An Insider's Guide to the UN [Fourth Edition] 9780300258394

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AN INSIDER’S GUIDE TO THE UN

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UN AN INSIDER’S GUIDE TO THE

FOURTH EDITION

LINDA FASULO

New Haven and London

Copyright © 2003, 2009, 2015, 2021 by Linda Fasulo. First edition 2003. Second edition 2009. Third edition 2015. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected] (U.S. office) or sales@ yaleup.co.uk (U.K. office). Set in Scala type by Integrated Publishing Solutions. Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Control Number: 2020942365 ISBN 978-0-300-24125-9 (pbk: alk. paper) A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my husband, Rob, and son, Alex— my cheerleaders par excellence!

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CONTENTS

Preface ix Acknowledgments xiii 1 What Is the UN?

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2 Founding the UN

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3 The Secretary-General and the Secretariat

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4 The American Ambassador

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5 The Security Council

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6 The General Assembly

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7 Rubbing Elbows and Egos in the UN Village

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8 Peace Operations

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9 International Terrorism and WMDs

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10 Human Rights and R2P

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11 ECOSOC and the Trusteeship Council

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12 The UN to the Rescue

C ontents

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13 The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development 190 14 Global Connections

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15 Climate Change

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16 Keeping Tabs on How Nations Vote

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17 Three Pillars of Reform

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18 Paying for It All

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Appendixes A United Nations Charter B Universal Declaration of Human Rights C UN Member States List of Selected Abbreviations

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Sources 315 Index 319

PREFACE

As a news correspondent based at the United Nations, I have gained a firsthand perspective on one of the world’s most high-profile and important multilateral organizations. Nowhere else can we watch an international group of diplomats, officials, and experts discuss the great challenges of our day and make decisions that can affect our lives for years to come. From my window on the world I observe the UN debate and act on the big issues that affect us all, ranging from threats to international peace and security to ending poverty, reducing the risks of international terrorism, preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and combating diseases, including most recently the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s only natural to wonder how this globe-spanning organization came into being, what it does, and how it works. The best people to answer these questions are those who have run the UN in recent decades, the diplomats who represent the 193 member states, the analysts who study the UN’s every move, and the advocates who urge the UN to act on important global issues. It is these insiders who know the written and unwritten protocols, the privately expressed views, and the sensitive points of national and international rela-

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tions. They bring the UN to life and help us see a pulsating organism and not merely a complicated flowchart or a table of budget expenditures. As one of my insider sources remarks, people and personalities matter at the UN. To understand the world body, I have spent more than two decades carefully listening to these people, asking them questions and reflecting on their answers and insights. For those readers who share my desire to understand the UN and its role in the world, who want to explore the whole UN—both the organizational and the personal, the visible and the less visible—I have written this book, combining the thoughts and insights of insiders with my own.

A New Edition I was pleased when Yale University Press gave me the opportunity to update the book in a fourth edition and to revisit the important issues that challenge the UN and the world. Once I began revising, however, I found that the degree of change both inside and outside the UN had been so marked in the years since the third edition was published in 2015 that I had to rethink many of the chapters. As part of my research, I interviewed additional UN insiders, each with his or her own knowledge and experience with the world body. These new voices serve, I hope, to amplify and diversify the book’s insider perspective. I have also reworked the chapters to provide a smoother journey through the UN’s complexities. Beginning with introductory remarks by insiders that characterize the world body’s nature and its global roles, I dissect an organizational flowchart as a visual reference point for seeing the major parts of the UN at a glance. Then I step back and look at why and how the UN came into existence— a topic that has generated whole books but which I felt could not be ignored here. The next two chapters deal with two entities that are absolutely essential for understanding the UN—the secretarygeneral (the chief officer) and the Secretariat; and the US Mission to the UN and its chief diplomat, the US ambassador. Their interplay governs much of what happens at the UN.

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Building on these basics, the following chapters examine the UN’s most prominent “principal organs,” the Security Council, including its peacekeeping operations, and the General Assembly, a global legislature. Having provided the basics about the key bodies and personages, I take a walk in the next chapter through the UN Village, that little corner of New York City populated by diplomats from all over the world. Then an array of global issues, such as international terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and human rights, among others, are explored. In other chapters I look at the many agencies and programs that carry out the UN’s broad efforts in social and economic development, disaster relief, eradication of diseases, reducing the trade in addictive drugs, and climate change. The final chapters address three issues that are either little known or not well understood. The first is a chapter based on an annual report by the US State Department examining how nations vote in the UN, whether with or against the wishes and perceived interests of the UN’s host and largest financial backer. The second is UN reform, a controversial issue that generates media smoke but not a lot of actual fire, except perhaps with the efforts of Secretary-General António Guterres. And finally, there is a chapter on the money that pays the UN’s bills and its people. Where does it come from, where does it go, and who decides?

A World of Change One of the book’s leitmotifs is the driving force of change at the UN and throughout the world. Any significant global change in politics, economics, demography, social values, or other prime factors inevitably touches the UN, for good or ill. Each of the UN’s many decades of existence has presented its own unique mix of challenges. Today the UN is experiencing a surge of concern, as important member states, especially those in the Security Council, act in increasingly confrontational modes, making it harder for the world body to agree on solutions to global crises. Prime examples are the multiyear civil wars in Syria and in Yemen and the human rights crisis in Myanmar.

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At the same time, the powerful member states do agree on how to pursue other of the UN’s essential functions, such as maintaining the UN’s peacekeeping missions and, in some cases, giving authority to use armed force if necessary. Human rights issues have attracted increasing attention, often contentious, from member states as important aspects of ensuring and protecting peace within nations and also of enhancing the UN’s efforts at social and economic development. Climate change has moved to center stage as a factor promoting conflict and threatening the livelihoods of millions of people. The UN is also being asked to provide humanitarian aid much more frequently than before, in response to armed conflicts and natural disasters like tsunamis and famines. Threats like international terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons weigh ever more heavily on minds around the world. In the face of rapid and wrenching change, we have to wonder how an international organization created more than seven decades ago, in a very different world, can maintain its relevance and effectiveness today, let alone in the future. That is the UN’s greatest challenge— one that the insiders who run the UN and its associated agencies, the diplomats who represent its member nations, and the many experts who monitor and analyze the world body have also been asking. Most believe it can draw upon its long history of adaptation and global support to meet the new challenges, but some disagree. I hope that this book will help readers make their own assessment of the UN’s current status and future prospects.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The fourth edition of this book, like the previous three, benefited immensely from the contributions of many people. To all of the UN officials, diplomats, academics, and experts whom I have interviewed for the four editions, I express my sincere appreciation for their interest and participation as “insiders” in this book. All have graciously and candidly shared their unique UN insights and experiences. They include former UN leaders Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Deputy Secretaries-General Jan Eliasson and Mark Malloch-Brown, Under-Secretary-General for Special Political Affairs Brian Urquhart, and current Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo, among others. In addition, many UN officials and staff offered their insights off the record. I also give my warm thanks to the many US diplomats and officials who discussed their UN-related experiences. They include former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former US Ambassadors John Bolton, John Danforth, Richard Holbrooke, Zalmay Khalilzad, John Negroponte, and Samantha Power. I gained insights from many international diplomats who served at the UN, including then foreign minister of Ecuador María Fer-

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nanda Espinosa Garcés and UN Ambassadors Diego Arria (Venezuela), François Delattre (France), Colin Keating (New Zealand), David Malone (Canada), and Danilo Türk (Slovenia). Numerous experts on the UN contributed their analyses, among them Louis Charbonneau, Shepard Forman, Richard Gowan, Jeffrey Laurenti, Edward Luck, Hillel Neuer, Stewart Patrick, Stephen Schlesinger, and Ruth Wedgwood. It has been a consistent pleasure over the years to work with the wonderful professionals at Yale University Press, especially my attentive and supportive editor, Bill Frucht, who proposed this new edition. One could not ask for a better publishing experience. I also express my appreciation to my family, friends, and colleagues, including those at the UN and NPR, who gave encouragement along the way. To my longtime friend and colleague William Zeisel, of QED Associates, I offer my special thanks for his continued and invaluable role in this project and his exceptionally discerning eye in the preparation of the manuscript for all four editions. Finally, this fourth edition would not be possible without the active support of my readers, including all of those diplomats and foreign service officials who provide the book to their new staff members, professors who assign the book to students, Model UN participants who use the book in their activities, and the many other readers who have found the book, throughout its various editions, to be worth having.

CHAPTER 1

What Is the UN?

We want the world our children inherit to be defined by the values enshrined in the UN Charter: peace, justice, respect, human rights, tolerance, and solidarity. All major religions embrace these principles, and we strive to reflect them in our daily lives. But the threats to these values are most often based on fear. Our duty to the peoples we serve is to work together to move from fear of each other, to trust in each other. —UN Secretary-General António Guterres The United Nations came into existence as a result of the most terrible war in history. During World War II, US president Franklin  D. Roosevelt, British prime minister Winston Churchill, and USSR leader Joseph Stalin—the Big Three—and the leaders of other Allied combatant nations agreed to create a world organization that would help ensure the peace in future years. Their ideas are enshrined in the Preamble to the UN Charter: We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dig1

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nity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, . . . have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims. Accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations. When the war ended in 1945, the new organization began with enormous goodwill, moral support from all sides, and strong US leadership. The world waited to see if the UN could rectify the shortcomings of the League of Nations, its predecessor organization, which dissolved in the late 1930s, a victim of totalitarian regimes and US indifference. Could the UN be the uniting force among the victorious nations, whose ideologies and political interests often seemed at odds? The Cold War soon replaced idealistic collaboration with confrontation between the West and the East. Until the breakup of the Soviet Union, confrontation between the blocs defined most UN relationships, discussions, debates, programs, and activities.

Responding to the COVID-19 Threat “We are facing a global health crisis unlike any in the 75-year history of the United Nations—one that is spreading human suffering, infecting the global economy and upending people’s lives.” —António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations

Today, although we do not expect the UN to solve all the world’s problems, we would like it to be an effective agent in dealing with the critical forces that are transforming our world. Exactly what the

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Flags of some of the 193 member nations at the UN headquarters in New York City. United Nations Photo / Andrea Brizzi. factors of transformation are and how to address them is hotly debated and discussed, whether they be concerns about climate change, limiting the spread of nuclear weapons, or strategies for addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. What we can say with certainty is that

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these forces will be addressed by living, breathing people, not computer software or mechanical robots. The UN is, above all, a place for people and a hotbed of the human factor. As one of my UN insiders says, people really do matter at the UN, and they act in a context full of illusion, opinion, perception, and emotion. But the UN is far from simple. It straddles the globe, operating in almost every nation on earth, and it has a bewildering variety of offices, programs, and personnel. Let’s begin, then, with some basic points and terminology that will appear throughout the book.

A Look at the United Nations The Preamble of the UN Charter, the organization’s fundamental document, declares that the world’s peoples, acting through their representatives, seek to create a peaceful, just, and prosperous world through common action. But exactly what is the nature of this common effort?

The Reason Why “More than ever before in human history, we share a common destiny. We can master it only if we face it together. And that, my friends, is why we have the United Nations.” —Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the United Nations

For one thing, the UN is not a form of “world government,” as some may think. Although the UN Charter begins with the words “We the peoples,” the organization’s members are sovereign nations, 193 of them, not individual people. According to Stephen Schlesinger, of The Century Foundation, President Franklin Roosevelt and other world leaders decided that the UN would work best if it consisted of sovereign states and not elected representatives. “The UN is not a formal democracy or world government with elected representatives, but it’s a collection of individual nations, each with its own political structures and own appointed ambassadors,” he explains. “That’s just a recognition of reality.” It is these member states that

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make policy, appoint the executives who direct the organization, and pay most of the costs. Furthermore, the UN does not maintain a military; it has no troops, weapons, or equipment of its own; and it can impose its will on nations only in rare and unusual circumstances, when great powers like the United States are prepared to back up the UN’s decisions with their own military and political might.

Looking in the Mirror “I say to my colleagues that you have to start from the fact that the United Nations is a mirror, a reflection of the world as it is, whether we like it or not. There are dictatorships, there are violations of human rights, there’s war and conflict, and yes, we must be realistic. But the United Nations is also a reflection of the world as it should be—the ‘We the peoples,’ the principles and purpose of the Charter.” —Jan Eliasson, deputy secretary-general of the UN under former secretary­­ general Ban Ki-moon

The UN has many parts, many facets, each of which can offer a particular feel. Nancy Soderberg, a US ambassador at the UN in the Clinton years, goes so far as to claim, “There is no such single thing as the UN.” Rather, the UN “is 193 countries with different agendas and a whole collection of civil servants who work there, and it’s all Jell-O. You can’t say what the UN is because you touch one area and it comes out looking differently on the other side.” John Bolton, former US ambassador to the UN under President George W. Bush, adds that people have a hard time understanding the organization because “they don’t know what the different pieces do, and some of the humanitarian agencies, which do work well, get lost in the shuffle.” Nevertheless, the UN can be described in relatively few words. Jeffrey Laurenti, formerly at The Century Foundation, defines the organization as a “supra-political association incorporating all governments and drawing on their political authority. It is a weak membrane in terms of decision making and implementation but is none-

Chart of the UN system. UN Department of Global Communications, January 2019.

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theless a political expression of a global sense of purpose and shared interests. The UN speaks to the aspirations of humankind. It commands public attention in most of the world as a place where world public opinion is developed and voiced and where global policy gets hammered out.”

Scanning the UN Chart To gain a better sense of this unique global entity, let’s begin with its organizational structure. The accompanying chart presents the basic structures and entities. Along the left side are the six “Principal Organs,” some of which are household names: the General Assembly (which consists of delegates from all member nations of the UN), the Security Council (in which five permanent member states have the right to veto any resolution they don’t like), the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Secretariat (which is the UN’s executive body), the International Court of Justice (ICJ, better known as the World Court), and the Trusteeship Council (which did its job so well it has lost its reason for being). With the exception of ECOSOC and the Trusteeship Council, these principal organs get considerable media coverage and are, in some ways, the most significant movers and shakers within the UN.

Words of Advice “The UN was not created to take mankind to heaven, but to save humanity from hell.” —Dag Hammarskjöld, former secretary-general of the United Nations

Running across the chart’s top is a large box containing a variety of entities, one of which, UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund), is a household word, and others, like UNU (UN University, based in Tokyo), are familiar to few outside the UN system. These bodies report to the General Assembly and ECOSOC, as the arrows show. The General Assembly’s “Subsidiary Organs” include six main committees, which make recommendations on important social, eco-

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nomic, and humanitarian issues and also perform essential organizational functions like preparing UN budgets. The Human Rights Council, based in Geneva, Switzerland, is the UN’s principal human rights watchdog. Moving to the next heading, “Funds and Programmes,” we find UNDP (UN Development Program) at the top. Right below it are five more, including UNEP (UN Environment Program), a leader in the climate-change effort, and UNICEF, along with WFP (World Food Program). As we keep moving to the right, we encounter four entities devoted to “Research and Training,” and come to the end of the box with “Other Entities.” These include UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) and UN-WOMEN, which acts as an umbrella for the UN’s gender-related work. Next we jump to the box farthest to the right, “Related Organizations,” which contains a diverse set of bodies, with interests ranging from nuclear weapons (CTBTO and IAEA) and chemical weapons (OPCW) to crimes against humanity (ICC) and world trade (WTO). The long skinny box underneath begins with the “Subsidiary Organs” of the Security Council, such as the Counter-Terrorism Committee and the many sanctions committees. These bodies were created to serve the needs of the Security Council. Moving down a row brings us to a large box containing mainly commissions and committees, each focused on an important global topic, like crime prevention, narcotic drugs, forests, and the status of women. “Regional Commissions,” immediately to the right, are among the least known of UN bodies. They address economic development in the regions of Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific, and Western Asia. The “Other Bodies,” listed in the next column, deal mainly with issues of civil society, public administration, and health-related matters like HIV/AIDS. The large box at the extreme right of this row has some wellknown entities­—such as the IMF (International Monetary Fund), UNESCO (UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), WHO (World Health Organization), and the World Bank—which appear frequently in later chapters. Others, like the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), remain little known despite their

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vital importance to the smooth functioning of our daily lives. Many run their own affairs with little interference and, as critics have complained, without much communication with the peer agencies, programs, or commissions with which they share interests. Anchoring the chart’s bottom we find a collection of entities, “Departments and Offices,” encompassing the bureaus of the UN Secretariat (which is overseen by the secretary-general). The Department of Global Communications, previously called the DPI (Department of Public Information), is especially important to members of the media because it is the source of much of the UN’s official information.

A Big Stake for the United States US president Barack Obama said that “no country has a greater stake in a strong United Nations than the United States. The United States benefits from a global institution intended to advance the rule of law, the peaceful resolution of disputes, effective collective security, humanitarian relief, development, and respect for human rights.”

How It Works We now have a good schematic picture of the UN’s structure. But this is only a beginning. When we think about the organization in action, charts don’t show how the parts interact or how effective or efficient they are. They don’t show, for example, that regional blocs control most of the votes in the main deliberative body, the General

Reciprocity and Good Manners “One of the glories of the UN is that it is a system of multilateralism, which makes the representatives of countries deal intimately with each other. This is retail global politics up close on the East River, so, as in a parliamentary system, niceness and conviviality count for a lot.” —Mark Malloch-Brown, deputy secretary-general of the UN under former secretary-general Kofi Annan

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Assembly. As we shall see later, the blocs draw little public attention but are powerful actors on the UN stage. The fact that the UN is overseen by 193 member states, often with varying agendas, can contribute to a degree of administrative waffling and diplomatic theatrics. Brian Urquhart, a British diplomat and later high official in the UN, who participated in creating the UN, argued that the shortcomings have to be balanced against the strengths. “There’s quiet diplomacy, which goes on twenty-four hours a day,” he said. “There’s the secretary-general and the Secretariat, who, contrary to general belief, are rather effective and not, incidentally, a great bloated organization. . . . The UN is not very efficient, I have to say, in some respects, because it’s recruited from all over the world, and you have to work hard to get a common standard going, but it does work.” He concluded, “The UN is like an insurance policy: you hate paying for it, but it’s useful if something goes wrong.” Former secretary-general Ban Ki-moon emphasized the unique position of the UN as an honest broker. “At the United Nations we have great convening power to find global solutions to our global problems.” And problems there surely are, from terrorism and nuclear proliferation to worldwide hunger and disease. These threats “cannot be approached as items on a list,” said the secretary-general. “The trick is to see them as part of a broader whole. In truth, solutions to one are solutions to all. The key is to see the interconnections among all the problems that come to our door at the UN.” Zalmay

Taking Responsibility “The American people hope that one day soon the United Nations can be a much more accountable and effective advocate for human dignity and freedom around the world. In the meantime, we believe that no nation should have to bear a disproportionate share of the burden, militarily or financially. Nations of the world must take a greater role in promoting secure and prosperous societies in their own regions.” —US president Donald Trump, remarks to the General Assembly, September 19, 2017

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Khalilzad, who was US ambassador to the UN under President George W. Bush, notes that for a global power like the United States, the world body is a very important instrument that should be made as effective as possible and “reformed as we go forward so that it can maintain the confidence of people and countries around the world.”

