1. Aim and methodology
of this report
1. I am a great supporter of the United Nations (UN)
and I am personally convinced that the reform of this organisation
is in everybody’s interests, as the challenges of today’s world
– the maintenance of peace, the fight against poverty, the protection
of the environment – are very different from those of 60 years ago
and can be met only through a global effort.
2. The necessity of UN reform, in spite of its tormented history,
seems so apparent to me that I have often questioned myself why
the 47 member states of the Council of Europe – which account for
nearly a quarter of UN members – do not try to have a common reform
proposal. In order to find out why this is the case, I conducted
visits to a number of key countries, in Europe and outside, where
I held meetings with people having first-hand knowledge of the UN
system, whether from national administrations, think tanks or academia.
I also visited the UN Headquarters in New York twice, and met high-level
UN officials, ambassadors and scholars.
3. During these discussions, the diversity of national interests
amongst Council of Europe member states became very clear. The Council
of Europe counts amongst its members three permanent members of
the United Nations Security Council: while France and the United
Kingdom – two regional powers – co-operate very closely on the issue
of UN reform as well as on other key matters under the scrutiny
of the UN Security Council, Russia – as a global power with global
strategic and geopolitical interests – can afford to follow a different
approach. Even if these countries are partners in the context of
the Council of Europe and equally “big players”, together with Italy
and Germany, their weight on the global scene is different, and
so are their national interests.
4. Although aware of these limits, during my visits I tried to
explore whether a common ground could be found amongst the different
European proposals that are put forward to reform the UN system.
A part of my reflection is also whether the Council of Europe could
play a role in catalysing a minimum common position amongst its
member states.
5. I hope that this report will contribute to raising awareness
of the need to relaunch the political momentum behind the reform
process which has unfortunately been lost since 2005. The months
to come could be particularly favourable for this: on the one hand,
as far as the Council of Europe is concerned, the chairmanship of
the Committee of Ministers is held by Slovenia, a country whose
President has a deep knowledge of the United Nations and was one
of Kofi Annan’s main collaborators; on the other, as announced in
his electoral programme, President Obama will hopefully restore
the centrality of multilateralism in US foreign policy and will champion
the UN system: there are great expectations for his first intervention
at the opening of the UN General Assembly this month.
2. The United
Nations makes a difference
6. The United Nations Organisation as we know it today
is the result of a series of compromises which were negotiated primarily
amongst the great powers during the second world war and its immediate
aftermath. The UN is the result of a catastrophic conflict and is
meant primarily to avoid that a catastrophic conflict happens again.
In the minds of its founders, it should overcome the weaknesses
and the failures of the Society of Nations to “
save succeeding generations from the scourge
of war”.
7. The UN is also the result of a number of reforms which have
changed its structure and working methods over 64 years of existence.
Reform is a continuous process which cannot be dissociated from
the organisation itself: reform initiatives of the United Nations
have been proposed since its very foundation.
8. In the last decade, however, the need for a far-reaching reform
has started to be felt as more urgent, as a result of a perceived
serious crisis of the UN, affecting its efficiency and credibility.
9. Particularly critical moments which increased the perception
of a deep crisis of the UN system, also amongst the general public,
include international crises during which the Security Council was
unable to act due to the use or the threat of the use of veto rights
by its permanent members.
10. On several occasions, such as the attack against Iraq by the
United States and a coalition of allies in 2003, the general public
had the impression that unilateralism might have the upper hand
over multilateralism.
11. Similarly, in 2008, the inability of the UN Security Council
to reach a common position as regards the status of Kosovo
,
and to prevent the tensions between Russia and Georgia from escalating
into an all-out war, confirmed the incapability of the UN Security
Council to act timely and effectively against the opposition of
one of its permanent members (the so-called P 5).
12. However, statistics show that the recourse to the veto is
not very frequent: from 1945 to its break-up, the Soviet Union used
its veto 118 times; the Russian Federation has used it only 3 times;
the United States 82; the United Kingdom 32, of which 23 with the
United States; France 18 times, of which 13 times with the United States
and the United Kingdom. China has used the veto only 6 times.
The
last time that France and the United Kingdom exercised their veto
was in 1989.
13. Vetos exercised by states on their own are even rarer: the
UK has done so only 7 times, on the situation in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe),
while France only twice, in 1946 on Indonesia, and in 1976 on a
dispute with the Comoros.
14. In any case, describing the UN Security Council as a body
incapable of action is a gross misrepresentation: on the contrary,
since the break-up of the Soviet Union, the UN Security Council
has adopted a growing number of resolutions, reaching an activity
peak in the years 1991-1995, with 70 resolutions on average per
year, against less than 5 per year before 1990.
15. What is more important, several studies have concluded that
the number and deadliness of international and civil conflicts have
declined since the end of the Cold War and that this is in direct
correlation with the work of the United Nations.
16. The Human Security Report,
for instance, states that “the decline
in the number of international wars since the late 1970s is associated
with the demise of Colonialism and the end of the Cold War(…). After
World War II there was an unprecedented increase in the number of
civil wars. But in the 1990s the number of civil wars declined even
more dramatically (…). Since the end of the Cold War the UN has
led an upsurge of international activism that has played a critical
role in reducing the number of violent conflicts”.
