Too Little Too Late on UN Reform Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Hate to say it, but told you so. (Scratch that.  I shouldn't gloat - - just saw David's piece below offering plaudits for my prescience - his praise is enough) Sure enough, the UN membership has come up with a watered down document on reform just in time to ensure that tomorrow's in-gathering of 160 heads of state does not dissolve in disarray.

I predicted that:

The document will be much vaguer than hoped, and will simply duck significant areas of disagreement .. . There will be some language that, if acted upon, could result in substantial, specific reforms to the way the UN does business . . . But the text will also leave loopholes that allow spoilers bent on killing particular reforms to get future bites at the apple (slowing the reforms down, watering them down, and/or refusing to fund them) once other bodies like the Security Council and GA working committees take over and attempt to implement.

This is exactly what happened.  The Summit resolution calls for renaming the UN's discredited Commission on Human Rights a Human Rights Council, but stops short of necessary reforms including keeping known violators out of the henhouse.  It calls for a terrorism convention, but stops short of offering a consensus definition of terrorism.  It includes no firm commitments in terms of a duty to protect innocents from genocide, and no concrete pledges in terms of management reform.  It apparently says nothing on non-proliferation or disarmament.

In all, while we had some time ago resigned ourselves to low expectations, all-in-all its a huge disappointment.  While some good may yet come out of the package, this consensus breathes no wind into the organization's sagging sales, resolves none of the bitter rifts that divide the membership and hamper progress, and commits neither the organization nor its members to any of the painful but necessary steps toward making the body function better.  For more on what woulda, coulda, shoulda happened in terms of reform, see here.

How could this have been different?  The U.S. will privately point to the likes of Algeria, Cuba, Iran and others as spoilers, holding out for unrealistic commitments of aid for the developing world.  Plenty of others will blame John Bolton and his last minute, aggressive redlining of the Summit document.

Why didn't the reform push achieve its promise?  3 reasons, each tightly interrelated:

1. Lack of political will - The UN has a way of eliciting lowest-common-denominator behavior from its members, meaning self-interested, uncompromising, and short-term minded stances that impede boldness and set back change.  Part of the problem is that negotiations are delegated to ambassadors in New York who get mired in UN internal politics and bloc dynamics, rather than keeping their eyes on big picture questions like how to strengthen the organization and keep the largest members involved and committed (both of which stand to enormously benefit the rank and file membership).

2.  A hobbled Annan - Oil-for-food and particularly Annan's personal involvement in the scandal weakened what had been the organization's strongest leader in decades.  Annan would otherwise have had the ability to cut through some of the small-mindedness, to pick up the phone and call in heads of state, and to push a lot harder.   That kind of tough leadership was desperately needed, yet absent from the Secretary General's office.  There's only one other place it could have come from . . .

3.  Ineffective US diplomacy - I've argued from the outset that the US stood to gain enormously from many of the reforms on the table this year, including strengthened UN commitments on terrorism and WMD, a more legitimate human rights mechanism, a buy-out for the organization's dead wood, and beefed up internal controls.  While the Administration's frayed relationships made it harder to push these things through, it could have been done.  In the past we've hammered home wildly unpopular reforms at the UN, through a painstaking process I call retail diplomacy.  It involves going member-by-member, capital-by-capital and figuring out what other nations want in return for agreeing to what matters most to us.  The US has enough clout at the UN to be able to get its way on almost anything, provided we go about it skillfully, advocate forcefully at the right levels well in advance of decision time, and are prepared to make trade-offs.  This work cannot be done by mid-level diplomats alone:  cabinet secretaries and even the President need to get involved. 

In this case, while the Administration waxed lofty on reform, they were far too distracted in Iraq to make the kind of push that would have been needed.  The U.S. put the nail in the coffin of Security Council reform back in June, but struck no comparably powerful blows in favor of the reforms it should have cared about the most.

Comments

[Alex]

"Oil-for-food and particularly Annan's personal involvement in the scandal weakened what had been the organization's strongest leader in decades."

If you think Annan has been one of the strongest leaders in decades, I can only imagine what you think of his predecessors. Annan's administration has been ineffectual at best and wormholed through with a level of corruption that makes the merry days of the 70s seem like child's play. These guys have taken corruption to a whole new level. Annan has helped dig a hole for the UN, which it may not be able to escape from.

[John Penta]

Suzanne, Annan at this point is tainted. Damaged goods, to be simple.

He can't get anything done, as he's seen to have no credibility with anyone.

Frankly, the UN as an organization would be better served if he were to resign, along with his senior staff. At the very least, it could begin to move on from the scandal.

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