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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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Introductory
quotes "[Regarding the English
Parliament] I fear that they will drag us after them
and their
wide-wasting Prodigality and Profusion is a Gulph that will swallow up
every Aid we may distress ourselves to afford them. Here Numberless and needless
Places, enormous Salaries, Pensions, Perquisites, Bribes, groundless
Quarrels, foolish Expeditions, false Accounts or no Accounts, Contracts
and Jobbs, devour all Revenue, and produce continual Necessity in the
Midst of natural Plenty.
. Government is not establish'd
merely by Power; there must be maintain'd a general Opinion of its
Wisdom and Justice, to make it firm and
durable." Benjamin Franklin, circa 1770-1790, as quoted in Mathew
Stevenson, "Minting Franklin: More lives of the quintessential American:
Reviews", Harper's Magazine, February 2003, pp. 75-80 [78-79].
"The terrible lie that has been
told here today will have terrible consequences. People will begin to say, indeed
they have already begun to say: that the United Nations is a place where
lies are told." Daniel
P. Moynihan, U.S. representative to the UN, in
a speech during the General Assembly debate on the "Zionism is racism"
resolution, 1975, as quoted in "United Nations: Prizes and parking
tickets", Newsweek International, October 30, 1995, p. 21.
"Remarkable efforts were made at
international institution building toward the end of World War II. In addition to the establishment
of the United Nations, the global political organization, they
involved
" Leo Van
Houtven, Governance of the IMF: Decision Making, Institutional
Oversight, Transparency, and Accountability, Pamphlet Series No. 53,
International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC, 2002, pp 1-3 [underscoring added]. [Note: IO Watch that these introductory sentences underscore the basic fact that the United Nations is the central political (and also by far the most politicized) of thousands of international and multilateral public, private, and non-governmental organizations, as further discussed below; it is only one among many major ones, including the international financial institutions, the major specialized agencies of the United Nations system, and the various regional political and economic organizations; even in its more recent operational functions such as development aid, peacekeeping, and humanitarian operations, it is largely dependent on subcontractors, or national military or other units, or semi-autonomous programs to carry out its fieldwork; and in
general and in all these areas it is less linked than regional, national,
or local entities to the day-to-day lives of the peoples of the world.]
"
. International law -- so
reverently invoked, so rarely defined
. Does it exist? Some spheres of international
behavior (e.g., maritime matters, the rights of diplomats) are governed by
law-like regimes: there are enduring and widely-adhered-to conventions,
and institutions for arbitrating disputes.
.
The phrase 'international law'
often is virtually an oxymoron. Law without a sword to
enforce it is mere words, mere admonition or
aspiration. Law must be backed by coercion
legitimized by a political process.
The 'international community' has no such process.
. A true community exists only
when there is consensus about certain matters -- the meaning of freedom, the
nature of rights and duties, sources of legitimacy.
. Rhapsodizing about the U.N. as
the 'international community' incarnate obscures this
fact If 'international law' is defined
as what the 'international community' actually does, the problem
deepens. Regarding force,
history is clear; nations do what they think necessary and feasible.
. Eager seizure of the label 'legal'
encourages the fallacy that international law is explicit and exhaustive
. it puts policy at the mercy of a vague and volatile consensus of an
'international community' most members of which are unsuited to serve as
ethicists or judges." George
F. Will, "The perils of 'legality': If international law is really law,
who enacts, construes, adjudicates and enforces it?", Newsweek,
September 10, 1990, p. 25. "UN resolutions are like
hotdogs. If you know how they
make 'em you don't want to eat 'em.