17. The reason is that the end of the Cold War, and of the antagonism
between the two superpowers, made it possible for the United Nations
to play an effective global security role and even go far beyond
what its founders had hoped for: a number of UN instruments and
bodies were set up in the field of conflict prevention, conflict
management, peace-keeping and post-conflict peace-building which
were not envisaged by the UN Charter.
18. The increase in preventive diplomacy spurred by the United
Nations “has helped prevent a number of latent conflicts from crossing
the threshold into warfare, while the rise in peacemaking activities
has been associated with a major increase in negotiated peace settlements.
Approximately half of peace settlements negotiated between 1946
and 2003 have been signed since the end of the Cold War.”
3. Strengthening the
United Nations
19. Once clarified that the impact of the United Nations
in the maintenance of peace is still considerable despite its weaknesses,
it can be acknowledged that there is a large scope for improvement.
20. First of all, there are some important concerns as regards
the impact and the efficiency of the United Nations, due to:
i. the recourse or, more frequently,
the threat by the P 5 to use their veto power, which paralyses the Security
Council and makes it incapable of acting against major threats to
international peace and security, including when there are serious
risks of widespread human rights violations and even genocide for
the population of a given country;
ii. the absence of an efficient system to ensure the implementation
of the Security Council’s resolutions;
iii. the loss of political authority by the UN General Assembly,
in the light of:
a. the search for
consensus in its decision-making, which waters down the content
of its resolutions;
b. the numerical preponderance of one regional group, the
G77, over the others, which gives rise to lofty resolutions which
are not backed up by an effective power of enforcement;
c. the fact that geopolitical interests guide the voting
decisions of member states, thus affecting constructive decision-making
focusing on substantive issues;
iv. the fact that the UN agencies suffer from serious disorganisation,
lack of co-ordination and a waste of resources;
v. the fact that the budgetary contributions of member states
are determined according to criteria which reflected the economic
situation of members after the Second World War, and do not correspond
to current economic realities.
21. But, above all, some words are missing from the UN Charter:
they are democracy and fair representation.
22. These words were far from the concerns of the founders of
the organisation but they are essential in today’s world. The Council
of Europe should exert all of its political weight and authority
to ensure that these concepts are included in the current debate
on UN reform and finally translated into the UN system, consistent with
its values and aims.
23. This is a daunting task. We must find a way to redistribute
power within the United Nations to reflect the current geopolitical
balance without the spur of a major catastrophe behind us, such
as the Second World War, and without provoking a new catastrophe.
In addition, we should ensure that democracy, as a value, is endorsed
in UN mechanisms, with the creation of a parliamentary dimension,
as already recommended by our Assembly.
4. The Assembly’s
position on the United Nations
24. The Assembly has a long history of support of the
United Nations and multilateralism. The main issues which it has
addressed over the last decade with reference to the United Nations
include:
4.1. UN reform
25. The Assembly supports a reform process aimed at improving
the functioning of the organisation. In particular, it wishes the
UN Security Council to be more transparent, democratic and representative
of the current United Nations membership.
In addition,
the
Assembly has taken position in favour of a reform which would improve
the capability of the Security Council to act in cases of massive
and systematic violations of human rights with grave humanitarian
consequences.
However, the Assembly has never
supported any specific reform model, as regards composition, number
of seats and veto rights.
26. As regards the UN General Assembly, the Assembly believes
that it should be given more political leverage, by enhancing the
authority of its President in two ways: extending his/her mandate
to three years and considering electing a political figure to this
post.
4.2. From parliamentary
involvement in UN work to a parliamentary dimension
27. The position of the Assembly on this subject has
evolved over the years: while in the late ‘90s the Assembly only
called for a greater involvement of representatives of national
parliaments in the activities of the United Nations,
in
2006 it called explicitly for the establishment of a parliamentary
dimension of the United Nations and proposed a model for it.
28. In its
Resolution
1476 (2006) on Parliamentary dimension of the United Nations (Rapporteur:
Mrs De Zulueta), the Assembly calls for a durable and forward-looking
reform, which should be led by the objective of rendering the whole
UN system more transparent, legitimate and accountable to its member
states, as well as to the public. For this reason, the reform cannot
be limited to making the Organisation more reflective of current geopolitical
realities – for instance by reforming the UN Security Council -
but should aim at incorporating democratic mechanisms into the UN
system, with a view to redressing the democratic deficit in global governance
and bridging the distance between the UN and the people.
29. In this context, the closer involvement of parliamentarians
in UN activities is a fundamental instrument to associate the people
– through their elected representatives – to the UN deliberative
process, the oversight of UN activities and the monitoring of the
implementation of UN decisions by member states. This involvement should
be enhanced progressively: it should start by ensuring that parliamentarians
are fully informed of UN activities, culminating with the inclusion
in the UN system of a parliamentary assembly with consultative functions
for the UN General Assembly.
4.3. Co-operation between
the Council of Europe and the United Nations
30. In all its recommendations on the United Nations,
the Assembly has asked the Committee of Ministers to examine ways
to strengthen co-operation between the two organisations.
