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Contributions from
the Column
Monitor
Hong Kong: near failure
Strengthened individual, weakened state
Budget crisis averted
Fewer landmine victims
Health services:
passing by the poor
NGOs claim Iraq
is selling oil reserves
More people infected with HIV
French NGOs take stock
of government action
Millennium Goal still a long way off
01/2006
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[ UN reform ]
Budget crisis averted
The debate on the reform of UN management escalated in December, threatening to undermine the world organisation’s ability to work. Before the seasonal break, however, a compromise was brokered on the UN budget for the next two years, averting a massive crisis. The compromise foresees a total sum of $ 3,8 billion for 2006/2007, while setting a $ 950 million spending cap on the first half of 2006. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is to make proposals in February on how to proceed with reforms to make the organisation more efficient. Requests for additional spending are to be tied to reform progress.
Before 23 December, the USA had refused to pass the budget without assurances for wide-ranging reform in the Secretariat and the creation of both a Human Rights Council and Peace Building Commission. The latter was endorsed by the Security Council and the General Assembly in late December. Most other Western countries supported the reform proposals, but were critical of Washington’s refusal to pass more than a provisional three month budget. Western diplomats said this tough stance had weakened the reform coalition.
The USA wants the position of the secretary-general to be strengthened. The main opponents are the 132 developing and newly industrialised countries of the G77. They fear that step might weaken the General Assembly, in which they have the majority. The New York Times quoted Maged Abdelaziz, UN ambassador from Egypt, as saying of the US: “They want us to be like an advisory board that is sitting looking into the air and giving advice and then the secretary-general is going to decide whatever he is going to do.” Furthermore, some of the G77 countries have reservations about the creation of a Human Rights Council. At the World Summit in New York in Autumn, UN members decided to replace the old Human Rights Commission with a new council. Unlike in the Commission, notorious human rights violators shall no longer have a say in the council. To some authoritarian governments, the proposals are too far-reaching. According to James Paul of the Global Policy Forum, developing countries also fear rich countries might dominate the council and exempt themselves from criticism.
US Ambassador John Bolton boosted such fears by complaining about UN High Commissioner Louise Arbour, who had warned against relaxing the ban on torture in the war on terror, encouraging the US to open itself to an international investigation. Bolton said that, instead of making unsubstantiated accusations against the USA, Arbour would be better off concentrating on serious human rights abusers such as Cuba, Myanmar and Zimbabwe.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan faces the difficult task of complying with the wish for reform without offending the developing countries. After the compromise was found, he said: “The budget agreed upon today will enable the organisation to continue its work uninterrupted while member states pursue the reform proposals.” He had argued that there was need for a budget and, at the same time, for the reform pressure to be maintained, “so that one doesn’t believe that we have got the budget and we have nothing else to do.” It remains unclear to what extent Annan personally identifies with the US proposals. He is under “tremendous pressure,” says James Paul. “I don’t think this management reform process is really Kofi’s ‘grab for power’ as some describe it but rather a grab by Washington for the last bits of control that they still don’t have over the UN system.” (dem/ell)
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