You just swallow. No
questions asked." A diplomat, explaining how UN General Assembly resolutions are formulated in New York, as quoted in Linda Polman, We did nothing: Why the truth doesn't always come out when the UN goes in, translated by Rob Bland, Viking, New York and London, 2003, p. vii., [1997, rev. ed. pblished in Dutch by Rozenberg, Amsterdam, 2002.] Chronological
quotes "
the [UN protocol chief
describes]
the 'strain' of a 'digestion-challenging round of 300 to 400
parties, receptions and dinners' during the eleven weeks of the annual
General Assembly
the [US Ambassador to the UN], George Bush, a Texas
millionaire, remarks, 'We're in the process of adjusting to all this
opulence.' The unfailing assertion of the
partygoers, that 'much of the Organization's business is conducted' at the
four hundred annual blowouts, is perfectly valid, It is all there: the same
babble of voices, the same ingrown exchanges, the same
self-importance,
and hot air
and above all the lack of painful, invigorating contact with
a larger dimension of
reality. The merry-go-round of high
salaries and allowances, abused immunities, incessant parties and
earth-girdling trips is important in its implications, and its
repercussions in the Organization's performance.
A United Nations delegate
publicly commenting on the 'opulence' of his situation
might also ask
himself whether such a state of affairs enhances his credibility as a
spokesman for humanitarian causes, or his right to present himself -- as
some UN personages unabashedly do -- as a dedicated, and even sacrificial,
servant of the world." Hazzard, Shirley, Defeat
of an ideal: A study of the self-destruction of the United Nations,
Macmillan, London, 1973, pp. 114-117.
"For its friends,
of which we are two,
. the problem [at the UN's 40th anniversary is]
.
that it is not particularly effective in averting conflict or fighting
poverty, [nor ready to reverse]
. these trends, let alone its own genteel
deterioration.
. much will
depend on the 'middle-sized' states
. [to] bridge the polarization
between the powerful yet indifferent big states, for whom the United
Nations is more often a scapegoat than an instrument, and the small but
weak who can only resort to a politics of frustration in the General
Assembly.
.
. the agenda
of the United Nations has become an unwieldy millstone around the
[Secretary-General's] neck. [He] and his staff should be allowed to
concentrate on, say, half a dozen crucial issues. At the
moment, the United Nations is an octopus walking in every direction at
once. Nor need every
action always wait until the last moment. A useful intervention as soon as the
early warnings sound can do much more good than a later Band-Aid.
.Left
to fester, [many complex third world upheavals] can lead to the
all-too-familiar crises of mass exodus, famine or civil war that become
cemented into political geography." Sadruddin Aga Khan and Maurice F. Strong, "Proposals to reform the U.N., 'limping' in its 40th year, New York Times, October 8, 1985.
"Singapore's
Ambassador to the U.S., Tommy Koh, who represented his country at the U.N.
for 13 years, said that the U.N. budget has 'a lot of fat in it that can
be cut out.'
Koh also said that the U.N. needs to discourage formation of new
committees, noting that, 'Very often, when a delegation runs out of ideas
on an item that it has inscribed on the agenda, it resorts to the
expedient of proposing a committee to examine the question. The U.N.
literally has hundreds of such committees, many of which have overlapping
jurisdictions." "The United Nations
continues to duck needed reforms", The Heritage Foundation, Backgrounder,
No. 593, Washington, D.C., July 9, l987, p.
4.
"The 'world
community' sits in committee on the East River allocating opprobrium. As Alan Keyes
points out, a triple standard rules: 'Western democracies, and in
particular the United States, come in for frequent condemnation by
name.
The tyrannies of the East Bloc, though guilty of far more explicit
crimes, are criticized only by implication, in mild, anonymous
resolutions.
The tyrannies of the developing world are almost never criticized
. There
is a 'Special rapporteur' on human rights in El Salvador, but
none on Nicaragua. Chile is regularly condemned: Cuba is
never mentioned. Israel's alleged crimes [however] fill
so many volumes that [one would conclude that it] is a Nazi
state the size of Eurasia. [Among] the U.N.
membership
the composition and inclinations of the majority are, for the
extended future, fixed. There is a Third World majority. There is a
Soviet bloc.
There is an Islamic bloc. The democracies are a small
minority.