31. At the moment, the Council of Europe enjoys the status of
observer with the UN General Assembly. In this context, the Secretary
General of the Council of Europe as well as Parliamentary Assembly
members are involved every other year in a debate on the co-operation
between the United Nations and regional and other organisations.
This debate is normally the opportunity for the sub-committee on
external relations of the Assembly’s Political Affairs Committee
to meet in the UN Headquarters in New York, and hold an exchange
of views with UN officers.
32. In addition, the Council of Europe and its Assembly have working
relations with a number of UN agencies and bodies, including the
UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Human Rights Council
(HRC), the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Committee
against Torture, UNDP, UNESCO, etc., as well as with relevant UN
Rapporteurs, Special Representatives of the UN Secretary General
and mediators.
5. The greatest challenge:
reform of the Security Council (UNSC)
33. The part of the reform which has proved to be the
most elusive to secure concerns the Security Council.
34. In the history of the United Nations, the UNSC has been reformed
only once, in 1963, when four new non-permanent seats were added.
The reform of this body requires the agreement of more than 2/3
of the members of the UN General Assembly, including all the P 5.
35. The main open questions for the UNSC reform include:
i. the expansion of the number of
permanent seats, and according to what criteria;
ii. the expansion of the number of non-permanent seats, and
according to what criteria;
iii. what members should have the veto, and whether there should
be limits to its exercise;
iv. working methods;
v. relations with the UN General Assembly
36. There is agreement that the Security Council should be made
more transparent, accountable, and equitably representative. However,
despite several models having been proposed since 1993, when negotiations
started,
none
of them has so far reached the wide consensus which is necessary
for a reform to succeed. The main proposals are:
Proposal
|
Permanent
seats
|
Non-permanent
seats
|
Veto
|
G-4
(Brazil,
Germany, India and Japan)
|
6 new seats (one for each
G-4 country + 2 for Africa)
|
4 new seats
|
No veto rights should
be given to the new permanent members while, at a later stage, the
use of veto should be limited or abandoned by all the permanent members
|
African
Union
|
6 new seats (2 for Africa,
2 for Asia, 1 for Latin America and 1 for Western Europe)
|
5 new seats (including
2 for Africa)
|
New permanent members
would have same veto rights
|
Uniting
for Consensus
|
No new seat
|
10 new seats (members chosen
on a rota basis according to regional groups, including 3 from Africa,
3 from Asia, 2 from Latin America, 1 from Western Europe and 1 from
Eastern Europe)
|
Calls for restraint on
the use of veto
|
S-5
(Costa
Rica, Jordan, Liechtenstein, Singapore and Switzerland)
|
|
|
Recourse to veto should
be motivated. It should not be possible in cases of genocide and
serious human rights violations
|
6. 2005: what went
wrong?
37. Reforming the United Nations was a priority for former
Secretary General, Kofi Annan, who put a great deal of personal
commitment into this challenge. In the ten years of his tenure (1997-2006),
Kofi Annan made numerous proposals with significant implications
for how the organisation conducts its work, implements its mandates,
and manages the funds entrusted to it by its member states
38. The culmination of this reform effort was the setting up of
the High-Level Panelon Threats,
Challenges and Change, which, in 2004, produced the report A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility,
defining reform as a necessity, suggesting measures to enhance consensus
and strengthen the UN and proposing two different models for a reformed
UN Security Council:
Proposal
|
Permanent
seats
|
Non-permanent
seats
|
Model
A
|
Six more seats (two for
Africa, two for Asia and the Pacific, one for Europe and one for
America)
|
Three additional seats,
to be held for two years and non renewable.
|
Model
B
|
None
|
A new category of eight
seats should be introduced, to be held for four renewable years +
one additional non-renewable seat to be held for two years.
|
39. Building up on the High-Level Panel report, in 2005,
the Secretary General issued the report In Larger Freedom: Towards
Development, Security and Human Rights for All, recommending far-reaching
reforms designed to increase and enhance the normative and operational
capacities of the UN in the areas of development, security, and
human rights. The report also endorsed the proposals made by theHigh-Level Panelon Threats, Challenges and Change
as regards the reform of the UN Security Council while leaving it
to the member states to decide which of the two models should be
preferable. The Secretary General called for an agreement to be
reached before the 2005 World Summit.
40. Despite this attempt to push the reform of the UNSC through,
UN member states remained deeply divided over core issues, such
as the creation of new permanent members, who they should be, and
whether or not they should have veto rights.
41. A combination of elements led to the failure of this reform
attempt: according to his biography
,
Kofi Annan was under strong pressure to retire; at geopolitical
level, the balance of power amongst different countries was still
not clear, with the war in Iraq not appearing yet as a defeat, the
Bush administration not supporting the United Nations, and China
and India on the rise. A decisive element was that China would not accept
a permanent seat for Japan. Arguing that differences among the member
states were expanding instead of narrowing down, in July 2005, the
Chinese Representative to the UN declared that
“China is firmly opposed to setting an artificial
timeframe for Security Council reform”.
