What does the world expect of its United Nations in the coming century? It is easy enough to offer the typical responses -- universal peace, an end to global poverty, gender equity, respect for human rights throughout the world, and sustainable development. But the UN family, no matter how effective and well-financed, cannot achieve these lofty objectives alone. Without the political will among Member States and the world's citizens, countless UN conference declarations and lucid reports are unlikely to accomplish much by themselves.

The United Nations, however, is in a unique position to help forge the necessary political will on which to build an agenda of global equity, justice and peace. Given the profound differences among UN Member States on fundamental issues, from security to sustainable development, forging that will for such an agenda is itself a daunting challenge, one that will require skilled leadership and astute diplomacy.

On the issue of security, for example, recent experiences in Africa, the former Republic of Yugoslavia and elsewhere have demonstrated a growing tension between the principle of non-aggression among States and the enforcement of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Armed intervention by other States, such as by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Yugoslavia -- albeit with the stated objective to prevent or arrest egregious human rights abuses of a Member State against its own citizens -- is clearly inconsistent with the UN Charter. But various UN initiatives to deal with human rights abuses have also been blocked by some members on the grounds that they intrude on State sovereignty.

With regard to sustainable development, witness the debate over climate change. On one side are the proponents of the 1992 United Nations Convention who favour limiting carbon dioxide emissions. On the other side is an alliance of States and business concerns whose vital interests are tied to the production and consumption of fossil fuels. Neither side is wholly right or wrong. The resolution of such complex and divisive issues will demand all the ingenuity and dedication the world can muster.

The United Nations is the only body with the requisite legitimacy and universality for the task. On the State sovereignty vs. human rights issue, for example, the United Nations will need to build consensus around the notion that, while the principle of State sovereignty remains the foundation for peace among nations, it cannot be used as a shield to trample the human rights of its citizens. In other words, human rights are paramount and States' rights are subsidiary when they are in conflict. As for climate change, the United Nations must foster dialogue and a search for solutions, which offer gains to all concerned without compromising the fundamental objective of reducing the world's emissions of greenhouse gases below an acceptable threshold.

The most challenging tasks facing the UN family, however, lack the dramatic urgency of human or natural catastrophes, which tend to galvanize the attention of the world's leaders. They include eradicating global poverty and achieving gender equality, as well as facilitating the production of "global public goods", such as environmental and cultural heritage, health and access to knowledge -- all these tend to be underprovided in an increasingly integrated global economy.

What tools does the United Nations have at its disposal to exercise leadership and forge the political will across nations to pursue an agenda of global peace, justice and sustainability? First and foremost, it possesses unequalled power to bring together all parties to a dispute or in a common cause. Increasingly, the United Nations is using its convening power to bring members of civil society to the negotiating table. This is appropriate, since it is ordinary citizens who often best understand the problems at hand and who must live with the solutions adopted. As Czech President Vaclav Havel put it recently, "... we must ensure that all the citizens of the world see the UN as their organization, an organization that truly belongs to them ... what this Organization does for the inhabitants of our planet is more important than what it does for individual countries as States".

Second, the United Nations has the power of persuasion -- a power it has carefully nurtured over the past five decades. Despite its many flaws, the UN family, including all its specialized agencies, has built up a talented and dedicated workforce: its steady stream of public conferences and publications is testimony to its capabilities. The power of persuasion will be particularly necessary to convince political leaders and citizens in the world's largest and most powerful countries that they too have something to gain from the global agenda. And such persuasion is the key to unlocking the financial support that the world's richest nations can and should be providing to enable the United Nations to tackle these immense challenges.

There are also some glaring obstacles to the United Nations playing this more activist role. Most notably, the veto power of the five permanent members of the Security Council must be abolished. This power has been invoked time and again to immobilize action by the United Nations: the world can no longer afford to bestow such power on these few countries.

As the world's key intergovernmental organization, the United Nations has always been expected to be a policy taker rather than a policy maker. In other words, it has been expected to take the prevailing political will of its member countries as given, for better or worse, and not to try to alter it. The time has come for the United Nations to work with people -- the citizens of the world -- to help build the political will necessary to ensure that peace, justice and sustainable development are not just principles, but are upheld in practice by all member countries.

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