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Posted 9:35 AM
by Mary
UNITED NATIONS - 28 July 2005 / www.MaximsNews.com / For every U.N. diplomat, the only thing better than being a permanent representative to the Security Council is being a permanent representative for a permanent member.
This obsession with having a seat at the Big Table is now threatening to stymie desperately-needed UN reforms that are being debated now in New York, ready for adoption at the 60th Anniversary Summit of the UN this September.
So far, in the lucky absence of the still-unconfirmed John Bolton, who is on the record as advocating that the U.S. should be the only permanent member of the UN Security Council, delegates at the UN have tied themselves into a knot that makes the Bolton solution seem almost plausible in its simplicity.
As befits an organization whose Charter was mostly drafted by Americans, it reflects a compromise between the promise of principles and the reality of power.
In the General Assembly, Nauru, with fewer people than a Manhattan block, has the same vote as China or India.
But having made that concession to notional national equality, the big powers put the muscle in the Security Council. What Stalin said about the Pope applies; how many divisions can these smaller states throw at a new threat to world peace?
Since 1945, five countries -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the US -- have had a veto and a permanent place on the Security Council. The other 10 members are elected on non-renewable two-year terms.
Back in 1945, France and China were only added as a courtesy, and a war-bankrupted Britain was already looking a little pretentious as a permanent member.
To add to the anomalies, for a quarter of a century China was represented by the defeated nationalist government on Taiwan.
For some time after Beijing took the seat, there was a pragmatic justification for the permanent five members. They were all substantial military powers, and all had nukes.
It is difficult to enforce a UN decision against an uncooperative nuclear power.
But since then, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea have blasted their way into the nuclear club -- and no one wanted to give an incentive to Iran to be on the Council!
According to the UN Charter, the Council is the only body that can authorize military activities by member states, although like most commandments, this one is honored more in the breach than in the observance.
The Charter also says that any one of those five can veto any changes to the Charter, such as any attempt to remove their veto, or add more members to the Council.
For fairly obvious reasons, Japan and Germany were not in the running for seats back in 1945 -- indeed, clause 103 of the Charter still essentially says that it's OK for anyone else to restart the Second World War on them.
Now, however, Japan pays almost as much in dues to the UN as the U.S. -- and what's more, it pays on time, and without some Tokyo version of Henry Hyde threatening to cut funding if the UN does not do what it's told.
Germany also pays more than Britain, France, Russia or China -- the latter, incidentally, paying at a rate based on its economy more than a decade ago, not at current boom levels.
The problem is that the Council is already top-heavy toward the industrialized world -- and adding these two would make it even more so, unleashing a flood of me-tooism from India, Brazil and other developing nations.
To complicate matters even further, if you add more permanent members, then you have to add more elected members, and it begins to look less like an executive committee and more like a mass meeting.
Current proposals take its membership up to 25. For those who step back and consider how long it took the Council, with only 15 members, to act on Sudan -- let alone Rwanda or Bosnia -- this is not a happy prospect.
Strangely, the U.S. delegation is actually talking sense for once: it says that two dozen is too many, which is true. But liberals can be reassured. The U.S. is correct like a stopped clock -- occasionally.
It reached its reasonable conclusion from more traditionally-sordid premises: If the U.S. could not bully a mere 15-strong council into backing the invasion of Iraq, then how much harder would it be to twist the arms of 25 members?
All the more revealing is that the U.S. made it clear that it would not support permanent seats for any country that snubbed the Bush administration in the buildup to the invasion.
In fact, the U.S. would not commit to supporting anyone but Japan. Which is embarrassing, because the Chinese, and both Koreas, unite in saying "no go" to Tokyo.
The proposal to enlarge the Council has been on the agenda for more than ten years -- and the British made sure that it was enlargement, and not "reform," which might have questioned the status of their permanent seat. Earlier this year, to break the logjam, Kofi Annan originally proposed two alternatives.
"Plan A" was for six new permanent members, including two from Africa, but with no vetoes.
Everybody, except those who thought they would be one of the six, agreed that adding six new vetoes into a frequently gridlocked body was hardly the way to make it efficient, even if it allowed the six lucky ones to parade their enhanced membership. This plan would also add three new temporary seats for the South.
Annan's plan "B" called for eight new "semi-permanent" seats which would be re-electable and sit for four years, and one new temporary seat.
