Liaison Newsletter > LIAISON Vol. 2, No. 5, September 1998 - Articles

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Challenge and Opportunity at the UN
by Geoffrey Pearson National Vice-President United Nations Association in Canada

Canada is a candidate for election to a two-year term on the UN Security Council at the 1998 session of the General Assembly this autumn. If elected, Canada will serve in this capacity for the sixth time since 1948. Why is the government keen to accept the potential burdens and challenges of membership at a time when the role of the UN in world affairs is bedeviled by growing doubt and controversy, not least in Washington, where Canada’s major interests lie? The answer is central to Canadian foreign policy.

The hopes aroused by the end of the Cold War and what appeared to be a vigorous new era of UN peacekeeping in the early nineties, celebrated by heads of government at the 50th anniversary meeting of the General Assembly in 1995, are now much less high. Two main factors are responsible.

The first is the unexpected obstacles which confronted UN attempts to control conflict in Africa, although much was done to provide humanitarian relief. Lives lost in Somalia and Rwanda and the failure to mount an operation in the former Zaire have given pause to Western governments formerly anxious to strengthen UN authority. Moreover, in some places (e.g. Afghanistan, Algeria, Congo, Sri Lanka), the news is about massacre, not about UN efforts to keep the peace. Most current armed conflicts such as these are domestic and, despite their intensity and scale, many UN members are reluctant to support a UN override of claims to sovereignty Finally, attempts led by Canada and other traditional supporters of peacekeeping to strengthen the capacity of the UN to react rapidly to imminent conflict, a weakness dramatically evident in Rwanda, have made only slow progress.

The second factor causing concern is the mounting UN budget deficit, now almost a billion dollars, of which almost two thirds is owed by the United States. The US assessed share of the budget is 25%, and it has apparently made the full payment of its assessment, including arrears, conditional on the reduction of its share to 20%, as well as reform of UN management. While the latter is taking place, there is no assurance that the former will be agreed to by the Assembly. A continuing impasse could lead to the loss of the US right to vote by early next year.

On the other hand, and despite these obstacles, the need for a near-universal organisation devoted to the purposes of the Charter - deterring aggression, mediating conflict, promoting development and human rights - has never been greater. Weapons of mass destruction proliferate, climate change threatens, poverty spawns disease and crime as population growth outpaces income. Indeed, most governments are unable to offer the security that sovereignty implies. The "failed state" is now a common phrase. In such circumstances, international cooperation to meet these and other threats to human well-being is a necessity, and organisations designed for these purposes are essential. Regional groups can help, but none can act alone where threats to security are global in nature.

The UN can and does convene meetings of its 185 members to promote cooperation or to draft legal means of dealing with the dangers mentioned above - damage to the environment or crimes against humanity, for example - and the specialised agencies have long acted as regulatory bodies or as standard setters. Enforcement of the resulting rules and regulation has always been difficult in a world of sovereign states, but with the growth of democratic systems of government and the parallel rise in influence of NGOs - witness their role in the recent negotiation of a criminal court statute - problems of compliance are likely to ease.

In addition, the performance of Kofi Annan as Secretary General has given new hope to UN supporters. He has streamlined the Secretariat, cut costs, and given greater emphasis to key UN mandates such as peacebuilding, human rights and disarmament. By taking the lead in negotiations with Iraq, he has reinforced the authority of his position, and by proposing new ways of working with NGOs and "civil society" (e.g. a "people’s assembly" in the year 2000), he has much improved the UN’s public image.

It is the member states, however, that must initiate and agree on measures to reform the Charter, especially the membership and powers of the Security Council. Kofi Annan has proposed that a Ministerial Commission "examine the need for fundamental change", given the failure of current diplomatic efforts to do so. If elected to the Council, Canada will be in a strong position to press for expansion of its membership, still limited to fifteen, and to work for improvement of its procedures. Membership brings with it responsibilities and therefore willingness to accept the risks of taking decisions that may discomfort friends or interrupt markets and to take on new peacekeeping duties if required. The government will need to explain (and the public to accept) that, unless those members, including Canada, who wish to strengthen international law and organisation are also prepared to sacrifice some degree of sovereignty to this end, the principles and purposes of the Charter will gradually lose their force.

August, 1998.