United Nations World Summit 2005

Fears that primary purpose of UN Summit May take back seat

In the wake of the Iraq war, the Security Council issues that it highlighted and a scandal about corruption in the United Nations Oil For Food Program, UN reform has been back on the agenda in a major way.

Under pressure after the beginning of 2005, in the wake of these Iraq-related issues and scandals, UN General Secretary Kofi Annan, released a report titled In Larger Freedom calling attention to the need for UN reform. In particular he wanted Security Council reform issues to be resolved before the 2005 World Summit. Unfortunately, that has not happened.

Inter Press Service (IPS) reported (August 16, 2005) that many developing country diplomats were worried that development issues would take a backseat, in favor of UN reform as that would be of more interest to richer and powerful nations.

Draft Outcome Document Leads to Concerns of Weak Text

Leading up to the Summit, a number of drafts of the outcome document for the Summit were released. However, various countries and blocs have concerns for different reasons. For example, the 117 members of the Non-Aligned Movement sought to weaken the text on issues such as the proposed new Human Rights Council and the increasing powers for the UN Security Council to intervene militarily in conflicts around the world.

Reasons that these countries have typically been weary of such issues include that

• They often have poor human rights records themselves;
• They see the richer countries being more influential in these areas, especially the UN Security Council, where they have little say and thus could feel quite powerless, and sometimes even threatened.

Equally of concern was that the drafts failed to take into account legitimate concerns raised by developing countries on various development issues, and instead had adhered to an approach favoring richer countries.

US Wants to Do Away With Most Text, even the Millennium Development Goals

It is perhaps the US stance that had concerned most countries, though, including allies.

As the Washington Post reported (August 24, 2005), the Bush administration has thrown the proceedings in turmoil with a call for drastic renegotiation of the draft agreement that all the attending world leaders would sign.

The proposed changes, submitted by controversial US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, touched on virtually every aspect of UN affairs and provide a detailed look at US concerns about the world body’s future. For example:

• As the Post continued, the United States introduced more than 750 amendments that would
  • Eliminate new pledges of foreign aid to impoverished nations;
  • Scrap provisions that call for action to halt climate change and urge nuclear powers to make greater progress in dismantling their nuclear arms;
  • Strengthen language to underscore the importance of taking tougher action against terrorism, promoting human rights and democracy, and halting the spread of the world’s deadliest weapons.
  • Strike any mention of the Millennium Development Goals
  • Impose greater oversight of U.N. spending
  • Eliminate any reference to the International Criminal Court
  • Oppose language that urges the five permanent members of the Security Council not to cast vetoes to block action to halt genocide, war crimes or ethnic cleansing.
• Additional examples noted by The Guardian include:
  • Deleting respect for nature;
  • For the right of self-determination of peoples, deleting which remain under colonial domination and foreign occupation;
  • Deleting to provide the [United Nations] organisation with the resources needed to fully implement its mandates;
  • Deleting remain concerned, however, by the slow and uneven implementation of the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium development goals;
  • Deleting corporate responsibility and accountability when discussing fighting corruption;
  • Deleting encourage pharmaceutical companies to make anti-retroviral drugs affordable and accessible in Africa in regards to fighting AIDS;
  • (See Road map for US relations with rest of world, Guardian, August 27, 2005 for more information)
• The administration publicly complained that the document’s section on poverty was too long!
• Instead, the United States sought to highlight the importance of the Monterrey Consensus, a 2002 summit in Mexico that focused on free-market reforms, and required governments to improve accountability in exchange for aid and debt relief.

The Post also added that In meetings with foreign delegates, Bolton has expressed concern about a provision of the agreement that urges wealthy countries, including the United States, to contribute 0.7 percent of their gross national product in assistance to poor countries. This is despite the fact that the Monterrey Consensus reiterates that commitment (which the US was pushing and signed up to) and that countries agreed to this over 30 years ago, and the US, along with many other rich nations, have hardly ever provided close to that amount.

Furthermore, Bolton has also objected to language that urges nations to observe a moratorium on nuclear testing and to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which the Bush administration opposes.

Why would the US be so hostile to the United Nations goals, considering it is its largest funder? The answer is complex and perhaps too deep to answer quickly here. In short though, a few reasons include:

• The US, as sole superpower, has often found itself going against international opinion, which is often expressed at the United Nations.
• The ability of the US to flex its muscles, so to speak, is often constrained (or attempted to be) at the United Nations, as the recent Iraq War exemplified. This has led to people in the US to call for withholding even more UN funding than it already withholds until it is reformed (in the ways that best meet US interests), or some to even say that they should pull out of the body all together.
• Some in the US also see a conspiracy in the UN trying to be a sort of world government which would restrict the rights of the US.

Some of the above reasons are quite extreme, but gain popular attention in the right wing of US politics.

See also the UN and Development page (warning, that page is quite old, though may provide some context), and various sections through the geopolitics section of this web site for more information.

Power: Using a Bargaining Position because one can

Recently the developing countries have become more united in a positive sense, to withstand further unfair trade rules that rich countries have tried to push in the past. However, this means they can also try to use their new power to resist changes that most would like to see, such as improved human rights.

The US, however, typically has a far more reaching impact as it is far more influential and powerful than the poorer countries.

In short, the US looks to make the outcome of the whole document a weak one without much substance. Given the enormous number of changes the US is proposing, one would not expect them all to happen. However, the US has played a clever tactic here:

• As the biggest donor to the United Nations, and, its biggest critic, as well as being the most powerful nation on the planet, it therefore has a real bargaining position which it has exploited here;
• Other countries will have to typically compromise on US terms in order to get the US in on the outcome agreement.
• The result will therefore be a much weakened document, even if the US does not get most of its 750 changes in there.

This type of bargaining occurred with the Kyoto protocol, for example; other countries agreed to a watered down text to get the US in, but the US later pulled out anyway.

And this all comes at a time when a new UN report warns that globalization is driving inequality.