United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on Sunday proposed a radical change to the workings of the UN, after a period of scandals and controversy that has plagued the organisation.
The blueprint for reform is contained in a 63-page draft report to be presented to the general assembly, and includes changing the controversial human rights commission, tightening oversight of the UN’s contracts and sanctions programmes, and creating a new peace-building body to strengthen civil society in countries ravaged by conflict.
In the introduction, Annan calls on the world’s leaders to ”act boldly” and adopt ”the most far-reaching reforms in the history of the UN”.
”We will not enjoy development without security, we will not enjoy security without development, and we will not enjoy either without respect for human rights,” Annan says. ”Unless all these causes are advanced, none will succeed.”
An investigation into the UN’s role in the pre-war oil-for-food scandal in Iraq, and an inquiry into allegations of sexual abuse by UN officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo, have put Annan under increasing pressure.
The scandals have provided a focal point for conservative critics, who believe that UN is a hindrance to US interests.
In the report, Annan has sought to keep an increasingly critical US on board by tackling issues that concern it.
The blueprint, entitled In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All, calls for the commission on human rights to be replaced by a smaller human rights council.
Annan says the existing commission, which is riven by charges and counter-charges, has ”been increasingly undermined by its declining credibility and professionalism”.
Echoing Washington’s criticism of states such as Cuba and Libya, he says some states have sought membership on the commission ”not to strengthen human rights, but to protect themselves against criticism, or to criticise others”.
The report is an effort to find common ground between north and south. It tries to meet the priorities of rich countries, which put most store by security against terrorism and nuclear proliferation, and poor states more concerned with poverty and disease.
He warns that a catastrophic terrorist act in a big Western city could undermine poorer countries’ economies, while an outbreak of disease in a poor region could spread to the developed world.
Annan’s recommendations build on those of a panel he set up last year to study threats and security challenges. It called for international agreement on a new definition of terrorism to outlaw all attacks on civilians, and proposed a change in the balance between state sovereignty and the right of states to intervene.
But although Annan endorses the need for change, he does not offer concrete proposals. He calls on the Security Council to reach agreement on principles to govern ”when and how force is used”.
Similarly, on reform of the Security Council, he does not come off the fence in favour of any of the various schemes on offer. The council needs to be expanded ”to make it more broadly representative of the international community as a whole”, he says. But he leaves it to member states to decide, preferably by consensus rather than majority vote. — Guardian Unlimited Â