This month, the G-4 -- Brazil, Germany, India and Japan -- put forward a version of Plan A which would call for reconsideration of the veto powers in 15 years time.
The African contingent muddied the waters by putting up a counter-resolution calling for the new members to have veto powers, and added yet another temporary member to bring the Council up to 25.
What complicates things even more is that there is no consensus on who would occupy the African seats.
In the earlier versions, there would only have been one, and it was the Arab League's representative on Annan's reform panel, who happens to be the former foreign minister of Egypt, who fought for two seats.
If there were only one African permanent seat, Egypt would have a snowflake's chance in the Sahara of getting it.
If there were two, then a promise of Arab and Muslim support for the African proposal could land a place for Egypt, leaving Nigeria and South Africa to fight it out for the second spot.
There is a problem here, of course. The Europeans and others can accept a grandfathered China, but may not accept a dubiously-elected Hosni Mubarak in a permanent seat, let alone with a veto.
Then there are the regional rivals. Argentina and Mexico are not sure how a permanent Brazil would represent Latin America; Spain and Italy look askance at Germany; and Pakistan and Indonesia fail to see how a permanent India represents them.
Although the U.S. and China, the two states on the Council who most often wield their veto power, have indicated their opposition to all the proposals and candidates, the would-be permaments hoped that by getting a two-thirds majority in the General Assembly they would shame Washington and Beijing into not using their vetoes.
This almost proves that they are diplomatically unfit to be on the Council, since the shamelessness of China and the U.S. is pretty much written into the standing orders of the body.
And these aspiring states should know this, since several of them have been fairly shameless themselves in courting the Bush administration's favor in hopes of changing its mind.
Then there are the principled states like the Canadians, who have always supported the United Nations and want to see it work.
They are more concerned about what the Council does than who does it, and agree with the Americans that current proposals make the Council too large and unwieldy.
The Canadians also make the entirely reasonable point that permanent membership is itself an unfair anomaly, and even if we can't do anything about it, then extending it to six more states is still unfair to the other 180 or so lesser members.
Canada is supporting the uniting-for-consensus proposal in a tactical way, although they think it would still make the Council far too big.
The real tragedy is that the obsession with Security Council seats is taking attention away from much more important UN reforms that Annan has proposed, such as a hard-hitting Human Rights Council, a clear definition of terrorism, clear guidelines for humanitarian intervention, and of course, addressing the whole range of development issues, from AIDS to poverty.
The millions dying with AIDS in Africa will not raise their eyes to heaven in exultation just because a couple of African diplomats in New York do not have to seek re-election.
One of the problems with the existing Council is that elections for the temporary seats occur very rarely anyway.
Many of the regions, such as Africa, have a long-term rota system, which puts up members who could be weak, pliable, law-breakers and recidivist human rights violators.
Morocco, for example, on the Council in 1992-3, still occupies the Western Sahara despite decades of resolutions, while Rwanda held a seat during the genocide there. The current African proposal promises more of the same.
If you think a monarchy is regressive, you do not solve the problem by doubling the size of the Royal Family. We are stuck with the five permanent members, but that is no excuse for adding another six.
It would be better for the G-4 to use their prestige to revive the General Assembly and make it a more relevant body.
For example, at the height of the Korean War, the U.S. secured a "Uniting for Peace" procedure that allowed the General Assembly to bypass the Security Council when a veto led to deadlock.
At the time, the Russians were the biggest obstacle on the Council, but these days it is the US, and occasionally the Chinese, who dish out the vetoes. Most members are, frankly, too chicken to reaffirm a bypass procedure.
The idea of renewable four-year terms is a good one, because to justify re-election, the G-4 and other new members would have to report back to the General Assembly on their past behavior in the Council.
In fact, even paying careful attention to which countries join the Council as it stands now would do far more to reform that body than any of the discordant musical chairs moves now being plotted.
After all, it was not France, Russia and China that blocked approval of Iraq.
If the Bush administration had had the diplomatic sense to pledge that the other Big Players could keep their oil contracts, it would have had far fewer problems.
Rather, it was the smaller, more principled states, such as Ireland, Jamaica, Mexico, and Chile, that stood up for principle under heavy pressure on Iraq.
None of them is under consideration for a new permanent seat, but members like these would make formal reforms much less necessary.
