20 September 2006
Scholar Discusses U.N. Accomplishments, Future Challenges
USINFO Webchat transcript, September 20
Edward C. Luck, professor of practice in international and public affairs and director of the Center on International Organization of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University in New York City, responds to questions in a September 20 USINFO Webchat on U.N. reform.
Following is the transcript:
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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Bureau of International Information Programs
USINFO Webchat Transcript
Guest: Edward Luck
Date: September 20, 2006
Time: 10:00 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT)
The United Nations Accomplishments and Future Challenges
WEBCHAT MODERATOR: Welcome to USINFO webchats. Our webchat with Dr. Luck will start in just a few minutes at 1400 GMT. You can start sending in questions now. Thank you.
EDWARD LUCK: The UN is now in its 61st year and busier than ever. So clearly the 192 Member States still see it as a place where they can conduct much of the business of world affairs. The UN system includes dozens of agencies that have left their mark in functional and humanitarian affairs. Its track record in terms of specific accomplishments, however, has been decidedly uneven, varying by subject, time, and place. The UN has made important contributions to the establishment and dissemination of international norms in areas as diverse as human rights, humanitarian affairs, disarmament, environment, and development.
Much of the process of implementation has been left to others, however, as the UN's operational capacities on the ground are generally quite modest. When the parties to a conflict are seeking to resolve their differences, the UN can help broker settlements and provide peacekeepers to buy time for diplomacy and political reconciliation to work.
Yet rarely is it in a position to compel the implementation of its decisions and resolutions, leaving this to its Member States in many cases. What global political body has ever accomplished as much?
QUESTION [abhilasha]: What do you think has been biggest achievement of UN post cold war? Most of African countries' economy is poor, U.S. without UN support has waged war, N. Korea has made clear its nuclear program, human rights is still a big issue ... do you think amidst these plural problems in front of UN, UN has any importance? The 'power to influence' of UN has decreased considerably ... how in your opinion can UN's glory be revived?
ANSWER [Edward Luck]: I'm not sure that the UN ever had a lot of glory to revive, but you are certainly right in suggesting that expectations were quite high-indeed, unreasonably so -- at the outset. Yes, there are many problems without short-term solutions and the UN hardly qualifies as a miracle worker. But the level of both inter-state and intra-state conflict has fallen since the end of the Cold War, with decreasing numbers of casualties and refugees.
The UN can't claim sole credit, of course, but it contributed significantly to resolving conflicts in places like Mozambique, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cambodia, Angola, El Salvador, Namibia, and the Balkans. Poverty rates and child mortality are down significantly in most of the world, as economic growth has been higher in developing than developed countries throughout the past half-century. Human rights standards and expectations have risen in much of the world since the end of the Cold War. Again, the UN has been only one of many actors and many factors bearing on these accomplishments, but it would be just as misleading to ignore the progress that has been made as to pretend that all is well. Strife is rife in the Middle East and parts of Africa, terrorism has exacerbated insecurity in much of the world, and pockets of extreme poverty remain in far too many places.
The UN's work, I would suspect, may never be done. To me, however, the fact that it is still trying is encouraging.
Q [valda]: From the many plans for reforming the United Nations, which one do you consider the most urgent?
How would you estimate the chances of the President of Latvia Vike-Freiberga to become the next UN secretary general?
A: First Question: Your reform question suggests, correctly, that there has been an effort to do too many reforms at once, with too little sense of what is most urgent and feasible. I'd start with management reforms, especially those relating to human resources, transparency, accountability, and giving the Deputy Secretary-General a well-defined job description and line authority. Two of the recent reforms steps are already in some trouble. The Human Rights Council is off to a decidedly inauspicious start, preoccupied with one country, Israel, when it has hardly been the only transgressor of human rights. The Peace building Commission has been concerned mostly with its internal organization so far. The Security Council has been opening up its working methods and this should be encouraged, though I would not rush to enlarge it since there is nothing close to a consensus on how and whether this should be done.
