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ESSAY
CONFRONTING 'THE SOFT BIGOTRY OF LOW EXPECTATIONS'
By:
Ramesh Thakur
A decade can seem
like an eternity in international politics. The world has witnessed
many profound changes in the ten years that Kofi Annan led the
United Nations as its Secretary-General (from 1997 to 2006).
The world body may not be perfect, but there are many good people
who love the United Nations and are devoted to it. I fervently
believe that the world is a better place because of the United
Nations and what it does and how it works.
Sometimes the number of trees can crowd out the view of the
forest as a whole. At any given time, the challenges that confront
us on a daily basis are so enormous, so grave and overpowering,
that we tend to overlook the gains and progress that accumulate
over time. It was useful to be reminded of this through the
inaugural Human Security Report 2005, which exploded the widely
believed myths about wars, deaths caused
by conflicts, genocide, terrorism and the United Nations effectiveness.
The number of armed conflicts rose steadily until the end of
the cold war and peaked in the early 1990s, but has declined
since then. Genocides, international crises, military coups
and human rights abuses are down as well. The nature of armed
conflicts has also changed; although often brutal, today's wars
typically kill fewer people. There has also been a shift in
where wars are being fought. More people are being killed in
Africa's wars today than in the rest of the world combined.
Moreover, violent conflicts in the continent exacerbated the
very conditions that gave rise to them in the first place, creating
a classic "conflict trap" from which escape is difficult.
The United Nations has played a critical role in driving positive
changes. UN efforts manifoldly increased to stop wars from starting
(preventive diplomacy), end ongoing conflicts (peacemaking),
establish peace operations (peacekeeping) and impose sanctions
(which can help pressure warring parties into peace negotiations).
Similarly, an earlier study undertaken by the United States-based
Rand Corporation comparing United Nations and United States
operations also held encouraging news for those within the Organization.
Not surprisingly, the United Nations is better at low-profile,
small footprint operations, where soft-power assets of international
legitimacy and political impartiality compensate for a hard-power
deficit. Between them, the two sets of studies document a surprising
adaptability on the part of the United Nations with regard to
policy innovation and operational success, to cope with a fast-changing
world. They contradict the prevailing pessimism about the state
of the world and cynicism about the UN performance. This should
lead neither to complacency about the number and gravity of
the problems that remain to be addressed nor about challenges
still confronting the Organization.
However, it is easy to fall into the trap of attributing problems
to short-term differences of interests or clash of personalities.
There are some significant underlying changes that contribute
to its collective difficulties. The very strength of the United
Nations-the common meeting house of all the world's countries-is
a major source of weakness with respect to efficient decision-making.
We know that many of the most intractable problems are global
in scope and will most likely require concerted multilateral
action that is also global in its reach. But the policy authority
and the competence to mobilize the resources needed for tackling
the problems remain vested in Member States. This strategic
disconnect explains to a certain extent the recurrent difficulties
facing the United Nations on many fronts and the oftentimes
fitful nature of its responses.
A central challenge that Kofi Annan was not able to meet successfully
in every instance, and which will continue to confront his successor,
is how to combine the unique legitimacy and international authority
of the United Nations with the global reach and power of the
United States. Some American commentators rightly pose the question
of why the United States should submit voluntarily to "Gulliverization",
tied down by innumerable threads of international treaty and
normative restraints, especially but not solely with respect
to the use of force overseas. Have the structures and procedures
of multilateral forums become dangerously detached from the
underlying distribution of power? Even if that were to be true
to some extent, events during the past year have demonstrated
conclusively that the diplomatic transaction costs of a complete
withdrawal from multilateral forums, even for the United States,
will be a very high price to pay.
At the same time, the volatility and turbulence that swept through
the United Nations was a sobering reminder that laws and norms,
and the institutions and organizations in which they are embedded,
are not ends in themselves but instruments to a better ordering
of the world. Should they fail in this overarching goal, their
members will look to alternatives.
This was the rationale behind Mr. Annan's efforts to identify
normative policy and structural reforms that Member States might
wish to consider to improve the performance, strengthen the
effectiveness and enhance the legitimacy of the Organization.
