United Nations – John Bolton, in his first public initiative as U.S. ambassador, circulated a proposal to scrap more than 400 passages in a document proposing change at the United Nations that had been considered close to completion after nearly a year of intensive negotiations.
The United States has only recently introduced more than 750 amendments that would eliminate new pledges of foreign aid to impoverished nations, scrap provisions that call for action to halt climate change and urge nuclear powers to make greater progress in dismantling their nuclear weapons.
At the same time, the administration is urging U.N. members to strengthen language in the 29-page document that calls for tougher action to combat terrorism, promote human rights and democracy, and halt the spread of the world’s deadliest weapons.
Next month’s summit, an unusual meeting at the United Nations of heads of state from around the globe, was called by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to reinvigorate efforts to fight poverty and take stronger steps in the battles against terrorism and genocide.
Annan’s effort to press for changes has been hampered by investigations into fraud in the U.N. oil-for-food program and revelations of sexual misconduct by U.N. peacekeepers around the world.
The United Nations originally scheduled the Sept. 14 summit as a follow-up to the 2000 Millennium Summit, which produced commitments by U.N. members to meet a series of deadlines over 15 years aimed at reducing poverty, preventable diseases and other scourges of the world’s poor.
But the Bush administration is seeking to focus attention on the need to streamline the U.N. bureaucracy, establish a democracy fund, strengthen the U.N. human rights office and support a U.S. initiative to halt the trade in weapons of mass destruction.
The U.S. amendments call for striking any mention of the Millennium Development Goals. Instead, the White House has sought to underscore the importance of the Monterrey Consensus, a 2002 summit in Mexico that focused on free-market reforms and required governments to improve accountability in exchange for foreign aid and debt relief.