Second Question: I hear that she is articulate and outspoken, but her chances are slim. Right gender, but wrong continent. We've already had three Secretaries-General from Europe and it will be some time, in all likelihood, before we have a fourth. Besides, the Russians, who have a veto over the Council's nomination, are unenthusiastic about any candidate from the Baltic Republics.
WEBCHAT MODERATOR: The State Department's Bureau of International Information Programs maintains a special webpage where you can find out more about this year's UN General Assembly and U.S.-UN issues.
Q [Marek]: On the topic of peacekeeping. The UN does or does not have clear rules on conduct of its peacekeeper forces? There have been some very ugly cases of abuse by UN "blue helmets". How do you respond to this?
A: Question Three: You are certainly right, that the abuses committed by UN forces in recent years have been totally unacceptable. While they may be the exception, not the rule, we have to find better ways or preventing such abuses in the future. They have clarified rules and standards for participation in the UN operations, but the troop-contributing countries have not always enforced these effectively and UN oversight could be strengthened.
The problem of holding voluntary forces fully accountable has been compounded by the UN's desperate need for countries to provide these forces at a time when the organization is so overstretched. More joint training, dissemination of UN manuals and rules, and the development of multinational training centers for an international officer corps might help.
The UN could also follow-up more closely on whether troop-contributing states have carried out promised prosecutions and punishments of accused violators of basic human rights standards. If the country in question has failed to follow-up, then they it should be excluded from any standby list until the problems are rectified.
Q [Marek]: What are the biggest future challenges the U.N faces?
A: Question One: The UN always seems to face an inordinate number and range of difficult challenges. My order would be: 1) handling the burgeoning number of peacekeeping and peace building missions with a reasonable degree of success; 2) defeating terrorism, armed militias, and another challenges to the inter-state system; 3) identifying more than a hortatory role for the UN in development and poverty elimination; 4) implementing a more balanced approach to human rights violations around the world; 5) accomplishing the management reforms mentioned above, and 6) finally learning how to make choices and set priorities.
Q [Marek]: NATO is getting into the business of peacekeeping operations. Do you see this as a threat to the UN's role as world policeman? And why does it take so long for the UN to assemble peacekeeper forces?
A: Question Two: To me, there appears to be so much demand for peacekeeping that this needs to be shared between the UN and various regional and sub-regional organizations, including not only NATO, but the African Union and other groups. This delegation of authority can raise problems of accountability when things go wrong and the Security Council rarely exercises effective oversight over such delegated operations. Also, in recent years UN blue helmets have come largely from the developing world, while NATO countries prefer to have their forces serve outside of a UN command structure. Over time, such segregation could raise troubling political problems.
Q [Regina]: What are the problems with the Commission on Human Rights that pushed creation of a new CHR?
A: The Commission on Human Rights had, after many years of poor performance, lost any credibility as an effective force for advancing agreed international human rights standards. Its membership included many of the worst violators of human rights, who flocked to the Commission to avoid any censure there. At 53 members, it was too large to be an effective deliberative body and its sessions tended to be highly politicized and very divisive. It tended to be one-sided, with much of its attention focused on a small number of politically unpopular countries, while latent violations by others were ignored. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was particularly scathing in his criticisms of the Commission, since he had made human rights a centerpiece of his term in office.
The new Human Rights Council was to correct some of these problems by requiring a higher hurdle for election to membership on the Council, by having a universal periodic review of the human rights performance of all Member States, beginning with the members of the Council, and by being slightly smaller. The composition of the Council shows a slightly larger proportion of democratic states than had the Commission, but a number of states with questionable human rights records were elected by the General Assembly to the Council nevertheless.
So far, as I noted above, the Council has been no more balanced in its performance perhaps even less so than the Commission had been. Hopefully now that it is to begin its second session some of these problems can be addressed. It has the potential advantage of meeting more frequently during the year, permitting it to respond more rapidly to unfolding calamities.