What’s in It for Us? Setting aside international diplomacy, why should we care about the UN? To begin with, it has a unique ability to address global issues that exceed the reach of any single nation. A perfect example is the COVID-19 pandemic that began spreading early in 2020 and soon touched nearly every nation in the world. The UN responded quickly, urging governments to take appropriate health measures while also protecting personal rights. Other examples include climate change, control of nuclear materials, and human rights and humanitarian assistance. Aside from addressing global crises and threats, the UN performs daily functions that keep the world working more smoothly than might otherwise be the case. The UN sets standards that affect us every day. “You may think that you have never benefited personally from the UN,” says former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright, “but if you have ever traveled on an international airline or shipping line or placed a phone call overseas or received mail from outside the country or been thankful for an accurate weather report—then you have been served directly or indirectly by one part or another of the UN system.”

Choosing to Lead “When the United States leads at the UN, we shape the rules and norms— and we can leverage UN capabilities in service of international security, making the United States safer and stronger, while sparing us financial and operational burdens that are unsustainable for the United States.” —Samantha Power, US ambassador to the UN under President Barack Obama

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But we may ask exactly how effectively and efficiently we are being served. As will appear throughout the book, the answer varies depending on what we look at and what we are looking for. “If you look at peace and security,” remarks Richard Gowan, of the International Crisis Group, “I don’t think the UN does anything amazingly well.” That is beside the point, he argues, because we look to the UN for “politically and operationally sustainable ways of managing crisis when we don’t have a better idea.” Stewart Patrick, of the Council on Foreign Relations, characterizes UN peacekeeping and political missions as valuable to the United States. “For every quarter we spend we get a dollar’s worth of results. It allows the US to help reduce human suffering and restore peace and hopefully end atrocities in areas where we have a humanitarian concern, to some degree a regional stability concern, but where we, for whatever reason, are not prepared to or are not the right people to have our own troops there. That’s a great value when you compare on a dollar-for-dollar basis.” Susan Rice, who was the US ambassador to the UN under President Obama, puts it this way: “I know that the UN often frustrates Americans, and I am acutely aware of its shortcomings. But that is precisely why the United States must carry out sustained, concerted, and strategic multilateral diplomacy. Many countries invest heavily in deliberations on what they view as ‘the world stage.’ That in part explains why diplomacy at the UN can be slow, frustrating, complex,

The Unseen UN “So often what one sees about the UN is the debates in the General Assembly, the debates in the Security Council, the vetoes, the disagreements, but what unfortunately the world doesn’t see enough of is what really happens on the ground and what can really be done if the international community puts its support behind various initiatives and agreements. . . . It takes a lot of time. You don’t see the results quickly, but you do see efforts paying off.” —Rosemary DiCarlo, under-secretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs under Secretary-General António Guterres

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and imperfect. But that is also why effective American diplomacy at the United Nations remains so crucial.”

The US/UN Nexus The central role of the United States in creating and supporting the UN gives it a special place in UN affairs and has led many insiders to examine the intimate and sometimes contentious relationship between the two entities. “The United Nations has no better friend than America,” declared Ban Ki-moon when he was UN secretary-general. Arguing from national polls, he said that “most Americans want US foreign policy to be conducted in partnership with the UN. They understand that working together is in the best interest of the United States, the United Nations, and, most importantly, the peoples of the world.” An eminent diplomat who served as US ambassador to the UN from 1999 to 2001 offered a parallel analysis. “I need to underscore repeatedly that the UN is only as good as the US commitment,” said Richard Holbrooke, who negotiated the Dayton Accords ending the war in Bosnia in 1995. “The UN cannot succeed if the US does not support it.” Another UN insider, speaking from a very different background, agrees with Holbrooke’s assessment. Mark Malloch-­ Brown spent many years running one of the UN’s major agencies before becoming the deputy secretary-general during the last year of Kofi Annan’s tenure as secretary-general. From this perch Malloch-­

A Difficult Time, as Usual “The UN is going through an extraordinarily difficult period, but the UN is always going through extraordinarily difficult periods. People are lamenting US disengagement, but we had similar laments in the mid-90s and also around the Iraq war. The single biggest question in front of the UN is whether it can remain relevant as the world shifts from American unipolarity to a more multipolar system.” —Richard Gowan, International Crisis Group

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Brown gained a deep appreciation of the importance of the United States in almost all aspects of the UN’s work. “You can’t have an effective UN without very strong American engagement in the organization,” he says. “The US has to be there in a strong leadership role.” The US domestic political establishment includes politicians, officials, and experts who favor a more go-it-alone foreign policy, and for them the UN sometimes seems a greater hindrance than help. The prevailing US policy, however, has been to cooperate with and assist the UN as much as possible, consistent with fundamental American interests. The Trump administration is one of the UN skeptics, and persons highly placed in it have publicly questioned the value of US participation in the world body. “The American people need to decide if it’s worth it,” said Nikki Haley shortly before leaving her position as US ambassador to the UN. She complained about the amount of “waste and abuse” and the political bias against the United States and its allies. She added that she saw “rays of light,” such as tough sanctions the UN had placed on rogue states, but “the verdict is still out.” US secretary of state Mike Pompeo publicly questioned the value of multilateral organizations like the UN in a speech given before the European Union in Brussels. At the United Nations, “peacekeeping missions drag on for decades, no closer to peace,” he said at the beginning of his list of UN failings. “The UN was founded as an organization that welcomed peace-loving nations. I ask: Today, does it continue to serve its mission faithfully?” Despite any misgivings, the United States remains the key player at the world body, is its largest single funder, and sees value in maintaining a working relationship. Kelly Craft, President Trump’s choice to succeed Nikki Haley as UN ambassador, said, after presenting her credentials, “In a world marked by humanitarian crises and geopolitical challenges, strong American leadership is absolutely critical, and I intend to provide it.” Madeleine Albright, UN ambassador under President Clinton, argues that the UN’s ability to help make the world a better place is to our advantage, because we know that “desperation is a parent to violence, that democratic principles are

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often among the victims of poverty, and that lawlessness is a contagious disease.” The United States does not have the choice of acting “only through the UN or only alone.” Rather, she says, “we want— and need—both options.”

CHAPTER 2

Founding the UN

[The UN is] immensely important because it represents legitimacy and international law, without which we’ll all eventually go into the ditch. It represents a place where in emergencies you can actually do something . . . that . . . will be accepted even by people . . . who would not accept an intervention by the United States or any other single country. —Brian Urquhart, British diplomat involved in creating the UN In autumn 1944, during the height of World War II, representatives of the leading Allied powers—the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union—met around two long tables in the ornate music room of Dumbarton Oaks, a private estate in Washington, DC, to hammer out the shape of a new international organization that would replace the League of Nations once the world war had ended. Everyone knew that the league had failed to preserve international peace and security, but how to replace it with something better was not so clear. After weeks of difficult negotiations, the delegates finished work on October 7 and sent the proposals to their governments. The proposals were the first public documents about the United

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Creating the UN. Delegates from the Allied powers meeting at the Dumbarton Oaks estate in Washington, DC, to discuss formation of a world organization to maintain global peace and security. This is the opening session of the conference, August 21, 1944. United Nations Photo. Nations, an organization that had received its name from President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill in January 1942. The proposals were immediately distributed around the world for discussion and improvement. In the United States the State Department printed nearly two million copies of the proposals, and private and government bodies sponsored radio programs and public meetings about the proposed world body. Well before the UN became a reality, therefore, it had attracted great public and government attention across the globe. As a result, when the official conference to design the UN opened in San Francisco in spring 1945, attended by 850 delegates, plus advisers and staff, from fifty nations, the discussions, though intense and not always easy, moved with remarkable speed, producing the document that would underpin all subsequent UN documents and acts, the UN Charter.

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The assembled delegates voted on June 26 to sign the UN Charter, the world body’s constitution. “The Charter of the United Nations which you have just signed,” said US president Harry Truman, addressing the participants, “is a solid structure upon which we can build a better world. History will honor you for it.”

The Charter The Charter entered into force on October 24, which is celebrated annually as UN Day. The chapters and articles constitute a treaty and are legally binding on the signatories. Article 103 of the Charter stipulates that if a member state finds that its obligations under the Charter conflict with duties under “any other international agreement,” the state must place its Charter obligations first.

An Egyptian representative signing the UN Charter at the San Francisco Conference, June 26, 1945. United Nations Photo / Yould.

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Nineteen chapters lay out the major components of the organization, including its director (the secretary-general), its lines of authority, and the responsibilities and rights of its members—that is, of the governments that constitute the UN membership. Chapter I describes the purpose of the UN, emphasizing international peace and security, and Chapter II lists the qualifications for membership. Most of the information about the elements of the new organization, including its six principal organs, appears in Chapters III through XV. Chapter IV describes the role and responsibilities of the General Assembly and its constituent member states, including the one-nation, one-vote principle and the obligation of each nation to contribute to the financial needs of the UN. The UN has a twohouse system, with a large General Assembly representing all member states, and a much smaller Security Council acting as a kind of standing committee with special powers. According to UN expert Stephen Schlesinger, the founders hoped that “this mixed format would provide balance and, most importantly, would be flexible and adaptable.”

National Sovereignty and the Veto The UN Charter clearly envisions the members as sovereign and independent states (Chapter I, Article 1) and requires that they resolve their disputes with one another without endangering inter­ national peace and security. Member states are also asked to avoid threatening other nations with the use of force (Article 2) and to assist the UN with any actions it may take. The final paragraph of Chapter I attempts to balance the internal affairs of each member state with its international actions and responsibilities. It states that the UN is not authorized to intervene in domestic affairs of a member state, but it also says that this restriction does not limit the right of the UN to resolve international disputes through negotiation; economic, military, and other sanctions; and even the use of force. The lead UN body to resolve international disputes is the Security Council, defined in Chapter V, consisting of five permanent members—China, France, the Soviet Union (now the Russian Federation), the United

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Kingdom, and the United States—along with ten “non-permanent” members.

The Charter and National Sovereignty “Sovereign entities have created a supra-association in which they have invested a small measure of sovereignty, at least for the purpose of preventing war. The UN Charter represents very small concessions of sovereignty to the global entity, the UN, but it was primarily to prevent a return —Jeffrey Laurenti, international affairs analyst to war.”

Article 27 of the chapter also mentions the famous “veto” that the five permanent members (P5) can deploy if they want to prevent the council from taking a specific decision, but it does so indirectly, without ever using the word “veto.” It states that decisions of the Security Council “shall be made by an affirmative vote of nine members including the concurring votes of the permanent members.” According to Stephen Schlesinger, both President Roosevelt and former premier Joseph Stalin wanted the veto for their nations. Stalin favored the veto “because he wanted to be involved in this huge new security organization, but he didn’t want to be involved unless he had the veto power so he could block any action that he felt might be inimical to the Soviet Union.” Roosevelt was mindful that the US Senate might refuse to approve membership in the new organization without the veto or a similar guarantee of national sovereignty. The Senate “did not want to be drawn into conflicts that it didn’t want to be involved in. If the US had the veto it would be assured that it could do what it wanted with the UN but without being run into things that it didn’t want to be involved in.” And in fact, Schlesinger points out, the UN survived the ensuing Cold War, when confrontation replaced collaboration among the great powers of the West and the East. Remarkably, the UN celebrated its seventy-­ fifth anniversary in 2020, an event of historic significance. By comparison, the UN predecessor organization, the League of Nations, functioned for only about twenty years and failed in its primary goal of preserving world peace.

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“We the peoples,” from a poster about the UN Charter. United Nations Photo / Milton Grant.

US Leadership in the New World Body President Roosevelt, a skilled political leader, carefully chose the US delegates to the meetings that created the UN, including important leaders in Congress and in American society. When he died in April 1945, he left behind an able team to carry out the final acts of creation and presentation to Congress. The sole female delegate to the San Francisco Conference was Virginia Gildersleeve, an eminent educator from New York City, who was responsible for crafting the opening to the Charter’s Preamble—“We the peoples of the United Nations”—based on the opening words of the Preamble to the US Constitution: “We the people of the United States.” She persuaded her fellow delegates that this would be a compelling way to introduce the new organization to the world, and history has borne out her insight.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights After the UN was established and the United States and other nations had ratified the Charter, much work remained to be done,

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including addressing the question of the basic rights that humans should expect to enjoy. This time it was another Roosevelt, Franklin’s widow, Eleanor, who contributed significantly. President Harry Truman appointed her to the distinguished list of delegates to the first meeting of the General Assembly in London in 1945. There she served as the sole female member of Committee III, slated to address humanitarian, social, and cultural matters. Eleanor Roosevelt’s success in London led the White House and the State Department to nominate her to represent the United States on the nascent UN Human Rights Commission and to help draft what became the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Experts at the time believed that the League of Nations had been fatally flawed because its charter lacked a strong statement in favor of human rights. Many supporters of the UN had originally hoped to launch the new organization with both a charter and a declaration of human rights. “I felt extremely strongly that human rights were something which simply had to be developed into an international rule,” recalled Brian Urquhart, who participated in the commission’s proceedings. “It simply wasn’t good enough to try to rely on people to behave reasonably well: they don’t.” The new Human Rights Commission, with Eleanor Roosevelt as its chair, began meeting to write the declaration in April 1946. It kept meeting for the next two and a half years, in New York City and then Geneva, Switzerland, until it hammered out a consensus document. Many difficulties arose as the eighteen delegates, who represented a wide spectrum of political, social, cultural, and religious views, discussed and debated the nature of rights—indeed, the meaning of being a human being—and the proper relation between the individual and the state. When the Universal Declaration was finished, it was sent to the General Assembly, which debated it anew. Finally, at 3:00 am on December 10, 1948, the General Assembly voted to adopt the draft. (The full text is presented in appendix B.) Resting on Enlightenment ideals of human dignity, the Universal Declaration is unique both in its breadth and in its success as an international standard by which to identify the basic rights that

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every person should enjoy. Most of the declaration’s thirty articles address issues of personal freedom and political participation. Article 3, for example, declares that “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” Article 9 states, “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.” Other parts of the declaration address social and economic rights, such as Article 23, consisting of four parts providing for rights related to work and employment: 1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. 2. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. 3. Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. 4. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests. Most human rights laws and national constitutions reflect many of the provisions of the Universal Declaration. Brian Urquhart praised it “as one of the most important actions in the twentieth century because it changed the perception of human society from being a society where governments were dominant to a society where individual rights were the thing that everybody, including governments, had to worry about.” Unlike the Charter, the Universal Declaration is not a treaty, and its provisions therefore are not law, but it has been largely incorporated into two international treaties that came into effect in 1976 and have been accepted by most member states: the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The UN refers to these covenants and the Universal Declaration as the International Bill of Human Rights.

CHAPTER 3

The Secretary-General and the Secretariat

The dramatic problems of today’s complex world can only inspire a humble approach, one in which the secretary-general alone neither has all the answers nor seeks to impose his views, one in which the secretary-general makes his good offices available working as a convener, a mediator, a bridge-builder and an honest broker to help find solutions that benefit everyone involved. —UN Secretary-General António Guterres “Equal parts diplomat and advocate, civil servant and CEO, the Secretary-General is a symbol of United Nations ideals and a spokesman for the interests of the world’s peoples, in particular the poor and vulnerable among them.” This official UN description captures the sweeping responsibilities assigned to the world body’s chief executive officer and suggests the great challenges they bring. The core of the secretary-general’s work is to lead the world body in its efforts to resolve crises and preserve peace and security, protect the rights of people everywhere, and improve living conditions for all. He does this through his vision, force of personality, and skill in negotiating with world leaders and the UN’s own officials. He also

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makes judicious use of his “good offices,” which a UN document defines as “the steps taken publicly and in private, drawing upon his independence, impartiality and integrity, to prevent international disputes from arising, escalating or spreading.” Moral authority is another quality often associated with the office, and the secretary-­ general has sometimes been referred to as the world’s secular pope.

António Guterres Arrives Choosing a new secretary-general is a major event, not only for the UN system but for its 193 member states and all the world’s peoples. On October 6, 2016, the UN Security Council “endorsed” António Guterres, formerly head of the UN’s refugee agency, to become the ninth secretary-general, succeeding Ban Ki-moon, who had served two five-year terms. Shortly thereafter the General Assembly voted to accept the council’s choice, and Guterres became the UN’s chief.

António Guterres addressing the UN General Assembly in December 2016. He became the ninth United Nations secretary-general on January 1, 2017. United Nations Photo / Eskinder Debebe.

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Observers often commented on Guterres’s extensive qualifications. He could speak on the basis of long experience at the UN, where from 2005 to 2015 he had been the high commissioner for refugees, a post that put him at the center of world crises, like the conflicts raging in Syria and various parts of Africa. He also had a reputation for political skills, honed in his native Portugal, where he was prime minister from 1995 to 2002, after serving seventeen years as a deputy in the national assembly. The secretary-general’s spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, characterized Guterres as “a unique secretary-­general because he’s the first secretary-general not to be a diplomat. He’s a politician in the best sense of the word.” Dujarric explained that Guterres “understands political considerations and domestic considerations—he understands what it’s like to be a prime minister in a minority government, so he has an understanding of what motivates world leaders and what factors world leaders have to keep in mind in order to come to foreign policy decisions.” That sensitivity to domestic political issues may have come in handy when Guterres met the new US president, Donald Trump, at the UN. They seemed to get along, particularly on the need for reforming the UN.

