U.S. Has Requested Changes to Proposed Reform Agreement
Roger Coate
Co-author, "The United Nations and Changing World Politics"
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
2:00 PM
175 world leaders are set to meet in New York City Sept. 14-16 to discuss proposed reforms at the 2005 U.N. World Summit. The U.S. has requested numerous changes to the proposed agreement on reform, and newly appointed ambassador John Bolton , already the source of controversy, will be the face of the U.S.'s requests. The summit is also intended to address progress on goals outlined at the 2000 Millenium Summit, including drastically reducing poverty by 2015 (progress on many of the initial goals, however, has been less than hoped). What are the main goals of this historically comprehensive gathering of world leaders? How will Bolton and the current U.S.-U.N. relationship affect the summit?
Roger Coate , co-author of "The United Nations and Changing World Politics" and a professor of political science at the University of South Carolina, was online Wednesday, Sept. 14 at 2 p.m. ET to discuss the U.N. World Summit.
The transcript follows.
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San Jose, Calif.: Will this gathering of world leaders accomplish anything? I am looking back at what happened during the debate for the Iraqi invasion and its aftermath. The expansion of the Security Council coupled with the fact that we now live in an ever changing world. What changes is the U.S. proposing? In my opinion the Security Council should be organized regionally and each member granted a veto vote. The second World War was long over.
Dr. Roger Coate: Yes, the Summit will produce a highly watered-down declaration that heads of state and government can take back, get some good press and pat themselves on the back for giving it a good fight. In terms of actually moving the world forward toward promoting human security-NO. This Summit represented a golden opportunity-perhaps the only remaining opportunity-to get the world on track for meeting the Millennium Development Goals and moving toward eradicating poverty, hunger, disease and other maladies facing the world's poorest peoples. The MDGs are not loft-pie-in-the-sky-goals, but rather straightforward and pragmatic goals, targets and indicators. They are part of a larger UN system-wide initiative to raise people out of hell-like conditions.
Washington is heavily to blame for the failure of the General Assembly to send forward to the Summit a plan of action that could move the world considerably forward.
By injecting Mr. Bolton into the process at such a late date, President Bush appears to have been successful scuttling any real international consensus to meet the MDGs or accomplish mush else at the Summit. As if he had been sleeping for five years, Mr. Bolton injected a high level of politicization into the entire consensual process--he even wanted to change the name of the MDGs themselves [as if that would make the least bit of difference, other than stalling the process].
Regarding Security Council reform, it would be a disaster to reform the Council and give every member a veto. The world learned that clearly with the League of Nations, when the U.S. Senate successful made such a demand [and later blocked U.S. entry]. Any single member state can play spoiler!
Moreover, it's remains very unclear that any of the reforms being proposed and actively considered will make the Council more effective and or efficient in carrying out its mandate. The Council would still be far off target from representing anything like the real power structure in the world.
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Winthrop, Mass.: It appears to me that the changes put forth by Ambassador Bolton have killed all chance for meaningful reform at the U.N., and that it has to be an intentional act. Most if not all the changes Bolton put forth were ones that made the U.N. far less effective in dealing with the world's problems, and as a result the third world refused to give up something for nothing. Has an ambassador ever botched up an assignment so quickly before, or is this what Bush wants Bolton to do?
Dr. Roger Coate: Good question. I cannot remember a time when an Ambassador botched things so quickly. But, then, that's apparently what the U.S. Administration intended to do, as reflected in the way the President side-stepped Congress in making the appointment.
Dr. Roger Coate: But, I have been quite impressed in the manner in which the other diplomats and UN officials have received Mr. Bolton. After all, he is the Permanent Representative of the United States of America.
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Youngstown, Ohio: Since the creation of the United Nations, the organization has grown tremendously, both in my opinion for the better and the worse. Do you think that the organization has made adequate changes allowing the U.N. to effectively carry out its goals in the 21st century? Thank you.
Dr. Roger Coate: No there are many things that could be done to increase the effectiveness of the UN system. The UNO is an intergovernmental institution and there is only so much that can be accomplished through intergovernmentalism. The question becomes what types of things can be done via intergovernmental cooperation.
