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UN Performance Problems UN Management Accountability Struggles Where is the Rule of Law? Inadequate UN Oversight Recent Developments
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The 1990s brought a greatly-expanded UN operational role in peacekeeping,
humanitarian, and human rights activities worldwide, and the worldwide
good governance and right-to-know developments discussed in the two
preceding subsections. As a result, UN leaders, and particularly
Secretary-General Annan, have made many firm public pronouncements in
recent years on moral values. Many of these
statements of high principle are commendable and useful, and are to be
expected from the UN leadership.
The UN has played a
clear role in the global progress that has been made on human rights,
governance, and free information issues. Unfortunately, however, when one
applies the UN leaders' pronouncements to the UN's own operations, the
message is a clear and resounding "Do as we say, not as we do." UN performnce, credibility, and
staff morale suffer as a result. Article 1 of the
United Nations Charter states that the UN's purposes (in the name of "we
the peoples") include resolving disputes by peaceful means, devising
cooperative solutions to societal problems, promoting respect for human
rights and fundamental freedoms, encouraging conformity to principles of
justice and international law, and harmonizing actions to achieve these
ends. The UN is thus expected to transform relations among states. "Charter of the United Nations",
Article I, and "We the peoples: The role of the
United Nations in the twenty-first century ", UN document A/54/2000 of
27 March 2000, paras. 8-11.
For
decades real UN action was hampered by Cold War tensions and insistence on
"national sovereignty" principles. But in 1998 Secretary-General Annan
argued that: "Only
universal organizations like the United Nations have the scope and
legitimacy to generate principles, norms and rules that are essential
if globalization is to
benefit everyone."
Kofi A. Annan, "Partnerships for
global community: Annual report on the work of the organization 1998",
United Nations, New York, 1998, p.
81.
The
UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 really only came to
life in the 1990s when the General Assembly greatly strengthened the
priority, visibility, scope and programmes of its Commission on Human
Rights. The UN now reports on human rights status in
many but not all member countries, formulates new conventions, provides
judicial assistance, and is creating international tribunals to deal with
crimes against humanity.
Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, of 1948. The full
declaration can be found at
Secretary-General
Annan further stated in 2000 that the international community must employ
the force of UN values, and the trust that the UN has earned, to protect
vulnerable people and "fundamental human rights" and expand the rule of
law, as a concern which transcends both governments and borders. His
personal stress on virtue has also been highlighted in the international
media. "We the peoples: The role of the
United Nations in the twenty-first century: Report of the
Secretary-General ", UN document A/54/2000, 27 March 2000, paras. 209-212 and
320-327. For very strong praise of Mr.
Annan, see Joshua Cooper Ramo,
"The five virtues of Kofi Annan," [subtitle: "Drawing on his days
in the classrooms of M.I.T. and the playing fields of Ghana, the U.N.
leader pursues a moral vision for enforcing world peace"], Time, September 4,
2000, pp. 40-47.
Recent UN reports
have also quite properly advocated the need for good governance and
responsive institutions and processes as key factors to promote
development and combat
poverty. Mr. Annan urged in 2000 that weak states must be strengthened,
anachronistic central hierarchies changed to dynamic networks, and
decision-making structures revised to support a robust international legal
order. He stated that better governance means greater participation,
accountability, and transparency to open up international public processes
[which should certainly include the UN] to civil society, the private
sector, and other groups. "Commission on global governance
urges world conference to reform international relations",
International Documents Review, 13 February 1995, pp. 1-2,
Reginald Dale, "A new debate on
'global governance'", International Herald Tribune, July 25,
2000, Barbara Crossette, "Bad governments
help keep countries poor, UN asserts", International Herald
Tribune, April 28, 2000, "Phoney democracies", The
Economist, June 24th, 2000, p. 17,
and "We the peoples: The role of the
United Nations in the twenty-first century: Report of the
Secretary-General ", UN document A/54/2000, 27 March 2000, paras.
41-46.
