Julie Bishop And Peace As Business In Myanmar

(MENAFN- Asia Times) The United Nations Secretary General's Special Envoy to Myanmar, former Australian foreign Minister Julie Bishop, is in hot water for an alleged conflict of interest that has undermined the credibility of her human rights-protecting mission in Myanmar.

The scandal centers on Bishop and her consultancy firm, Julie Bishop & Partners , which recently accepted an engagement to provide strategic advice, stakeholder engagement and government relations to Australian firm energy Transition Minerals (ETM) in a dispute with Greenland over a massive stalled uranium mining project.

The announcement of engagement was first made on January 13 in an ETM statement . Australia's The Saturday Paper first reported on Bishop's involvement on March 8.

The following day, the Justice for Myanmar (J4M) research group issued a statement criticizing the engagement with ETM as a conflict of interest, in part because of ETM's business partnership with Chinese firm Shenghe Resources.

Shanghe Resources is a top backer of the said uranium venture and is“connected to various wings of the Chinese government,” according to The Saturday Paper report.

ETM announced in early 2019 that Shenghe Resources and the state-owned China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) – which is designated by the US Department of Defense as one of its listed“Communist Chinese military companies” – had co-invested in processing facilities for treatment of imported rare earth minerals in China, the same report said.

Any Bishop involvement with a Chinese business entity is necessarily a conflict of interest when Beijing is also supplying Myanmar's State Administration Council (SAC) junta with weapons and is a major investor in Myanmar, including in mining ventures, a core interest of Bishop's advisory firm.

The UN's own Ethics Office defines conflict of interest as“when our private interests, such as outside relationships or financial assets, interfere-or appear to interfere-with the interests of the UN...(and that)...in the performance of our duties, may not seek or receive instructions or make representations on behalf of any Government, person, entity or cause external to the United Nations.”

This would suggest a conflict of interest exists between Bishop's role as a UN envoy and her private work for an Australian energy company, even if the ETM case doesn't directly involve Myanmar.

Perceptions of conflict of interest obviously vary; elites are always cloaked in entitlement and shielded by lawyers. A thorough and transparent investigation into the potential conflict of interest would be the professionally prudent move by the UN.

MENAFN20032025000159011032ID1109337754

Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.