An Evolving Job Description The position of secretary-general is so loosely defined in the UN Charter that Guterres had quite a bit of freedom to adapt to new terrain. “In the Charter of the UN,” observed former US ambassador Richard Holbrooke, “the role of secretary-general is only described with a single phrase, that the UN will have a chief administrative officer. It doesn’t describe the authority of the secretary-general as the Constitution describes the powers for the president and Congress. It’s all been done, like the British constitution, by precedent and strong secretaries-general.” The secretary-general’s role has therefore developed gradually, as it has been interpreted by its nine incumbents, who come from many different countries and cultures: • Trygve Lie (Norway), 1946–52 • Dag Hammarskjöld (Sweden), 1953–61

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U Thant (Burma), 1961–71 Kurt Waldheim (Austria), 1972–81 Javier Pérez de Cuéllar (Peru), 1982–91 Boutros Boutros-Ghali (Egypt), 1992–96 Kofi Annan (Ghana), 1997–2006 Ban Ki-moon (South Korea), 2007–16 António Guterres (Portugal), 2017–

Mark Malloch-Brown, deputy secretary-general under former secretary-general Kofi Annan, adds that the UN Charter “doesn’t envisage significant powers for the secretary-general in international relations.” Rather, he says, the internationally active secretaries-­ general have succeeded by “convincing genuinely important individuals, heads of government and so on, that they can be helpful.” Michael Sheehan, a former UN assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping, says that one of the secretary-general’s roles is to “tell the Security Council what it has to know, not what it wants to hear. The Secretariat is not just a puppet on a string of the member states; it has a role, and there’s a dialogue between the Secretariat and the member states.” In this dialogue the secretary-general often deploys his status as an honest broker, lending his good offices to address international conflicts and issues. In other words, he has a bully pulpit, and he is expected to use it. The many responsibilities make the post one of the most demanding imaginable. The secretary-general must be able to communicate persuasively with the entire UN family as well as with all the nations of the world while overseeing a global array of programs and agencies. His daily activities range widely, depending on circumstances, from addressing sessions of the Security Council, General Assembly, and other UN bodies on key crises and issues, to meeting with world leaders and government officials, to frequently traveling to hotspots around the globe. He engages with world leaders when they arrive at the UN’s New York headquarters for the September opening of the General Assembly, and he hosts them at a special luncheon. He also chairs the UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination, routinely referred to as the CEB, consisting of the di-

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Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld in Katanga, Republic of the Congo, August 14, 1960. He died in a plane crash the following year. United Nations Photo. rectors of the world body’s funds, programs, and specialized agencies, who meet twice annually to coordinate their activities throughout the UN system.

A New Agenda Every new secretary-general, upon entering office, makes a public statement about the broad priorities and goals that will shape the years of tenure. In his acceptance speech upon being installed as the new secretary-general at the General Assembly, Guterres presented a broad agenda for action. He identified seven main “threats and tests” for his five-year term, beginning with the threat of international terrorism, along with a related concern, the proliferation of nuclear weapons. For his third threat, “unresolved conflicts and systematic violations of international humanitarian law,” he singled out ethnic and sectarian issues in Myanmar, Syria, Yemen, and Af-

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ghanistan, among other places, where violence and extremism led to massive unrest and human rights abuses. Climate change was fourth on the list of threats, and here, interestingly, he commended the efforts by private companies “that are betting on a clean, green future. Energy markets tell us that green business is good business.” His reference to the private sector helped him transition to the fifth threat, the growing social and economic inequality within and among nations, which was occurring even though the world’s peoples were growing more affluent and less likely to live in poverty. He concluded his list with item seven, “human mobility,” which he saw as a challenge that could be managed if approached properly. “Instead of closed doors and open hostility,” he declared, “we need to re-establish the integrity of the refugee protection regime and the simple decency of human compassion.” Migration, he concluded, “should be an option, not a necessity.” What about item six? For this Guterres called out the shortcomings of international organizations, like the UN, which needed to rethink themselves in more contemporary terms. He proposed a three-part reform program that involved reconfiguring peacekeeping operations, revising the process of advancing global social and economic development, and establishing a more efficient and cost-­ effective management structure. A later chapter will examine how this reform package was received in the UN system.

An Up-Front Multilateralist “I am a multilateralist. I am deeply convinced that there is no other way to deal with global challenges than with global responses, and organized in a multilateral way.” —António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations

Reality Test An agenda provides a road map, but at the UN the map can change with changes in the global terrain, as the secretary-general invariably discovers upon entering office and taking the steering

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wheel. For Guterres one of the changes was the advent of a new US president, Donald Trump, with his own international agenda. As it happened, both Trump and Guterres agreed on some key issues, like the need to curb international terrorism, prevent nuclear proliferation, and implement UN reform. They found less agreement on the issue of climate change, which soon became a dominant concern for Guterres, as world opinion shifted from mild worry about global warming to genuine fear about the effects of a hotter planet. Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group argues that Guterres had to pay much more attention to climate change than he expected when taking office. “Guterres is going to end up being a climate change champion even if that’s not what he expected to be. That tells you something about the nature of the job now. It’s not just about what the secretary-general chooses to emphasize or not emphasize. The urgency of climate change and the fact that there is a very broad recognition that this is a truly global problem means that it’s the one area where the UN cannot avoid engaging, whoever leads the organization.” But climate change unexpectedly became the secretary-general’s second most pressing agenda item in 2020.The rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus began generating emergency responses around the world. The UN itself had to make sudden adjustments to its operations, not only in field missions but in the New York headquarters, where face-to-face meetings in the Security Council and General Assembly gave way to videoconferencing. Guterres, from his unique vantage point at the center of a global enterprise, could begin to identify important consequences of the pandemic that went beyond health issues. “We are already seeing its ruinous social and economic impacts,” he declared in April 2020, “as governments around the world struggle to find the most effective responses to rising unemployment and the economic downturn.” He noted that the pandemic “also poses a significant threat to the maintenance of international peace and security—potentially leading to an increase in social unrest and violence that would greatly undermine our ability to fight the disease.” This was the kind of world crisis the UN was meant to address, and Guterres was determined to meet the challenge.

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Secretary-General António Guterres receiving a courtesy call from former secretaries-general Kofi Annan (left) and Ban Ki-moon (right), October 2017. United Nations Photo / Mark Garten.

The UN Secretariat Alongside all the public and official duties, the secretary-general is responsible for overseeing the Secretariat, which is the UN’s chief executive arm. The Secretariat is headquartered in New York City, in the sleek modern building that rises dramatically beside the East River, but it also has offices in Addis Ababa, Bangkok, Beirut, Geneva, Nairobi, Rome, Santiago, and Vienna. The secretary-general relies on a team consisting of the deputy secretary-general, the Senior Management Group, the UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination, and special personal representatives, envoys, and advisers, with occasional assistance from volunteers known as Messengers of Peace and Goodwill Ambassadors. All told, the Secretariat has about forty thousand staff. In keeping with the letter and spirit of the Charter, which aimed to create an international civil service, member states agree not to exert improper influence on the Secretariat’s staff, and the staff, in turn, take

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an oath that they will be responsible solely to the United Nations and will not seek or take direction from any other authority. Chapter XV, Article 100, of the Charter states that each member state of the United Nations should undertake “to respect the exclusively international character of the responsibilities of the Secretary-General and the staff and not to seek to influence them in the discharge of their responsibilities.” Article 101 mandates that the “paramount consideration in the employment of the staff and in the determination of the conditions of service shall be the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity. Due regard shall be paid to the importance of recruiting the staff on as wide a geographical basis as possible.” David Malone, rector of United Nations University and a former Canadian ambassador to the UN, estimates that “40 percent of the Secretariat staff are movers and shakers and carry the full burden of action. About 30 percent do no harm and do no good, and about 30 percent spend their time making trouble. Which means that the 40 percent who get work done are fairly heroic, and they exist at all levels of the system.” Rosemary DiCarlo, a former US diplomat who now heads the UN’s Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, praises her colleagues, who come from many parts of the world yet “are well versed in foreign affairs, who write beautiful English, which is fantastic, because frankly I’ve known US Foreign Service officers who didn’t, and daily I am impressed with their skills.” How to manage this far-flung staff has become an issue as the number of member states has grown, UN activities have increased, and local and regional crises have proliferated. Former secretary-­ general Kofi Annan encouraged administrative reforms, begun by his predecessor, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, that favored development of a corporate culture aimed at making results, not efforts, the test of effectiveness. Former secretary-general Ban Ki-moon is credited with continuing the reform efforts. Ban’s former deputy, Jan Eliasson, observes that while the Secretariat’s staff quality may vary by individual, “there are extremely inspiring and great minds and true internationalists . . . it’s very high quality.” He notes that to be a good member of the staff, “you have to be

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both very realistic about the world as it is, you can’t live in the clouds, you have to know what is the situation and be very realistic about that. But you must never forget that we have a unique role in serving this universal organization and living up to its values and principles.”

The Deputy Secretary-General (DSG) For most of the UN’s history, the secretary-general was pretty much a one-man band—one person responsible for both leading the UN and overseeing its management. Then Kofi Annan decided that he needed to delegate more of his duties as secretary-­general. His solution was to persuade the General Assembly in 1997 to create a new post, deputy secretary-general (DSG). The deputy is  in effect the UN’s chief operating officer, assisting the secretary-­general in the management of his staff and the Secretariat, representing the UN at conferences and official functions. The deputy secretary-­general is also charged with “elevating the profile and leadership of the United Nations in the economic and social spheres,” areas attracting increasing UN attention and resources. When António Guterres became secretary-general, he selected as his deputy Amina J. Mohammed, former minister of environment of Nigeria. Prior to this, she served as Ban Ki-moon’s special adviser on development planning, where she focused on bringing about the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the UN’s most comprehensive development campaign. As deputy secretary-general her responsibilities include overseeing the 2030 Agenda and UN development issues in general. Amina Mohammed succeeded Jan Eliasson, whom Ban Ki-moon had appointed deputy secretary-general in 2012. A former Swedish diplomat and foreign minister, Eliasson was the first UN under-­ secretary-general for humanitarian affairs (1992–94), a post that involved him deeply in social and economic development and gave him field experience in many troubled places, such as Somalia and Sudan. Ban Ki-moon’s previous deputy secretary-general had been Asha-Rose Migiro, a lawyer and a former foreign minister of

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Two DSGs. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed meets with Jan Eliasson, former deputy secretary-general, November 29, 2017. United Nations Photo / Eskinder Debebe.

Tanzania. Kofi Annan, at whose urging the DSG post was created, had named a Canadian diplomat, Louise Fréchette, to the new position in 1998, and she was succeeded in 2006 by Mark Malloch-­ Brown of the United Kingdom. Malloch-Brown brought to his post  years of experience directing the UN Development Program (UNDP), a key organization for global social and economic development.

The Senior Management Group (SMG) Among the deputy secretary-general’s duties is leading the Senior Management Group (SMG), a high-level body designed to help the UN manage its far-flung operations on a daily basis. It brings together, often via teleconferencing, leaders of UN departments, offices, funds, and agencies and programs. In summer 2019, the

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SMG had forty-three members (fifteen male, twenty-eight female) plus the secretary-general. Skimming the membership list alphabetically by personal name, we find, for example, Inger La Cour Andersen of the United Nations Environment Program; Rosemary DiCarlo, Political and Peacebuilding Affairs; Yury Fedotov, Office of Drugs and Crime, in Vienna; Liu Zhenmin, Economic and Social Affairs; Mark Lowcock, Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief; Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women; Vladimir Ivanovich Voronkov, Counter-Terrorism Office. We could just as well have cited the special adviser on Africa, the UN high commissioner for refugees, the special representative on Children and Armed Conflict, or the secretary-general of the UN Conference on Trade and Development—and still we would not have covered the entire Senior Management Group. Even our quick scan shows that these directors, managers, and senior advisers address an extraordinarily wide range of issues, covering all parts of the globe. It also shows, through the variety of personal names, that this is truly an international staff.

Representatives, Envoys, and Advisers Like any high-powered CEO, the secretary-general has to deal with all kinds of issues, even those with which he may have little direct experience or expertise. And so the secretary-general does what you might expect: he finds envoys, people he trusts who can act as his eyes, ears, and representatives for the region, issue, or conflict at hand. Special representatives are appointed through a mandate, that is, a request, from the Security Council or General Assembly; personal envoys are appointed on the secretary-general’s personal authority. In January 2014, for Africa alone, Ban Ki-moon had designated some twenty-one men and women as his representatives. The number of representatives and their titles varies continually to accommodate the ever-changing shape of the world, so any list is bound to become outdated very fast. Still, just to give a sense of the

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Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch-Brown speaking at the official launch of the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, September 19, 2006. United Nations Photo / Paulo Filgueiras.

issues and situations that might benefit from a special representative or envoy, we see, for example, that Secretary-General Guterres appointed former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg as special envoy for climate action. Later, in July 2019, Guterres appointed a special representative for Somalia, another on Sexual Violence in Conflict, yet another as head of UNSMIL (UN Support Mission in Libya). He also appointed a special representative for Children and Armed Conflict, another for migration, a third as head of UNMISS (UN Mission in South Sudan), and a fourth for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Appointees often have rather open-ended briefs, in keeping with the fluid nature of the situations in which they operate.

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Leadership under Annan and Ban As a world figure, the secretary-general is both a leader in shaping and implementing global policies and a symbol of international collaboration and action. His style matters as much as his substance. Kofi Annan (1997–2006), an activist secretary-general, gained a reputation as a cool, smart, and articulate global presence, whose media image was the envy of politicians and movie stars. He spent much energy on reforming the UN’s peacekeeping efforts, which were suffering from serious policy and administrative problems. Annan’s efforts at administrative reform gained momentum as the result of a scandal that broke during his tenure. After the first Gulf War, which saw a UN-authorized coalition expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait, the Security Council created the Oil-for-Food Program, which gave the Iraqi government the option of exporting specified amounts of crude oil, under UN scrutiny, to pay for “humanitarian goods.” Implementation of the program led to accusations of financial corruption by the Iraqi government that touched even the UN, to the embarrassment of the secretary-general, but also gave point to calls by critics and some UN insiders for tighter management of all programs, not just Oil-for-Food. Annan elevated the concept of social and economic development to make it a priority, along with disaster and refugee relief, which had been hallmarks of the UN for decades. As he once remarked, “If the United Nations does not attempt to chart a course for the world’s people in the first decades of the new millennium, who will?” At his urging the UN undertook the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) campaign to provide benchmarks for global development. Annan is also remembered for his controversial idea of the responsibility to protect, formally adopted by the UN in 2005. According to R2P, as it is often referred to, governments are responsible for providing basic security to their citizens, but if they fail to do it, the international community can legitimately intervene. The most striking application of R2P was in the Libyan civil war in 2011, when the UN authorized NATO air strikes that helped prevent the Gaddafi

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regime from suppressing civic opposition through the use of military force. Annan remained prominent on the world stage even after leaving office. Among his many missions, the African Union asked him to chair a group of eminent Africans in 2008 seeking a resolution to political violence in Kenya, and in 2012 the UN and the Arab League asked him to assist with finding a resolution to the civil war in Syria. When he died in 2018, he was mourned as an elder statesman of the world.