It is critically important not to view the UNO in New York as being the United Nations. It is much much more and was designed that way from the beginning. It is instructive to reflect on the observation that the United Nations Organization (UNO or "United Nations") was but one of a "family" of intergovernmental agencies established during and following the Second World War by the United Nations. It is noteworthy that the UNO, itself, was not the first or the second or even the third or fourth international institution established by the United Nations Alliance as part of the UN system and its liberal agenda. The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) was established following the UN's Hot Springs Conference in 1943. In November 1943, forty-four allies met in Washington and established the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) to assist liberated peoples in Europe and Asia. Around this same time the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) was formed. In April 1944, the International Labor Organization (ILO) met for the first time since the outbreak of the war in an effort to revitalize it. The Bretton Woods Conference in July 1944 gave birth to two complementary institutions. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD or "World Bank") would assist in the rebuilding and development of territories of its members and promote or supplement private foreign investment. The International Monetary Fund would promote exchange stability, maintain orderly exchange arrangements among members and assist in the establishment of a multilateral system of payments in respect of current transactions between members and in the elimination of foreign exchange restrictions which hamper the growth of world trade. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the origins of which also go back to 1941.
Reform needs to be viewed as system reform, not just tinkering with things in New York, which seems to be the reform flavor of the month.
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San Jose, Calif.: Why does the United states want to change the proposed reform? This is a new century and change is inevitable. U.S. influence will wane if it is perceived by other counties to be onesided in it policies and countries it does business with. They are bound to be new and upcoming contenders.
Dr. Roger Coate: There is a lot of misinformation [some innocent, some purposive] floating around Washington and the nation about the UN. Kofi Annan has transformed the administration of the UN tremendously from the patronage system that he inherited from his predecessors. This is something that even Jesse Helms understood and appreciated. Yet, for all sorts of political reasons, this fact is being denigrated or ignored.
There is little misperception in other governments about what the U.S. Administration is about in regard to its multilateral policies [or lack there of].
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Arlington, Va.: Given the recent disasters--tsunami, Katrina etc--would it not be sensible to have a world disaster relief organization in place under the auspices of the U.N., with the aim being to rush food/water, medicines, clothes and housing to disaster stricken areas? Are there any plans at the summit to discuss this?
Dr. Roger Coate: A new political body to deal with humanitarian relief is, in my opinion, not needed, and might well only stand in the way of effective international response to crises. Action, not debate, is needed in the time of humanitarian crisis. Furthermore, many humanitarian crises involve important security dimensions that may ten to conflict with actions being considered in the Security Council. In 1991, the General Assembly created the high-level position of Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC) to provide a single UN focal point for disaster relief efforts. It also created the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), the Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP) and the Central Emergency Revolving Fund (CERF) as key coordination mechanisms and tools of the ERC. As part of the Secretary-General's reform program in 1998, DHA was reorganized into the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA. Its mandate was expanded to include the coordination of humanitarian response, policy development and humanitarian advocacy.
It is not clear, for example, that a new international disaster relief organization would be able to do anything different of better than is currently [not]being done in the face of such major humanitarian crises such as that currently gone unattended to in North Uganda. The government of Uganda, itself, is perpetuating what Jan Egeland, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs
and Emergency Relief Coordinator, has termed the greatest unattended humanitarian crisis in the world.
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Weslaco, Tex.: The Iraq war and the conflict at the Security Council before the war has put the U.S. in bad light in the eyes of certain countries. The U.S. should not change the proposed reforms. The U.N. is moving with the times but the U.S. is still living in the Cold War era mode.
Dr. Roger Coate: If there is a question here, please get back with it. Thanks.
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Columbus, Ga.: I have your book and use it often as a point of departure reference.
One prevailing theme of International Relations is that the lowest common denominator of power on the globe is the individual sovereign nation-state.
Recent events around the globe suggest to me that state parties are seeking alignments that may eventually lead to a multi-polarized globe.
For example: the European Union's struggle to connect regional economic issues with regional political stability; social populism in Latin America suggests an alternative to United States' hegemony in the Western Hemisphere; former Soviet Union satellite countries continue to struggle with resolving competing domestic and international loyalties; religious polarization.
The philosophies of globalization attempt to replace the Cold-War polarization by contributing to increased cooperation and interdependence using formal and non-governmental organizations.
While the increased communication leads to refining international law through new agreements, can a more than rhetorical attempt be made to reform the status quo of global power into global governance?
Dr. Roger Coate: Your question is quite philosophical. In replying, I'll build on my last response and begin with a quote from the new book that I am co-authoring with Don Puchala and Katie Laatikainen:
"From birth, the United Nations was part vision, part ideology, part war-weariness and frustration with evolving deadliness and costliness of war and, in part, a realistic assessment of and response to the state of world affairs and the structure of international relations at the time. A new more stable, peaceful and prosperous world order was to be forged out of the old. The Westphalian state-based self-help system was to be tempered and tamed by institutional forms that seemed to be possible, given the conditions of the day. The world was at the verge of a uni-polar moment, and leaders of the emergent super power and her closest ally were ready for change. The resultant UN system represented the firm conviction that a new world order-based in the political, moral and economic foundations of liberalism-the ideology-was essential for promoting, building and maintaining world peace and stability.
