BBC News: Annan urges sweeping UN reforms

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has urged governments to endorse “bold and far-reaching” reforms of the body.

In his report (PDF, 1MB, 62 pages), Annan outlines a number of measures, the two that caught my eye being enlarging Security Council from 15 to 24 members and the replacement of the Commission on Human Rights with a “Human Rights Council”.

Taking Security Council enlargement first, Annan supports “the position set out in the report of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change (A/59/565) concerning the reforms of the Security Council, namely:”

(a) They should, in honouring Article 23 of the Charter, increase the involvement in decision-making of those who contribute most to the United Nations financially, militarily and diplomatically, specifically in terms of contributions to United Nations assessed budgets, participation in mandated peace operations, contributions to voluntary activities of the United Nations in the areas of security and development, and diplomatic activities in support of United Nations objectives and mandates. Among developed countries, achieving or making substantial progress towards the internationally agreed level of 0.7 per cent of GNP for ODA should be considered an important criterion of contribution;

(b) They should bring into the decision-making process countries more representative of the broader membership, especially of the developing world;

(c) They should not impair the effectiveness of the Security Council;

(d) They should increase the democratic and accountable nature of the body.

Two achieve this he suggests two possible solutions:

Model A provides for six new permanent seats, with no veto being created, and three new two-year term non-permanent seats, divided among the major regional areas.

and

Model B provides for no new permanent seats but creates a new category of eight four-year renewable-term seats and one new two-year non-permanent (and non-renewable) seat , divided amonng the major regional areas.

It’s quite clear that while Annan’s models makes the Security Council “representative of the broader membership”, by not seizing the nettle of the issue of the current permanent members’ vetoes, they do not “increase the democratic and accountable nature of the body”.

As George Monbiot says in his book, Age of Consent, while acknowledging the historical reasons for the vetoes…

…the problem with the way the Security Council has been established is that those who possess power cannot be held to account by those who do not… The Security Council is, by definition, tyrannical… The truth is that the threat of veto informs every decision the Security Council does or does not make. Other member states know perfectly well, for example, that there is no point in oreparing a resolution which the United States will reject.

Merely expanding the membership without addressing the fundamental undemocratic principle of the permanent members is not reform in the sense most of us would understand.

Those of us with a cynical bent can all too well imagine how this proposal is being taken in the White House. After all, newly-nominated US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, once said:

“If I were redoing the Security Council, I’d have one permanent member: the United States.”

That said, it’s difficult to see that real power is being devolved in either of Annan’s proposals for reform. There’s no real threat posed to vested interests and the status quo.

On the issue of the replacement of the Commission on Human Rights with a “Human Rights Council”, however, Annan pulls fewer punches. It’s almost as if this is a subject closer to his heart or realises he has more chance of pushing through real reform. He doesn’t name names but he certainly addresses the failings that have dogged the current Commission:

The Commission’s capacity to perform its tasks has been increasingly undermined by its declining credibility and professionalism. In particular, States have sought membership of the Commission not to strengthen human rights but to protect themselves against criticism or to criticize others. As a result, a credibility deficit has developed, which casts a shadow on the reputation of the United Nations system as a whole.

The present Commission reached its nadir in 2003 when Libya was elected the body’s chairman. As Human Rights Watch said of Libya:

Over the past three decades, Libya’s human rights record has been appalling. It has included the abduction, forced disappearance or assassination of political opponents; torture and mistreatment of detainees; and long-term detention without charge or trial or after grossly unfair trials. Today hundreds of people remain arbitrarily detained, some for over a decade, and there are serious concerns about treatment in detention and the fairness of procedures in several on-going high profile trials before the Peoples’ Courts. Libya has been a closed country for United Nations and non-governmental human rights investigators.

Sudan also manages to get itself re-elected to the Commission last year despite the crisis in Darfur. Libya got the nomination for chairman through horsetrading among the others African nations on the body, a practice that is rife in the wider membership where deals are made to so that countries on the Commission can avoid censure.

The 59th annual session of the Commission was regarded as particularly tawdry. A detailed account of proceedings is available at Reporters sans frontières but here are some of the highlights.

- Paragons of virtue Algeria, China, Pakistan, Russia, Syria, Zimbabwe and Sudan helped water down a motion to condemn Cuba’s treatment of dissidents.

- A block of Muslim countries on the Commission banded together to push through a resolution condemning religious intolerance. Islam was the only religion cited.

- 17 members - Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Burkina Faso, China, Cuba, Gabon, Libya, Malaysia, Uganda, Syria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Swaziland, Togo and Vietnam - abstained from a vote on “the interdependence between democracy and human rights”.

- The “non-action” motion, a procedural contortion that means there need be no vote on a motion and debates truncated, became prevalent. China was the trick’s most notorious exponent, but in 2003 South Africa also presented one to rescue Zimbabwe from censure.

- The Pakistani delegates threatened to table a hundred amendments in order to filibuster a draft resolution on rights for homosexuals. This after a non-action motion to kill the resolution had been narrowly rejected.

No wonder then, that the then UN High Commissioner, Sergio Vieira de Mello, was prompted to ask of the Commission: “What has happened with its role of protecting and promoting human right?”

In response, Kofi Annan’s proposal for replacing the Commission lacks detail, merely stating:

Member States should agree to replace the Commission on Human Rights with a smaller standing Human Rights Council. Member States would need to decide if they want the Human Rights Council to be a principal organ of the United Nations or a subsidiary body of the General Assembly, but in either case its members would be elected directly by the General Assembly by a two-thirds majority of members present and voting. The creation of the Council would accord human rights a more authoritative position, corresponding to the primacy of human rights in the Charter of the United Nations. Member States should determine the composition of the Council and the term of office of its members. Those elected to the Council should undertake to abide by the highest human rights standards.

The key phrase being “members would be elected directly by the General Assembly by a two-thirds majority of members present and voting” which should go along way to thwarting the block voting which has seen egregious human rights violators voted onto the current 53-member Commission.

Of course, these are just proposals from Annan which have to be discussed, debated and ultimately voted upon by the UN’s members. No doubt vested interests, collusion and horsetrading will play a part shold any of the proposals get off the page and onto the floor of the Assembly.

Annan himself is also seen as something of a damaged figure in the wake of a number of scandals. Calls for him to step down, admittedly largely from the Republican right in the US, are growing. it seems his drive for reforms may be his final pitch at a lasting legacy.

Posted on March 23rd, 2005 at 8:55 am

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