What Matters at the UN “The Security Council matters, the secretary-general matters, and the General Assembly could matter much more if it had the drive to matter more. . . . The deputy secretary-general is a major figure now alongside a strong secretary-general. They’re a pretty strong combo.” —David Malone, rector of UN University and former Canadian ambassador to the UN

When Ban Ki-moon became secretary-general (2007–16), he was little known to members of the media, who speculated that he would probably maintain a lower public profile than his activist predecessor. Ban developed his own official style, which began with long working days and extended to visits to every corner of the world and frequent public statements about global problems, dangers, and crises. Former US ambassador John Bolton observes that Ban took a more measured approach than Annan, whose ambitions “were too sweeping.” Former US diplomat William Luers described Ban as “a better talker than orator,” who preferred one-on-one and conversational exchanges, and who took a measured approach to setting priorities that meant focusing on “core problems.” What were these core problems? Ban began his list with protecting the global climate, and then moved to asserting the UN’s duty to intervene when nations or regions fall into chaos and destruction. Next he listed finding an end to nuclear proliferation, because that could lead, among other evils, to terrorist groups gaining posses-

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Messengers of Peace and Goodwill Ambassadors Unlike the personal representatives of the secretary-general, the UN’s Messengers of Peace are volunteers with high-recognition names. Is there anyone who doesn’t know the name Yo-Yo Ma, even if they have never heard him play the Dvořák cello concerto or other classical music? Then there is actor Michael Douglas, pop musician Stevie Wonder, and anthropologist Jane Goodall. The practice of appointing distinguished and famous artists, thinkers, and advocates as Messengers of Peace began in 1998 and is intended to “help focus worldwide attention on the work of the United Nations.” Yet another kind of representative, the Goodwill Ambassador, part of a program that started in 1954, has become popular among many of the UN bodies. A Goodwill Ambassador is a notable person who advocates on behalf of a specific UN fund, program, or agency. The Goodwill ­Ambassadors of UNICEF, for example, include an American actress and a Japanese singer. The UN Development Program (UNDP) features a Spanish-born actor, a Norwegian prince, and a star soccer goalie from Côte d’Ivoire, while the Goodwill Ambassadors of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees include actress Angelina Jolie, who served from 2001 to 2012 before receiving an expanded role as a special envoy. UNHCR credits her with “becoming an influential advocate on refugee and displacement matters.”

sion of weapons of mass destruction. He highlighted the need to fulfill the MDGs, begun under his predecessor to help raise the poorest nations out of poverty. And he included reform of the UN’s administrative and fiscal sides to improve efficiency and the ability to address an escalating series of needs and demands from the world community. At the beginning of his second term, in 2012, Ban laid out a fiveyear “action agenda” that restated much of his previous program and elaborated on the main points. He spoke of the need to define a post-MDG development framework that would also address factors like energy, clean water, and the health of the oceans and their living resources. World leaders took Ban’s suggestions seriously and es-

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tablished the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) campaign, the basis for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

What Is. What Should Be. “Our job is to diminish the gap between the world as it is and the world as it should be, and that’s a long haul. In this phase, seeing the world as it should be, you bring in the elements of improving the situation—peace, security and development, human rights—and then you also get a sense of what our job is all about. Forget that you can’t change the world in a day, but you have to know that this is the world as it is, and don’t forget the way the world should be. If I do, then I’m not doing my job. This is what drives me.” —Jan Eliasson, deputy secretary-general of the UN under former secretary-­ general Ban Ki-moon

Walking a Line Whatever the secretary-general presents as his agenda, he must pursue it with the support, or at least without the opposition, of the UN member states, especially those that have the most international clout. “The problem with being secretary-general,” explains David Malone, “is that there is constant interference, constant turbulence, nowadays, between major powers, which limits the ability of the secretary-general to perform as successfully as otherwise a secretary-­ general could.” The challenges have only become greater as the international scene has moved away from the unipolar system that followed the Cold War to a world in which the governments of China and Russia insist on creating their own space within the UN. Kofi Annan, during his two terms as secretary-general, had mainly to attend to the US government, with gestures to the other key members. António Guterres assumed his post just as a new US president was favoring a different approach to international affairs and international institutions. The rapid turn in US interests was bound to have an effect on the UN. According to Richard Gowan, “The US had been

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extremely supportive of the UN,” but the arrival of Trump brought “an enormous shift.” The new president declared that he would put US interests ahead of others and showed little patience with the consensus-based multilateralism that the Obama administration had pursued. “The Trump administration has proved pretty systematic in strolling away from bits of the UN that it doesn’t like,” says Gowan, “like UNESCO and the Human Rights Council, and so forth.” The “so forth” includes the decision of the Trump administration to leave the Iran nuclear agreement, which the UN Security Council had endorsed in 2016. Guterres, a skilled politician, has looked for common ground with the Americans, such as countering international terrorism and reducing spending on UN peace operations. He has vigorously supported the Security Council’s efforts to curb nuclear proliferation, notably in its passing of sanctions against North Korea, something of great concern to the United States (as well as the rest of the world). He has also emphasized the importance of his “three pillars of reform,” intended to make the UN more efficient and also more cost-effective, goals much desired by the United States and other key member states. In other words, the secretary-general has been drawing on his long public experience to practice politics as the art of the possible.

CHAPTER 4

The American Ambassador

The U.S. Mission to the United Nations (USUN) serves as the United States’ delegation to the United Nations. . . . In 1947 the United States Mission was created by an act of Congress to assist the President and the Department of State in conducting United States policy at the United Nations. —US Mission to the United Nations The sense of excitement and expectation that accompanies the election of a new secretary-general has its counterpart whenever the US president appoints a new ambassador to the UN. The US ambassador has a unique position in the world body as the representative of the UN’s largest single financial donor and also the leading world power. When the US ambassador speaks, people listen. “I can tell you what it was like in the Security Council when a crisis happened,” recalled former US ambassador Samantha Power. “People issued their statements—and by people I mean people representing other countries, including powerful countries. And all the other ambassadors in the Security Council were . . . waiting for the United States to speak, and waiting to hear, OK, what’s the United States

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going to do about this problem, and how is the United States going to tell us what our role is in addressing this problem.” The United States, like each of the 193 member nations, maintains a UN mission in New York City, staffed by several ambassadors, one of whom is the head of the mission and carries the title of permanent representative. The permanent representative’s term of office varies by nation, usually extending over several years, so the word “permanent” shouldn’t be taken too literally. US permanent representatives serve, on average, for a few years. The White House has discretion in deciding whether the post of permanent representative carries cabinet rank, reporting directly to the president, or is responsible to the State Department, reporting to the secretary of state. The UN ambassadors under President George W. Bush did not have cabinet status, but those under the Obama administration and the first one under the Trump administration did. The post, with all its media exposure, has been a stepping-stone to even higher positions. George H. W. Bush served as the US ambassador in 1971–73, about a decade and a half before he became president. Madeleine Albright was the ambassador under President Clinton and then was promoted to be secretary of state. John Negroponte, the first permanent representative during the George W. Bush years, became the first director of national intelligence in 2005, a year after he left the UN, and later was deputy secretary of state. His successor at the UN, John Bolton, became national security advisor for President Trump. Susan Rice, who was the ambassador for President Obama, later became his national security advisor. President Trump’s appointee to the UN, Nikki Haley, a former governor of South Carolina, made such a strong impression during her first year as ambassador that some observers began speaking of her as possible presidential material.

The US Mission Of all the UN’s 193 member states, the United States maintains the largest delegation, located at 799 United Nations Plaza (on the corner of East Forty-Fifth Street and First Avenue), across the street

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US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley and colleagues on the Security Council after unanimously adopting Resolution 2401 (2018) on the war in Syria. The resolution called for the immediate cessation of hostilities to allow for medical evacuation and services in conflict areas and to provide access for humanitarian aid. France’s ambassador, François Delattre, stands at the upper right. United Nations Photo / Mark Garten. from the UN headquarters. A staff of more than a hundred, including advisers, handles the political, economic and social, legal, military, public diplomacy, and management interests of the United States at the United Nations. Traditionally, five ambassadors—the permanent representative, the deputy permanent representative, the alternate representative for Special Political Affairs, the representative on the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and the representative for management and reform—are the point persons for this large and active mission. Even more personnel come to the US Mission during September through December to help cope with the hundreds of heads of state, diplomats, and their staff from

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around the world who attend the opening session and working meetings of the General Assembly. The large size of the US Mission is related to the need for enough staff for the many positions and situations that a high-powered presence requires. “The US is always there,” remarked Joseph Melrose, who served as an acting US representative for management and reform at the United Nations, among other duties. “It never has a vacant chair [in a committee or other venue] unless we’re making a political statement.” Small countries are in a very different position, he added. “You think of a country like Bhutan that at one point was interested in serving on the Security Council, and you wonder, how are they going to staff it when they have only five people? They have to have someone of senior rank available all the time, and there’s a cost to that in terms of manpower and salaries, all those things.”

Diplomatic Clout “Permanent representatives [of the United States] have to spend a lot of time in Washington, and that’s what’s distinctive. Part of their influence and power at the UN is directly linked to people’s perceptions of their clout in Washington. So, when the permanent rep can’t make a meeting because he or she has to be in Washington, that is seen as a sign of clout.” —Jeffrey Laurenti, international affairs analyst

A Tale of Two Cities The US ambassador, based in New York, holds a complicated position owing to US geopolitical eminence and the nature of policymaking in Washington. “The job of an American ambassador at the UN is particularly tough,” says David Malone, rector of United Nations University and a former Canadian ambassador at the UN. “Most ambassadors at the UN get one set of instructions that are channeled through the foreign minister, and occasionally they will hear from their head of government or head of state.” For the US ambassador the chain of command is less direct and determined in part by the ambassador’s own influence and interests. It takes considerable skill to manage the decision-making process while still

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accomplishing desired goals. Zalmay Khalilzad, US permanent representative under President George W. Bush, saw himself as the “bridge between the administration and the UN headquarters,” explaining to people in Washington “both the opportunities and the challenges that the UN presents.” Compared with Afghanistan and Iraq, which were his previous ambassadorial postings, “it’s a very divergent assignment” because “you are not coming to a sovereign entity, and the secretary-general is not a president or a prime minister.” Former US ambassador Richard Holbrooke felt sufficient support in the Clinton White House to define a “Holbrooke policy” at the UN, according to David Malone, and to expect others to follow it. Amazingly, says Malone, they generally did. “Nobody really spoke back to him. He had the ear of the president. The vice president liked and respected him. . . . He essentially made policy on every subject that he discussed at the UN, and he then advised Washing-

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (right) and former US ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke, November 2007. United Nations Photo / Eskinder Debebe.

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ton on what their policy was henceforth to be. That said, it’s clear he often took the pulse of Washington and chose his key issues carefully. It was a very interesting performance.” The Trump administration’s first ambassador, Nikki Haley, also exercised considerable independence at the UN, owing to her good working relationship with the president. Jon Lerner, Haley’s deputy at the UN, remarked that her cabinet status and membership on the National Security Council “gave her greater standing with her UN colleagues in New York. She was a policymaker, not just a messenger. She had a greater ability than many of her predecessors to push things through the bureaucracy in both New York and Washington, which she did frequently.”

Three-Ring Circus On being an ambassador to the UN: “You don’t have complete control over your schedule; things come up all of a sudden. It’s a bit like a threering circus. You’ve got the General Assembly, the Security Council, the six [General Assembly] committees. Things can come up in those committees that need your attention.” —John Negroponte, US ambassador to the UN under President George W. Bush

Few permanent representatives assumed office under more difficult conditions than John Negroponte, appointed by President George W. Bush and sworn in as US representative to the UN on September 18, 2001, only one week after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. “My experience has been very much shaped by the events of September 11 and our response to that,” he noted. Negroponte needed all his diplomatic skills as US permanent representative, although he used them differently than in his previous posts. In some of his former diplomatic assignments, when he was ambassador to Mexico and to the Philippines, for example, he had time to become an expert on the nation and its culture, but at the UN he had to deal with an endless variety of people and issues. “To be a representative here, you have to know a little

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Secretary-General Kofi Annan (center) in discussion with John Negro­ponte (right), US ambassador to the UN, in the Security Council Chamber, June 30, 2002. United Nations Photo / Eskinder Debebe. bit about a lot of issues. And managing your own time so you make sure you know what you need to know in order to be effective is a challenge because some days on your agenda there are three or four various conflicts that come up.” After Negroponte left the UN to become ambassador to Iraq in 2004, John C. Danforth became permanent representative. A lawyer and former politician with foreign affairs experience, Danforth

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spent eighteen years as a Republican senator from Missouri before retiring—he thought—from full-time public life. After Danforth’s departure in early 2005, the White House made a controversial appointment in John R. Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, who was perceived by some in and out of Congress as unfriendly to the UN. Indeed, Congress refused to approve Bolton’s appointment, and the new permanent representative served in what was effectively an interim position before resigning at the end of 2006. During his tenure Bolton helped secure the first Security Council sanctions against North Korea and Iran for their illegal nuclear programs. Bolton was succeeded by Zalmay Khalilzad, an experienced diplomat whose more traditional diplomatic style offered a contrast to Bolton’s lawyerly approach. Mark Malloch-Brown, who was deputy secretary-general under Kofi Annan, recalls having coffee with Khalilzad in the General Assembly’s Delegates’ Lounge, where “even the coffeemaker considered himself Zal Khalilzad’s best friend.”

Obama Administration When Barack Obama was elected US president in 2008, he promptly nominated a close adviser, Susan E. Rice, as the new UN ambassador. Rice had a reputation for toughness. “If I were to characterize her,” remarked her friend Madeleine Albright, “whether it’s playing basketball or anything else, she’s fearless.” Rice served as UN specialist on the Clinton National Security Council staff and then became assistant secretary of state for Africa. Among her accomplishments as permanent representative, Rice cited the Security Council’s vote to authorize NATO strikes in Libya in 2011 and additional sanctions against North Korea for its nuclear weapons program and against Iran for its failure to halt its uranium enrichment program. She regretted the inability of the UN Security Council to act constructively on the Syrian conflict, however. After Rice moved on to become the president’s national security advisor, in Obama’s second term, she was succeeded in 2013 by Samantha Power, an Irish-born academic and journalist who wrote an

US Permanent Representatives to the UN Edward R. Stettinius Jr. (March 1946–June 1946) Herschel V. Johnson (acting) (June 1946–January 1947) Warren R. Austin (January 1947–January 1953) Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (January 1953–September 1960) James J. Wadsworth (September 1960–January 1961) Adlai E. Stevenson (January 1961–July 1965) Arthur J. Goldberg (July 1965–June 1968) George W. Ball (June 1968–September 1968) James Russell Wiggins (October 1968–January 1969) Charles W. Yost (January 1969–February 1971) George H. W. Bush (February 1971–January 1973) John A. Scali (February 1973–June 1975) Daniel P. Moynihan (June 1975–February 1976) William W. Scranton (March 1976–January 1977) Andrew Young (January 1977–April 1979) Donald McHenry (April 1979–January 1981) Jeane J. Kirkpatrick (February 1981–April 1985) Vernon A. Walters (May 1985–January 1989) Thomas R. Pickering (March 1989–May 1992) Edward J. Perkins (May 1992–January 1993) Madeleine K. Albright (February 1993–January 1997) Bill Richardson (February 1997–September 1998) Peter Burleigh, chargé d’affaires (September 1998–August 1999) Richard C. Holbrooke (August 1999–January 2001) John D. Negroponte (September 2001–June 2004) John C. Danforth (June 2004–January 2005) John R. Bolton (August 2005–December 2006) Zalmay M. Khalilzad (April 2007–January 2009) Susan E. Rice (January 2009–July 2013) Samantha Power (August 2013–January 2017) Nikki Haley (January 2017–December 2018) Kelly Craft (September 2019–)

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award-winning book on genocide and became a foreign policy adviser to candidate and later President Obama. Like one of her UN predecessors, John Bolton, Power had to make a quick and sharp transition, from a world where people called a spade a spade to one where they usually preferred the term “manufactured digging instrument.” Like Bolton, she could talk about the UN bluntly. When she accepted her new post in a speech at the White House, she remarked that in her journalist assignments she had seen UN aid workers “enduring shellfire to deliver food to the people of Sudan. Yet I’ve also seen U.N. peacekeepers fail to protect the people of Bosnia,” and she raised the pressing question “of what the United Nations can accomplish for the world and for the United States.” The new ambassador spent much of her time on the UN’s efforts to rein in the nuclear weapons program of North Korea and Iran’s efforts to enrich uranium for possible use in weaponry. The Security

Samantha Power, US ambassador to the UN under President Barack Obama, addressing a Security Council meeting on Syria, March 1, 2014. United Nations Photo / Manuel Elias.

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Council passed sanctions on the North Koreans and also on the Iranians, though most of the latter were lifted, late in Power’s term, as part of an international agreement, endorsed by the UN, in which Iran agreed to rein in its enrichment effort. Like Rice, Power complained that the Security Council had been unable to address the war in Syria effectively. Both of Obama’s UN ambassadors enjoyed cabinet rank.

Trump Administration The election of Donald Trump as president in 2016 changed both the international calculus and the relationship between the United States and the UN. As his UN representative, President Trump chose Nikki Haley, who had made a national reputation as governor of the state of South Carolina. She brought to her UN post not only skills honed in the governorship but an “outsider” status as a woman in a male-dominated political environment and the daughter of Indian immigrants. “Institutions always benefit from an outsider’s perspective,” she once declared. The ambassador, speaking with cabinet status, then stated her agenda. “At the U.S. Mission, we’re all about changing the culture and bringing positive energy to the United Nations. We’ve put accountability front and center. People who’ve worked with me know that I have no tolerance for unmet promises and inaction. . . .” She also cautioned the other member states, especially those with long-­ standing ties to the United States: “We will deal fairly with the people who are fair with us. If not, all bets are off.” Her emphasis on taking advantage of the energy and creativity of a new US diplomatic team and a new UN team under Secretary-General Guterres suggested that she intended to turn words into action. During her tenure, which ended late in 2018, she was credited with pushing hard for stricter sanctions on North Korea for its nuclear arms program, strongly supporting the Trump administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, helping secure reductions in US financial commitments to the UN, and announcing the US withdrawal from the UN’s Human Rights Council.

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Kelly Craft, US ambassador to the UN, addressing the Security Council during a meeting on Syria, September 19, 2019. United Nations Photo / Cia Pak. After Haley left the UN, President Trump appointed Kelly Craft, the US ambassador to Canada, as her successor. “I come to the United Nations not only as the President’s emissary, but also as the voice of America’s unwavering commitment to democracy, freedom, human rights, and, whenever possible, the peaceful resolution of conflicts,” Craft declared when she presented her credentials to the secretary-general. The unique and important position of the US ambassador to the UN is one that came home to John Danforth, quite literally, only a  few days after he had assumed his post in New York, when he

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opened the morning newspaper and saw a front-page story presenting his comments at the UN the previous day with the opening, “the US says.” Turning to his wife, he quipped, “That’s me. I am the United States when I speak.” He found it “a very sobering moment.”

CHAPTER 5

The Security Council

In order to ensure prompt and effective action by the United Nations, its Members confer on the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and agree that in carrying out its duties under this responsibility the Security Council acts on their behalf. —UN Charter, Chapter V, Article 24 Ask someone to name three things about the UN and they are likely to respond “Security Council,” “resolutions,” and “vetoes.” If they’re current with the news, they might also add “sanctions.” And that would be a good response, because all four are in fact related. The Security Council in New York is the UN’s enforcer, charged with making the world a safer, more stable place by preventing or stopping armed conflict among and even within nations. In the words of the UN Charter, Chapter VII, Article 42, the Security Council “may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockades, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.” This

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broad mandate gives the council the authority to examine any conflict, dispute, or development that might have international repercussions, including even pandemics like COVID-19. Over the decades it has been interpreted to include authority to decide matters affecting the fate of governments, create tribunals to try persons accused of war crimes, and in extreme cases declare a nation to be fair game for corrective action by other member states. To accomplish its core mission of keeping the world safe, the council may impose sanctions on a recalcitrant member state and authorize and monitor peacekeeping missions, sometimes involving thousands of troops, police, and civilian personnel, provided by member states and local governments.