Moreover, we have yet to see whether the universal periodic review will prove to be an effective mechanism for encouraging a more balanced and global consideration of human rights performance around the world.
WEBCHAT MODERATOR: For more on this issue, read the State Department's Washington File article, "New Human Rights Council Sessions Disappointing, Says State Official".
Q [Kuba]: Thinking about future challenges, you mentioned "What global political body has ever accomplished as much?" How about the role of the global business community? Do you think that private sector may one day come to have more ability to influence world events AND respond to crisis?
In the U.S. there was criticism that private firms did better in response to Katrina ... why not the same for world problems?
A: You raise an interesting point. My sense is that this is not an either/or question. The UN, rather belatedly, has begun to recognize the important social, as well as economic, role of the private sector. The core advantage of the private sector, of course, is the fact that it is independent of governments and inter-governmental agencies. That raises a disadvantage in terms of accountability. Katrina did not show either the federal, state, or local governments at their best in the US. But neither would the public have wanted to entrust relief and rebuilding entirely to the private sector, with its profit motives. The question is how to build effective partnerships or collaborative relationships between public and private enterprises, including, of course, the non-profit or independent sector.
In terms of disaster relief, my impression is that the UN did relatively well in responding to the tsunami last year, in that someone needed to play a global coordinating and advocacy role. There were affected places where direct bilateral US assistance might have been less welcome without the political cover provided by the world body. In any case, you have raised an area that needs a good deal more research, analysis, and creative thinking.
WEBCHAT MODERATOR: Read "Going the Distance: The U.S. Tsunami Relief Effort 2005," an online publication of the U.S. State Department.
Q [TAK]: What aspects of the United Nations, if any, do you think need to be reformed. For example, are there certain organs that you think are too stove piped, over funded/resourced, under funded/resourced, lack sufficient accountability, transparency, or decision-making authority?
A: Where to begin? In terms of inter-governmental organs, it is ironic that so much public and official attention has been focused on the Security Council, which has been so active and relatively effective in recent years. ECOSOC and the General Assembly have been much more marginal performers, so much so that reformers have pretty much abandoned serious study about how they can be made more relevant and focused. Everyone has their favorite and least favorite agencies in the UN system, but on the whole they tend to be more accountable because most have their own governing boards and must seek voluntary funding. Most importantly, they usually have relatively well-defined missions and often-operational roles that invite assessment by stakeholders on the ground.
As I noted in an earlier response, my feeling is that the development agencies, on the whole, have found it difficult to define their areas of comparative advantage with any precision or permanence, given that forces well beyond the UN's control tend to determine economic performance. UNDP, for example, has reinvented itself a number of times over the years. It has identified some valuable niche roles for itself, such as the production of the various human development reports, which have spurred innovative thinking in many parts of the world. In the central UN secretariat, the production of statistics and demographic information has been world class, while the secretariats serving the inter-governmental bodies have tended to languish in terms of innovative thinking, reflecting the inter-governmental bodies they serve. After 35 years of observing the UN, I continue to be struck by the disparity between the best in the secretariat, who are truly world class and highly dedicated, and the number of their colleagues who have either lost the spark or lacked it to begin with.
I'm not sure that that suggests a trimming of posts and offices, rather it suggests the need for major renovation of human resource policies and practices, something the Secretary-General proposed doing this Spring but was rebuffed by the Fifth Committee and General
I regret that there has not been time to respond to one or two of these valuable questions. However, we can be sure that, as long as we are posing tough questions for the world body, the chances are good that further improvements in its functioning lie ahead. While the UN has proven resistant to formal structural reforms, it has been remarkably adaptable to changing conditions and demands. No doubt this is what one should expect of such a highly political body.
WEBCHAT MODERATOR: We would like to thank all of our participants and Dr. Luck for joining us today. The Webchat is now closed. A transcript of today's Webchat will be available on our USINFO Webchat Station within one business day.
(While guests are chosen for there expertise, the views expressed by the guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of State.)
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(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