There are not two U.N.s, the one imagined by the Charter and the
one with which we happen to be afflicted today. There is only
one, and the one that exists in this world has become a menace to the very
language of Western liberalism." Charles Krauthammer, "Let it sink: Why the U.S. should bail out of the U.N.", The New Republic, August 24, 1987, pp. 18-23 [21].
"Although
. in
January, 1972, Kurt Waldheim assumed control of an enfeebled organization,
an assessment of the United Nations' deterioration under his leadership is
no mere study of degrees of incapacity. Waldheim's appeasement of member
governments
-- which was eager and obsessive,
. occurred in a world whose
mounting disorder arose, increasingly, from popular, parochial, or
anarchistic movements before whose insistence or fanaticism governments
themselves were in many cases helpless. The long preoccupation of Secretariat
officials with governmental contacts, and their awe of established
position, had not only left them without prescience and influence in this
larger sphere but encouraged their inaccessibility to the public concern,
and an unreality toward those events, ideas, and transfigurations that did
not come before the United Nations. Legalistic deliberations at the U.N. on
crises with which the world was urgently seized were greeted by the
organization as initiatives, while, to the public, they merely emphasized
the U.N.'s self-indulgence and its removal from the pace and nature of new
realities." Shirley Hazzard,
"Breaking faith -- II", The New
Yorker, October 2, 1989, 74-96
[74].
"The end of the
cold war brought a boom in opportunities for [the UN, but it] must now
reform the swollen bureaucracy.
. "Australian Ambassador Peter Wilenski, [a management
expert urging UN reform] says the U.N. 'is run as a club rather than as an
organization.' Notes Edward Luck,
president of the UN Association of the USA, 'The organization doesn't know
how to set priorities -- and good management starts there.' Much of the problem is an elaborate system of
patronage based on accommodating the pride of member states.
. Another problem is
what Luck calls 'logrolling at its worst' in the General Assembly [as
groups of states band together to protect their pet projects.] The U.N. Economic and Social Council is too unwieldy
to deal with its vast agenda
'Its resolutions,' says Wilenski, 'are largely unread and ignored.' Yves Fortier, [Canada's former UN ambassador] says
the organization suffers from 'overlapping mandates' among its different
agencies
. We've witnessed some appalling turf wars.' Last month the General Assembly took a first step to
control duplication and infighting among humanitarian-aid programs by
calling for
. a high-level coordinator." Bonnie Angelo, "United Nations: Challenges for the new boss," Time, February 3, 1992, pp. 40-41 [41]. "Outside the
Security Council, there are three groups of countries in the General
Assembly that take a purposeful interest in the UN. The first is
a small group of well-meaning countries
the Scandinavian countries, Canada
and Australia.
These are the only true believers in the UN system.
They have
been urging reforms, but their leverage is not good. Secondly, there are
the economic superpowers that are not as yet permanent members of the
Security Council: Germany and Japan. Neither is particularly skilled in
using the UN machinery. Thirdly, there are
the countries of the former Third World This is the saddest collection of
people at the UN. They form a leaderless group that has
lost its way. In these
circumstances, deprived of any popular world support, it is difficult to
imagine that the UN will ever again be able to play an important role."
Richard Gott,
"Nations divided by a lost vision", Guardian
Weekly, London, 12 September 1993, pp.
1-3.
"Half a century
ago, when Britain's House of Commons was debating the brand-new [UN]
Charter, a man no one ever called a wooly-minded crackpot urged the
development of 'a world assembly elected directly from the people for the
world as a whole, to whom the governments who form the United Nations are
responsible.'
Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin called his proposal 'a completion of
the institution which was built at San Francisco.' On its 50th
birthday, the UN should be completed as Bevin asked, with the launching of
a Parliamentary Assembly. Then, at last, Dag Hammarskjold's wish
will be fulfilled, and people will be able to see the UN as 'a drawing
they made themselves.'" Erskine Childers, London Review of Books, August 18, 1994, as cited in World Press Review, June 1995, p. 11. [Note: Childers was a UN civil servant for 22 years, and is the author, with Brian Urquhart of "Renewing the United Nations system."] "
the quality of
the General Assembly's work has deteriorated in recent years. Its agenda is
extremely resistant to being streamlined or rationalized, and many agenda
items are trivial, overlapping, or of very narrow interest to the member
states.