42. In spite of the impossibility of reaching an agreement on
a renewed Security Council, part of the reform announced by the
2005 World Summit Outcome was achieved, with the establishment of
two new bodies:
6.1. the Human Rights
Council (HRC)
43. The HRC was established in 2006 to replace the United
Nations Commission on Human Rights. It counts 47 members distributed
by region, each serving a three-year term, elected by the UNGA with
a majority vote. Compared to its predecessor, in the HRC, the human
rights record of candidates plays a more important role in affecting
their chances for membership;
6.2. the UN Peace-building
Commission (PBC)
44. In 2005, following the recommendations of the then
Secretary General and his High Level Panel, the Security Council
and the General Assembly ended a long phase of negotiations by adopting,
by consensus, joint resolutions 1645 and 60/180 establishing a new
PBC. The Commission addresses a critical gap within the UN and global
system by providing a co-ordinated, coherent and integrated approach
to post-conflict peacebuilding and facilitating dialogue amongst
key actors. The PBC comprises 31 members and has its own Peacebuilding
Fund.
7. A transitional
reform of the UNSC as a way out of the deadlock
45. In the light of the diversity of proposals and the
stand-still in the negotiations, a number of Council of Europe member
states, led by France and the United Kingdom, have recently started
to support a model calling for a provisional reform of the Security
Council, to be implemented over the next 15 years.
46. The reasoning behind this idea is that the world is going
through a shift in power relations, and that a new and lasting configuration
of the Security Council will be possible only once this process
is concluded.
47. It is a fact that the acquisition of a permanent seat is a
key achievement in the positioning and the standing of a country
on the global scene and that regional antagonism between countries,
such as China and Japan, Argentina and Brazil, Italy and Germany,
has so far prevented agreement being reached on who should attain
this coveted prize.
48. The transitional model envisages the creation of a new category
of seats enjoying a longer mandate than the one of the current elected
members, which could also be renewed. After a first period of implementation
of the reform, it could be decided to transform this new category
of seats into permanent ones.
8. VIII. 2009: a new
impetus in the negotiations
49. On 19 February 2009, intergovernmental negotiations
on Security Council reform made a fresh start in an Informal Plenary
Session of the General Assembly, pursuant to a unanimous decision
by the General Assembly last September. The negotiation process
is ongoing, and focuses on:
i. categories of UNSC members: this is one of the issues on which,
although there is no agreement yet, member states are demonstrating
a margin of flexibility. A large group of member states call for
an enlargement in both categories of membership (permanent and non-permanent),
while others would limit it to non-permanent seats. The transitional
solution, based on a longer-term renewability of seats, could be
the solution which allows the reform process to move forward while
enjoying broad support.
ii. veto rights: although
the veto is criticised by a number of UN member states, there is
common acceptance that its elimination is not realistic at this
stage. Some countries would like to restrict it, for instance, to
exclude it in cases such as genocide, war crimes and crimes against
humanity, to introduce an obligation to provide an explanation for
using it, to use it only for vital issues, to bar it where a permanent
member is a party to a conflict or to overule it by a qualified
majority. On the other hand, some states support the extension of
the veto to new permanent members, provided that there is clarity
of who they are. The general perception amongst the P 5 is that
the veto is at the core of the system of collective security and
should not be handled like other parts of the reform. The P 5 underline
that the veto right is already exercised with restraint and suggest
that, once a comprehensive UNSC is adopted, they could make a voluntary
– political – commitment on how to limit its exercise.
iii. regional representation:
there is a common acceptance that the UNSC in its current composition
does not reflect geopolitical realities and needs to be rebalanced.
The majority of member states believe that this rebalancing should
not be based only on equitable regional representation but also
on the contribution to the maintenance of international peace and
security.
iv. size of an enlarged UNSC:
so far nobody disputes the fact that the UNSC should be enlarged,
but there is a trade-off between expanding it and preserving its
capability to act swiftly in the face of crises. Some member states
point out that the increase in the number of seats would entail per se a rebalancing of the power
structure within the Council, as a higher proportion of votes would
be required to approve resolutions and the weight percentage of
permanent members would decline.
v. working methods:
this part of the reform does not require an amendment to the Charter,
and is easier to attain. The main conclusion drawn in the ongoing
talks is that this matter should be excluded from the negotiation
of far-reaching reform packages and be dealt with separately, in
order to improve its prospects of success. The main problems with
current UNSC working methods are the difficulty for non-UNSC members
in having access to substantive information on UNSC work, and in
having direct access to the UNSC in cases where their interests
are specially affected and in particular when they have an item
on the agenda. Far from being
a technical matter, therefore, the reform of working methods could increase
the transparency and the legitimacy of the Council’s decisions,
without necessarily impinging on the prerogatives of its members.
vi. relations between the UNSC
and the General Assembly: the main problem is the so-called encroachment,
which is closely related to the broadening definition of “security”.
Working with this broad definition, the UNSC has been increasingly
discussing subjects that fall under the competence of the General
Assembly. So far, proposals have been made to expand on the mechanisms
of interaction between the two bodies, through a regular and institutionalised
dialogue.
9. Key impressions
from my visits
50. I would like to summarise below some of the main
issues raised during the meetings I held in preparation of this
report. I also take this opportunity to thank all those who kindly
agreed to meet me.
