After a series of sometimes acrimonious brainstorming sessions, a United Nations advisory committee has issued recommendations on reforms to make the international organization more effective. At the request of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, the 16-member committee, known as the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, issued a blueprint of more than 100 pages on Dec. 2.
Annan had asked the panel to address old and new threats to the United Nations, and discover what reforms should take place.
The panel's most significant contribution was reaching a consensus on the definition of terrorism, said one panel member, Enrique Iglesias, president of the Inter-American Development Bank. In an interview Sunday, Iglesias said the discussion of that subject was also "the toughest."
The standards governing the use of force by non-governmental entities have not kept pace with those pertaining to states, the participants agreed, according to Iglesias.
For the first time, the report spelled out that terrorism should be seen as any act of violence against innocent people, even if committed by non-state actors "under occupation," Iglesias said, adding, "America will be very happy."
According to the report, "Achieving a comprehensive convention on terrorism, including a clear definition is a political imperative. . . . The central point is that there is nothing in the fact of occupation that justifies the targeting and killing of civilians."
Annan is scheduled to present the report to the United Nations by March with his revisions. Iglesias said the U.N. Charter could be changed if two-thirds of the General Assembly's 191 members agree, but only if none of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council vetoes the report.
Iglesias said there was agreement among the committee that the Security Council must undergo changes, and that there was a need to "democratize."
On the whole, Iglesias said, the advisory group considered its task in terms of "a positive examination of conscience."
The group "did not look to the past for retribution as much as it did to ways of building the system for the future," Iglesias said, when asked if guidelines were discussed for preventing controversy, such as the one that has developed between the United Nations and the U.S. government over the past few years.
The committee presented two proposals to Annan on changing the Security Council. The first allows for increasing the permanent members from five to 11 but not giving veto power to the six new countries. In that provision, the number of non-permanent, two-year rotating members would be increased from 10 countries to 14.
The second proposal, which encountered serious opposition from four countries -- Brazil, India, Japan and Germany -- calls for maintaining five permanent members but expanding the number of semi-permanent countries, which would be elected for membership every four to five years.
Others on the panel with Iglesias included Brent Scowcroft, former national security adviser; Gareth Evans, a former Australian foreign minister; Amr Moussa, the Arab League secretary general; and Sadaka Ogata, former U.N. high commissioner for refugees. The committee met six times over the past year in Princeton, N.J.; New York; Tarrytown, N.Y.; Geneva, Vienna, and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Iglesias said the panel had combined principles and political realism in its effort to establish an international pact on peace and security. "Ultimately, it will depend on the capacity of governments to compromise and to respect its commitments," he said. "Under these circumstances, a real modernization of the United Nations is not only desirable but feasible."
Germans Voice Concern
The German ambassador, Wolfgang Ischinger, discussing the U.N. reformers in a separate interview on Tuesday, said the U.N. study required serious follow-up by governments as well as debate and leadership by the United States.
"We hope the United States will be actively involved," he said in a telephone interview. "Security Council reform is long overdue, and though the report offers two options, we are happier with the first, which proposes the creation of permanent members," Ischinger said. "The best way forward would be increasing the number once and for all."
He said Germany was concerned that political considerations would influence Security Council membership if country membership was subject to reelection.
"If you are up for reelection, you will be under the temptation as a new member to campaign and create incentives to make yourself eligible for another rotation," he said. "To make important decisions as a permanent Security Council member, sometimes you have to be unpopular."
He said the German government preferred that new permanent members maintain the same rights and privileges as old ones. "All this is up for discussion, and ours is certainly not a take it or leave it position," the ambassador said.
Ischinger also commented on Iran and its nuclear program. He said negotiations for a long-term agreement on the nuclear controversy began Monday and the talks could take several months.
"What we hope for is for the United States to try to make an active contribution to make these negotiations productive," Ischinger said. "The Europeans are doing this alone. We are looking for more active and substantive U.S. participation."