An Unprecedented Threat “COVID-19 is our common enemy. We must declare war on the virus. That means countries have a responsibility to gear up, step up and scale up.” —António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations

The council is the only UN principal organ whose resolutions are binding on member states, which means that governments do not have the option of choosing which decisions they will or will not accept or help implement. Working through formal and informal discussion and debate, the council issues resolutions, which are official decrees of the UN. Resolutions are like the laws passed by the US Congress, with a key difference: in the Security Council not all votes are equal. Instead, a privileged few nations—the so-called Permanent 5, or P5—each hold veto power over any resolution they don’t like. As will be noted later, the veto is a point of contention about the council. Also contentious is the growing extent of issues that the council believes relate to peace and security. Originally the council concentrated its attention on conflicts between nations, but in recent decades it began to range more widely to include conflicts within nations and other forms of disruption that do not fit traditional models of warfare. The spread of nuclear weapons led to debates in the council about the need to rein in the proliferation of

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such weapons, while other threats, such as climate change and global diseases, also caught the council’s eye. One of the most important changes in the attempt to address conflict has been the emergence of the sanction as a means of pressure on misbehaving governments. Article 41 of the UN Charter, Chapter VII, states that the Security Council “may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures. These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations.” As will be noted later, sanctions became a tool of choice for the council beginning in the 1990s.

Source of Legitimacy The Security Council is “the most important international body in the world. Countries give it legitimacy because it can authorize the use of force for peacemaking or even a war, as in Korea, Kuwait, and Afghanistan.” —Richard Holbrooke, US ambassador to the UN under President Bill Clinton

There for All to See The Security Council is the most publicly visible part of the UN, owing to its broad authority under the UN Charter and its potential for producing dramatic media shots of delegates voting on resolutions that have global implications. Stewart Patrick of the Council on Foreign Relations sees the Security Council, and the UN generally, as “really indispensable,” a place where the United States government can set forth its views and gain legitimacy for them. The United States doesn’t always win, he concedes, but it cannot turn its back on the United Nations without damaging its reputation and national interest. When, for example, the United States and its allies decided to invade Iraq in 2003 and topple the Saddam Hussein regime, the George W. Bush administration tried unsuccessfully to

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gain the council’s backing for invasion. After the war, the US government worked hard to mend its fences with the UN and encouraged the world body to become more closely involved in the shattered country’s reconstruction and reconciliation. Given the importance of the council, it’s no surprise that it meets often, some think too often. The number of its formal meetings and informal consultations rose, from 117 in 1988 to a high of 296 in 2017. Some insiders contemplating the large number of meetings wonder if the council is using its time and personnel in the most effective manner.

P5 and E10 A unique aspect of the council’s composition governs its dynamic. Membership consists of five permanent and ten non-permanent members. China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States, known as the Permanent Five, or P5, hold their seats by authority of the UN Charter. The other ten, the E10, are elected by the General Assembly to two-year terms. The council is presided over by the president, whose office rotates monthly according to the English alphabetical listing of council members.

Don’t Underestimate the P5 “You should never underestimate or discount the latent utility of the Security Council. If you reach that point where the P5 agree with each other on a problem, you can get a lot done. I remember in regard to international terrorism, I barely got to New York, one week after 9/11, and we reached agreement on a resolution [1373] on terrorist financing, and it was actually a template for legislation on terrorism financing that any country could use. It was extremely useful.” —John Negroponte, US ambassador to the UN under President George W. Bush

The P5 carry special weight in the council, in part because of their permanent status, nuclear arsenals, and historical importance as the victorious powers at the end of World War II. By virtue of

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being large, affluent nations with permanent seats on the council, the P5 have amassed experience, expertise, and staff capability to maneuver through the intricacies of Security Council politics, while the E10 members serve only a couple of years and then are gone, at least until they can secure another term. Some insiders argue that very small member states lack the capacity to be effective members of the council. At the same time, the critics say, other member states, like Germany, India, or Japan, possess diplomatic capacity and international clout, yet are lumped with the generality of member states in the competition to be on the council.

The Veto Under the UN Charter, the P5 alone wield the veto. When a P5 member vetoes a resolution, that kills it, even if the other fourteen council members vote yes. The veto gives the P5 a special status and power on the council that has drawn both praise and blame. The fact that a P5 member can block a resolution means that it has nothing to fear from any council proposal that it considers unacceptable. It simply casts a veto and the matter is ended. The veto featured more prominently when the world was divided into pro- and anti-Soviet blocs, but it remains a factor in deliberations. In 2014 the Russians vetoed a resolution concerning a conflict

Take It or Leave It “And so, with the veto, that assured Stalin that his interests would be taken care of and it would also on the American side assure the Senate that we can protect our interests. In fact, when the conference happened in San Francisco in 1945, all the smaller states vociferously objected to the veto, because they said, in the old League of Nations everybody had the veto, why should we be left out? When this whole dispute came to a boil Stalin and Roosevelt basically told the rest of these countries, if you guys don’t give us the veto we’re going to walk out, then there won’t be any organization. That’s basically how they got the UN through.” —Stephen Schlesinger, The Century Foundation

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between themselves and Ukraine. In 2017 the Russians cast five vetoes, all against resolutions aimed at resolving the civil war in Syria, and in one case the Chinese joined them in casting a veto. For both governments the motivating factor was thought to be concern about UN interference in the national affairs of a member state. In 2018 the Russians vetoed three US-sponsored resolutions on Syria. The United States, in turn, cast three vetoes, one against a resolution condemning the US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and two against Russia-sponsored resolutions on Syria. France and the United Kingdom each cast two vetoes on the Syria resolutions. Most resolutions pass by majority vote or consensus, and in fact the veto is a rare occurrence, making no appearance at all in some years. As table 1 shows, during the five years from 2014 to 2018, the P5 cast a total of 28 vetoes, or about 5 per year. The privilege of the veto runs counter to democratic principles and would seem to violate the spirit of the UN as a family of nations. According to Diego Arria, who was Venezuela’s UN ambassador in the early 1990s, “Every ambassador, myself included, except those of the P5, in their first speech they are against the veto—undemocratic etc.” With time, however, views may change. Arria himself came to regard the veto as essential to the council’s corporate sanity. “We all know that just the threat of a veto will stop unwise decisions. It is tough and difficult to admit, but the possibility of a veto keeps members of the council more realistic.”

The Appeal of Being on the Council Despite the internal tensions and the P5-E10 imbalance, the council retains its powerful draw for many member states, who covet elected membership and may campaign for the honor vigorously and sometimes years in advance. Candidacies are apportioned through a quota system that the General Assembly has devised based on regions: three seats for Africa, two for Latin America and the Caribbean, one for Asia, one for Arab nations, one for Eastern Europe, and two for Western Europe. The regional allocation guarantees that every part of the world is represented on the council during each

Table 1. Security Council meetings, resolutions, and vetoes, 2014–18

Year

Meetings

Resolutions Considered

2018 2017 2016 2015 2014

288 296 256 245 263

60 67 81 66 65

Resolutions Adopted

China Vetoes

France Vetoes

Russia Vetoes

United Kingdom Vetoes

United States Vetoes

54 61 77 64 63

0 1 1 0 1

2 1 0 0 0

3 5 2 2 2

2 1 0 0 0

3 2 0 0 0

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Ambassador Nikki Haley casting a veto, December 18, 2017. As the US ambassador to the UN, Haley strongly defended her government’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. When the Security Council voted on a resolution condemning the US decision, Haley cast the veto and offered a warning: “For those who don’t have our back, we’re taking names.” United Nations Photo / Eskinder Debebe. year. Sometimes a seat is uncontested because the regional member states have agreed on who should hold it. The African Group, for example, seldom has contested races for the Security Council. Instead, the group rotates candidates based on subregions—Southern Africa, Central Africa, East Africa, North Africa, and West Africa— so that eventually every African nation will have the opportunity to serve for a two-year term.

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The other regional groups, by contrast, have no fixed rotation on nominations, so they usually have contested elections. The nations that most covet and pursue the honor are more likely to run than those that are less interested. As a result, some nations are more frequently represented on the council than others. Japan, for example, did not become a UN member until 1956, yet it has held a Security Council seat eleven times between then and 2017. At the other extreme is Saudi Arabia, a UN member since 1945, which finally won a Security Council seat in 2013 and then became the first member state ever to decline the honor, citing as its reason the inability of the Security Council to solve the Palestinian issue or to act decisively in the Syrian civil war.

A Solomonic Decision When nations compete for an E10 seat but cannot get enough votes to win in the General Assembly, they have the option of offering to split the two-year term with a rival candidate. This used to happen fairly often decades ago but has become rare. For the 2017–18 Security Council term, however, when Italy and the Netherlands could not win after five rounds of voting, they agreed to hold the seat for one year each.

The P5 Club Acting as a sort of club, the Permanent Five usually play a leading role in deliberations. Although the Security Council has a small membership compared with the General Assembly and tries to operate by consensus, it often works more efficiently and effectively when one of the P5 exercises leadership. The United States, given its global clout, can take a leading role in framing the council’s agenda, especially when it sees advantages for its own international interests and policies. As Madeleine Albright notes, the ability of the UN to intervene in certain emergencies often reduces the job of  the United States. “This serves our interest because when the United States intervenes alone, we pay all of the costs and run all of the risks. When the UN acts, we pay a quarter of the costs, and others provide the vast majority of troops.”

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Fewer Is More “The reality is that the more important the decision in the Security Council, the fewer the states that are involved in it. When you get to a really crucial moment like the Syrian chemical weapons crisis, that’s not even the P5 making the decisions, that’s the US and Russians. After the 2013 [North Korean] nuclear test the council actually came up with a pretty tough resolution, but that was negotiated bilaterally by the US and Chinese. Then the other P5 countries got it and then the rest of the council just waved it through.” —Richard Gowan, International Crisis Group

The United Kingdom and France also play leading roles on the council. According to former Canadian ambassador David Malone, they “work much harder than any of the other permanent members to come up with initiatives in areas far and wide. They send people of extraordinary skill to the council. . . . The British are notorious for always having a draft in their back pocket. For these countries, permanent membership really matters to their international identity precisely because their role in the world has shrunk.”

Divergent Perspectives The Russian Federation and China have become increasingly independent actors in the Security Council, making it harder to reach consensus on such big issues as the conflicts in Syria, Yemen, and Myanmar and the COVID-19 pandemic. The council has therefore faced growing criticism for its perceived inability or unwillingness to come to grips with important matters, and this has led to efforts at using the General Assembly as a forum for debate and action. It has also altered the leadership role of the United States at the UN. Immediately after the breakup of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, Russia and China tended to follow the US lead, but over time they staked out independent positions on certain key issues. “Russia sees its permanent seat as a very important piece of evidence that it’s still a great power in the world,” says former US ambassador John Bolton. Bolton’s predecessor as US ambassador,

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Zhang Jun, ambassador of China to the UN, addressing a Security Council meeting on the situation in Afghanistan, September 17, 2019. United Nations Photo / Ariana Lindquist. John Negroponte, observes that “we’re seeing . . . a decoupling between China and the United States on a variety of issues and a greater politicization and an inability of the P5 to work together as well as perhaps they ought to be able to.” He adds, “If you have global cooperation you have a greater chance of dealing with a problem.” Mark Malloch-Brown, who was deputy secretary-general under Kofi Annan, cites the UN intervention in Libya in 2011 as a decisive moment, when the United States and its European allies chose a path of action that unsettled the Russians and the Chinese. When the Libyan government under Muammar Gaddafi ordered its tanks to Benghazi, evidently with the intent of suppressing a civil uprising there, the Security Council responded, with China and Russia abstaining, by authorizing NATO to conduct air strikes to protect civil-

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ians. The air strikes helped the rebels counterattack the government forces and eventually take control of the country. That was the problem, according to Malloch-Brown, who argues that the strikes went considerably beyond the scope of the Security Council resolution. “The resolution to authorize airstrikes turned into a much broader regime-change exercise. It fulfilled the worst fear of those who thought that ‘you can never give these guys an unlimited mandate for intervention to rescue civilians from imminent threat without them turning it into a broader mandate to serve their own geopolitical objectives.’ It reopened the scars of the Iraq intervention.” His reference to Iraq touches on the George W. Bush administration’s decision in 2003 to invade the country and topple the Saddam Hussein regime without having been able to persuade the Security Council that the Iraqi government posed a significant international threat.

The Sixth Veto The E10 has negative leverage in the Security Council, not through veto power but through its voting majority. Since it takes nine votes to pass a resolution, it is possible for the E10 to block passage if the members vote as a bloc. This voting leverage is sometimes referred to as the “sixth veto.”

The Iraqi and Libyan affairs, says Malloch-Brown, suggested to the Chinese and the Russians that “any humanitarian resolution is a slippery slope to intervention.” Their concern that such resolutions might have hidden agendas has reduced trust among the P5, in his view.

UN Sanctions Among the Security Council’s most frequently used tools to influence behavior are sanctions, mechanisms aimed at limiting or preventing a government’s interaction with the outside world in certain ways, such as engaging in trade or acquiring arms. Travel bans, the freezing of personal assets held in foreign countries, and diplomatic restrictions are also types of sanctions.

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The first sanctions regime, imposed in 1966, was against the seizure of power in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). The briefest regime was imposed on Eritrea and Ethiopia and lasted from May 17, 2000, to May 15, 2001. As of summer 2019, some fourteen countries and groups, including ISIS, were sanctioned, each monitored by a committee chaired by a non-permanent member of the Security Council. UN sanctions became more common during the 1990s, when they seemed to offer an efficient and inexpensive way of pressuring nations and groups that threaten international peace and security. Soon it became evident, however, that sanctions might unintentionally harm civilians, too. Consider the case of Saddam Hussein’s authoritarian regime in Iraq. When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the UN imposed sweeping sanctions intended to bar the aggressor from all foreign trade and financial dealings, except those with humanitarian purposes. After the United States and its allies, with the UN’s blessing, routed the Iraqi armed forces and arranged a ceasefire (which the UN monitored) in 1991, the UN left the sanctions in place while stipulating that Iraq divest itself of weapons of mass destruction. Because the Iraqi government was not fully cooperating with inspections, the UN continued the sanctions through the years of the Saddam Hussein regime. The Iraqi government was able to evade some of the sanctions, for the personal benefit of regime members, while complaining noisily and hypocritically that its citizens were being deprived of access to vital medicines, food, and other necessities. This campaign moved the Security Council to create the Oil-for-Food Program, which allowed the Iraqi government to export crude oil, under UN scrutiny, to pay for “humanitarian goods.” Terms of the program were liberalized in 1998 and 1999 and again in 2002 to give Iraq access to most civilian goods. The idea behind the resolution was to enable Iraqi citizens to obtain necessities more easily while making it harder for Saddam Hussein’s regime to use trade to obtain arms and other forbidden items. The program was criticized for poor administration and also major financial corruption by the Iraqi government, to the UN

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Too Small for the Security Council? Some UN insiders argue that very small member states simply don’t have the means to participate meaningfully in the Security Council. According to Diego Arria, who was Venezuela’s ambassador to the UN in the early 1990s, “It is a great advantage that we have big countries, former colonial powers, who know where is Eritrea or Somalia. I was in the Security Council at the origin of the Somalia crisis, and very few knew anything about it. Imagine a country of 100,000 people, without consulates and embassies; you are not well informed and end up controlled by the missions who have more and better information. Information is a major power in the Security Council.” But how small is too small? Consider Slovenia, a country of about two million citizens, which was once part of the former Yugoslavia. It chose to campaign for a seat on the council in the late 1990s, and it won. Slovenia’s ambassador at the time, Danilo Türk, believes that his country’s presence strengthened the council. He observes that smaller nations may not be as bound by rigid policies and positions as larger ones, giving them the opportunity for creative diplomacy where otherwise there might be conflict or confrontation. “If a country like Slovenia fails, it is no problem, but if a big country fails with a proposal, that usually has political repercussions. So small countries, nonpermanent members, can be constructive and genuinely helpful members of the Security Council. They can afford some imagination and experimentation. I always believed that. I never thought that only permanent members count.”

secretary-­general’s chagrin. On May 22, 2003, two months after the US-led invasion of Iraq, the Security Council lifted the sanctions except for the sale of weapons and related matériel.