The foundations of this new order, however, were plagued from the beginning by the tensions and forces inherent in two often contentious, if not contradictory, globalizing paradigms: the European [capitalist] interstate diplomatic-legal order and ideological liberalism. As a system of intergovernmental organizations with the national state as the primary unit of membership and action, the UN system was just that, a institutional forum of representatives of states playing out their diverse and often conflicting foreign policies and intrigues. It was first and foremost a Westphalian sovereignty-based institution with rules, procedures, norms and principles based accordingly. On the other hand and, it was an institutional form founded and structured around liberal ideological tenants, assumptions and goals. The invisible hand of markets facilitated by intergovernmental cooperation and guidance, not independent state directives and market intervention, was viewed by the UN's main architects as the way and means of promoting, building and maintaining world peace and stability. The UN family of organizations was designed in an attempt to meld these two seemingly contrary systems into a coherent institutional form." Unfortunately, many of the underlying assumptions were contradictory an incompatible.
The UN was designed as a system to perpetuate and liberalize the Euro-centered world order. Keep in mind that for the first decade-and-a-half of the UN's existence the world was largely divided into European empires, the last of which did not erode until the late 1980's.
Kofi Annan and his team have done more than what might reasonably be expected to open up the intergovernemental halls to the forces of civil society and even the private sector. Yet, the UN system remains and will remain an intergovernmental institutional form. The question then is what can be done to improve things within that parameter?
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Weslaco, Tex.: Why is the U.S. pressing for changes at the U.N.,when the Egyptian elections were not free and fair? China is not a democratic country, Russia isn't either. Double standards in policies and ideas by the U.S. They should mind their business-after all the walked out of the U.N. to go to the Iraq war.
Dr. Roger Coate: The U.S. over a number of administrations has been pressing for democracy promotion. The UN, under both Kofi Annan and Boutros Boutros-Ghali, have been strong supports of democratization. I guess that question boils down to in what kind of a world do you want to live? What is the role of democracy in that world? Are the powers that be [especially the U.S.] willing to entertain and support different conceptions and cultural forms of democracy?
The question of Iraq is another matter. It is not clear what democracy promotion has to do with why the U.S. invaded Iraq or whether there was any serious consideration about how one goes about building an Islamic democracy once you destabilize the order there. It appears now that you learn as you go and take your bumps and bruises, hoping that the resultant is not something too bad.
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Anonymous: What are your thoughts on the United States agreeing to be subjected to the World Court?
Dr. Roger Coate: International law is bases on reciprocity as its binding force. Americans, more that almost any other people [except perhaps Europeans], need a stable and well functioning international legal order--one in which reciprocity prevails. That is what is really at stake. It is the ability of American civil society and the private sector to operate effectively in the global environment. [The U.S. orientation toward ICC is another matter. In the military realm the U.S. in not just a superpower but a Giant with a big "G."]
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Baku, Azerbaijan: Since most of the burning issues and vast poverty and illiteracy involve Islamic countries, isn't it relevant to involve some umbrella Islamic organizations like Arab League or OIC, so as to distribute the challenges faced to the U.N. to the organizations who represent the people of those places? In this way these organizations also will become more relevant and accountable as currently their role is nothing but to issue political statements from time to time.
Dr. Roger Coate: Good question--good point. This is what really saddens me about what has happened to the 2005 World Summit. It was planned to be the summit to jump start the lagging MDG process. Yet the summit was derailed by all sorts of do-gooding governments and interests that we adamant that their special issue/concern got highly placed on the agenda since almost all the world's leaders would be there. Of course umbrella Islamic organizations need to be included in a meaningful way. BUT, more importantly, the resources need to flow from rich donors in order to make the MDG process work. We have had lots of big words, but few big deeds. Even the much lauded U.S. PEPFAR to fight HIV/AIDS is basically a bi-lateral program, channeling funds according to donor strategic interests more than true need of recipients.
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Wheaton, Md.: Does the U.N. plan to address its 60 year history of anti-Israel, anti-Semitic policies and resolutions?
Dr. Roger Coate: It would, I believe, be a big mistake to politicize the Summit in such a way--that is, if any real progress toward achieving the MDGs and dealing with world poverty is to be made.
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Alexandria, Va.: What has the reception of John Bolton been like at the U.N.?
Dr. Roger Coate: Professional, diplomatic and courteous, as one would expect.
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Fairfax, Va.: What would happen if overseas politicians don't agree to have the U.N. from the U.S.?
Dr. Roger Coate: I'm not certain what you are asking here--please clarify.