The UN has
maintained two other major sub-elements in its "moral arsenal" and is now
attempting to add a new third step, all of which relate directly to the
accountability and law emphases of this archive. FIRST,
the UN has held periodic anti-corruption conferences. At the 1995 conference, Member
States called on the Secretary-General to lead worldwide efforts to
prevent and control corruption; improve public management; enhance
accountability and transparency; analyse effective practices; assist
training; and prepare relevant manuals and codes for public
officials. A tenth crime
congress followed up actively on this theme. Economic and Social Council
resolution 1995/14, "Action against corruption", and "Draft international
code of conduct for public office holders", of 24 July 1995, "Vienna: 10th UN Crime Congress:
Making concerted efforts to combat organized crime", International Herald
Tribune, 14 April 2000, Brandolino, John, "Fighting corruption: The role
of diplomacy and international agreements", The Journal of Public
Inquiry, Fall/Winter 2001, pp. 9-12,
and www.odccp.org/press_release_2001-05-18_2.html .
SECOND, in
1997 Mr. Annan cited the essential values of good management (actually the
"efficiency, competence, and integrity" values trinity of Article 101 of
the UN Charter) for an effective UN (as did his predecessors) to his own
staff. Stating that they had
"suffered from misinformation and even disinformation for long enough"
about the UN, he admonished them that "I will not compromise" in seeking
"a total commitment to excellence", especially in staff performance. He
pledged to "develop a new management culture", where UN "senior managers
must understand their "obligation to properly manage the staff
entrusted
to their care", and with reform "procedures that are fair,
transparent, and humane." "Secretary-General urges staff to
strive for excellence, stressing UN performance will turn detractors into
supporters", SG/SM/6140 of 9 January 1997. Mr.
Annan also pledged a dynamic UN that "upholds the highest standards of
management, cost-effectiveness and accountability", and concluded in his
2000 millennium report that "we must spare no effort" to make the UN more
effective, ensure the best use of UN resources, and allow it to adopt
"best management practices.")
"Secretary-General pledges accountability and
calls for financial support while unveiling his reduced budget",
Secretariat News (New York), October 1997, p. 7, and "We the peoples: The role of the
United Nations in the twenty-first century: Report of the
Secretary-General ", A/54/2000,
27 March 2000, para 367.
In other forums during this period,
Mr. Annan also emphasized his determination to fight for human rights
anywhere: "
I have sought to speak out in favor of universal human rights
and in defense of the victims of aggression or abuse, wherever they may
be.
I have sought to
make the office of secretary-general a pulpit
[Everywhere] I have sought,
without attacking specific regimes or individuals, to use it as a vehicle
for promoting the values of tolerance, democracy, human rights and
good governance that I believe are universal."
I have at times been as skeptical of a leader's true intentions as
anyone, and I have entered every war zone without any illusions about the
prospects for peace or the price of misrule. But I have persisted
To apply those
lessons
wherever and
whenever possible is a secretary-general's highest calling and foremost
duty -- to himself, to his office, and to the United Nations. My great predecessor,
Dag Hammarskjold, once said that it 'is a question not of a man, but of an
institution.' It is, therefore, for
the United Nations itself, and the hopes and aspirations that it has
embodied for more than half a century, that we must succeed."
Kofi A. Annan, "About the United
Nations and its Secretary-General", International Herald Tribune,
January 21, 1999 . Secretary-General Kofi Annan,
"Secretary-General proposes global compact on human rights, labour,
environment, in address to World Economic Forum in Davos," 31 January
1999, UN Press release SG/SM/6881 of 1 February 1999, [emphasis
added]
The Secretary-General's 2000
Millennium report then argued that better global governance means not only
greater partnership, accountability and openness, but greater "corporate
citizenship" efforts by the multinational companies that dominate the new
global economy.
"We the peoples: The role of the
United Nations in the twenty-first century: Report of the
Secretary-General ", A/54/2000, 27 March 2000, paras. 45-47,
and Kofi A. Annan, "A deal with
business to support universal values", International Herald
Tribune, July 26, 2000.
Mr. Annan has also
spent considerable time challenging African leaders to address their
corruption and leadership problems, as in the following interview:
"In a recent [wide-ranging
interview Secretary-General Kofi Annan] said it was 'disheartening' to
confront a continent with calamities from end to end, and to consider what
this said about African leadership.