Targeted Sanctions against North Korea Unsatisfactory dealings with the Saddam Hussein regime led the Security Council to revise its ideas about sanctions and give them more bite with less harm to innocent parties. To gain a sense of targeted sanctions, consider the many—no fewer than nine—

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sanctions regimes that the Security Council imposed on North Korea between 2006 and 2017 to discourage the development of nuclear weapons and the testing of ballistic missiles by the Pyongyang government. The first of the sanctions, Resolution 1718, came in October 2006, after North Korea tested a nuclear device in violation of the terms of the UN’s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which the North Korean government had signed. Members of the council were especially alarmed because North Korea had also been testing medium-­ range missiles capable of transporting nuclear warheads—which raised a nightmare scenario of placing powerful weapons in the hands of an unpredictable rogue regime. The resolution mandated that North Korea should “suspend all activity related to its ballistic missile program, abandon all nuclear weapons and programs, and abandon all weapons of mass destruction in a complete, verifiable, and irreversible manner.” Representatives of various governments addressed the council after the vote, and almost all of them pointedly noted that the sanctions were not an end in themselves but a means to persuade North Korea to change its behavior. Speakers also emphasized that the sanctions were meant to put pressure on North Korea’s leaders, not its citizens. The nature of the sanctions’ targeting becomes apparent from the list of prohibited matériel and actions. The list begins, predictably, with a section called “Arms Embargo,” which required UN member states to prevent the North Korean government from obtaining nuclear technology and such military equipment as combat aircraft, missile systems, and warships. In the next section, luxury items were listed as a prohibited category, as if fancy chocolates and fine whiskey represented a threat to world peace. What was the Security Council thinking? After the sanctions vote and the ensuing speeches, many ambassadors and staffers were trading quips about how the ban on luxury goods would hit the Pyongyang government officials “where it hurt”: in their collective sweet tooth. North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-il, and his cronies were notorious for coveting expensive imported delicacies and goods, exactly the kinds of products that ordinary Koreans could not afford to buy even if they had access

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to them. In that sense, the ban on luxury goods was as finely targeted as the ban on combat aircraft. After luxury goods, the sanctions froze certain financial assets and then moved on to another targeted item, personal travel. Kim Jong-il enjoyed getting out of Pyongyang and taking trips to visit his neighbors in China, where he could stretch his legs and pose for the press. The sanctions made that more difficult. Resolution 1874 (2009) strengthened the sanctions after the Pyongyang regime detonated another nuclear device. Kim’s son, Kim Jong-un, who succeeded him in 2011, also lives in the shadow of the sanctions, which were expanded and refined by the Security Council in votes significant for their support from the Chinese government, long considered North Korea’s main ally. Security Council Resolution 2087, approved in 2013, condemned a North Korean missile launch that used missile technology prohibited by previous sanctions. Through a unanimous vote the council demanded North Korea abandon all nuclear weapons and nuclear programs. After that country’s third nuclear weapons test, the council passed Resolution 2094, banning international travel for certain North Koreans associated with the arms trade and freezing the assets of a state organization devoted to arms research, among other items. Two more resolutions followed in 2016. Resolution 2270 condemned a nuclear test as a violation of the NPT and prohibited the sale of aviation fuel to the Pyongyang regime. It also declared a trade embargo in coal, iron, and other vital minerals and metals. Resolution 2321, passed in November 2016, among many actions, prohibited Pyongyang from exporting certain metals and helicopters and vessels, and it imposed financial sanctions and suspended scientific and technical cooperation with the regime. When North Korea conducted nuclear and missile tests in 2017, the Security Council passed three more resolutions, which ratcheted up the pressure. Resolution 2371 called on the regime to end its nuclear programs and froze the movement of workers abroad. It limited foreign investments in North Korea and extended a previous travel ban and asset freeze. Finally, the resolution called for the resumption of multilateral negotiations, the Six-Party Talks, between

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John R. Bolton, US ambassador to the UN, addressing the Security Council, October 14, 2006, before a vote on the first UN sanctions against North Korea for its nuclear weapons program. United Nations Photo / Eskinder Debebe. Pyongyang, the Republic of Korea, China, Japan, the Russian Federation, and the United States, aimed at removing nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula. These talks, begun in 2003, had ended in 2009 when Pyongyang refused to participate. Resolution 2375 banned the sale of liquefied natural gas to North Korea, capped its textile exports, and required that countries stop providing work permits to North Korean nationals. It reiterated the request for resumption of the Six-Party Talks. A further tightening of sanctions came in December 2017, with Resolution 2397, which, among other actions, restricted trade, including fuel imports, and the international movement of North Korean workers. Many observers believe it was the cumulative effect of increasingly strict sanctions that persuaded the North Korean government to seek negotiations with the United States government, leading to

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The Impact of Sanctions François Delattre, who was France’s ambassador to the UN until 2019, praises the UN as a tool for “making a difference” in the effort to limit the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. “Together with my dear friend Nikki [Haley], we made a good job to establish three consecutive rounds of sanctions [in 2017] against North Korea, unprecedented in terms of their scope, and biting the North Korea regime, so much so that the American administration was then able to launch a very important diplomatic initiative to finally get to denuclearization of the peninsula and peace on the peninsula. The role of the Security Council has been critically important in this respect.”

face-to-face meetings between the Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, and US president Donald Trump. Richard Gowan sees the UN as playing an essential role. “If you stand back, the decision in 2017 to deal with the Korean crisis through sanctions and through the Security Council was an important moment in the history of the UN. The way that China and the US cooperated over Korea and over sanctions at that very tense, fragile moment is what the Security Council was always meant to do.”

Sanctions against Iran Targeted UN sanctions, eight rounds of them between 2006 and 2012, were also instrumental in encouraging the Iranian government to assure the Security Council that it was not trying to develop a nuclear weapons program. The international community had become concerned that Iranian efforts to enrich uranium might result in weapons-grade nuclear material, contrary to the terms of the NPT, which Tehran had signed. Also, like North Korea, Iran was developing missiles that could carry atomic warheads. Security Council Resolution 1696, passed in 2006, instructed the Iranian government to stop its nuclear enrichment efforts and to verify cessation to the satisfaction of the UN’s atomic energy monitor, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). When the Tehran government failed to comply with 1696, the council passed Resolu-

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tion 1737, also in 2006, which reiterated and strengthened the terms of 1696. It forbade member states from transferring materials and technology that might advance Iran’s nuclear enrichment effort or the development of ballistic missiles. Iran’s continued development of nuclear enrichment led the council to pass Resolution 1747, in March 2007. It asked the Iran government to verify that its nuclear program was solely for civilian purposes, and it encouraged the government to seek a negotiated settlement of the issue. After repeating previous sanctions, it introduced new ones, demanding that member states and international financial institutions avoid providing financial support to Iran except for humanitarian or developmental purposes. One year later, after Iran continued to ignore terms of 1747, the Security Council passed Resolution 1803, which largely repeated the demands of the previous resolution. Only months later, in September 2008, the council had to consider the Iran matter again in Resolution 1835, which reaffirmed the four previous resolutions and urged the Iranian government to seek a negotiated settlement. The parade of resolutions against Iran’s nuclear program continued in 2010 with passage of Resolution 1929. Among new sanctions, Iran could not seek nuclear technology abroad nor invest in uranium mines, and member states could not sell conventional arms, such as tanks, helicopters, missiles, or warships, to Iran. The Tehran government could not develop ballistic missiles, and member states had to inspect vessels suspected of carrying prohibited cargo and to limit their interactions with Iranian financial institutions. Two more resolutions in 2011 and 2012 largely reaffirmed the previous sanctions regimes. The Security Council removed most of the sanctions in 2016, after the Tehran government negotiated a settlement with the P5 plus Germany and the European Union. Iran formally promised not to pursue development of nuclear weapons and to use its uranium enrichment program for peaceful purposes only, in exchange for the lifting of damaging economic sanctions. The Security Council, in Resolution 2231, then endorsed the agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran Nuclear

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Deal, and lifted most of the sanctions. However, after the US government withdrew from the agreement in 2018, Iran announced it would resume enrichment activities, leading to renewed worries about nuclear proliferation.

Other Ways of Thinking about Threats to Peace and Security Traditionally, the Security Council has viewed international peace and security as an issue of armed conflict. In recent decades a broader view of the matter has appeared, based on a systemic understanding of how societies and nations work and interact. According to this view, discord coming from extreme poverty or poor education can harm the functioning of a society and cause internal strife. Should the Security Council take such issues into consideration when addressing international peace and security? Historically the answer has been no. Rather, the council has left these matters to other parts of the UN system, especially the General Assembly and various agencies, programs, and commissions. This has its logic, because the Security Council imagines itself not so much an administrative system as an executive body for dealing with crises. By the turn of the new millennium the council’s deliberations were increasingly addressing issues like poverty and disease that did not fit traditional concepts of global security yet were having definite security impacts. The most pressing was the COVID-19 pandemic, which surfaced in 2020 and grabbed everyone’s attention, both within and outside of the United Nations. Secretary-General Guterres quickly identified the viral pandemic as requiring a global response and called for a global ceasefire that would give medical

A Vicious Circle The COVID-19 pandemic “poses a significant threat to the maintenance of international peace and security, potentially leading to an increase in social unrest and violence that would greatly undermine our ability to fight the disease.” —António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations

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and humanitarian efforts a better chance to end the pandemic, while the Security Council struggled to reach agreement on how to address the crisis. The Security Council’s COVID-19 deliberations came after two decades when it had begun considering many nontraditional factors in maintaining global security. In January 2000, for example, on the grounds that vital international security interests were at stake, then US ambassador Richard Holbrooke persuaded the Security Council to discuss the impact of the AIDS crisis in Africa. A State Department report noted that although the discussion was “controversial at the time,” it set the stage for later council meetings and a resolution about AIDS and caused language about HIV/AIDS to be included in peacekeeping resolutions. Since 2007 the council has on several occasions addressed another killer disease, caused by the Ebola virus, and in 2014 formally declared the outbreak a threat to international peace and security. Council resolutions now address a long list of issues going far beyond terrorism, nuclear nonproliferation, and other traditional concerns, to include issues like civilians in armed conflict, violence against women and children, narcotic drugs, international crime, and human rights, including LGBTI rights. In October 2006, for example, the council held its first debate on the role of women in the consolidation of peace. The council also urged that peacekeeping operations take better account of gender issues and encouraged member states to place more women in peacekeeping operations. Violence against women during times of conflict has also drawn attention in the council. A debate in June 2013 addressed accountability for crimes of sexual violence on the national level and ways the UN could help governments bring perpetrators to account. As a signal of its determination to prevent sexual violence, the Security Council then passed Resolution 2106, which, among other things, urged UN sanctions committees to apply targeted sanctions against parties committing sexual violence during armed conflict. In 2015 the United States cosponsored the first-ever Security Council meeting about LGBTI issues in response to reports that ISIS was persecuting LGBTI persons in Iraq and Syria.

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The council is also spending much more time on the connection between human rights and peace and security. “There has been a deepening of the understanding that human rights and security are related,” notes Esther Brimmer, a former State Department official under the Obama administration, speaking about an important new way of regarding the role of human rights in the whole UN system. “Look at the Security Council resolutions,” she says. “There are more places within the peacekeeping resolutions which include human rights elements. . . . Usually you wouldn’t have people even thinking in those terms; that’s a different way of understanding, a holistic understanding of security, that you should try to use these tools together for an overall security.” Climate change, which we will examine in more depth in chapter 15, is another nontraditional issue that has attracted Security Council attention as a factor in global peace and stability. In an open debate in January 2019, Rosemary DiCarlo, UN under-secretary-­ general for political and peacebuilding affairs, characterized the effects of climate change as a “threat multiplier” that posed “a security risk for the entire world.” The risk was not a future scenario, she said, but a reality for millions of people around the globe that was “not going away.” Ambassadors from more than seventy member states attended the debate.

A VIP Road Show In today’s globalized environment Security Council members need to stay current with a dizzying array of conflicts and crises, and in response they have become much more likely, nowadays, to invite presentations by nonmembers and to ask advice from UN officials and agencies. Council members sometimes visit peacekeeping missions or other UN operations in the field. The Security Council missions in 2019 included trips to Mali, Kuwait, Iraq, and Colombia. The trip to Colombia was made to inspect progress in implementing a peace agreement between the government and an insurgent group known as FARC–EP. Colombia’s government and the insurgents had asked the UN to establish a mission to monitor and verify the

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peace agreement. On its 2019 trip the mission visited various sites and groups to demonstrate the council’s support for the peace process and to assess the reintegration of former combatants in conflict-­ affected areas. During the previous year, a Security Council mission visited Bangladesh and Myanmar to investigate the refugee crisis caused by long-simmering ethnic conflicts. Thousands of the Rohingya people in Myanmar’s Rakhine province, fearing a new outbreak of violence, fled to neighboring Bangladesh. With the acquiescence of the Myanmar government, the mission made its visit, seeking to gain information about the situation of the refugees and to assess the impact of efforts to assist them by the UN and the Bangladesh government.

Subsidiary Bodies The council’s need to deal with a wide range of global issues has led it to establish subsidiary bodies, committees that monitor specific places or issues of concern. Peacekeeping operations are the most high-profile Security Council subsidiary bodies. Others, as noted in a recent list of such bodies, include entries ranging from the Counter-Terrorism Committee to the Working Group on Documentation and Other Procedural Questions. Most of them, however, concern the implementation of UN sanctions. Sanctions committees are usually referred to by the resolution number that established them, such as the 1267 Committee, also known as the Security Council Committee pursuant to Resolution 1267 (1999) and related resolutions concerning al-Qaeda and associated persons and groups. Another subsidiary body is the Security Council Committee for Resolution 1540 (2004), also called the Non-Proliferation Committee, or 1540 Committee.

The Arria-Formula and Coffee The Security Council does a lot of important work informally, in meetings held according to the Arria-formula. Described as the council’s most flexible format, the formula was created in 1992 by

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Ambassador Diego Arria, when he was president of the Security Council. One day, Ambassador Arria invited his colleagues on the council to an informal meeting over coffee in the Delegates’ Lounge, to hear an eyewitness account of atrocities occurring in the former Yugoslavia. Impressed with the impact of the meeting, Arria arranged for more gatherings on topics and with persons that had little chance of appearing before the council in its formal sessions. Since then the Security Council has embraced the concept, and Arria-­formula meetings have become frequent and important to the council’s functioning. “I think about 250 or 300 meetings of all kinds, some of them very important, have been held,” explains Arria. In 2018, there were twenty-one Arria-formula meetings, an all-time high, and sixteen of them were webcast and archived. Arria-formula meetings can serve many different purposes. They sometimes provide a basis for formal discussions in the Security

Diego Arria, president of the Security Council in March 1992. SecretaryGeneral Boutros Boutros-Ghali sits to his right. United Nations Photo / Milton Grant.

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Council. Still others are meant to shine light on a particular situation, group, or nation, or to convey a message. Recent Arria-formula meetings include one to mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of VE Day, when Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allies, and another on climate change.

Restructuring the Security Council Many UN member states have been urging a change in the Security Council’s composition to make it more reflective of today’s international realities. Since the council was created in 1945, more than a hundred nations have come into existence, and a number of developing nations have become economic and trade dynamos. Recognizing the need to bring more member states into the council, the UN amended the Charter in 1965 to increase Security Council membership from eleven to fifteen, which it is today. The expansion was only in the elected positions, not the P5, and it did not touch the veto issue. Echoing the call of many member states, then secretary-general Ban Ki-moon described the restructuring of the council as an “urgently needed reform.” Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for Ban’s successor, António Guterres, considers that “the lack of legitimacy of the Security Council, especially in Africa, where most of the missions are, and in the Middle East, is a big problem for the UN writ large.” On the other hand, he wonders if an enlargement of the council’s membership, by itself, would make the council more effective. “If you add five more members, it raises the question that it could be even less effective with that many different countries in an expansion.” This point is raised also by Ian Martin, a former special representative of the secretary-general, who characterized reform of the council’s composition as a matter of justice and legitimacy, while admitting that it “would not in itself be a guarantee of effectiveness, and indeed an enlarged council would all the more need to improve its working methods.” Diego Arria cites the example of another international body, the thirty-five-member Organization of American States, as a model not to imitate. “I was never in favor of

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enlarging the Security Council because I thought it would become like an OAS.” To enlarge a fifteen-member body like the Security Council would greatly aggravate the process of reaching agreement. “Imagine if you increase to thirty-five!” he says. Urgency by some member states to update the Council has led to discussion but not action, for lack of agreement on a plan to move forward. Stéphane Dujarric doubts that significant change is coming, “until those countries which want to get in the Security Council agree on a common platform.” According to Stewart Patrick, “The problem, of course, is that the community remains quite divided,” alluding to the mutual jealousies, grudges, or other objections that some member states hold against those likely to be candidates for permanent status on a restructured Security Council, as well as disagreement about which, if any, new members should have the veto, or if there should even be a veto. Some states feel strongly that certain of their neighbors should definitely not become permanent members, particularly with veto power. Many insiders believe, for example, that China is unlikely to agree to having either Japan or India as a permanent, veto-holding member. The United States, meanwhile, sends mixed messages, depending on which administration is in power, and without robust follow-up from Washington the Chinese and Russians feel no pressure to act.

No Lack of Schemes Despite the obvious barriers to action, member states and their backers continue to devise plans for restructuring. Most of them address one or more key issues, such as the council’s size, who should serve, whether there should be a veto, and, if so, who should have it. Because the General Assembly is the UN organ that would ultimately vote on a plan, that is where much of the discussion occurs. The restructuring schemes are typically presented by informal groups within the UN membership. The African Group, consisting of fifty-four member states, favors new permanent seats with veto rights. The Group of Four, consisting of Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan, has preferred to add permanent seats but is flexible on veto

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rights. But another group opposes new permanent seats and proposes a compromise model with longer-term and renewable seats. Munir Akram, permanent representative of Pakistan, has analyzed the reform push as relying on several factors, beginning with the desire of “certain countries who think that they have now graduated to become great powers, to get a seat at the high table.” Another factor is “the determination of those who have the power now, sitting at the high table, not to broaden the table too much except for their closest friends.” The rest of the UN membership, consisting mainly of poor countries, “is worried that the oligarchy of power is going to be extended, at their expense, and that they will remain the proletariat while this extended oligarchy will continue to rule.” These “proletarians” have no major national interest in rooting for one side or the other, although “the high-ranking powers are able to influence some small countries to support them.” If a sufficient number of UN members could agree on a restructuring plan, they would need to pass it through the P5, who have veto power. On first thought, it seems unlikely that the P5 would accept any diminution of their unique status on the council, yet they did in 1965 when they accepted a one-third enlargement of the council. Stewart Patrick raises an interesting point, however. The Barack Obama administration studied the restructuring issue as part of its effort to engage with the United Nations in a broader, more multilateral way, he says. During the study several of the aspirant member states were elected members of the Security Council, and their behavior there, he argues, gave the administration pause. He is referring, among other things, to the fact that Brazil and India abstained from voting on a US-backed Security Council resolution to approve NATO intervention in the civil war in Libya. Patrick attributes the abstention to their different perspective on international affairs. Many developing nations, he notes, even democracies, “don’t see the world in the same way [as the US].” They “have their own aspirations. They either have postcolonial mindsets or developing-­ country solidarity.” Holding to more traditional interpretations of national sovereignty, argues Patrick, “they don’t like sanctions, much less the use of force.”

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The General Assembly has a committee devoted solely to a restructuring of the Security Council. It bears the catchy name of Open-­Ended Working Group on the Question of Equitable Representation on and Increase in the Membership of the Security Council. UN insiders sometimes preface its official name with the term “Never-Ending,” because it has met for two decades without reaching a consensus on a “framework resolution” for consideration by the full assembly. “I’m not making any predictions about the future, but your kids will be grown up by the time we all wrap this up,” declared an ambassador to the UN at a news conference, where he complained about a lack of political will to address council reform. Brian Urquhart is not surprised. A UN insider since the organization’s earliest days, he is convinced that Security Council reform is so difficult for a single, simple reason: “National prestige makes it extremely difficult to arrange.” Many insiders would agree with his assessment, but the question of when and how to “reform” the council retains its fascination. Whenever I speak before groups of students or other members of the public, I am invariably asked for an opinion on this thorny issue, one that the Never-Ending OpenEnded Working Group is still pondering.

