An Nations inclusive United

Mr. President, distinguished delegates,

"We, the peoples" is a powerful rendition of world affairs and a daunting portrait of life for future generations. It took intellect and diplomatic savoir‑ to state a complex case in such a concise and forceful way. We are grateful to the Secretary‑General and his staff for producing it.

Mr. President,

"We, the Peoples" are of course the opening words of the UN Charter, and I want to take them as a point of departure. Other speakers have done so before me, and have argued in favor of a more robust structure for keeping the peace in the world community. They are right. The UN's role in the area of preventing or limiting armed conflict was conceived as its principal purpose. The Brahimi report has shown how, in spite of that, the UN's peacekeeping function has in fact become its Achilles' heel. The Brahimi recommendations deserve to be implemented ‑ the sooner the better. At present, in the Netherlands, government and parliament are debating how to improve our national contribution to peacekeeping.

"We, the Peoples" can lead to reflections on a totally different side of the UN's reality as well. I, for one, would take this opportunity to argue in favor of closer ties between the United Nations and the private sector.

Mr. President, in 1945 the world was run by States. The Charter hinges on that very assumption. It covers all aspects of life as they were prevalent at the time, from peace and security to social justice, from economic cooperation to human rights. Despite its ambition, the Charter hardly mentions any other actors besides States. Non‑governmental organizations appear in the Charter only once. The private sector is not referred to at all ! In other words, the Charter conforms to a model of governance as old as the Peace of Westphalia, a state system going back to the mid‑1600s!

In order to strategize for the future, we need to ask ourselves: who, in actual fact runs the world today; where and how are world affairs conducted; and how can we position the UN accordingly ?

Not States a/one

The UN is made up of member States. That is fitting and proper. States will be the custodians of foreign relations for a long time to come. But their roles have changed significantly with time. States can no longer bethought of as the hard billiard balls of international relations. Internationalization has altered the concept of sovereignty. Nor are states autonomous entities as before, pursuing self‑defined national interests. Their actions are now much more shaped by economic pressures, information flows, and population movements. For States, too, globalization is here to stay.

Other actors have entered both the domestic and the international scenes. Civil society is one. The private sector is another. Since 1945, civil society, made up of non‑profit organizations, has blossomed along a wide spectrum, beyond any expectation of the UN's founding fathers. Many NGOs operate across national boundaries. At the present time, the UN system could never hope to operate properly without the assistance of NGOs. Not to mention normative thinking and advocacy. NGOs have acquired access into the UN at different levels, and participate in many of its discussions.

And the private sector. Although a potent actor on the domestic and international levels, the private sector has been virtually ignored by traditional UN diplomacy. The business community, and notably transnational corporations, were viewed by many as the competitor, if not as the enemy of the international public interest. Documents critical of multinationals were being issued by the UN and Specialized Agencies until recently. Confrontation rather than dialogue. I am not contending there were no grounds for that position. Quite the contrary. However, nowadays we see a growing awareness in the business community of the necessity of responsible corporate policies and of a role for private enterprise in the pursuit of interests that go beyond maximizing immediate profits. As an example, I refer to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, in which the pharmaceutical industry closely cooperates with international organizations, governments and other actors.

Mr. President, we need to build on that. Indeed, the time has come to expand the concept of a partnership with the private sector. Why? Two reasons. First of all, the world is up against incredible odds. Secondly, the private sector does exist and wields a lot of power in the international arena.

About the odds: take a sustainable future, where elementary laws of ecology must be respected. Not even the most powerful Government can put a stop to global warming ‑ nor all the member States of the UN combined. A sustainable future needs to be pursued in conjunction with industry, civil society and the scientific community. For equitable working conditions, and other forms of social justice, States need to involve the private sector. The same is true for fighting corruption. Or the spread of small arms. Or wasting water. Or AIDS.

Shared responsibility

We have truly entered an era that is very different from the one in which the UN was born; an era in which the course of humanity and the quality of life on earth have more and more become a shared responsibility; an era where governments, the private sector and civil society are drawn ever more closely together. They all have a stake in global governance. The so‑called global public goods are a matter for all of them together.

The private sector has a stake in the future of the planet, too. Of course it is there to do business. But no planet, no profit. Companies should find it in their own interest to assume a responsibility equal to their weight in international relations and the influence they have at the domestic level. CEOs, too, want a livable world for their grandchildren. The private sector must be called upon to enter into a responsible corporate partnership, in sync with other actors at the international plane. True, the role of each actor needs to be different. Their motivation can remain different, too ‑ as does the legal basis on which they act. But their determination needs to be the same. The determination to secure the longevity of life as we know it ‑ and to secure for everyone on the planet an equitable share of its bounty.

