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Less is More? Our World at a Glance

A seminal insight, less is more. This is how we approach Zen calligraphy or the music of Anton Webern. It does not seem to fit Hieronymus Bosch or the late Beethoven sonatas. But then, less what? And how does this fit a report on the U.N.?

Well, it does, more or less. In house, less money, less staff, less bureaucratic lumber, less security. Also more guidance, more coherence, more work, more danger, more clouds on the horizon. Less is more? The question should be addressed to bottom-line auditor-managers. What kind of U.N. do they want and for what? Less can be less, more can be more.

Fact is, as the fearful coherence of the Cold War has thawed, so too have the human swarms split up. Instead of proxy cold wars we now have postponed fires of "hot peace". Even as nuclear midnight still looms, genocide has resumed-- Cambodia (sui-genocide), old Yugoslavia, Rwanda-- while warlords' children plunder, maim and kill. Untrammeled blind capital swells the rich and shuns the poor. Unimagined were such disasters when the U.N. was born; and now, when a renewed U.N. is indeed the world's best hope, is it less or more?

This question was the hidden agenda both energizing and enervating the current session of the General Assembly. While letting more sun and light into many a conference discourse (bringing in top brass and expert panels), and at the same time tidying up the house, there was nevertheless a lot of déjà vu. The challenge is energizing, but the slow steps forward are enervating. Addressing the G.A. on 21 September 1998, the Foreign Minister of Brazil put it this way:

We can no longer accept situations, such as the present financial crisis, in which, despite the undeniably international nature of the phenomenon, governments and societies simply do not trust any of the existing organizations or mechanisms as a source of support, guidance or even interpretation of the problem at hand. We must give serious consideration to the fact that growing interdependence renders indispensable effective governance at the international level.

"Simply do not trust." A slight exaggeration, perhaps. Too late to leave history behind. The underlying and overhanging question is, not should, but can the U.N. survive?

It is tempting to say that everything depends on the U.S., for now our super-power; and indeed in the short run it does. Without the U.S., financially and politically, the U.N. could not do much about any global issue. The present U.S. Congress is obdurate in holding back U.S. dues. Will this change with the next election in two years? Optimists say YES, repeated and reliable polls show that the American people strongly support the U.N. Pessimists (realists?) say NO, the problem is ingrained in the power structure, only a tectonic bust will shake them up. In the sober U.S. Foreign Affairs magazine (January/February 1999), astute Katha Pollitt says this:

Political power is not merely or even primarily a matter of ballots or public opinion . . . In the case of war, what matters is not what voters want but campaign contributions from defense manufacturers and others, the short term public relations needs of presidents, or the nation's geopolitical interests as interpreted by a Henry Kissinger or a McGeorge Bundy (or a Jeane Kirkpatrick or a Madeleine Albright). Once the powers that be have decided, public opinion can always be manipulated to fall into line.

If Katha is right-- gender neutral-- we can't rely on women to save the U.N. (or anything else). If not women, who can strike? Indeed, the U.N. has many American friends in high places; and Kofi Annan has made more than one démarche on Washington. Congress relinquished just enough money so that the U.S. did not lose its vote in the G.A. this time. This may not happen again. Or it may. Don't be surprised by surprise.

Compared to China's National People's Congress with its 3000 members, the U.N. General Assembly's 185 doesn't look so cumbersome. Apples and oranges, however. Even within the G.A., it is apples and oranges: A to Z, Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. One nation, one vote: "democracy", an awkward fiction. Does this Assembly in fact speak for all those sovereign nations? About one-third of the delegates are adequately instructed by their governments; and maybe half of these-- say thirty-- are fully engaged and endowed to deal with an array of complex issues. This is not to say that common interests are lacking, so you have regional groups (for elections) and the elusive North-South poles (coalescing around rich-poor). The European Union now presents a common front, so you can see an EU-US polarization on many issues.

How does the G.A. shape up? The U.S. is aloof, arrogant, ambivalent even. The EU is imperious. NAM and G77 (Non-Aligned Movement, the Group of 77 developing nations) are divided. "Middle powers" like Canada and Australia are no longer in an accessible like-minded group (the Scandinavians, Dutch, a few others), so for us it is strenuous ad hockery as we go along. It was odd to hear one U.S. delegate say that he was speaking for the group of the groupless. The U.S. has isolated itself.

Looking optimistically ahead, we see that the G.A. needs some realistic restructuring; and along with that a sensible agenda built around major issues. Its traditional agenda of over 160 items is a mish-mash of big and small, of critical world problems and ephemeral parochial obsessions.

In his "reform" package in 1999, Kofi Annan laid out time-saving ways for the Assembly to work; and, more important, proposed that each G.A. session should focus on one or two big issues. No time saving, but a first shift toward thinking big came with this Assembly's decision to begin with a High Level Dialogue on Globalization. But the old cluttered agenda is still there.

