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Contributions from
the Column
Monitor
UN Summit: saving what could be saved
UN summit press review
Commodity exporters enjoy high demand
UNCTAD: Happy times for commodity exporters
Taxing air travel to fund development
Japan to increase aid
Roads and development
Alternative health report for WHO reform
Women have higher crop yields
World Bank: inequality blocks development
10/2005
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[ UN summit ]
Saving what could be saved
Three steps forward, five steps back, two steps forward. That pretty much describes the progress of the draft document for the UN summit in the fortnight before it was approved by 191 member nations in mid-September. In months of painstaking work, diplomats had negotiated a remarkably ambitious draft including many practical proposals in the fields of development, security, human rights and UN institutional reform. But then the 40-page document underwent surgery by John Bolton, the UN ambassador President George Bush appointed during the summer recess in order to sidestep the Senate’s approval process. Two weeks before the summit, Bolton demanded hundreds of changes, mostly deleting unpalatable paragraphs, noting, with an odd sense of humour, that time had run short for an agreement.
In view of such obstructive diplomacy, observers feared the summit would not produce any substantial results. Bolton’s version had reduced the draft to a list of empty phrases. The former undersecretary of state for arms control – and declared UN opponent – had deleted everything potentially in conflict with US interests or amounting to a commitment to tangible action.
Considering the gauntlet it ran, the summit outcome document is nothing to be ashamed of. It ended up significantly weaker than before it landed on Bolton’s desk and it was later watered down even more by changes demanded by other countries, which felt encouraged by the tough approach of the US envoy. Nonetheless, a 30-strong negotiating group worked out a compromise in the hours before the summit started, reinstating a number of elements red-lined by the US.
In the section on development, for example, the Millennium Development Goals are still explicitly mentioned. Bolton had sought to remove all references to them and to replace them, if at all, by the woollier phrase “international goals”. The target of advanced nations spending 0.7 percent of GDP on development is also back, albeit couched in less binding terms than in the original draft. So, too, is the call for climate protection, which Bolton had expunged almost entirely – except for a vague reference to the “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”. The statements on debt relief were also mostly saved. Bolton had left nothing but one reference to previous relief. Now, further debt remission – including relief for more than just the world’s poorest countries – will be reviewed.
The biggest climb-downs from the earlier draft relate to non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, trade and the proposed replacement of the UN Human Rights Commission by a new Human Rights Council. Because the United States refused to countenance any commitment to nuclear disarmament and at the same time sought to delete a passage affirming countries’ right to make peaceful use of nuclear energy, the entire section on that issue was dropped. The document does not mention non-proliferation of nuclear arms. In his address to the 60th general assembly, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called this a “inexcusable”.
With regard to trade, the original draft had mentioned the development mandate of the WTO Doha Round as well as issues important to the developing countries, such as agricultural subsidies, intellectual property, market access and the granting of preferences. There is no mention of these matters in the final document.
Where the US – along with other western countries – paid a price for ruthless action is on human rights. Countries like China, Iran, Pakistan and Syria managed to postpone the creation of a new UN Human Rights Council. The council is to replace the UN Commission, which has come under increasing criticism in recent years for having notorious human rights abusers among its members. The original draft contained details of how many members the council should have, how they should be chosen and what the council’s responsibilities would be. All it says now is that the president of the General Assembly should initiate negotiations on such matters.
The most important institutional reform to emerge from the summit is the creation of a new Peacebuilding Commission. Its brief is to advise and coordinate aid and development efforts in crisis regions emerging from conflict. The Commission will be operational by the end of this year. The communiqué, however, does not mention any other steps to reform UN institutions, such as the Security Council.
The acknowledgement of the fact that all governments have a “responsibility to protect” people from genocide, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing met with universal approval, including from non-governmental organisations. Where governments are derelict in that duty, the international community must be prepared to intervene – if necessary by military means. Oxfam International welcomed the resolution: “We congratulate world leaders on agreeing their responsibility to protect civilians. Tomorrow we will begin holding them to it.” (See also comment on page 395 of this issue.)
Tillmann Elliesen
On the internet:
The shaping of the final communiqué:
http://www.globalpolicy.org/msummit/millenni/index.htm
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