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Lyme, Conn.: Do you see much hope that the United Nations will allow itself to be in a position to make emergency actions to prevent genocide by sending food and supplies to threatened people with troops to guard threatened people without making a political statement on taking sides in a dispute? It seems to me that there should be a response to protect civilians anywhere against mass death without having to worry about the political consequences of such actions.
Dr. Roger Coate: Permit me to rephrase the question, "Do you see much hope that the member states [especially the P-5] will allow the UN to ..." The problem is not the UN, it is the major member states, and, most importantly, the largest and most powerful member state, The USA. This you should ask Mr. Bolton.
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Bethesda, Md.: I'm just curious, how do we still have the latitude to show our face at the U.N. after we stood up there and showed them two hours of nonstop lies about Iraq (and now 100,000 civilians there are dead)? I wish I had that kind of reservoir of historical credibility (earned by people who formerly held my job) to keep playing after that kind of performance.
Dr. Roger Coate: Largely because the U.S. is the U.S. and the UN cannot function [esp. in peace and security] without it.
One last question, if there is time.
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New Delhi, India: Will the U.S. support the candidatures of India, Japan, Brazil and Germany for permanent seats in the U.N. Security Council? There should not be any oscillation on the part of the U.S. It would only strengthen the U.N. politically and economically. Furthermore, U.N. can be made more accountable. Scams like food-for-oil programme can be averted in the near future.
Dr. Roger Coate: Most likely yes, but will it make any real difference? -- I think not. membership in the UNSC is not the problem! And UNSC expansion/enlargement is not the answer.
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Arlington, Va.: You wrote of: "a new world order -- based in the political, moral and economic foundations of liberalism."
Hasn't this ideal long since fallen by the wayside in the U.N., since so many of its member states are run by unrepresentative governments who resent intrusion in their internal repression? These days, isn't it more accurate to say that the Westphalian system is very much alive, and that the challenge for the U.N. is to find areas in which it can be effective while working around that bedrock principle?
Dr. Roger Coate: Again, when the UN was founded and for many years, the so-called main member states were largely empires, not nation-states. Most people have it wrong when it comes to understanding what the UN Security Council was designed to be or do. It was based on FDR's concept of the Four Policemen. Here is a quote from FDR:
"[I]t is my thought that time is an essential in disseminating the ideals of peace among the very diverse nationalities and national egos of a vast number of separate peoples who, for one reason or another over a thousand years, have divided themselves into a hundred different forms of hate.... Therefore, I have been visualizing a superimposed-or if you like it, a superassumed-obligation by Russia, China, Britain and ourselves that we will act as sheriffs for the maintenance of order during the transition period."
Franklin D. Roosevelt, September 21, 1943
Again, quoting from our forthcoming book:
"Although all states were legally sovereign, the concept of sovereign equality did not translate into equality of influence or power in institutional form.
Far from it, what Roosevelt envisioned and pushed for was a concert of powers arrangement whereby the four major powers of the victorious UN alliance would continue in an institutionalized form in the post-war order to police the other nations of the world and enforce world peace. Thus, the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union and China would serve as "Four Policemen." Very much unlike Woodrow Wilson, Roosevelt sought to balance collective security notions with traditional European spheres of influence norms. He also seemed unbothered that the core element of the UN system's security enforcement mechanism that he proposed would be controlled by four member states, only one of which was a liberal democratic nation state in the strict sense of the term. One-the Soviet Union-was a totalitarian dictatorship bent on the ultimate destruction of the capitalist world order. Another-China-was ruled by an authoritarian government going through the pangs of a civil war against a strong communist insurgency. And yet another-Great Britain-was a functioning world empire built around the core of an island-based national state.
Again, this planning occurred in the course of a war to end all war. There was little room for Wilsonian liberal idealism. Curiously, despite the obvious, little attention apparently was focused on the question of what happens if one of the four major powers becomes a major rule violator. On the other hand, underlying collective security enforcement was the notion that if the major powers were not in concert regarding an action, then the UN should not act. This was made explicit by the fact that the right of great power "veto" was demanded by both the Soviet Union and the United States."
Thank you for your excellent questions. Good bye.
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Dr. Roger Coate: One final, final word. The UN was indeed founded as a bastion of ideological liberalism. That has not changed. Not only did the Bretton Woods institutions precede the UN and form inherent components of a larger liberal ideological world order being promulgated by Anglo-American leaders, they were its foundation-not the UNO. This has not changed. In fact, since the end of the Cold War and the creation of the WTO, the UN system is even more wedded to its liberal norms and institutional forms. Dealing with this reality and its implications for human security should, in my humble opinion, be the focus on reform, not tinkering in New York.
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