9.1. Stockholm (20 November
2007)
51. In Stockholm, I was introduced to the 4 Nations Initiative
(4NI), a reform project sponsored by Sweden, Thailand, Chile and
South Africa, a group deliberately involving countries from four
continents and addressing the problems of the UN budget, administration,
staff and project management. The 4NI also raises important issues
such as the lack of trust among UN member states, their fear of
losing their control of UN mandates, the poor accountability and
transparency of the decision-making process, including the way in
which UN mandates are formulated.
9.2. Oslo (21 November
2007)
52. From the meetings I had in Oslo, I retain the remark
that “too much has been tried for too
long with too little real outcome”: there is a kind of
reform fatigue which affects all those who are involved in the process, including
UN staff. This might perhaps explain why the current UN Secretary
General has “calmed down” and is not pushing for a more intense
resumption of reform negotiations.
9.3. Berlin (5 February
2008)
53. My discussions in Berlin focused on the interest
of Germany to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council,
together with Japan, South Africa and Brazil (the G4 proposal),
in order to render the Security Council more representative of today’s
world power relations. It was stressed to me that the 2005 reform attempt
did not fail only because of China’s firm opposition to Japan becoming
a permanent UNSC member, but also due to the inability of the other
two leading African states – Egypt and Nigeria - to accept South
Africa as the only permanent member from Africa and the proposal
that new permanent members should not enjoy veto rights.
9.4. Wellington (18
June 2008)
54. I used the invitation to participate in a scientific
seminar in Dunedin to pay a visit to the Foreign Ministry of New
Zealand and discuss their government’s reform ideas. In Wellington,
where some people seem to be interested in joining the Council of
Europe as an observer state, I was told that New Zealand is a strong supporter
of UN reform in order to modernise the organisation and make it
more reflective of the reality of today’s world. Concerning the
reform of the UN Security Council, New Zealand seems to be very
much interested in including Japan amongst the new permanent members
and insists that veto powers should not be extended beyond the current
P5. Together with Zambia, New Zealand is leading a working group
to study how to improve the process of revision of UN mandates.
9.5. Ljubljana (14 July
2008)
55. In our meeting, the Slovenian President Danilo Türk,
a former close collaborator of the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan
in the UN secretariat, coined the sentence “the
UN badly needs reform, the world badly needs a reformed UN”. “The big reform efforts in the first five years
of the new millennium failed because it could not satisfy all the
national interests”. President Türk stressed that there
is no way to wash away national interests but that they should be
reconciled in a reform approach which is more “inclusive” and “systematic”. President Türk is
one of the few leaders who also support the idea of incorporating
a parliamentary assembly in the UN General Assembly: “today the time has come for this idea”.
9.6. London (8 September
2008)
56. In London, I did not only meet the officials working
on UN matters in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office but also the
former UK permanent representative to the UN, Lord Hannay of Chiswick,
currently Chair of the UN Association-UK (UNA-UK). His view is that,
in the UN context, “reform has becomea poisoned word which is overused”.
He is ready to speak and reflect on the need of UN reform but he
thinks that this effort should focus more on policy reform, which
should include institutional reform. Lord Hannay refers, for instance, to
the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit as a positive reform example.
He regrets that, in the post-cold war period, the UN was presented
with great opportunities and new challenges (state failures, terrorism,
genocide) but lacked the resources to meet them. In the first eight
years of the XXI century, much damage has been done to the idea
of multilateralism, and we are still in the process of recovering.
His final words during our meeting were: “let’s
give the reform of the UN Security Council a rest. Let’s focus on
more hopeful things”.
9.7. Paris (9 September
2008)
57. In Paris, I was told that “the greater Europe”,
meaning the 47 member states of the Council of Europe, has never
been considered as a possible single actor at the UN level; this
is not the case for EU member states, who express a common position
in 90% of the votes in the UN General Assembly. This is of course
the result of a very intense negotiation activity, with approximately
600 meetings over a period of only 4 months. This does not mean,
however, that time is ripe for a single EU seat in the UN Security
Council, especially if this would imply that France and the United
Kingdom should give up theirs. As far as the reform of the UN Security Council
is concerned, the priority of France is increasing its efficiency
and credibility through a larger representation and the introduction
of restrictions on the use of veto powers.
9.8. Brussels (13 October
2008)
58. Belgium held a seat in the UN Security Council in
2007-2008 and looks forward to chairing the UN General Assembly
in 2010. For Belgium, the most important aspect of the reform is
the coherence of UN work (“one UN”) and the increase of the transparency
of its work. It was pointed out to me that the reduction of the hegemony
of the current permanent members in the UN Security Council would
risk making this body less effective.
9.9. The Hague (28 October
2008)
59. In the Hague, I had an insight into the difficulty
of achieving a real management reform of the UN system. Between
1946 and 2005, nine thousand mandates were reformulated and are
still pending; some of them are completely outdated while others
overlap. The Netherlands supports the “ONE UN” proposal while focusing
at the same time on the reform of the UN Security Council. The interim
reform solution, to be applied for a period of 15 years, seems more
and more to be a viable option. It would imply the creation of a
new category of non-permanent seats to which countries could be
re-elected for a longer period, taking into account their political, financial,
military and personnel commitment to the UN.