In addition, the right of every member state to place any item on
the agenda, no matter how parochial or trivial, continues to be
sacrosanct.
As a consequence, the assembly's agenda has grown to over 150
items, each
considered in either plenary or committee meetings during
the fall session.
Most of the
delegations at UN headquarters in New York operate on a year-round basis,
while the work of the assembly
is squeezed into the three
months between the third week of September and the Christmas-New Year
holiday.
Ironically, [this
calendar] originated in a Europe-centered age when
UN meetings
[needed to
fit]
the sailing dates of ocean liners to and from New
York.
In the contemporary world, there is no reason why the assembly
cannot focus on the most significant
agenda items when heads of state
are present at the fall meeting, and allow committee work to proceed as
necessary throughout the year." Ronald I. Spiers, "Reforming the United Nations," in Roger A. Coate, ed., U.S. policy and the future of the United Nations, Twentieth Century Fund, New York, 1994, pp. 19-40 [29-30]. [emphasis added] [Note: Mr. Spiers served as a UN Under-Secretary-General in New York in the early 1990s.] "Much of the work
[of] the Economic and Social Council [ECOSOC] is of questionable relevance
to the larger problems that the United Nations must address.
Many
observers have concluded that reinvigorating ECOSOC is a hopeless
enterprise, and therefore the attention this objective has received in
recent years has been largely rhetorical
the one
significant reform of ECOSOC in recent years, which resulted from Japanese
pressure, was to end the annual summer meetings in Geneva [which were a
pretext] for a European vacation for the New York delegations.
the real
experts with serious national responsibilities shun ECOSOC meetings, and
the truly challenging issues are not discussed
or are only covered
briefly in passing. One problem with
ECOSOC is that its membership has been expanded from eighteen to
fifty-four, and the relevance of its deliberations has diminished
proportionally.
This should stand as an object lesson to those who are calling for
the expansion of the Security Council
A second problem
with ECOSOC is that it has become increasingly irrelevant and ineffective,
and as a result, it now plays only a minimal role in coordinating UN
activities in the economic and social field.
" Ronald I. Spiers,
"Reforming the United Nations," in Roger A. Coate, ed., U.S. policy and the future of the United Nations,
Twentieth Century Fund, New York, 1994, pp.
19-40 [31]
"The majority of
the United Nations members owe money to the organization, starting with
the United States. It has just turned
50 and is already about to die. The celebration of its half-century of
life can be changed to an evening funeral.
. To celebrate its
birthday or pray for a response
The exhausted organization has made a
final and surprising effort acquiring kilometers of red carpet for the
occasion.
But the decrepit state of the Manhattan headquarters will not leave
space for doubt about the bad patch it is going through after a period of
euphoria when lethargy left thanks to the decomposition of the USSR. Without accord over
reform.
. The fall of 1995,
the 50th anniversary
was going to be the opportune moment for the 185
members to adapt the organization to stand up to the challenges of the
post-Cold War era. The pending reform will only be,
however, evoked in the speeches that will be delivered by Presidents on
the grounds of the organization's birthday.
. [They]
will
adopt a solemn declaration concerning the future of the organization.
." "The UN turns fifty at the edge of bankruptcy", El Pais (Spain), 15 October 1995, as translated by the UN office in Madrid.
"History, that
insufferable know-it-all, has its noble brow furrowed. While noting
much to commend in the way this lofty experiment has played out, it finds
the U.N.'s charter conference an affair doomed by internal
contradictions.