CHAPTER 6

The General Assembly

The General Assembly shall consist of all the Members of the United Nations. . . . Each member of the General Assembly shall have one vote. —UN Charter, Chapter IV, Articles 9 and 18 Few of the world’s institutions are as familiar to the eye as the UN General Assembly. The Internet and traditional media offer thousands of images of the assembly’s vast meeting hall, with its distinctive green marble rostrum and speaker’s podium, star-studded circular ceiling, and huge flanking murals. The space is seven stories high and can seat six persons for each of the 193 delegations. It is visually very impressive, but what exactly does the assembly do? A principal organ of the UN, the General Assembly is the organization’s main deliberative body, addressing a varied and large number of agenda items during its regular three-month session, held from September to December, and in follow-up sessions in succeeding months. Since the UN’s founding in 1945 the assembly’s membership has grown nearly fourfold, from 51 original members to 99 in 1960, to 159 in 1990, up to its current total when South Sudan

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The General Assembly Hall. Secretary-General António Guterres (on screens and at podium) addresses the opening of the general debate of the seventy-fourth session of the General Assembly, September 24, 2019. United Nations Photo / Cia Pak.

joined the UN in 2011. Each member state has an equal vote in the assembly’s proceedings. The General Assembly starts its year with an official opening session, usually on the third Tuesday of each September. A week later, at the general debate, which lasts about two weeks, world leaders address the assembly on issues they consider of vital importance. It is impressive to see the gathering of nearly two hundred heads of state and high dignitaries, some wearing national garb. Nowhere else can so many of the world’s leaders meet and exchange views, both publicly and privately. Before and after the speeches the air is thick with talk, as presidents, kings, and prime ministers use this rare opportunity to meet with their peers at events and informally. Often the September gathering provides the opportunity to hold sum-

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mits, where world leaders can deliberate on key global issues and problems like international terrorism or climate change. In 2019 the UN convened no fewer than five summits in a single week in September, on climate change, universal health coverage, the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, financing for development, and small-­island developing states. After the opening festivities and meetings, the dignitaries left and the members got down to substantive work, which lasted until mid-December.

Both More and Less Than Meets the Eye Both more and less than it appears, the General Assembly is modeled on national parliaments, yet it has a global purview and visibility that no national legislature can match. It represents every government in the world and has a limitless jurisdiction, at least on paper. The UN Charter assigns the General Assembly authority to consider all matters relating to any international issue and any UN body or agency. The assembly commissions studies about international law, human rights, and all forms of international social, economic, cultural, and educational cooperation, and it hosts conferences addressing global issues. Under some conditions the Security Council may ask the General Assembly to meet in special session; sessions can also be requested by a majority of UN member states. Issues deemed more pressing may warrant an emergency special

Power Lunch The secretary-general hosts an annual luncheon for all the world leaders attending the general debate. Ban Ki-moon took the opportunity at one of the luncheons to remark on the singular character of the gathering. “Look around,” he urged his listeners. “This is one of the most extraordinary meals anytime of the year . . . anywhere in the world. You cannot have all these heads of state and government in one place anywhere [else] in the world. Leaders from all the world’s nations are sitting together around a common table.”

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session, convened on twenty-four hours’ notice at the request of the Security Council or a majority of member states. During the three months of each year that the General Assembly is in regular session, the member states discuss and address items that are either mandated by the UN Charter, like passing UN budgets and approving the selection of the secretary-general, or chosen by the members in consultation with the president of the General Assembly (PGA) and one or more of the assembly’s committees. For the 74th session, which began in September 2019, the General Assembly’s agenda ran to 174 numbered items, arrayed under 9 broad categories, from (A) “Promotion of sustained economic growth and sustainable development” to (I) “Organizational, administrative and other matters.” The last category includes finances and runs from item 110 to item 174. Category H, “Drug control, crime prevention and combating international terrorism in all its forms and manifestations,” is brief (items 106–9), but G, “Disarmament,” is extensive, running from items 88 to 105, with some items having many subsections. These are only a few of the many topics, major and minor, new and outdated, that define the assembly’s work after the general debate.

Limits of Authority The General Assembly’s paper authority has limits, however. Despite the assembly’s global representation, its resolutions are recommendations and are not legally binding, except when they apply to UN internal matters. Those domains where it has binding authority are fundamental to the UN’s operations. The assembly approves budgets and decides how much each member state should contribute. It also elects the rotating members of three principal organs, the Security Council’s E10, the Economic and Social Council, and the Trusteeship Council. In collaboration with the Security Council it elects the judges of the International Court of Justice and appoints the secretary-general. Assembly proceedings move at a deliberate pace, by design. The UN Charter lays out a two-tier system of voting: “important” matters

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like budgets and the admission of new members, which are binding on member states, require a two-thirds-majority vote to pass, whereas others need only a simple majority. The assembly’s culture of consensus produces agreement about 85 percent of the time, but the process can be slow when nearly two hundred delegates are involved. Nancy Soderberg, a former US ambassador at the UN, complains that “it’s very difficult to be in the General Assembly because everything is done by consensus.” Any decision represents “the lowest common denominator of 193 divergent countries, which is a pretty low standard.”

The Power of Silence During the COVID-19 emergency the General Assembly decided to temporarily revise its procedures, allowing remote voting. According to the new procedure, draft resolutions were circulated to all member states under a “silence procedure,” meaning that if no one objected within a specified length of time, the measure would be considered approved, at least provisionally. However, the General Assembly was expected to “take note of the decision at its first plenary meeting held after the cessation of the precautionary measures as soon as the circumstances allow.”

Even when the assembly’s decision-making processes go well, they usually require much discussion and debate, though occasionally everything seems to slip into place as if preordained. UN reform, for example, is a perennial topic, usually with a limited result, perhaps because significant change might upset some countries. In 2017, however, the General Assembly approved the reform package of Secretary-General António Guterres with surprising quickness. María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, president of the General Assembly’s 73rd session (2018–19) remarks that “it’s the General Assembly that endorses and gives the political backing to the secretary-general to implement the reforms. The reforms are needed and are going to improve the quality of our work.” Some UN insiders suggest that the new Trump administration’s desire for UN reform encouraged the assembly to act expeditiously.

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Taking Turns to Speak During the general debate that opens the year for the General Assembly, heads of state and other world leaders speak on topics of their choice. Brazil always begins the debate, because many years ago, during several successive opening sessions of the General Assembly, the Brazilians offered to speak first when no other member state wanted that honor (or burden). The United States speaks second, as the host member state. After that, member states speak in an order following what a UN document describes as “a complex algorithm reflecting level of representation, geographical balance, the order in which the request to speak was recorded, and other considerations.” And you thought protocol for visiting the Queen of England was inscrutable! 

The Big Picture Understandably, the media tend to focus on the more action-­ oriented deliberations of the Security Council or on certain UN bodies, such as the Human Rights Council, that have drawn attention, often critical, leaving the General Assembly’s responsibilities in the “everything else” category. To understand the true impact of the General Assembly requires taking a bigger view. To begin with, the assembly is responsible for monitoring all parts of the UN system, and that system embraces pretty much everything that matters on earth, from climate change to disarmament to children’s health and education. The General Assembly is also the main actor in establishing the UN’s conventions, or treaties, which address a wide array of issues. Further, the assembly is the base for certain UN initiatives that the member states consider important, such as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which we will examine in detail in a later chapter.

Umbrella for Global Treaties One of the General Assembly’s most significant functions is to serve as a starting point for the many UN treaties (also called “conventions”). As noted by David Malone, rector of UN University and

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The General Assembly’s Writ 2. “The General Assembly may discuss any questions relating to the maintenance of international peace and security brought before it by any Member of the United Nations, or by the Security Council, or by a state which is not a Member of the United Nations in accordance with Article 35, paragraph 2, and, except as provided in Article 12, may make recommendations with regard to any such questions to the state or states concerned or to the Security Council or to both. Any such question on which action is necessary shall be referred to the Security Council by the General Assembly either before or after discussion.” —UN Charter, Chapter IV, Article 11

a former Canadian ambassador to the UN, “there’s one significant function of the General Assembly. It serves as the umbrella for treaty negotiations on everything from the International Criminal Court to treaties on climate change, biodiversity, you name it. The treaties matter tremendously in the conduct of international relations. The assembly has also become more active in human rights.” The treaties matter because most nations take them seriously and because they cover such a broad range of issues. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, for example, signed by member states in 1989, recognizes the human rights of persons under age eighteen. Among many other examples of treaties, the United Nations Convention against Corruption (2003) aims to limit corruption across national borders and helps efforts at recovering stolen assets, while the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism (2005) criminalizes acts of nuclear terrorism. More recently, the Arms Trade Treaty, which entered into force in 2014, regulates the international trade in conventional weapons, not only rifles and other small arms but large ones like tanks and aircraft. Any UN body can provide the impetus and organizational structure for a treaty. The World Health Organization (WHO), for example, entered the treaty arena in 2005 when it became the main actor in passage of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control

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(FCTC). A member state becomes a party to a treaty by formally “consenting to be bound” by its terms, usually through the ratification of the treaty, if the treaty is still in the process of being approved by member states, or by “accession” to it, if it is already in force. A treaty or convention comes into force once it has been ratified by a sufficient number of UN member states. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, to cite one instance, entered into force on September 2, 1990, a month after the twentieth member state ratified it. For those twenty states, the convention then became a fact of law, and as more states ratified or acceded to the treaty, they, too, became bound by its terms. Each treaty has an oversight committee, called the convention secretariat, which monitors implementation. The duties of the fifteen-­ member WHO FCTC Convention Secretariat, for example, include collecting regular reports from signatories of the convention, which it makes public. All of this activity occurs under the general oversight of the General Assembly.

A Place for Everyone A consuming passion for giving every member state part of the action feeds the notion that everyone in the General Assembly should participate in as many decisions, committees, and issues as possible. As longtime UN insider Jeffrey Laurenti observes, “The UN is not a place where the notion of the small getting out of the way of the bigger has much traction. There is a high premium on schmoozing small and mid-level states.” The parliamentary and administrative structure of the assembly reflects and embodies the need for inclusivity and broad participation. Formal and informal mechanisms ensure that the prerogatives and rewards of office are spread around. The presidency, for example, is rotated annually according to geographical region. If a member state from the Latin American and Caribbean region has the presidency one year, as happened for 2018–19, a member state from another region must have it the next year, and for 2019–20 that was Nigeria. Rotation by region enables every country to aspire to holding a prestigious and important office.

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Six Main Committees of the General Assembly 1. First Committee, Disarmament and International Security 2. Second Committee, Economic and Financial 3. Third Committee, Social, Humanitarian & Cultural 4. Fourth Committee, Special Political and Decolonization 5. Fifth Committee, Administrative and Budgetary 6. Sixth Committee, Legal

At the beginning of each new General Assembly session, the members elect a president and twenty-one vice presidents (yes, twenty-one), who constitute the General Committee and have broad authority over the proceedings of the assembly. The member states also elect a nine-member credentials committee, responsible for determining the accredited General Assembly representatives of each member state. Additionally, the member states elect the heads of the six Main Committees, which are responsible for examining major issues and topics. Committees are common in legislatures worldwide because they enable many issues to be examined simultaneously. In the US Congress, committees consider legislation in the form of “bills,” which become “laws” when passed by Congress and signed by the president. General Assembly committees call their bills “resolutions.” Each committee deliberates during the assembly session, votes on issues by simple majority, and sends its draft resolutions to the full assembly for a final vote. General Assembly resolutions, even when passed by vote, are recommendations, not laws, and are not binding. Each of the six Main Committees has both a number and a name, and either may be used to describe it, but insiders typically prefer the number. First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) considers resolutions about global security and weapons of mass destruction, as well as more conventional weapons. Second Committee (Economic and Financial) is responsible for examining economic and social development and international trade, including the reduction of barriers that prevent developing nations from reaching their full export potential. Third Committee (Social, Hu-

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manitarian & Cultural) is concerned with a hodgepodge of issues ranging from disaster relief to human rights. It also deals with international crime, including drugs, human trafficking, and money laundering, as well as government and business corruption. Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization), despite its name, no longer addresses decolonization because there are no colonies. Instead, it has made peacekeeping its primary mission. The committee also oversees the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) oversees the UN’s fiscal affairs and drafts the resolutions for the general budget that the General Assembly votes on. Sixth Committee (Legal) oversees important legal issues, such as human cloning, international terrorism, and war crimes.

A Bigger Profile, More Work In recent years the General Assembly has gained a higher profile among diplomats and the media owing to the Security Council’s difficulty in reaching consensus on certain divisive issues, like how to end the civil war in Syria. “The General Assembly has become more significant while the Security Council has faltered,” says Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group, alluding to the strained working relationship among the P5. “We see the General Assembly standing up and taking decisions that the council could not take. Definitely a lot of diplomats in New York talk about the rise of the General Assembly.” Jan Eliasson says that during his tenure as former secretary-general Ban Ki-moon’s deputy secretary-general, “there were resolutions on Syria where the General Assembly represented the world community. . . . I think therefore if the Security Council does not deliver, and they certainly have not in situations like Syria, then there will be other avenues, and the General Assembly is of course the main organ of the UN.” When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, the General Assembly immediately passed resolutions addressing the issue, while the Security Council was struggling to agree on a resolution. The first of the April 2020 resolutions

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recognized “the unprecedented effects” of the coronavirus pandemic and urged “intensified international cooperation to contain, mitigate and defeat” the disease. A second resolution called for global action to enlarge facilities for producing medicines and delivering access to testing and treatment, especially in developing nations. Rising visibility has sharpened the profile of the General Assembly’s chief executive officer, the president, or PGA. Until recently the PGA was seen as a largely ceremonial figure, a “protocol-er,” in the words of one recent incumbent, responsible for refereeing debates and keeping the agenda up to date. That has changed, in Richard Gowan’s view, “owing to the fact that you’ve had a number of activist PGAs.” He cites the campaign to choose a successor to then secretary-­general Ban Ki-moon: “The General Assembly also played a more significant role in the election of Guterres than it had in the selection of previous secretaries-general, which is because the PGA at that time was politically smart in how he handled the public hearing for the candidates.”

Smoothing the Way To facilitate the formal administrative side of the General Assembly, the president (PGA) for the 72nd General Assembly, Miroslav Lajčák, began holding regular informal sessions, reminiscent in some ways of the Arria-­ formula meetings of the Security Council. Called “morning dialogues,” they offered an opportunity for UN ambassadors to discuss issues that were not on the regular agenda. His successor as PGA, Ambassador Espinosa Garcés, embraced the concept and continued it under a new name, minga, from an Amerindian word for “work done collectively for the common good.” She describes the minga as an informal meeting on an issue that is controversial or cannot be resolved through formal negotiation. “People, ambassadors, speak freely,” she explains. “Then I share with all member states the main ideas without attribution. . . . I usually invite between twenty and thirty ambassadors, and, looking at gender balance, regional balance, I always make sure there are Asian ambassadors, African, Europeans, that all regions are represented, men and women.”

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María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, president of the General Assembly, chairing a morning minga (informal working meeting), April 15, 2019. United Nations Photo / Eskinder Debebe. According to María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, the former foreign minister of Ecuador, who was elected to be PGA for 2018–19, the General Assembly is a parliamentary setting. “We work as a high-­ energy parliament of humanity,” she explains. Her job as president entailed making sure that every process was inclusive and transparent and seeking to bridge positions to reach consensus. The PGA meets often with leaders of other UN bodies. “There is an existential need to coordinate,” says Espinosa Garcés, who explains that she met monthly with the president of the Security Council, with the secretary-general and his management team, and with the president of ECOSOC. The key is to keep in touch with all the main players, especially the secretary-general. “We communicate regularly, especially when we have problems, because he’s the executive, he’s our prime minister, and I’m like the president of the parliament.”

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Voting Blocs Although the committees define the General Assembly’s formal structure, they must operate within a political environment organized around large voting blocs consisting mainly of the developing member states. The two largest blocs are the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), established in 1961, and the Group of 77 (G-77), established in 1964. The Non-Aligned Movement emerged during the Cold War, when several nations sought to define a middle path that was not aligned with either the United States or the Soviet Union. The Group of 77 has a more institutionalized structure than the NAM and is situated within the UN framework. It describes itself as “the largest intergovernmental organization of developing countries in the United Nations,” with the goal of enabling “the countries of the South to articulate and promote their collective economic interests and enhance their joint negotiating capacity on all major in­ ternational economic issues within the United Nations system and promote South-South cooperation for development.” The NAM and the G-77 exercise power through numbers. In 2019 the NAM had 120 members and 17 observers, and the Group of

Group of 77 (G-77) annual meeting of foreign ministers, ECOSOC Chamber, September 27, 2019. Secretary-General António Guterres is addressing the gathering. United Nations Photo / Kim Haughton.

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77 had 134 members. Add up the numbers and you get 254 members, whereas the UN has only 193, so obviously there is much overlap between the two organizations. The point is that these two bodies can control votes in the General Assembly when they choose to. Soderberg accuses the blocs of being out of step with current realities. “Look at the Non-Aligned Movement,” she says. “What are they nonaligned against now? There is no alignment, which means that they are really trying to oppose the United States more often than not, which makes no sense.”

New Thinking “We cannot afford to be burdened with labels such as ‘rich’ or ‘poor,’ ‘developed’ or ‘developing,’ ‘north’ or ‘south,’ or ‘the Non-Aligned Movement.’ In the twenty-first century these false divisions rarely serve anyone’s interests. In facing challenges of the scale that lie before us, all peoples and nations should focus on what we have in common: our shared desire to live freely and securely, in health, with hope and with opportunity. Those are the interests and aspirations of the American people, and they are shared by billions around the world.” —Susan E. Rice, US ambassador to the UN under President Barack Obama

Pakistan’s ambassador to the UN, Munir Akram, a former head of the G-77, argues that the Non-Aligned Movement and the Group of 77 are potentially vehicles for positive change. The G-77 “can often coordinate its position and take common positions,” and it benefits also from a new sense of confidence among the developing countries, in part because a number of them have had successful economic growth and a number are so-called emerging economies. Just as clearly, according to John Bolton, who was UN ambassador under President George W. Bush, the regional bloc system “is a contributing factor to the ineffectiveness of the UN because it helps reinforce the status quo and becomes a way for countries to protect and get part of the benefits that accrue from the UN programs. It leads to a scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-yours philosophy. That makes it unlikely you’re going to have very effective change or reform.”