9.10. Ottawa (3 November
2008)
60. I was surprised at how reluctant the officials of
the Canadian conservative government today seems to be when asked
what follow-up has been given to the very progressive reform position
that Canada showed in the years 1999-2000, when Canada sponsored
the introduction of concepts such as human security and the responsibility
to protect.
9.11. Moscow (17 January
2009)
61. In Moscow, I was told that the reform of the UN Security
Council should not only focus on the enlargement of its membership
but also on enhancing the efficiency of its work. In this sense,
Russia is very much interested in increasing the capacity of the
UNSC to respond to crises and conflicts in the world more rapidly
and more efficiently and to achieve a better implementation of its
decisions. Russia also supports the idea that the General Assembly
should play a more central role within the UN system, while stressing
that the intergovernmental character of the organisation should
not be put into question. Russia does not wish to see any limitation
of veto powers and does not think that permanent members should
be called to explain the use of the veto before the UN General Assembly.
9.12. Rome (5 February
2009)
62. Italy regrets the divisions in Europe when it comes
to the issue of UN reform. Being aware that Italy cannot realistically
imagine becoming a permanent member of the UN Security Council,
the Italian government seems to be very much engaged in developing
a reform project which is genuinely transnationally-based. In this
context, a ministerial conference on the reform of the UN Security
Council was organised in Rome on 5 February 2009. On this occasion,
the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs stressed that a more representative Security
Council would be able to respond more effectively to the new challenges
and threats to international security. The reform, must however
be comprehensive: there should be more transparency in the work
of the Security Council and better co-operation with the General
Assembly. The Security Council should be “more inclusive”: it should
not be open only to a number of states belonging to an élite, but
be a forum where also the small and middle-sized states can put
forward their case when they have a special interest to do so.
10. The Council of
Europe as a source of inspiration for the UN
63. In his book “What’s wrong
with the United Nations and how to fix it?”, the American
Professor, Thomas Weiss, mentions the high quality of human rights
protection in Europe, referring to the European Convention on Human
Rights and the European Court: “the details
of the European situation merit scrutiny because it shows that muscular
supranational protection of human rights is possible in international
relations when there is sufficient political will. Unfortunately,
the European situation also shows how far the UN has to go before
it can provide the same sort of human rights regime. Popular and
state commitment to the serious protection of human rights is much
greater in Europe than in other regions. There are human rights
regimes in the Western hemisphere and Africa but they do not equal
the European record. These efforts moving beyond the state to the
individual at least point the way for the UN”.
11. Can Council of
Europe member states agree on a common position on at least some
aspects of the reform?
64. In my opinion, it should be possible for the Parliamentary
Assembly to catalyse consensus on a common position of Council of
Europe member states on some aspects of the UN reform. I am not
naïve: I do not think that our Assembly could reach a common position
as regards the membership and size of a reformed UN Security Council,
but it could indeed reach a common position as regards:
i. its working methods, in order to
make them more transparent and inclusive,
ii. veto, in order to prevent it being used in cases of genocide
and serious human rights violations,
iii. the UNSC’s relationship with the UN General Assembly,
in order to improve interaction between the two bodies.
65. In addition, PACE should be able to make concrete suggestions
as regards the revitalisation of the General Assembly, as nearly
all Council of Europe member states have declared their commitment
to relaunch the role and the authority of this body as “the chief deliberative, policy-making and
representative organ of the United Nations”.
66. Similarly, all Council of Europe member states declare their
full support to the idea that the UN system should be rationalised,
and many of them support the recommendations of the High Level Panel on UN System-Wide Coherence,
also known as Stoltenberg Panel.
67. This Panel carried out a study of the UN operational activities
and assessed how the UN system works in practice, also analysing
possible areas of overlap between different UN agencies, especially
when several of them operate in the same country. The core recommendation
resulting from this work is that the UN should “deliver as one at country level: One programme,
One leader, One budgetary framework and One office”, which would
improve efficiency, communication and visibility in addition to
allowing a better allocation of resources.
12. Promoting the parliamentary
dimension of the United Nations
68. The Assembly has already taken position in favour
of the introduction of a parliamentary dimension in the UN system
and it is not my intention to re-open the question. On the contrary,
I would like to promote the Assembly’s previous recommendations
in the appropriate fora, in order to seek broader support for the
idea, also on the part of UN staff and national governments.
69. The Assembly is not the only body to support the establishment
of a UN parliamentary dimension: a number of non-governmental organisations
and parliamentary bodies have strongly lobbied for it.
70. For instance, the Committee for a Democratic UN (
KDUN, Komitee für eine demokratische UNO),
since its creation in 2003, has been conducting a variety of activities
and campaigns in order to promote the establishment of a Parliamentary
Assembly of the United Nations.
This non-governmental organisation, registered
in Germany, connects academics, parliamentarians, non-governmental
organisations, public figures and dedicated citizens from all around
the world who work on this goal.
71. Even the European Parliament has embraced the idea of setting
up, in co-operation with world or international regional parliamentary
assemblies, a network of parliamentarians to act as a Consultative Parliamentary
Assembly under the United Nations as a premise to the establishment
of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA) within the UN
system.
72. I am well aware that the introduction of a parliamentary dimension
in the UN system is a major challenge, and that many governments
are reluctant to share with elected representatives something which
they feel belongs to their exclusive remit.
