The United Nations has a clear mandate and responsibility to play a major role in international economic cooperation, especially through its Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) system. Yet from its earliest years, the Council has largely failed to do so. Instead, the major roles have been played by organizations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the G-7 and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which are dominated by the wealthiest countries and usually give insufficient attention to social development and environmental sustainability. The World Trade Organization (WTO) has behaved in a similar way, although its recent Seattle meeting suggests that some improvements may be achievable where developing countries have majority voting power, organize them-selves effectively and enjoy strong civil society support.

The Seattle confrontations were seen widely as a powerful challenge to WTO. But they also presented a challenge -- and opportunity -- for the United Nations. A central debate was whether WTO, the International Labour Organization or some combination of the two should be responsible for resolving possible conflicts between trade rules and labour standards. Concerns were also expressed about how environmental considerations would be taken into account. Of course, many other issues such as health, education and poverty reduction can also be crucially affected by trade rules.

The mechanisms for resolving such conflicts should not be determined by ad hoc responses to particular political forces at particular moments in time. Instead, they should be part of an ongoing and coherent framework, which is established and overseen by an organization that recognizes the full range of relevant issues and interests. At the national level, this is the role of the head of Government, cabinet, or other whole-of-government authority. At the global level, ECOSOC's mandate, composition and location within the UN system make it the most appropriate body for the task. It is the Council which should have overarching responsibility for determining the mechanisms by which particular conflicts in international rules and standards between, say, trade, labour and environmental agencies should be resolved.

The Council needs to become more closely and centrally involved in international discussions and decisions concerning key issues such as financial market regulation, tax policy and administration, and corporate regulation. These areas have suffered from the dominance of narrow economic perspectives and of the wealthiest countries in key organizations such as the IMF, OECD and the Bank of International Settlements.

In principle, ECOSOC should be less prone to these weaknesses. Most of its members are from developing countries, and its mandate is very wide. In practice, however, these potential strengths have been major causes of its ineffectiveness. The wealthiest countries have not wished to submit to an organization, such as the Council, which they do not control (indeed, on which none has a guaranteed position). The breadth of ECOSOC's responsibilities has contributed to its lack of focus, expertise and momentum on major issues. Other causes include its sheer size (it now has 54 members and allows all other UN members to attend its meetings), its preoccupation with routine reports rather than less formal discussion of major policy issues, and the infrequency of its meetings.

Two key structural reforms in ECOSOC could substantially reduce these problems. Council membership could be halved to about 25 countries, which would make it about the same size as is widely agreed to be appropriate for the Security Council. The wealthiest countries (say, the Group of 8) and a similar number of the most populous countries (China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Nigeria) could be made standing members, with the remaining members being elected for fixed terms on a regional basis. Five of the G-8 members have been ECOSOC members throughout the last 20 years, and each of the other three have been members for 16 or more of those years. Amongst developing countries, only Brazil, China and India can match these levels of continuity.

Two key procedural reforms could also greatly improve ECOSOC's effectiveness. First, it could meet on a regular quarterly basis, abbreviate its very lengthy annual meeting, and focus more heavily on informal policy discussion rather than ritualized consideration of reports from its constituent organizations. Second, it could make greater use of fixed-term Ministerial Working Groups and independent Expert Advisory Panels to discuss and report on specific major policy issues.

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