. Mr. Annan, a Ghanaian, rejects the view that
. a president for life reflects
traditional African tribal culture.
.
. 'In West Africa, we have the
Ashanti kings. But the king
can be removed for wrongdoing, incompetence, or lack of leadership. Its not as if they are anointed by
God and can stay there forever. His prescription for Africa is
stronger nongovernmental institutions to curb the excesses of leaders who
stay for too long.
. 'I'm stressing the question
of institution-building, legal systems, the rule of
law, the right regulatory
system and this whole area of privatization', Mr. Annan
said. Corruption is built on everything
being in the hands of the government. So for everything you want, you
need a permit. The person who
gives you a permit wants a bribe.
The person who's going to make the appointment for you wants a
bribe. And so
on.'" Barbara Crossette, "With U.S. loath to send troops, UN seeks peacekeeping changes", International Herald Tribune, May 15, 2000. [emphasis added]
THIRD,
a UN report in 1999 claimed, surprisingly, that (despite the "serious
misconception" of a small UN role in the world economy) UN system
technical agencies have actually been important in building an
international economic infrastructure, and that the UN (with its universal
legitimacy) should be even more involved in constructing the "rules of the
road" and
behavior
for international markets. Mark W. Zacher, The United
Nations and global commerce, United Nations, DPI, New York,
1999, esp. pp.4-11.
In
July 2000, Mr. Annan announced a further "bold step:" a coalition of
business, international agency, and civil society groups to apply nine key
principles from UN system human rights, labor,
and environmental declarations. The business partners agreed to publicly
advocate this new "Global Compact" and its principles, to annually report
their progress and "lessons learned" on a UN Internet website, and to join
the UN in related partnership projects, outlined as:
"The global
compact: Human rights; Labour; Environment
The 9
principles From principles
to practice Partners and
initiatives Country
information Events
calendar News &
Reviews" [United Nations Global
Compact, the website is at www.unglobalcompact.org/Portal/Default.asp
[Note: the Compact is discussed
further in a later subsection of this archive on Global Compact hypocrisy . A tenth principle, on corruption,
has now been added.] The
UN Millennium Assembly in New York in September 2000 expanded on this new
interactive initiative. It involved hundreds of meetings between national
leaders, 185 nations signing some 300 treaties and conventions, some 200
speeches, and a final declaration of tightly-negotiated (that is, vague)
"fundamental values." The UN
also arranged meetings with other societal groups, in an effort to show
that it is indeed "the universal forum, where all the world's peoples are
represented" and at least potentially, "the indispensable instrument for
tackling our shared problems". These many activities, however, revealed
some major stumbling blocks complicating this new UN role.
Barbara Crossette, "UN summit ends
with goals pressed by rich and poor", International Herald Tribune,
September 9, 2000, p. 4. Kofi Annan, "Now lets set a new
course for the world, no less", International Herald Tribune, September 5, 2000, Barbara Crossette,
"Globalization battle moves to UN: Summit of world leaders aims to focus
on poverty and peace", International Herald
Tribune, September 4, 2000, and "Millenium summiteers" and
"Global chat", The Economist, September 9th, 2000, pp. 19-20, 58-59.
-- Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) became
important and very dynamic factors in global programmes during the 1990s,
but they were rather
skeptical about Secretary-General Annan's millennial outreach
to them, since various UN Member States have long tried to limit NGO
access to UN forums, and to hamper their activities in social and human
rights areas. Barbara Crossette,
"Work with us, Annan asks independents", International Herald Tribune, 24 May 2000,
and Joint Inspection
Unit, "Working with NGOs" Operational activities of the United Nations
system with [NGOs} and governments at the grassroots and national levels,"
UN document A 49/122 of 13 April 1994, pp.
27-33 and
Chadwick Alger, "The emerging roles of NGOs in the UN system: From Article 71 to a People's Millenium Assembly", Global Governance 8 (2002), 93-117.