73. However, I think that this attitude is a mistake. Increasing
the democratic character of the United Nations can only but strengthen
the organisation, making it closer to the people, more legitimate
and more credible.
74. The problem is how to promote this idea. I believe that a
step-by-step approach should be envisaged. The first step would
be actively promoting the Parliamentary Assembly, as an assembly
functioning according to democratic rules and where delegations
must ensure a fair representation of the forces present in their national
parliaments, as a model for existing international regional parliamentary
assemblies and for the establishment of new ones. These parliamentary
assemblies could then appoint representatives who would sit in a
UN parliamentary assembly.
75. As regards the possibility that the Inter-Parliamentary Union
might evolve into a UN Parliamentary Assembly, I would like to recall
some remarks made by the Committee for a democratic UN,
which
I share: the IPU is an association of national parliaments. One
of its goals is strengthening the ability of national parliaments
to exercise their oversight functions at national level, in matters
of international nature. Although a global assembly with close working
relations with the UN system, the IPU does not have the capacity
nor the ambition to exercise an oversight over UN bodies and institutions
in order to increase their accountability.
13. The need for transnational
democracy
76. An article by former UN Secretary-General Boutros
Boutros-Ghali captures very well the link between the challenges
of today’s world and the need to promote democracy beyond the level
of states:
“The
challenges of our time are enormous. Problems which can only be
solved effectively at the global level are multiplying. The requirement
of political governance is increasingly extending beyond state borders.
Climate change, environmental devastation, social disparity, terrorism,
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, population growth
and the growing shortage of fresh water and basic foods are just a
few of the pressing issues. Yet, the current economic crisis is
at the top of the agenda. The global economic slowdown and price
disruptions magnify the impacts of the other problems. In this globalized world,
no country or individual will be left untouched by its consequences.
The last time an economic crisis of such magnitude occurred,
it led to the rise of dreadful anti-democratic trends and social
upheaval. It contributed to the rise of fascism, the outbreak of
the Second World War and genocide. During the current global economic
crisis, we should not turn a blind eye to this lesson.
Thus, while world leaders ponder governance reforms now,
they must not lose sight of the importance of strengthening democracy.
Measures to sustain the stability of the financial system and to
absorb the immediate shocks of the crisis are, of course, in focus.
However, the crisis should also be used as an opportunity to address
a largely ignored aspect of democratization: Democracy within the
state will diminish in importance if the process of democratization
is not extended to the system of international governance as well.
Applying democratic principles to international institutions must
be an essential component of any reform of global governance. (…)
This project includes the task of giving the world's citizens
a more direct say in global affairs. A direct link between global
institutions and the people on the spot needs to be established.
But how could such a project of global democratization be approached?
One indispensable means to this end is the establishment
of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly.(…) A United Nations
Parliamentary Assembly - a global body of elected representatives
- could invigorate our institutions of global governance with unprecedented
democratic legitimacy, transparency, and accountability. Initially,
the assembly could have a largely consultative function. Over time
its authority and powers could evolve. It could be complementary
to the UN General Assembly and its establishment, in the first step
at least, and would not require a cumbersome reform of the UN Charter. President
Barack Obama recently stated that the absence of oversight is one
of the major problems we are facing with regard to the international
financial system. A global parliamentary assembly could play an
important role in exercising genuine and independent oversight over
the global system's array of institutions.”
77. As regards the objection that such an Assembly would defeat
its purpose because the majority of states are not democratic, I
cannot agree. On the contrary, a UN Parliamentary Assembly could
be a strong tool to support the democratisation process at national
level, especially if PACE is the model for it.
14. Global governance
reform
78. In his inspiring UN analysis, US Professor Thomas
G. Weiss concludes with a vision that we need to think about a reformed
UN in order to establish a new kind of global governance. Weiss
writes: “The malfunctioning of today's
international system has not led to a new paradigm but rather to
experiments with a useful analytical tool, global governance, which
helps to understand what is happening but does not push us to prescribe
what should happen. More and more of us are willing to admit that
we are living in a “post-Westphalian” era (...) but it provides
neither a catchy nor accurate label for the era to come.
79. Like the UN, global governance
is a bridge between the old and the as yet unborn. Global governance also
resembles the UN in that we are unable to use either to solve those
pesky problems without passports that are staring us in the face
- global warming, genocide, money-laundering by terrorists, and
worldwide pandemics like AIDS."
80. The former Deputy Secretary General, administrator of the
UN Development Programme and British Minister, Lord Malloch Brown
concluded his "John W.Holmes Lecture" under the title "Can the UN
be reformed?" (Published in Global Governance, New York Nr 14 (2008)
with the thesis and the question:
"The
world has never in human history been more integrated but less governed.
Problems from terrorism to climate change, crime, poverty, migration,
public health, security and trade have escaped national control
and the UN is in no state to catch them. How long can we allow such
global dysfunction to endure?"