Different roles, shared responsibility. That concept needs to take root in this Organization as well. The UN cannot credibly hope to play a galvanizing role in meeting the challenges of the coming century, if it cannot show that its debate and its action platforms reflect the real world outside the conference rooms. If we want to see the UN as "unique in world affairs" ‑ as the Millennium report puts it ‑ it must be able to show that all players are on stage.

The Secretary‑General's Global Compact could not have come at a more opportune moment. It is the mere beginning of a process, but it is off to a promising start. The Global Compact deserves the active support of the international community, and it deserves to be joined by other multinationals. I do understand the trepidations of some NGOs, who fear that multinational corporations will drape themselves in the UN flag and become untouchable in the pursuit of profit. I understand, too, the apprehension felt by diplomats in this room, who have a lifetime invested in the exclusivity of the State and its monopoly on multilateral discourse. But the Global Compact is not a Trojan Horse.

And I will go even further, Mr. President. We have given structural access to civil society into the UN system. By contrast, the access we are giving to the private sector, with the notable exception of the International Labour Organisation, has been ad hoc, not structural. In the future, we must create appropriate channels of communication with the private sector, inside this Organization, where they, as well as governments and civil society, can try and get a hold on the convulsions of our time ‑ a forum where, at the very least, they can deliberate and begin to break down the barriers of mistrust that have divided them for so long.

More inclusive

Mr. President, this was the first reason why the UN needs to broaden its scope and become more inclusive. The second one is the power of the private sector. Many companies have larger turnovers than the national budgets of Member states, and the same is true for the personal fortunes of some CEOs. The relationship between States and the private sector has altered dramatically over time. States were once thought of as bulwarks against harmful economic impact from abroad. Economic weight was viewed as a trump card in the power play among nations. Today, states are increasingly serving as instruments for adjusting domestic policy to the realities of present day world economy. They have become intermediaries between the world economy ‑ with its own structure of power ‑ and domestic societies.

This brings up the question of where world affairs are being conducted and how they have caused a shift in the style of diplomacy. Economic globalization has shifted the focus of attention to other fora than the United Nations here in New York, notably to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization, and, on a regional level, the European Union. Policies are tested in the margins of the World Economic Forum in Davos or decided elsewhere. Brussels has become a hub of world affairs.That focus has brought on a different cast of players than in the days of Talleyrand and Metternich. Foreign Ministers now work shoulder to shoulder not only with development ministers, but also with finance and trade ministers, as well as central bankers. International affairs ‑ like it or not ‑ are increasingly about economics.

Forging a relationship with the private sector is therefore indispensable if the UN wants to preserve its relevance over the long haul. The multilateral system, for its part, must seek closer ties with other centers of power and with the business community. Mr. Kofi Annan has been vigorously pursuing closer relations with all of these various fora, and we encourage him to do more of it.

Protecting the weak

Mr. President, responsible corporate partnership is also about protecting the weak. The UN was set up not only to guarantee peace and security but also to secure freedom from want. Despite its obvious advantages, globalization is leaving too many victims by the wayside. The gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen, and the poor suffer the most, in war and in peace. Meanwhile the private sector wields a lot of power in where it decides to buy, sell and invest. Those decisions may bear directly on the quality of life in many developing countries. Even though the odds are staggering, the UN system can make a difference ‑ in reducing poverty, gender inequality, child and maternal mortality. But it can only make a difference from a position of strength, from a platform shared by other actors at the international level ‑ from a position of shared responsibility. The Millennium Summit has declared poverty eradication the UN's number one priority. We applaud that. But fighting poverty is not only a moral imperative, as it always has been ‑ it has also become an economic one. Again a reason for the UN to become more inclusive of the private sector.

A bold future

Mr. President, distinguished delegates: "We the peoples" duly poses the question of how to take the UN forward.

Whatever the way forward, it needs to be a bold one. For too long, we have been remolding old ideas. While doing so, we have kept the UN on a very short leash, hardly allowing it to stray off the beaten paths. More of the same is not enough. The UN, in other words, is bound to miss the cue if we, the peoples, pursue our business as usual. The future will pass us by.

The alternative is an avenue much more ambitious. It amounts to using the UN system as a vehicle for the development of a new vision of world politics, a vision for the "post‑Westphalian" era. In such a vision, present trends would be given legitimacy and a conceptual framework. In such a