Haunted by the disaster of appeasement, the framers assumed all
humanity would rally behind the rescue of any country, no matter how
remote the peril to any other country's vital interest. They believed
each government would surrender at any time its warmaking powers to a
supranational force. They provided not at all for conflicts
within nations, and they considered open debate and resolutions of good
will to be a cure for all evils. As the globe's
potentates assembly in New York City next week to celebrate the U.N.'s
formal 50th anniversary, the occasion augurs more than traffic gridlock
unlike any that Manhattan has ever seen. Outside the champagne parties on Turtle
Bay where the UN has its quarters, the anniversary stands to produce a
feast of cynicism about the visions of 1945. From this
angle, the organization's ambitions look overblown and its bureaucratic
arthritis embarrassing. As fashion statement, the U.N. is
growing scandalously dιmodι." "Cover: Reform or
die! The
United Nations at 50", Time, October 23, 1995, pp. 22-47.
"Although the
United Nations is essentially an enormous information processing and
sharing machine, it
almost never addresses frontally
. the quality of
[its] data, the value added
and the cost-effectiveness
. A report on
['Restructuring and revitalization
. ' (A-50-697) hides] these key
questions
under layers of esoteric bureaucratese.
A section entitled
'Documentation' [says] 'the documentation crisis in the United Nations is
not a new phenomenon.
despite repeated analyses and discussions, the
crisis continues and indeed, may have grown more acute. It seriously
impacts the ability of intergovernmental bodies to perform their mandated
functions
Although member states have complained insistently,
the
Secretariat [also] can have no interest in bringing out a document long
after the due date.
. 'The roots of the
documentation crisis are systemic.
Without a cultural change in the way
business is done in the economic, social, and related sectors, where the
tendency has been to increase the number of bodies as well as the
frequency with which they meet, it is unlikely that the documentation
crisis will abate.'" "UN economic & social sector reform ignores critical issues of information flow and use", International Documents Review (New York), November 27, 1995.
"Now it's 'Yes
,
but
.' time.
Yes, the Millennium Summit was an unqualified success if the
measure was getting
. [some 150] world leaders
. together under one roof
without too much cold shouldering. But what did it mean really, what was
actually achieved and where does the UN go from here? Some cynics will
say that, notwithstanding the lofty affirmations in the Declaration
adopted Friday, nothing much will change. The penitent sinners will regress when
all the euphoria wears off, they'll say, and nothing will change. Perhaps
they're wrong and this extravagant if not desperate bid to rescue the UN
from the affliction of irrelevance may prove to have been well worth the
effort. Yes, past
experience of UN peaks and troughs, hopes raised and then dashed, makes it
tempting to go along with the dismal scenario. But, for once
things can be different. It only needs the member states, rich
or poor, to make it so.
." Michael Littlejohns, Earth Times News Service, September 9, 2000.
"Just a month after
the United Nations released a self-incriminating report on the massacre in
the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, an equally damning report has appeared on
Rwanda.
During 100 days in 1994, a staggering 800,000 civilians were
slaughtered in this small Central African state. The United
Nations had 2,500 troops in the area in early 1994. All but a few hundred
were withdrawn when the killing started.
. Given its
membership, the United Nations will never meet all of the world's many
humanitarian challenges. But it should at least avoid empty
efforts that serve to excuse the world's inaction.
. If the world's
leading governments are indifferent to genocide, the United Nations should
not act as the vehicle for token interventions to hide their shame. It should use
that shame to fight indifference; it should broadcast the horror of
genocide to voters and stir the outrage that might produce serious
intervention.
[Secretary-General Kofi] Annan likes to say that the United Nations
should not be neutral in the face of evil. Indifference to evil is not a matter
for polite neutrality, either." "Confession on
Rwanda", The Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, December 21, 1999.
"
. [At] a
succession of high-level meetings in
. 2000, [it is expected]
. that the
privilegerati will fashion a new agenda for equitable development,
economic and social. What might such an
action agenda consist of? Three ideas the international community
would do well to consider: Environment: Why not set
up a new 'implementation network' to ensure that the dozens of existing
global treaties and protocols are adhered to by the very nations that
agreed to them at long, costly conferences?
