The largest single gathering of world leaders ever will convene this week at the United Nations, where diplomatic yakking will focus on a long-overdue reform of the world body.
The reforms are aimed at making the U.N. more credible and more effective.
That the U.N. is in serious need of an overhaul is painfully obvious. Its “human rights” commission has included abusive regimes such as Libya. And does anyone understand why it takes so long to summon humanitarian intervention to a country like Sudan, whose government is victimizing its people?
Whether Secretary-General Kofi Annan is in a position to lead a reform effort is a key question.
The summit starts Wednesday, a week after Annan was skewered by an investigation that found that the U.N.’s Iraq oil-for-food program was rife with corruption and that Annan failed to stop it. That failure enabled Saddam Hussein to take billions of dollars in kickbacks, some of which has funded the insurgency that bedevils the new Iraqi government.
The report by former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker concluded that the U.N. needed “stronger executive leadership, thorough-going administrative reform and more reliable controls and auditing.”
President Bush and leaders from 170 nations will attend the U.N.’s 60th anniversary and the annual General Assembly meeting. The sessions will test new U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, who was appointed by Bush to lead the charge for reform. Bolton already is under fire for seeking to dilute the summit’s so-called Millennium goals. The goals, forged in 2000, focus on seven issues including terrorism, disarmament and nonproliferation, protection from genocide, and replacement of the discredited Human Rights Commission.
Bolton opposes measures that would restrict U.S. authority to use force and those that place new legal obligations on countries to intervene where genocide, ethnic cleansing or war crimes are committed. Syria and Lebanon also will be high on the agenda. The U.N. is investigating the Feb. 14 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and the U.S. reportedly will launch an effort to hold Syria accountable for its meddling in Lebanon. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also is planning to host a meeting with European and Middle East allies to discuss new joint efforts.
There is much work to be done. We hope the U.N. is up to it.
