After months of intensive negotiations by members of the United Nations, the goal of broad reform remains elusive. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has convened a summit of more than 170 heads of state next week to review progress toward meeting the United Nations Millennium Development Goals established in 2000 and to approve reforms on several major issues.
The agenda is wide-ranging. The secretary-general’s office has drafted a negotiating document on poverty reduction, economic development, terrorism, disarmament and nuclear nonproliferation. Also proposed are a new human rights council to replace the discredited Human Rights Commission and a new peace-building commission.
Annan has come under serious criticism for failing to curb corruption and mismanagement, especially in the oil-for-food program. But Paul Volcker’s report, released Wednesday, also found that “The reality is that the secretary general has come to be viewed as chief diplomatic and political agent of the United Nations … . In these turbulent times, those responsibilities tend to be all-consuming.”
A proposal to overhaul U.N. management and budgeting by giving the secretariat more authority and control and also making it more accountable remains a priority for the U.S. to make the organization more effective.
Consensus was not reached in the preliminary negotiations on expanding the Security Council to make it more representative. Germany, Japan, India and Brazil were unable to convince two-thirds of the membership that they should be allowed to join the permanent members. The five veto-wielding powers – United States, Russia, Britain, France, and China – showed little enthusiasm, and the African countries were not on board. Hence the matter is dropped for the time being.
U.S. Ambassador John Bolton objected to the inclusion of Millennium Development Goals set by member states in 2000 in the proposal. One goal was to reduce poverty, hunger and preventable diseases by 2015, and another specified that 0.7 percent of gross national product be committed to development assistance. In the face of severe criticism that he was trying to “gut the document” prepared by the secretariat, Bolton clarified his position to state that the U.S. supports the development goals in the Millennium Summit Declaration but objects to their codification in numerical targets and timetables for inclusion in this summit’s blueprint.
Pleas from the president of the General Assembly, Jean Ping of Gabon, and Annan for flexibility by U.N. negotiators to resolve differences have resulted in some compromises, but differences nevertheless remain. For example, notwithstanding rhetorical support of non-proliferation, there is as yet no agreement on concrete steps to accomplish it. The Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference last May also failed to produce any tangible initiatives to halt the spread of nuclear weapons. The main criticism is that nuclear weapons states have neither made a good-faith effort to get rid of all nuclear weapons nor are they inclined to do so, despite their pledge under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
There are even differences about the collective duty to protect against genocide and about the use of force by individual U.N. Security Council members in humanitarian intervention. The U.S. objects to anything that would curb its right to take unilateral action. In Beijing, international law experts and state officials have expressed strong misgivings of this stance.
Even on the reform of human rights machinery there are dissenting voices. It is hardly news that many flagrant violators of human rights, such as Sudan, Libya and Cuba, sat on the Human Rights Commission to thwart any action taken by that body against them. Similarly, some countries object to the definition of a terrorist as one who uses violence against civilians and non-combatants and thus to a comprehensive international convention to define and outlaw terrorism.
The main objection to a new peace-building commission is its costs and how they will be assessed. Some Western countries favor Security Council control, while many Third World countries prefer General Assembly supervision, where they have a majority.
Annan is correct in saying that this summit provides a unique opportunity for major U.N. reform. He has warned that “This is a once in a generation opportunity … and if we fail, I don’t know when the opportunity will come again.” The U.N. is made up of states reluctant to cede any sovereignty. A summit cannot change this. However, as it appears to be the start of an important discussion, this is indeed an important opportunity to begin the long-overdue process of strengthening an institution that we cannot do without.
Ved P. Nanda (vnanda@law.du.edu) is the Evans University Professor and director of the International Legal Studies Program at the University of Denver.