IanWilliams@MaximsNews.com
AlterNet July 26, 2005
Posted 9:43 PM
by Mary
To: Mr. Jean Ping, President of the 59th Session of the United Nations
General Assembly
From: NGO Committee on Children’s Rights (CONGO)
Subject: Proposed Language for the Outcome Document for the
Millennium +5 Summit, 14-16 September 2005.
Contribution from the Informal Interactive Hearings of the GA with NGOs, Civil Society Organizations and the Private Sector, 23 – 24 June, 2005
Corann Okorodudu, Co-Chair, NGO Committee on Children’s Rights (American Psychological Assn. & Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues) Email: okorodudu@rowan.edu Cristina Blanc, Co-Chair, NGO Committee on Children’s Rights (International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences & International Women’s Anthropology Conference) Email: cbszanton@yahoo.com
June 23, 2005
The NGO Committee on Children’s Rights of the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations (CONGO), is composed of representatives of 60 international and national non-governmental organizations committed to actively promoting the implementation of the rights of children on international, national and local levels through research, education, policy development, advocacy and service.
We strongly applaud the report of the Secretary-General Kofi Annan, “In Larger Freedom” in which he offers proposals for more effective implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) within the larger framework of the UN Charter and its vision of development, security and human rights for people everywhere. We also welcome the opportunity provided by the 23 and 24 June 2005 General Assembly Civil Society Hearings and the Draft Outcome Document for the Millennium +5 Summit, 14-16 September 2005, circulated before the Hearings for input from non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations, and the private sector. However, as an active participant in the GA Civil Society Hearings, we were deeply concerned to find that, in contrast to the United Nations Millennium Declaration (2000), the proceedings at the GA Civil Society Hearings and the Draft Outcome Document for the Millennium +5 Summit fall short in addressing children’s rights and child-specific concerns.
In the UN Millennium Declaration, governments recognized that “we have a collective responsibility to uphold the principles of human dignity, equality and equity”; “we have a duty therefore to all the world’s people, especially the most vulnerable, and in particular, the children of the world, to whom the future belongs”. Governments offered to: “spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty,” “to free all humanity, and above all our children and grandchildren from the threat of living on a planet irredeemably spoilt by human activities”, and “ensure that children and all civilian populations that suffer disproportionately the consequences of natural disasters, genocides, armed conflicts and other humanitarian emergencies, are given every assistance and protection”. Governments further encouraged “the ratification and full implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its optional protocols on the involvement of children in armed conflict and on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography”.
At the GA Special Session on Children in 2002, governments reaffirmed their “conviction that investments in children and the realization of their rights are among the most effective ways to eradicate poverty. Therefore, we propose that it is essential that the Outcome Document for the Millennium +5 Summit reemphasize the centrality of the implementation of children’s rights, recognized in the Millennium Declaration, to the fulfillment of the Millennium Development Goals. Instead of a statement of our recommendations, we offer the language below in bold, formatted within various sections of the Draft Outcome Document, to assist in integrating children’s needs and rights more visibly into the Document,
I. Values and principles
9a We reaffirm that putting children at the centre of development policy and planning and the implementation of the rights of all children and adolescents is essential to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals and to the advancement of a culture of peace, security, human rights and development for all across generations. As we acknowledged at the Special Session on Children in 2002, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most universally embraced human rights treaty in history, and its Optional Protocols, contain a comprehensive set of international legal standards for the protection and well-being of children. We also recognize the importance of other international instruments relevant for children.
II. Development
Eradication of hunger
XX. We call for support for populations and countries suffering from severe food shortages and famine.
XX. National plans should provide access to food and improve the nutrition of mothers, children and adolescents, through household food security, access to basic social services and adequate caring practices.
Education
XX. Expand and improve comprehensive early childhood care and education for girls and boys, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children and adolescents.
XX. Reduce gender, racial, ethnic and other disparities in primary school enrollment, sustained participation, and completion and monitor progress in children’s and adolescents’ primary and secondary education attainment through collection of disaggregated data to identify the most marginalized subgroups.
XX. Ensure that children’s right to primary education is fulfilled in emergency, conflict, and post-conflict situations, with a focus on both temporary learning and capacity building, and that education programmes address children’s needs in other areas such as health and nutrition, HIV/AIDS, water and sanitation, and children’s and indeed all human rights.