81. Some paragraphs before, Malloch Brown showed the way nobody
can bypass when he stated: “The roadblock
to reform is intergovernmental gridlock. A good Secretary General,
like Kofi Annan, and a dedicated committed UN staff alone cannot
overcome this obstacle. Nor is it right to single out the US, the
G‑77 or others. All of these problems are symptoms of a system imprisoned
in a 1945 structure that sets everyone at each others’ throats in
a 2007 world. The UN will continue to disappoint until statespersons
are willing to step forward and negotiate a new structure that gives
everybody significant confidence of ownership.”
15. Conclusions
and recommendations
82. The world needs the United Nations as the only legitimate
system of global governance capable of saving successive generations
from the scourge of war and coming to grips with today’s global
challenges: poverty, climate change, weapons of mass destruction
and terrorism.
83. No coalition of the willing or alliance of democracies could
ever replace the United Nations, because it would lack the legitimacy
stemming from the Charter, a set of binding rules that 192 states
have vowed to respect.
84. My hope is that, with the election of a new administration,
the United States will be able to put its political weight behind
multilateralism and a reform of international institutions, including
the United Nations, in a democratic direction.
85. Finally, I think that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council
of Europe has a major role to play in promoting itself as a model
for new or existing parliamentary assemblies and for promoting transnational democracy.
* * *
Reporting Committee: Political
Affairs Committee.
Reference to Committee: Reference
No. 3294 of 22 January 2007
Draft resolution and draft recommendation adopted
unanimously by the Committee on 10 September 2009
Members of the Committee : Mr Göran Lindblad (Chairman),
Mr David Wilshire (Vice-Chairman),
Mr Björn Von Sydow (Vice-Chairman) (alternate: Mrs Kerstin Lundgren), Mrs Kristina Ojuland
(Vice-Chairperson) (alternate: Mr Andres Herkel),
Mrs Fátima Aburto Baselga (alternate: Mr Miguel Arias Cañete), Mr Françis Agius, Mr Alexander Babakov, Mr
Viorel Badea (alternate: Mr Ioan Mang),
Mr Denis Badré, Mr Ryszard Bender,
Mr Andris Bērzinš, Mr Pedrag
Boškovic, Mr Luc Van den Brande, Mr Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu,
Mr Lorenzo Cesa, Mr Titus Corlătean,
Ms Anna Čurdová, Mr Rick Daems, Mr Dumitru Diacov, Ms Josette
Durrieu, Mr Frank Fahey, Mr Piero Fassino,
Mr Per-Kristian Foss (alternate: Mr Vidar Bjørnstad),
Mr György Frunda, Mr Jean-Charles Gardetto, Mr Marco Gatti, Mr Charles
Goerens, Mr Andreas Gross,
Mr Michael Hancock, Mr Davit
Harutiunyan (alternate: Mrs Naira Zohrabyan),
Mr Joachim Hörster, Mrs Sinikka Hurskainen, Mr Tadeusz Iwiński, Mr Bakir Izetbegović,
Mr Michael Aastrup Jensen, Mr Miloš Jevtić, Mr Emmanouil Kefaloyiannis,
Mrs Birgen Keleş, Mr Victor
Kolesnikov (alternate: Mrs Ohla Herasym’yuk),
Mr Konstantion Kosachev,
Mr Jean-Pierre Kucheida, Ms Darja Lavtižar-Bebler, Mr René van der
Linden, Mr Dariusz Lipiński, Mr
Juan Fernando López Aguilar (alternate: Mrs Meritxell Batet Lamaña), Mr Younal Loutfi,
Mr Gennaro Malgieri, Mr Dick Marty, Mr Frano Matušić, Mr Dragoljub
Mićunović, Mr Jean-Claude Mignon,
Ms Nadezhda Mikhailova, Mr Aydin Mirzazada, Ms Lilja Mósesdóttir,
Mr Joāo Bosco Mota Amaral,
Mrs Olga Nachtmannová, Mr Gebhard Negele,
Mrs Miroslava Nemcova, Mr Zsolt Németh, Mr Fritz Neugebauer (alternate:
Mr Franz-Eduard Kühnel),
Mr Hryhoriy Omelchenko, Mr Theodoros
Pangalos, , Mr Ivan Popescu,
Mr Christos Pourgourides,
Mr John Prescott (alternate: Mr John Austin),
Mr Gabino Puche, Mr Amadeu
Rossell Tarradellas, Mr Ilir Rusmali, Mr Oliver Sambevski, Mr Ingo
Schmitt (alternate: Mr Eduard Lintner),
Mr Samad Seyidov, Mr Leonid Slutsky,
Mr Rainder Steenblock, Mr
Zoltán Szabó, Mr Mehmet Tekelioğlu, Mr Han Ten Broeke,
Lord Tomlinson (alternate: Mr Rudi Vis),
Mr Petré Tsiskarishvili (alternate: Mr Guiorgui Gabashvili), Mr Mihai Tudose, Mr
Ilyas Umakhanov (alternate: Mr Alexander Pochinok),
Mr José Vera Jardim, Mr Luigi Vitali, Mr Wolfgang Wodarg, Ms Gisela
Wurm, Mr Emanuelis Zingueris.
Ex-officio: MM. Mátyás Eörsi, Tiny Kox
N.B.: The names of the members who took part in the meeting
are printed in bold
Secretariat of the committee:
Mrs Nachilo, Mr Chevtchenko, Mrs Sirtori-Milner