The focus on globalization was a serious try to get from this universal U.N. what it alone should be able to achieve, some sort of consensus on goals-- how blind globalization should get the gift of foresight. This Dialogue, begun in Plenary and continued in Committee, at least cut through much sterile rhetoric so that this blind reality was seen and examined. This gave another perspective on the cruel reality of galloping poverty.

While the U.N., with all its distractions, should exercise moral authority, it is hard to connect moral authority to an amoral phenomenon. Maybe the brokers and bankers, presumably people with families and friends, can lay hands on the monster. That takes us to the IMF, the World Bank-- and on to the OECD and the G7. Somewhere WTO also comes in. (Dear reader, if you are lost in that abacadabra, consult the list of acronyms at the start of this report.) Now listen to this. These banker types have begun to take the U.N. seriously. There are serious high-level exchanges as at ECOSOC last July. So serious that it begins to look as though Jim Wolfensohn's World Bank could preempt the UNDP, cooperation with a vengeance?

Before that has happened, Kofi Annan has again ascended the Swiss Alps, his third penetration of Davos, the World Economic Forum, where transnational puppeteers mingle. Think people, the poor, he says. (If your ambition is to be Secretary-General, have a look at his Davos schedule-- Annex 1.) This is only the most spectacular of many U.N. engagements with commerce, the private sector. Can this be institutionalized in a practical and politically acceptable way?

Back to Jim Wolfensohn (rich men aren't bad all of the time-- he saved Carnegie Hall), of course his World Bank has a lot more money than the U.N., but most of that is loan money, less than $2 billion a year in free grants. While grant aid from rich nations to poor (ODA) went down another 16%, the U.N. aid package is still over $5 billion, variously delivered (UNDP, UNICEF, UNFPA et al.). Intergovernmental oversight of U.N. aid has been much rationalized. Within the U.N. house (or houses), all concerned are together (an aspect of Kofi Annan's reform) in the "Development Group"; policy and procedural guidelines are set out for all in the Development Assistance Framework (tested in 18 countries); and in countries a wise and benign Resident Coordinator holds the operational family together. This is new, this is a good reform.

How have I managed to get this far without mentioning security? I make up for that in overdoing the subject in the pages that follow. Highlights: no progress in Security Council reform. Major security actions now are being taken outside the U.N.-- NATO, ECOWAS. While the Council's security (peacemaking) role is way down, it has taken a new and serious interest in the human face of conflict-- humanitarian aid, women and children, refugees and their protection, including the protection of U.N. and associated humanitarian workers (more than 140 killed since 1992). Another side of this is, no security, no development. Years invested in infrastructure can vanish in sudden conflict. The wide scan by the Council is "human security" as advocated by our Foreign Minister at the General Assembly in 1997. Also Fifty years of U.N. Peacekeeping was celebrated, an accolade for Canada (Lester Pearson got it started-- we're not much in it now). Canada has again put itself on the spot as a newly elected member of the Council.

A golden thread that binds all-- security, humanitarian aid, poverty, development-- is the ideal of human rights. With Mary Robinson, High Commissionary, the U.N. rejoiced in the fiftieth anniversary of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. Although still hampered by her tiny share of U.N. funds, Mrs. Robinson has set a new tone in her approach. A new convention on the Right to Development is in the making. Both in U.N. New York and in the field, in overall U.N. strategy and in aid to countries, an underlying objective is promotion of rights. This Assembly adopted a Declaration on the Rights of Defenders, raising the U.N. flag over people who dare to speak up, often at the risk of their lives.

We are nearing the end of this glance, dear reader, with good news about Kofi Annan, Louise Fréchette and the U.N. mansion. Despite severe reduction in staff and the financial squeeze, in-house things are better than ever. It is open house for the first time, with manifold directors engaged in the Secretary-General's weekly Cabinet meeting and functional coordination across the board. It is hard to convince young staff that the U.N. has a future-- many are leaving. Yet Kofi Annan radiates steady optimism, and even now is making plans and proposing goals for the Millennial Assembly as the year 2000 comes near. To NGOs there is a challenge to celebrate in a companion Millennial Forum. All hands on deck!

Canada, dear Canada, where are we now? We are back on the Security Council, and on 12 February 1999 Lloyd Axworthy, our humanitarian pioneer, chaired a special Council meeting on war's impact on children. (I was tickled to hear Carol Bellamy say that UNICEF stands ready to help the Security Council.) We led the forces against land-mines and we are looking hard at small arms. We were up front in delivering the International Criminal Court. On human rights, on humanitarian aid, on a myriad of U.N. entanglements, we step in with practical help-- a bit of money, ideas, here and there-- that can get things moving. This we do well. On some big issues we are lacking. NATO (i.e., the Pentagon) still ties our hands on nuclear disarmament. But who can we blame for the big drop in our external assistance even when Ottawa had a surplus in the bank? Is our government-people consultation just window dressing, or is it that "the people" don't care? We the people are to blame? If you click into Human Rights Internet, you will get the U.N. look at where we fail. Well, there is enough blame to go around. Politics, they say, is the art of the possible. What we need is the art of the impossible.