HIV/AIDS and other health issues
19. We recognize that HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis and other infectious diseases pose severe risks for the
entire world and serious challenges to the achievement of development goals. These diseases and other emerging health challenges require a concerted international response. To this end, we commit ourselves to:
.Ensure that the resources needed for education, prevention, treatment, psychosocial support, enhanced access to affordable medicines and an expanded, comprehensive and coordinated response to HIV/AIDS, and for full funding of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria are provided universally by 2010;
.Launch a global initiative to strengthen the capacity and delivery of the national health systems in developing countries, and to integrate an expanded, comprehensive and coordinated response to HIV/AIDS within national health systems, including prevention, education, treatment and psychosocial support to infected and affected children, adolescents, adults, older persons, families and communities;
.Strengthen family and community-based programmes and promote full partnership with men and boys, parents, families, educators, and health care providers in HIV/AIDS prevention and care;
.Support programmes to combat stigma and discrimination against persons of all ages with HIV/AIDS among those in families, other institutions of society, and the broader community, who may not have the disease but whose actions are influential in the physical and mental health of HIV/AIDS victims;
.Provide special protection and psychosocial assistance for children and adolescents orphaned by HIV/AIDS and ensure that alternative care provide continuity with the children’s upbringing and their ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic background.
.Reduce the number of under five mortality rates from preventable and treatable causes through increased immunization coverage, exclusive breastfeeding, access to affordable and safe drinking water and hygienic sanitation, and capacity building for improved family care.
Gender Equality and the empowerment of women
20. We reaffirm that the full and effective implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action is essential to achieving the internationally agreed development goals, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration; and resolve to promote gender equality and to overcome pervasive gender bias by:
·increasing primary school completion and secondary school access for girls, ensuring secure tenure of property to women;
·ensuring access to reproductive health care;
·promoting equal access to labour markets;
·providing opportunity for greater representation in government decision-making bodies;
·supporting direct interventions to protect women and girls from violence; and
·ensuring the contributions and needs of older women/persons with a programme of action outlined by the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing, 2002 and the active collection of disaggregated data on the basis of age, race/ethnicity, and gender,
Science and technology for development
22. We recognize that science and technology play a critical role in the achievement of the development goals and that international support is essential for enabling developing countries and poverty sectors of developed countries to benefit from the technological advancements. We therefore commit to:
·Launch a global initiative to support research and development to address the special needs of poor children, adolescents, and adults in the areas of physical and mental health and psychosocial well-being, education, access to ICTs, agriculture, natural resources and environmental management, energy and the impact of climate change…
Migration
23.We recognize that international migration brings many gains to the global community as well as complex challenges. We further recognize the need to enhance international cooperation on migration issues to ensure that the movement of people across borders, including vulnerable children, women, men, and older persons, is managed in a more effective and humane manner…
Meeting the special needs of Africa
26.Reaffirming our commitment to urgently meet the special needs of Africa to enable it to enter the mainstream of the world economy, and for the African peoples to live in freedom from fear, freedom from want, and freedom to live in human dignity and democracy, we resolve to:…
III. Peace and Collective Security
27.We recognize that we are facing a whole range of threats, including human rights violations, poverty, armed conflicts between and within States, the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, the lack of progress in nuclear proliferation and disarmament, terrorism, organized crime, the rapid spread of highly infectious disease and severe environmental degradation that undermine human physical and psychosocial well-being and require our urgent, collective and more determined response.
Protecting children in armed conflicts
32.We also reaffirm our commitment to ensure that children in armed conflicts receive timely effective humanitarian assistance and to take effective measures for their physical and psychological rehabilitation, education, and reintegration in society, addressing the gender-specific needs of girls and boys affected.
Protecting children from other forms of violence, exploitation and abuse
32a.We reaffirm our commitment to protect children and adolescents from all forms of violence, exploitation and abuse, including the worst forms of child labour, violence and abuse in families, schools and communities, trafficking and sexual violence, and harmful traditional practices including female genital cutting.
Peacekeeping
38.Recognizing that peacekeeping plays a vital role in helping parties to conflict end hostilities; noting improvements made in recent years to United Nations peacekeeping; calling for increased training and education for peacekeeping and humanitarian personnel, including education in human rights and humanitarian standards; and stressing the need to mount operations with adequate capacity to counter hostilities, we express support for the establishment of a standby capacity for rapid deployment of United Nations peacekeeping and civilian police.