-- Secretary-General Annan urged a
gathering of 1,000 world spiritual leaders to speak out against
intolerance, but he was forced to explain that the UN had excluded the Dalai
Lama from the meeting because "this house is really a house for the member
states, and their sensitivities matter." "UN spiritual talks
to bar Dalai Lama", AFP, International Herald Tribune, August 25 , 2000, and "UN head exhorts religious
leaders", International Herald Tribune, August 30, 2000.
-- As a warning sign of excessive UN
"self-promotion," two prominent supporters of a 1999 "NetAid" global media
event (Harry Belafonte and Danny Glover) withdrew "in disgust", citing it
as a "trade show" for the UN bureaucracy and a corporate sponsor, rather
than a serious effort to help the world's poor. "People" item, International Herald Tribune, October 9, 1999, Judith Miller,
"Cutting funds, donors put UN aid body in tight spot", International Herald Tribune, July 12, 1999, "Swedish diplomat
named to head World Bank PR", Wall Street
Journal, August 10, 1999, and Mark Malloch Brown,
"Fighting poverty with the Internet", International Herald Tribune, September 9, 1999.
-- And even as the Millennium Assembly met, other
major international organizations continued to be sharply criticized for
their lack of performance, accountability, and transparency, and
their aloof and non-responsive nature. "Critics press
World Bank's president for more reform", International Herald Tribune, September 23, 2000, p. 3, "Retro act's swan
song: Are these the final days of IOC's aging empire?," International Herald Tribune, September 16, 2000. [Note: see the
subsection Other Multilateral Accountability
Struggles in the Inadequate UN Oversight
section of this website.]
These problems indicate the need for a "reality
check" on the UN's current enthusiastic pronouncements about universal
values.
As futurist Alvin Toffler astutely observed, the UN is in fact "a
trade association of nation states", i.e., only one segment of global
society, with the inevitable self-interest biases that this implies. Many, if not
most, UN Member States are not strong advocates of expanding individual
human rights, as will be discussed in greater detail in the Human Rights
subsection of the UN Performance
Problems section of this
website. Alvin Toffler, Powershift: Knowledge, wealth and violence at the
edge of the 21st century, Bantam, New York, 1991, pp. 456-457. In addition, Czech President Vaclav
Havel urged the UN before the 2000 Millenium Assembly to do everything
possible to "make people see [the UN] as their own organization,
representing everyone, not as some sort of club of governments and
diplomats", especially since "some of those governments were not very
authentic representatives of their people at all." Steven Erlanger,
"Hear the 'voice of the people', Havel implores world bodies", International Herald Tribune, August 23, 2000, p. 6.
Further, multinational corporations have actually
moved much more actively than the UN to address their behavioural
sins.
Most corporate boards of directors now strive to provide much
stronger oversight of their operations (unlike the UN General Assembly),
and shareholder groups are monitoring performance much more closely. Most
importantly, and beyond mere public relations considerations, senior
corporate officials know they may be held personally liable in the courts
for organizational wrongdoing and may even have to go to prison (i.e.,
they do not have UN officials' impunity). For example, "Watching the boss:
A survey of corporate governance", The
Economist, January 29th, 1994, pp. 1-17,
"Too much corporate
power?" and "Editorial: New economy, new social contract", Business Week International , September 11, 2000, pp. 51-60 and 80, www.unglobalcompact.org/Portal/Default.asp ,
Amy Zipkin, "For
big companies, questions about ethics are serious business", International Herald Tribune, October 20, 2000, p. 17. [Note: for further
updated material on this topic, see Corporate Accountability
Struggles in the Inadequate UN
Oversight section of this archive.]
UN Assistant-Secretary-General Michael Doyle
explained in an interview in July 2001 that companies participate in the
UN Global Compact as a foundation for a learning network where they can
share "best practices". He judged that "One year in, we've seen
the companies building the kinds of practical and intellectual bridges we
[the UN] was hoping for." He explained further that once
companies make their commitments to observe the Compact principles, and
have chosen their methods of carrying them out, "they engage in an open dialogue on how they were
doing so
[and] are subjected to
critiques
--
by their own employees as well as outsiders including human rights
and environmental groups and labor unions." Irwin Arieff,"Some
300 firms sign up for global compact", Reuters, July 28, 2001.
