.