While the changes that were agreed upon were not to everyone's
expectations, he noted that from one point of view the glass
is at least half full. Over the past ten years, the United Nations
has evolved into a much more friendly world body towards civil
society organizations and private-sector firms. It must remain
hospitable to partnerships with these vital actors in driving
desirable changes and delivering growth, services and security
in the field.
With the decline in inter-State wars, the primary responsibility
for maintaining international peace and security in practice
translates into tackling internal armed conflicts. To the extent
that civilians now comprise an overwhelming number of conflict-related
casualties, their protection will determine the credibility
of the UN peace and security mandate. The global community has
made significant progress in criminalizing atrocity crimes and
enhancing the prospects of holding perpetrators internationally
accountable through International Criminal Court. Consequently,
the confidence of sovereign impunity that these perpetrators
once enjoyed has softened, if not entirely disappeared.
During the historic 2005 World Summit at UN Headquarters in
New York, world leaders endorsed the new norm of "responsibility
to protect". This too has captured the convergence of some
significant trends in world affairs. Previously, there were
few restrictions on the right of States as sovereign actors
to use force either within or across borders. A hundred years
ago, war was an accepted institution of the sovereign States
system with distinctive rules, etiquette, norms and stable patterns
of practices. Now there are significant restrictions on the
authority of States to use force either domestically or internationally.
Understanding and appreciation of human rights, as well as commitment
to their promotion and protection, have deepened. The vocabulary
of democracy, good governance and human rights has steadily
advanced to become the language of choice in international discourse.
Some of the great champions of the human rights and humanitarian
law movements were such exceptional individuals like Raphael
Lemkin, who helped to bring into being the Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Peter Benenson,
who founded Amnesty International, and Jean Henri Dunant, who
started the International Committee of the Red Cross. Their
examples powerfully demonstrate that the universal principle
of human rights is the recognition that every human being is
deserving of equal moral consideration. It is an acceptance
of a sense of duty by those ensconced in safety to care for
those in zones of danger. We are indeed our brothers'-and sisters'-keepers
around the world. The normative mandates of the United Nations
on security, development and human rights alike embody this
moral obligation.
The international community has also adopted new standards of
state conduct in the protection and advancement of international
human rights. Over time, the chief threats to international
security have come from violent eruptions of crises within States,
including civil wars, while the goals of promoting human rights
and democratic governance, protecting civilian victims of humanitarian
atrocities and punishing governmental perpetrators of mass crimes
have become more important. As a major consequence of the changing
nature of armed conflict and its victims, from soldiers to non-combatant
civilians, including excess deaths caused by conflict-related
diseases and starvation, the need for clarity, consistency and
reliability in the use of armed force for civilian protection
lies at the heart of the UN credibility in the maintenance of
peace and security.
The newly-established UN Peacebuilding Commission will help
to fill a critical gap in the institutional architecture for
maintaining international peace and security. The momentum generated
by the historic, favourable changes in arms control and disarmament
after the end of the cold war was allowed to lapse. The consequences
of not having seized the moment to make deeper and irreversible
rollbacks in light weapons and small arms, as well as in weapons
of mass destruction, are being felt once again in different
parts of the world.
In sum, the record of the United Nations shows an under-appreciated
capacity for policy innovation, conceptual advances, institutional
adaptation and organizational learning. We have seen this over
the last ten years with respect to peacekeeping and peace operations,
human security and human rights, atrocity crimes and international
criminal justice, sanctions and the use of force and, what Mr.
Annan described as particularly precious to him, the responsibility
to protect innocent civilians caught in the crossfire and victims
of atrocity crimes.
Some have argued that the Charter of the United Nations was
written in another age for another world. Yet for many, it is
a living and breathing document that remains vitally relevant
today. It is the framework within which the scattered and divided
fragments of humanity come together to look for solutions. We
must never fall victim to the soft bigotry of low expectations.
Rather, we must always hold the United Nations to the more exacting
standards of exalted expectations.
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| Ramesh Thakur is Senior
Vice Rector of the United Nations University (UNU), based in
Tokyo, Japan. His most recent book is The United Nations, Peace
and Security: From Collective Security to the Responsibility
to Protect (Cambridge University Press, 2006). |
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