In contrast to these noble aims of
openness and receptivity to outside critiques, the UN's own behaviour
seems quite hypocritical. It hides its own non-performance behind a fog of
non-transparent reporting and good intentions about "performance
management" without actual accountability. And it very much restricts
critiques by outsiders, or its own employees, of its antiquated management
culture and weak oversight and internal justice mechanisms. For other
quite serious examples of this dissonance, see the further discussion on
the Global Compact initiative, UN whistleblowers, and other related items
in the following subsection on Other Major
Problems . Despite these disturbing elements and cross currents,
in October 2001 the Norwegian Nobel Prize committee awarded Kofi Annan and
the UN the Nobel Peace Prize. Although this is reportedly the
fourteenth time that a UN official or unit or associate has been awarded
this prize, it was the first time that the Nobel Committee recognized the
Secretary-General and the entire UN and its staff. The Committee cited the UN's "work for a better
organized and more peaceful world" and Mr. Annan for "bringing new life"
to the Organization, and then went on rather unequivocally to "proclaim
that the only negotiable road to global peace and cooperation goes by way
of the United Nations". The Committee thus recognized and
promoted the basic ongoing intent of UN efforts, rather than any current
achievements, and indeed it noted the UN's "many failures." Colum Lynch, "Honor
awarded to Annan and UN", International Herald
Tribune, October 13, 2001, "Text from Nobel
Peace Prize citation", Associated Press, October
12, 2001, Alister Doyle and
Evelyn Leopold, "Nobel Prize recognizes UN as a global force", Reuters, October 12,
2001.
This prize is indeed prestigious, but it seems very
awkward to award it to all 50,000 people in an organization widely
criticized for its politicized nature and bumbling bureaucracy. Amid much
praise in the media, genocide survivors who are suing the UN and Mr. Annan
in national courts said that they were "appalled" by this award. Other
observers expressed scepticism, and a few weeks later the UN diplomats
went right back to lecturing each other at "the year of dialogue among
civilizations". Alistair Lyon, "World hails
Annan's Nobel, massacre survivors demur", Reuters, October 12,
2001, and "Tainted prize,
absurd winner",
Daily News, October 13, 2001, Ranhan Roy, "U.N.
to focus on new global dialogue", Associated
Press, November 8, 2001, and Irwin Arieff, " UN
talkfest promotes dialogue as diplomatic tool", Daily News, November 7,
2001.
Four more recent events underscore the dissonance
between aggressive UN moralizing and the values and respect for human
rights and respect for integrity that are actually on display in its very
own Secretariat. FIRST, according to one admirer, when Mr. Annan accepted
the Nobel Peace Prize award in December 2001, he challenged the "bosses"
-- the
politicians, dictators and others who run the UN Member States -- to put
individual rights ahead of outdated notions of sovereignty, notions that
many of them have abused without fear of UN sanctions. The article
quoted Mr. Annan's belief in a 21st century mission for the UN, defined by
a new and more profound awareness of the sanctity and dignity of every
human life. He stated further that this process "will require us to look beyond the framework of
states, and beneath the surface of nations or communities. We must
focus, as never before, on improving the conditions of the individual men
and women who give the state or nation its richness and
character." Hoagland, Jim, "No room for
terrorist states in this new world", International
Herald Tribune, December 14, 2001.
Mr. Annan went on
even more emphatically in his Nobel Prize speech to state, in challenges
that certainly can be applied to operations within his own UN, that "the
sovereignty of states must no longer be used as a shield for gross
violations of human rights
"
If today,
we see further, we will realize that humanity is
indivisible
Today's real borders are not between nations, but between powerful
and powerless, .. privileged and humiliated. Today, no walls can separate humanitarian or human
rights crises
. It is in this spirit that I humbly accept the
Centennial Nobel Peace Prize." "Annan: Saving one life is
to save humanity itself", Reuters, December 10,
2001. SECOND, human rights efforts have finally begun to have a
real impact worldwide, particularly in invoking "the power of shame" and
the "right to meddle." UN Under-Secretary-General Mary Robinson of
Ireland, for instance, firmly called on leaders everywhere to invoke the
"rigorous framework" of human rights worldwide and to ensure that they
"respect human rights and are not complicit, directly or indirectly, in
violations."
