Saturday, Sep 6, 2008
Kofi Annan proposes the first major reforms of the U.N. since it was created 60 years ago, and he knows they won't please everyone.
Mar 26, 2005 | In an effort to increase the relevance of, and confidence in, the United Nations, which was created 60 years ago to prevent a repetition of World War II, Secretary-General Kofi Annan on March 21 presented several proposals for reform of the world body to reflect the changed nature of global conflicts since 1945. The title of his 63-page report is "In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All."
It is emblematic that among the few actual changes he recommends to the text of the U.N. Charter are the deletion of its clauses penalizing Germany and Japan and the abolition of the Military Staff Joint Committee that was supposed to coordinate operations against any resurgence by those nations. The committee has met every two weeks for all those decades without making a single decision, and the "former enemy powers" are expected to be invited to join the former victors as permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.
Instead of rewriting the charter -- which would almost certainly lead to a weaker document than the briefly united Allies could achieve in 1945 -- what Annan proposes is in effect a reinterpretation of the charter to meet modern circumstances. Instead of being primarily about avoiding a repetition of World War II, he suggests that the United Nations should now focus on the new threats to peace.
In the biggest reinterpretation, he asks the Security Council, in place of the traditional sacrosanctity of national sovereignty, to deem mass murder, repression and ethnic cleansing to be threats to international peace and security that the international community has the right to intervene to stop -- and to adopt a set of principles to ensure that such intervention takes place only when there is no other option.
In another bold step, he proposes a succinct definition of terrorism and the creation of an international convention against it, along with strengthened controls on weapons to stop terrorists from getting their hands on them.
In case you think that's easy, remember that diplomats have been tying themselves in knots over a definition of terrorism since even before Sept. 11, 2001. The Bush administration's apparent working definition of terrorists as people whom we do not like who use violence leaves as much to be desired as definitions that justify any act as long as it is aimed against imperialism.
Annan's definition cuts across talk about liberation struggles and state terrorism and states, "Any action constitutes terrorism if it is intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a Government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act." Replying to critics who say this neglects misdeeds by governments, he notes that those are already covered by the Geneva Conventions and similar international laws against war crimes.
He also wants a more effective, and tyranny-free, Human Rights Council, to replace the current Human Rights Commission (whose members have included notorious violators of human rights), and new attention to building democracy and reconstructing failed states. While many developed countries have already called for such changes, Annan recognizes that a large majority of the world body still needs convincing, so he presents the package of reforms as a "deal" between the blocs of members. The developed world and the United States get what they've been asking for, in return for agreeing to put truth in the promises they made to the developing world five years ago about meeting specified goals to reduce poverty and underdevelopment with direct aid, loan forgiveness and an end to trade barriers, and to help combat AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
As Annan says eloquently in his report, "We will not enjoy development without security, we will not enjoy security without development, and we will not enjoy either without respect for human rights."
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