In a little-noticed move last week that may help spur calls for action on Burma, the UN Security Council unanimously affirmed that all states have a "responsibility to protect" innocent civilians from genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and war crimes, including through actions binding on all states under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The timing couldn't be better.

Last September, former Czech Republic president Vaclav Havel and Bishop Desmond Tutu commissioned my law firm to produce "Threat to the Peace: A Call for the UN Security Council to Act in Burma". The report argued that the military junta is not just a threat to its own people; the worsening crisis in Burma has serious transnational effects that are destabilising the broader region.

First, the military junta continues to thwart the will of its own people as expressed in the 1990 election.

Second, the military junta has committed grave, systematic and widespread human-rights abuses against the Burmese people. Such abuses include the destruction of more than 2,700 villages since 1996, massive forced relocations, rape of ethnic minorities by government soldiers, widespread forced labour and the use of than 70,000 child soldiers by the regime.

Third, as a result of these abuses, more than 700,000 refugees have poured out of Burma into neighbouring countries, especially Thailand.

Fourth, Burma is one of the world's primary producers of heroin and amphetamine-type stimulants. The trafficking and use of these drugs are of enormous concern to the international community and particularly to the region.

And finally, as a result of Burma's status as the heroin supplier for the region, HIV strains that originated in Burma are now being spread to neighbouring countries along the heroin routes, as a result of needle-sharing.

In a historic briefing on December 16, the Security Council finally took up the situation in Burma for the first time. Since then, the already terrible situation has only been getting worse. Not only did the military junta move its capital to Pyinmana, further withdrawing its key leadership into the jungle, but it also has spurned all moves attempting to even engage in dialogue about the growing crisis.

After a recent trip to Rangoon on behalf of Asean that was delayed for months, Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar came back empty-handed. He recently commented, "There is a feeling that Myanmar [Burma] is dragging us down in terms of our credibility and image." And the ruling junta, led by General Than Shwe, has rejected all dialogue with the National League for Democracy (NLD), going so far as to label it a terrorist group and implicitly threaten a further crackdown.

The time has come for the UN Security Council to take binding action on Burma. Nobel Peace Prize laureate and NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest again since 2003. All attempts by the international community to pursue national reconciliation have been flatly rejected. Burma is a threat to the peace, and its ruling junta has only expanded its persecution of the ethnic minorities of the country. Whether the UN can find a way to deal with the situation in Burma is in many respects not only a question for Burma, but a challenge to the UN's ability to carry out its own charter.

By adopting a binding resolution requiring action by the military junta, the Security Council can force the generals back to the negotiating table, ensure UN agencies access to provide humanitarian relief, secure the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and other prisoners of conscience and bring an end to the tragedy that has befallen all Burmese. Serious leadership by the UN Security Council now will send a clear message to the generals that business as usual will no longer be tolerated. For the world to ignore the suffering of the Burmese people and the dangers posed by the Burmese junta would be an abrogation of our collective responsibility.

Jared Genser is an attorney with DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary LLP in Washington DC.

Jared Genser

Special to The Nation