At the same time, Ms. Robinson and Secretary-General Annan pledged
several years ago to "mainstream" human rights throughout the UN
system. "The world is
watching: A survey of human-rights law", The
Economist, December 5th, 1998, and Stephanie Nebehay,
"UN rights head back Afghan probe, criticizes U.S.", Reuters, December 7, 2001, and Dembart, Lee, "For
Afghans in Cuba, untested legal limbo: Old laws hard to apply to modern
terrorism", International Herald Tribune, January 25, 2001, and Robinson, Mary,
"Tell leaders that human rights aren't optional", International Herald Tribune, February 7, 2002., and "New human rights
chief pledges "bridge-building: Q & A/Mary Robinson", International Herald Tribune, 24 September 1997. [Note: for more on
the very modest efforts to apply human rights in the UN, and a strong
suggestion for decisive action in this regard, see Human Rights
Ombudsman. THIRD, the head of the UN Global Programme Against
Corruption", Under-Secretary-General Pino Arlacchi, was quoted in the
lead-in statement to the UN's own web site on corruption as
emphasizing that "Corruption is a major social and economic issue. And the
world's tolerance of it is fading fast." The statement went on to explain that
corruption is caused by the abuse of power by officials seeking private
gains, poorly managed programmes, failing institutions, inadequate checks
and balances, a corrupt judiciary, and a lack of accountability and
transparency.
"Corruption",
Global Programme against Corruption,
at www.unodc.org/unodc/index.html
This message would be more credible had not media
pressure led to an OIOS investigation, and then reports on serious
mismanagement, in Mr. Arlacchi's own programme in May 2001 (see Top corruption fighter
corrupted under Other Major
Problems .) The OIOS
called for urgent action, but Secretary-General Annan merely decided not
to extend Mr. Arlacchi's contract in 2002, and he in fact quietly resigned
in January of that year. This quite unaccountable and leisurely
departure of a very senior UN official without sanctions does not build
confidence that tolerance for corruption "is fading fast," as Mr. Arlacchi
himself had so dramatically asserted. FOURTH, these policy and leadership emphases eventually led
to a new UN global Convention Against Corruption (the UN's subsequent
incongruous new role as a leading anti-corruption fighter is also
discussed further in the Other Major
Problems subsection which
follows.)
Edith M. Lederer,
"U.N. Assembly OK's anti-corruption treaty," AP, October 31, 2003, and "Report to Congress
pursuant to the International Anticorruption and Good Governance Act
(Public Law 106-309):, section II.D. "Global anticorruption diplomacy in the
United Nations", US Dept. of State, 2001.
Meanwhile, the UN public information and public
relations machinery has been going through yet another reorganization, and
gearing itself up to release an ever-expanding flood of material on the
UN's activities and leadership ambitions throughout the world. "
the Department
of Public Information has undergone a major reorganization of its
priorities, structures and processes
based on the premise that its role
is to manage and coordinate the content of United Nations communications
and to strategically convey this content to achieve the greatest public
impact.
A [recent]
feature
was
the establishment of small expert groups to deal with the public
information consequences of emerging crises
[including a group]
of
information officers from the Middle East and the Arab world
to bolster
the flagging image of the Organization in that region.
[DPI]
has set in
place new strategies aimed at generating support for new and expanding
[peacekeeping] operations among Member States, the general public and the
local populations [involved]
The use of external
public venues for United Nations observances and commemorations has proved
to be a most successful innovation
The use of
multi-site videoconferences and Internet exchanges, linking students and
civil society partners around the world, has boosted our capacity to
encourage public dialogue
United Nations
Radio continues to provide daily and weekly news reports and features in
the six official languages
to hundreds of radio stations around the
globe
United Nations
Television estimates that an audience of 2 billion people sees its
programming, including hundreds of hours of coverage supplied to the
world's broadcasters [of]
meetings of the General Assembly, the Security
Council, and other events and conferences.