Peacebuilding
39b. Peacebuilding is a dynamic social process in which justice, equity, and respect for basic human rights should be maximized. Peacebuilding is the process that can bring about lasting and constructive change in the institutions that maintain society. To endure, peacebuilding requires social conditions that foster individual and societal well-being. Social inclusion is a fundamental and strategic principle for peacebuilding because of its emphasis on fairness, resource sharing, and concern for the well-being of all. For social inclusion to be effective, it needs to be substantial and sustained, so that all levels of society (from the grassroots to state-level) and all subpopulations, including children, adolescents, women and men, older persons and people who are illiterate and living in remote areas, share in social resources and participate in the process of social transformation.
40. Establish a Peacebuilding Commission to provide sustained international attention and support to countries in the transition from post-conflict situations to recovery and long-term development...In respect of country-specific situations, the Peacebuilding Commission should, in the immediate aftermath of conflict, make recommendations to the Security Council regarding measures to ensure coherence between peacekeeping, economic recovery and efforts to restore national institutions for public administration and the rule of law, with primary emphasis on the well-being and human rights of the civilian population, particularly its children… It should extend political attention to recovery beyond the period of dedicated attention by the Security Council, working with the Economic and Social Council and other bodies including civil society organizations, and should report on country-specific issues to the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council in sequence, depending on the phase of the conflict...
41. We request the President of the General Assembly, assisted by the Secretary-General, to conduct consultations with Member States and civil society organizations, including child rights and human rights scholars, advocates, and mental health practitioners with expertise on post-conflict recovery, reconciliation, and peacebuilding, in order to develop the necessary modalities for the effective operation of the Peacebuilding Commission, including its composition, its rules of procedure and financial arrangements for its functioning, so that the body can begin operations no later than 31 December 2005.
I . Human rights and the rule of Law
Human Rights
64. We resolve further to strengthen the UN human rights system with the aim to ensure effective enjoyment by all of all human rights - civil, cultural, economic, political, and social rights as well as the right to development. The creation and maintenance of a national and international human rights culture requires the partnership of educational institutions with governments and UN and international agencies to integrate meaningful education about human rights and democratic principles and their application into daily practices and into educational
curricula at all levels.
66. We resolve to improve the effectiveness of the human rights treaty bodies, including through improved and streamlined reporting procedures, which retain the guidelines and processes required for reporting to specific treaty bodies such as the CRC, CERD, and CEDAW, and to promote the implementation of their recommendations.
Democracy
6. We commit to support democracy in our own countries, our regions, and the world, ensuring the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of children, adolescents, adults, women, older persons, families, indigenous persons and racial and ethnic minorities, and migrants and immigrants who move across national borders, and resolve to strengthen the United Nations’ capacity to assist Members States on request…
Responsibility to protect
72. We agree that the responsibility to protect civilian populations lies first and foremost with each individual State.
The international community should, as necessary, encourage and help States to exercise this responsibility. The international community has also the responsibility to use diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means under
Chapter VI and VIII of the UN Charter to help protect civilian populations of all ags from genocide, war crimes, ethnic
cleansing, and crimes against humanity. If such peaceful means appear insufficient, we recognize our shared responsibility to take collective action, through the Security Council and, as appropriate, in cooperation with relevant regional organizations under Chapter VII of the Charter.
V. Strengthening the United Nations
Economic and Social Council
86. Convene timely meetings that include NGOs, to address threats to development, including humanitarian emergencies and natural disasters, in order to promote an improved coordinated response from the UN.
Seretariat
90. Recognizing that a capable and effective Secretariat is indispensable to the work of the United Nations in a fast changing and rapid world, we fully support the Secretary-General in his goal of achieving the highest levels of competence, integrity, ethical behaviour, efficiency, transparency and accountability of the Secretariat, with due regard to the importance of recruiting the staff and advisors, including educators and social and behavioral scientists, on as wide and equitable geographical representation as possible...
Participation of non-governmental organizations, civil society and the private sector
102. We welcome the positive contribution of non-governmental organizations, civil society and the private sector in the promotion and implementation of development, security, and human rights programmes and stress the importance of their continued engagement with governments, the UN, including the General Assembly, the Security Council, UN agencies and other international organizations in these key areas.