. [not] more U.N. type
talk-fests
. but specific steps by which localities
. can mobilize
current resources to lower pollution. Infrastructure.
. Why not empower local communities to
join hands with resource-laden multinational corporations in drafting
modest, culturally sensitive infrastructure projects with relatively short
gestation periods?
. Education. Developing
nations
. [are]
. penalized by growing cyber-illiteracy. The mandarins
of the cyberage
. can help establish a 'cybercorps' to widen computer literacy in
poor countries. Mahatma Ghandi
.foresaw how quickly developing societies would be rived by the creation
of two classes
--
the haves and the have-nots. He always said: 'Think about tomorrow,
but act for today.' Not a bad mantra for the new
millenium." Pranay Gupte, "The Mahatma's message: 'Think about tomorrow, but act for today' Ghandi said. Not a bad millennial mantra", Newsweek International, January 31, 2000, p. 4. "Recently, the UN
listed 45 states that have temporarily lost their right to vote in the
General Assembly because they owe more than two years' worth of dues. Another seven
states, equally overdue
. [retained] their vote. Analysis: It is
popular to portray the United States as a UN deadbeat.
. But
astonishingly, fully one out of four UN Member States either can't or
won't pay their assessments.
. [Of these
52 states], 24 are African, 11 are Asian, 11 are Latin American or
Caribbean, and 6 are Eastern European.
.
. the fact
that 27% of UN Member States have accumulated such steep debts either
implies an inadequate respect for the UN, or a problem with the UN's
budgeting methods. Most of the states
with two years' arrears are assessed at the minimum rate of 0.01% of the
UN regular budget. Yet, even this figure seems too onerous
for some to pay. Perhaps the fact
that [these] states still enjoy the right to vote in other bodies -- including the
Security Council
. the Commission on Human Rights, and so on -- minimizes
the penalty they face. It may also embolden some of them to
criticize others." "The Wednesday Watch: Analysis and commentary from the UN Watch in Geneva", February 9, 2000. [Note: in 2003, the
minimum dues amount for UN Member States was $13,502 per year].
"On the first day
of what was billed as the Millenium Summit last September in New York,
Kofi Annan, [UN] Secretary-General, welcomed the assembled dignities from
147 countries
. with a banquet and the proposing of a toast to 'You [who]
have the authority to speak for, and the ability to transform, the lives
of six billion people.' The flattery was
extravagant
. but it was cheerfully received (strong applause, complacent
nods) and for three days and three nights the dignities gave speeches,
ratified treaties, glanced at documents, signed declarations of blameless
principle in favor of human freedom and the biosphere.
. Our
twenty-first-century faith in scientific miracle gives rise to the hope of
'transnational institutions' capable of managing the world's affairs with
the sangfroid of the late
. emperor Caesar Augustus.
. the front
page news
. mocked the presumptions of omnipotence -- civil war in
Colombia and Sierra Leone, famine in Ethiopia, a mob with machetes
murdering three U.N. officials in West Timor (on the same day that Kofi
Annan was raising his glass of congratulatory champagne), civil war in
Chechnya and Sri Lanka, floods in India and six men arrested for
cannibalism in Tanzania." Lewis H. Lapham,
"Cleopatra's nose", Harpers Magazine, November 2000, pp.. 9-11. "The concept
'Dialogue among Nations' proposed by President Mohammed Khatami of Iran
was unanimously endorsed by the members of the United Nations.
.
. however,
one must realistically conclude that, since most member nations, including
Iran, suppress free and open dialogue
.. any dialogue that may occur
involving any nation that does not respect free speech and a free
independent press will be stunted and severely reflective of interests of
those in power. Perhaps one day a
representative of a democratic country with an open society will introduce
a resolution in the United Nations to advance unintimidated speech and a
free press in every member state. If that resolution passes then the
'Dialogue among nations' will be more than a slogan, for it will have
meaningful resonance. One must hope that
a future UN will be less inclined to slogans and more dedicated to
substance." Alexander Epstein, Toronto, letter to the Editor, International Herald Tribune, July 18, 2001. Note: The UN did indeed go on to proclaim 2001 as 'The Year of Dialogue among Civilizations", see article by Irwin Arieff, "UN talkfest promotes dialogue as diplomatic tool", Reuters, November 7, 2001.