" "Report of the Secretary-General on the work of the Organization", UN document A/59/1, 20 August 2004, paras. 263, 266-267, 269-270, 279-280.
In a summary perspective on the uses and impact of
public information activities and use of the media by modern public and
private organizations, an Amnesty International report in March 2000
warned corporations that they risk their reputations (and jeopardize their
self-interest) if they do not adhere to international human rights
standards in their operations and accept outside scrutiny of their
performance. As the UN steps proudly to
center stage to lead the march to a newly accountable and
transparent global society and system, it too must willingly subject
itself to the same public scrutiny that it advocates for everyone
else. Alan Cowell, "Human
rights issues present new kind of corporate risk", International Herald Tribune, April 7, 2000, and Human rights: Is it any of your
business?,
Amnesty International, London, 2000.
JCOL - 579 (or -573?)
The public statements of Mr. Annan and other senior
UN
officials on human rights continue on, particularly in various
discussions of the Millennium Assembly Development Goals but on ongoing
human rights, governance, and freedom of information issues as well. IO Watch will
add more of these quotes in due course. However, the following four quotes from this
website's subsection on Staff Rights?
under Where is the Rule of
Law? already demonstrate the UN's
entrenched traditions of autocracy and hypocrisy, which continue: "An end must be put
to everything that seems to make the Secretary-General's post an
autocratic one, to everything that tends to make the staff subject to the
whims and caprices of their superiors and makes careers -- and even
employment
--
dependent on blind obedience to such absolute power." chief French
Delegate Henri Hoppenot, protesting abuses threatening the creation of a
valid international service, during a debate in the U.N. General Assembly
in March 1953, as quoted in Shirley Hazzard, "Breaking faith: I", The New Yorker, October 2, 1989, pp. 74-96, [86].
"A quarter of a
century ago, with great hopes from all mankind, the United Nations
Organization was born. Alas, in an immoral world, it too grew
immoral." Alexander
Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Prize Acceptance Address, 1972, as quoted in Houshang Ameri, Fraud, waste and abuse: Aspects of U.N. management
and personnel policies, University Press of America, Lanham, MD (USA),
June 2003. "In the late 1970s,
the U.N. staff union in New York engaged the American labor negotiator
Theodore Kheel to represent it in its dealings with the U.N.
administration.
His
experience with the U.N. hierarchy -- which he likens to 'the
court of Henry VIII' --- [focused in particular on] its propensity for
abrogating formal agreements on basic matters of staff rights
. 'The thing that
utterly amazed me' Kheel said recently, 'was the position taken by the
Secretary-General of the United Nations [then Kurt Waldheim] to disregard
the elementary established rights of employees; that the agency created to
maintain standards of human decency and to bring about peace by negotiated
settlement would violate its own agreements and see no necessity for
compliance with its own word.'" Hazzard, Shirley,
"Breaking faith: II", The New Yorker, October 2, 1989, pp. 74-96 [86]. "How not to 'UN internal reform
has done little to solve what staff see as the real problems of the
Organization.
The U.N. has concentrated mainly on cutting staff costs,
increasingly awarding temporary contracts -- some 'temps' have been with us for 15
years.
[However]
. the combination of management incompetence, job
insecurity and overwork have created a workforce beset by stress, jealousy
and fear, all of which diminish the cost-effectiveness of 'human
resources.''
. The U.N. does not
apply its own international conventions on, say, collective bargaining, on
the technical grounds that not being a state, it cannot sign them. Where there's no
will, there's no way. However, even if the U.N. really
couldn't sign the conventions securing basic rights
. it could
still consider committing itself to applying them and, to prove its good
faith, even designate an independent tribunal as the ultimate
arbiter.