"The 55th session
of the U.N. General Assembly ended on Monday with its outgoing Finnish
president criticizing the body's hit-or-miss agenda which left too little
time for important issues. Specifically Harri
Holkeri, a former Finnish banker, said
the assembly's agenda spread
itself too thin with 200 issues, many of them overlapping with the 'big
issues' hidden. The assembly has
189 members and controls the budget and general programming of the United
Nations.
While its decisions on political issues express the will of the
international community, they are not mandatory ...
Holkeri also
criticized the number of conferences held throughout the world that he
said 'cost big money.' If the assembly trimmed its agenda,
such issues could be [discussed] during the body's main session.
'There is a
tendency to do too much at the same time,' Holderi said, adding, however,
that 'This is a bureaucratic institution. Nothing happens overnight.' Holkeri also
grappled with reform of the U.N. Security Council which has gone nowhere
for eight years.
he said he
would promise that when Finland 'in about 2000 years,' gets the presidency
of the assembly again 'I am not going to be available for that
position.' Evelyn Leopold, "UN General Assembly president laments free-for-all agenda," dailynews.yahoo , September 10, 2001. "After seventeen
years of [MF] structural adjustment Bolivia remains the poorest country in
South America.
[Economist and adviser] Jeffrey Sachs,
[says] 'I
always told the Bolivians
. that what you have here is a miserable, poor
economy with hyperinflation; if you are brave, if you are gutsy, if you do
everything right, you will end up with a miserable, poor economy with
stable prices.'
[I ended a recent
visit to Bolivia] in a market town
garden with a convivial group of
local officials. Talk turns to the IMF, whose local
representative [just left, telling] Bolivia that first and foremost it
must solve the corruption problem.
Seriously, someone
asks me, [isn't there any hope for] bringing democracy to the I.M.F.
.
[or] the U.N.?
Shouldn't the citizens
. be electing representatives
so these
powerful institutions might be accountable? I can't think of any reason why
not. It
is only later
maybe it's back in New York -- that I remember it is only people in
countries like Bolivia who know or care what the World Bank or the I.M.F.
do. In
the West, most of us have other things to worry about." William Finnegan, "The economics of empire: Notes on the Washington Consensus", Harper's Magazine, May 2003, pp. 41-54 [pp. 45-46, 54]. As the United
Nations General Assembly opens, the world organization faces twin crises
in its effectiveness and its legitimacy. Ten years after the
Rwanda crisis, the UNs painful inability to prevent genocide has been on
display during the hand-wringing over Sudan.
The UN [also]
remains scarred by the war in Iraq and its bloody aftermath
which
suggests a crisis in legitimacy that questions the very idea of the United
Nations as a significant actor in international peace and security.
The General
Assembly [will be preparing] the 60th
anniversary celebrations of 2005
[and the UN] security and
development
[agendas could be considered] together.
It might be
possible
to [secure]
greater cooperation from developing countries for
counterterrorism and counterproliferation activities in exchange for
greater development assistance and reform of agricultural subsidies by
Western countries. It is far from
clear, however, that there is an atmosphere of crisis of the kind needed
to bring about change on this scale.
It is possible that
recalling the atmosphere of crisis that accompanied the drafting of the UN
Charter 60 years ago will remove the need for a comparable crisis in order
to change it.
Simon Chesterman,
59th General Assembly: A battered UN
needs to go back to its roots, International
Herald Tribune, September 14, 2004. [Note: Mr.
Chesterman is executive director of the Institute for International Law
and Justice at New York University School of Law.]
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