But let's stop daydreaming. 'Staff effectively
surrender their labour rights when they join [the U.N. They are] not
covered by [national] labor law, and, in the event of a dispute with their
employer are obliged
. to appeal through the internal justice system,
which is administered by that same employer." Eric Blair, "From our man in Absurdistan", UN Special (Geneva), March 2000, p. 31; the quoted material is excerpted from a letter by Nigel Lindup, a UN-Geneva staff representative, printed in the February 18, 2000 issue of The Guardian Weekly (UK). Despite all these important cautionary statements,
however, some UN loyalists still cling naively to the idea of a mystical
and reified UN, and its executive head as a shining beacon of global moral
values.
For example, as stated in 2001 upon Mr. Annan's re-election as UN
Secretary-General: "No country or
group of countries, however powerful and rich, can steer the world
. Only the UN
secretary-general, elected to pursue the common good of all inhabitants of
this shrinking planet, can bring vision and coherence
. Kofi Annan's
[re-election should allow] him to help establish the United
Nations as the centerpiece of an emerging system of global management that
is efficient, just and accepted as legitimate by all peoples and
nations. Enrique ter Horst,
"A re-elected secretary-general can give the world the facts", International Herald Tribune, July
6, 2001 . [Note: This extremely effusive and optimistic paean
was written by a former UN assistant secretary-general who served under
Mr. Annan.]
IO Watch wishes to end this subsection -- for the
present -- on a lighter note, which contains an important point about the
value of the "sunshine of transparency" in the real world. A
January 2004 Business Week Europe report
examined the best and worst managers of the year, noting that "from the
pinnacle of performance to the depths of shame, 2003 witnessed a
spectacular range of managerial achievement." The report
was based on inputs from the magazine's staff of 140 writers and editors
in New York and in 21 bureaus worldwide, and its table of contents
included the following: "The best managers: Some succeeded by cutting
costs, others by boosting innovation Managers to watch: An
eclectic bunch facing a bewildering array of challenges Repeat performers: How
yesterday's leading lights managed to hold onto the magic The Freshmen:
These 14 leaders have recently taken the reins at badly
ailing The fallen managers: It can be
lonely at the top, but it's lonelier still when it all collapses
for Executives on trial:
In the coming year, a number of CEOs and CFOs [Chief
Financial PR fiascoes:
Execs who tarnished their images." "Special report:
The best and worst managers of the year," Business
Week Europe, January 12-19, 2004, pp.
35-63. The UN's senior officials are certainly not ready for
such frank and public scrutiny, nor for the sanctions, court cases, and
even prison terms that some of the corporate managers profiled above will
surely suffer. However, IO Watch believes that if this type of
straight-forward comparative assessment were to be regularly made of UN
system managers' performance, they and their governing bodies would
suddenly become much more attentive to their oversight responsibilities,
and the system's programme performance would improve quite
substantially. Useful
Sources
Stiles, Kendall W., "Civil society empowerment
and multilateral donors: International institutions and new international
norms", Global Governance 4 (1998),
199-216.
Rutherford, Paul, Endless propaganda: The advertising of public
goods, Unviersity of Toronto, Canada, 2001. Litvin, Daniel,
"Needed: A global business Code of Conduct", Foreign Policy, November-December 2003, pp.
68-72.
Orwell, George,
"Politics and the English language,: in A
collection of essays by George Orwell, Doubleday Anchor, New York,
1954.
Pace-UK
International Affairs, Making the United Nations a
winner, London, 1987.
Sperling, Gene, and Hart, Tom, "A better way to fight global poverty: Broadening the Millenium challenge account", Foreign Affairs, March/April 2003, Vol. 82, No. 2, 9-14. Annan, Kofi, "The quiet revolution", Global Governance, 4(1998), 123-138.
Bell, Coral, "Normative shift", Policy Review, The National Interest (USA), Winter 2002/2003, pp. 44-54. [Note: The "normative shift" referred to is "the social process of domestic or international rules about what is deemed acceptable or unacceptable behavior . why and how?"]
Coicaud, Jean-Marc,
and Warner, Daniel, Ethics and international
affairs: Extent and limits, United Nations University, Tokyo,
2001.
Tochilovsky, Vladimir, "Globalizing criminal justice:
Challenges for the International Criminal Court", Global Governance 9(2003), 347-365. |
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