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When the mutual back-scratching is added to the fact that General Assembly resolutions are not binding on member states, we have a formula for political grandstanding, as Richard Gowan has observed. “It means a lot of countries are willing to take ideological positions in the General Assembly without thinking they’re going to have much impact on their diplomatic relations, which is why the countries that are working behind the scenes to improve their ties with Israel will still firmly stand with the Palestinians in the General Assembly. It’s a space for political posturing a lot of the time.” Grandstanding and political calculation are hardly unique to the General Assembly, or, for that matter, to any other parliamentary body.

Does It Work? Despite the General Assembly’s growing profile and its important role in the UN system, questions remain about its effectiveness, especially when compared with the Security Council. María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, who was president of the 73rd General Assembly, says that in her meetings with member states, “I repeat this phrase, that we have an implementation deficit. We are swift in passing resolutions on this and on that, 300 every year, but how about implementation?” She is not alone in complaining about the assembly’s implementation deficit, but to some extent it may be a matter of seeing the glass as half empty or half full. Her predecessor as PGA contended with the same issue and finished his term believing that while a lot was undone, the General Assembly had made a strong and constructive effort during the year. In his parting remarks, Slovakia’s former ambassador Miroslav Lajčák said, “There is no doubt that the General Assembly is the most representative international body. My ambition has always been to make it also the most relevant one. And when I look back at this 72nd session, I can say I am moderately satisfied. We have accomplished many good things. But obviously, this is an unfinished job and a work in progress.”

CHAPTER 7

Rubbing Elbows and Egos in the UN Village

The amount of psychology in diplomacy is remarkable. States behave very much as human beings. It is very ego driven, I would say. We want to be there, we want to be where decisions are taken. —Danilo Türk, former Slovenian ambassador to the UN and assistant secretary-general for political affairs The United Nations is known for operating in ways that may seem complicated and convoluted. The Secretariat’s administrators may have their procedures and protocols, and they follow their proper, not always straight-and-narrow, channels. The same is true in the General Assembly, where red tape decorates resolutions, studies, reports, and memoranda. In the many UN-related bodies, agencies, and commissions, creating and filing paper does occasionally obscure the central point of the organization. When trying to understand the UN, however, it’s important not to confuse administrative complexities with issues of governance and decision-­ making. As talk turns into plan and action, the procedures may diverge from what is customary, and often the divergences are the reason things get done. Then the UN becomes as simple and straight-

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forward a place as can be imagined, because, as former Canadian ambassador David Malone notes, “people really matter at the UN.” Furthermore, “anything that happens at the UN happens because of certain individuals.” Malone calculates that “at any given time, out of 193 ambassadors, about thirty-five control the game. Within the Security Council four or five ambassadors at any given time are dominant, perhaps a few more, counting the nonpermanent ones. This is also true in each of the General Assembly committees.” So, if you know and work well with relevant figures among those thirty-five dominant people, you can do anything. And if you don’t, forget it.

The Village Think of a small town where decisions are made by groups of key people who know one another and often socialize while sipping coffee at a café or chatting over dinner at a restaurant. That is how Richard Holbrooke described his experience as US permanent representative under President Clinton. Looking back on those sixteen months in New York, he remembered a place he called the UN Village. The village worked through small groups, formal or informal, meeting constantly in hallways, UN lounges, diplomatic residences, and restaurants. John Negroponte, US permanent representative under President George W. Bush, also walked the streets of the UN Village. “I’ve called on 114 delegates,” he remarked when asked about his first few

Where to Find It Located on the east side of Manhattan, the UN Village has “its own language and time zone, where ‘demand’ means ‘ask,’ ‘strong’ means ‘not so strong,’ and ‘severe’ means ‘not so severe,’ and ‘urges’ means ‘begs.’ All a different lingo. Thousands of people live here who have very little interaction with the rest of the city.” —Richard Holbrooke, US ambassador to the UN under President Bill Clinton

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months at the UN. “The diplomatic practice is that if you arrived after another delegate, then you go and call on them. If they’ve arrived after you have, then they go and see you. The new kid on the block comes around to see you.” Negroponte tried even harder to meet with regional groups, where a lot of the business of the UN is done. He visited with the European Union “once every six or eight weeks” and with the South African Development Group, the Economic Council of West African States, and others. “Meeting with” can often mean drinks or dinner, sometimes at the US ambassador’s official residence.

Just Like Home “When I first came here, even though I lived in New York, it was a little bit of a foreign territory to me, the United Nations. But now it’s like home. But so many great people, so many great leaders in this room. And a lot of terrific things are happening.” —US president Donald Trump, speaking at Secretary-General António Guterres’s luncheon for world leaders, September 25, 2018

In a village where everyone knows everyone else, there are not likely to be many really big secrets, and the quirks and sensitivities of the residents are well known. Residents understand that for any given member state they don’t touch upon certain issues or topics of discussion without expecting a strong reaction. When socializing with a Chinese delegate, for example, they might choose not to discuss Tibet, the Uighurs, or Hong Kong. The Russian delegates may not appreciate being quizzed about their government’s relations with Ukraine, just as the US delegates may not break into smiles when asked about Washington’s economic sanctions on Cuba. Within the village are “neighborhoods,” some of them pretty exclusive. Negroponte lived mainly in one of the toniest, the Security Council. Its clubroom, the Security Council Chamber, is defined by its focal point, a horseshoe-shaped table that invariably features in media coverage of council activities. The room is so closely identified with the council that, during a major renovation of the UN’s

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Neighborly chat. Nikki Haley, US ambassador to the UN, speaks with Tekeda Alemu, ambassador of Ethiopia to the UN, before a Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question, June 1, 2018. United Nations Photo / Evan Schneider. complex of buildings in 2009–12, when the Security Council spaces were relocated to a large basement conference room, the temporary space was arrayed to look and feel like the original chamber, even to the horseshoe table. When Negroponte was the US ambassador, he remarked that most of his dealings were in the Security Council, “which is a fairly small and tight-knit group, and we meet each other one way or another every day. We get to know each other pretty well. And so there is a certain camaraderie in the Security Council.” Negroponte also spent time in that other neighborhood, the General Assembly, where representatives from nearly two hundred nations may jockey for attention and recognition in speaking for their nations’ interests. “I think where the nerves sometimes get a little frayed around the edges is in some of these big General Assembly

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Club Rules “It’s a club, and at the UN you treat people with respect. You recognize that you may not have the same political viewpoint, but you don’t insult them in public. That’s the way business gets done. Generally speaking, people are polite to each other.” —Joseph Melrose, former US official at the UN

special sessions, particularly when you have to reach consensus on a document. Nerves can get frayed, and you have these marathon meetings that go on until eight in the morning, and you have NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] in the bleachers that are pushing single-minded positions. But even there, particularly if you can succeed in achieving consensus, if you can reach consensus on a document, I think there’s always a huge sense of relief even among those who were opposed to positions we had. They can say to themselves, at least we produced something at the end of this.”

A New Lounge The East Lounge, also known as the Qatar Lounge, was added to the main floor of the Secretariat Building in 2013 during a renovation of the whole structure. As its name suggests, it was paid for by the government of Qatar. Then secretary-general Ban Ki-moon thanked the government of Qatar for the lounge and remarked that it was an idea whose realization was long sought. “Many of the original sketches of the United Nations envisaged open space facing the river here on the first floor. By creating this East Lounge, we have realized that early vision of open space.”

Moving to a New Part of Town Most member states covet the Security Council’s neighborhood, but not everyone sees it that way. John Negroponte recalls that the Mexican legation was reluctant to seek a council seat because of concerns that it would be a no-win situation. Some of his Mexican colleagues were thinking, “If we agree with the United States, then that will be taken for granted, and if we disagree with the United States,

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US president Barack Obama at the Security Council Summit on Foreign Terrorist Fighters, September 24, 2014. United Nations Photo / Mark Garten. that will hurt us in our bilateral relationship with the United States.” The Mexican president and others took the opposite tack, however, maintaining that Mexico needed to be more visible on the world stage and not worry about how the audience would react. Negroponte’s Mexican counterparts asked him, “Will you hold it against Mexico if we take positions against the United States or at odds with the United States?” Negroponte replied with diplomatic aplomb, “Everything we do is going to be in the context of an excellent bilateral relationship. . . . We may have our differences, but it’s a crucial relationship to us, and it’s going to remain that, and we’re going to deal with Mexico accordingly.” History validated Negroponte’s advice: Mexico served on the council in 2002–3 and 2009–10 without suffering apparent injury to its relations with the United States. Concern over relations with the United States was possibly not part of the mix when the Saudi Arabian government declined to

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serve on the council after it was elected to the position in 2013. Citing frustration over the council’s inability to resolve the long-running Palestinian issue and the more recent civil war in Syria, the Saudis simply said no, in a unique rebuff to the council and the UN. The Israelis ran for a 2019–20 Security Council seat but withdrew after calculating that their chances were poor.

Formally Informal or Informally Formal? Once a member state becomes a player in a clique or faction, it needs to know the rules and procedures. One basic principle is that the most important business is done ostensibly in the open but actually in private. There’s a reason why so many decisions, not just at the UN but in organizations the world over, are made by a few people in a back room. Chances are that if the terms of the agreement were discussed in public, with all the constraints of touchy issues, no one would agree to anything significant. So a common arrangement at the UN is to begin a debate or discussion in a large public setting, such as the Security Council Chamber, and then, as the individual points become defined, to break up into smaller, less public groups. Finally, a few people sitting at a table resolve the most contentious points, with no media presence and sometimes with no one taking notes. In the Security Council, the opening discussions are referred to as the formals, and the subsequent, less public talks as the informals. Nancy Soderberg, who was a US ambassador to the UN under President Bill Clinton, came to regard the formal meetings as “just a staged show.” In fact, “there is just nothing that happens in them.” Rather, the serious negotiations happen at the informals, “because you can’t negotiate in a formal setting, you can’t talk to people.” Occasionally the formal setting is good for sending signals to another member, but, “for the most part, you go in, there’s a briefing that nobody pays attention to, and everyone reads prepared statements and nothing happens.” Sometimes, though, even the informals are too formal for serious talk. “The informals are not so informal,” says Soderberg. “It still is

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At the state luncheon for heads of delegations, hosted by Secretary-­ General António Guterres, September 24, 2019. General Assembly President Tijjani Muhammad-Bande (dressed in white) speaks with José Ulisses Correia e Silva (left), prime minister of Cabo Verde, and Julius Maada Bio, president of Sierra Leone. United Nations Photo / Ariana Lindquist. pretty formal because you have a chair who [calls on] everyone in order. It’s really hard to have negotiations when you have to wait your turn.” The actual decision may already have been made anyway. But where? “In a back room,” says Soderberg.

Under the Radar It’s not only in the Security Council that doing business may require discretion and privacy. “Years ago, I wanted to talk to a top UN official,” recalls former US ambassador Joseph Melrose. “I called her press attaché to arrange the lunch and asked if the official had a

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particular restaurant that she liked. ‘If I were you, I wouldn’t have lunch around here,’ was the reply. ‘I’d go to a restaurant farther removed from the UN, where no one will see the two of you having lunch.’ And we did. I started doing that. I would go not to the Japanese restaurant or the hotel across the street. I’d take them to a place where we would be less likely to be recognized.”

Food for Thought and Action Why did Joseph Melrose choose to discuss his business over food? “Food is probably the thing that holds the UN together,” noted former US diplomat Richard Holbrooke. “Boy, do those guys like to  eat!” The diplomatic scene overflows with large public receptions and smaller private gatherings at the nearly two hundred UN missions and residences, invariably garnished with abundant, and

The renovated North Delegates Lounge at UN Headquarters, April 4, 2013. United Nations Photo / Mark Garten.

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sometimes delicious, food and drink. Staff at restaurants near UN headquarters serve international diplomats, some of them household names, with a nonchalance suggesting that it is just part of a day’s work, which it is. Often the UN Villagers do their eating right on the premises, in the Delegates’ Dining Room, a large space in the Secretariat Building with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the East River. An informal seating hierarchy has the movers and shakers usually sitting on the left side while the commoners stay to the right. Periodically, as a special treat, the buffet will feature dishes from a particular national cuisine, prepared by a chef from that country. And the UN has a surprise: the dining room is open to the public! The management invites the public to enjoy a prix-fixe lunch, Monday through Friday, presenting “fresh and exciting international cuisine.” Reservations required, of course, because you will be entering famous and historic territory, offering a chance to spy on some of the world’s leading diplomats, though you may need a working knowledge of a few dozen languages for proper eavesdropping. Members of the public have one more eatery, the Visitors Café, in the lower level of the Secretariat Building, but they are not allowed in the half dozen other cafés and lounges at the UN. In places like the Café de la Paix (84 seats) and the Secretariat Main Cafeteria (570 seats), UN diplomats, staff, and media representatives sit wherever they can find a quiet table, if chat is their focus. And chat usually is, because so much business is done over coffee and sandwiches or a salad. Diplomats, being diplomatic, typically seek out secluded places for discreet chat or negotiation, and for decades one UN spot in particular has attracted them. The North Delegates’ Lounge, an immense room located down the hall from the Security Council Chamber, is the venue of choice for diplomats who need a place to meet informally for a coffee pick-me-up or a whiskey calm-me-down, any time of day from morning until night. UN Villagers have joked for decades that in addition to the General Assembly’s six standing committees there is the seventh committee, the lounge. One former UN diplomat recalled the lounge as it was years ago,

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Secretary-General António Guterres and US president Donald Trump at the secretary-general’s luncheon for heads of government and state, September 2018. United Nations Photo / Rick Bajomas. a darkish, smoke-filled space adorned with leather-upholstered furniture and offering the aroma of brewed coffee mingled with a hint of intrigue. The Russians were among the frequent patrons to the extensive bar tucked away in one corner. How much globe-changing diplomacy occurred is anybody’s guess, but guessing is less necessary nowadays since the lounge’s total remake, completed in 2013. In place of smoky intrigue, the lounge offers cheery openness, illuminated with bright lights. Green plastic tables and Scandinavian-­ modern chairs have replaced the wood and leather furniture, while contemporary art decorates the walls. The lounge is less like a scene from Casablanca and more, to use one visitor’s description, like an airport lounge. It also seems to draw fewer of the big players in the Security Council, who may feel that light and transparency are not always the best setting for serious but unofficial communication and dealmaking. Still, the lounge remains one of the hotspots at the headquarters, accessible only by UN diplomats, staff, and media correspondents with a standing press pass.

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A Feminist Turn The streets of the village used to be trodden almost exclusively by men of important mien. Now important women are strolling through the village, too. Madeleine Albright, who was US permanent representative under President Clinton, remembers a time, two decades ago, when she was not just a woman in that environment but “the woman who represents the United States,” the dominant power. Nancy Soderberg, who was also a US diplomat at the UN during the Clinton years, remembers old-fashioned gallantry. “One of the things that I just loved, being a young woman on the council, is that chivalry really does live there. They are so gentlemanly and just wonderful. At times they come up and kiss your hand and everyone stands up for you.” Try that in the US Senate! Gallantry survives at the Security Council, though it may not always produce the conventional response. Famously, during the early years of the Trump administration, Russia’s UN ambassador would greet his US counterpart and frequent antagonist, Nikki Haley, with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. At one session, which was addressing a draft resolution to condemn the Syrian government for its use of poison gas on civilians, a news account explained that “while Haley and Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia were seen greeting each other with handshakes and kisses on the cheek prior to the meeting, the mood quickly changed as the diplomats hurled accusations at each other.” Nikki Haley’s directness was less remarkable than it might have been from a woman diplomat at the UN years ago. Today women are much more visible in high circles and more vocal in asserting their rights and advancing their agendas. “We do have a woman’s club,” notes Ecuador’s María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, president of the General Assembly in 2018–19. She describes “a circle of women ambassadors, 44 women, and I call on them for advice and guidance, dialogue, for exchange.” The women come from very different countries but share the common denominator of making change. One change has been to alter the terms of political correctness in the village. It is no longer acceptable, she says, for commit-

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A tête-à-tête in the Security Council. US ambassador Samantha Power and Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin confer in the Security Council Chamber before a vote on a US-sponsored resolution about Ukraine, March 15, 2014. United Nations Photo / Eskinder Debebe. tees, panels, and other UN groupings to consist solely of men, because it is generally understood, by women and men, that women’s participation is essential. A measure of how much women have gained visibility in the village comes simply from the numbers. Samantha Power, who was the US ambassador under President Obama, says that “Madeleine Albright had created the G7, which she called the Girls 7, of the seven female ambassadors. I created the G37,” bringing the women ambassadors together for dinners at the US

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ambassador’s residence in the Waldorf Astoria, where Gloria Steinem, Madeleine Albright, and others spoke. Power regarded her convening “as a form of soft power,” which she used to develop better working relations with her neighbors in the village. “I love sports,” she recalls, “so I would bring a dozen or so ambassadors to a box at Madison Square Garden every year to watch the Knicks. It was a great way to get to know them without the pressure of work. When I would later call that ambassador and ask him to take a tough vote, he might remember fondly the night out together.” When opportunity came, Power would play soccer with the Latin American ambassadors and even joined the Danish, Serbian, Thai, Korean, and Tongan ambassadors in an informal rock band. Power’s social outreach extended to her Russian neighbor, Ambassador Vitaly Churkin—at least during the first year or so of her tenure, before US-Russia relations became uncomfortably strained. “Vitaly was my number one public nemesis, but he was somebody I engaged with socially. We each invested in the relationship and did what we could to keep the temperature down.” She explains that “because of Syria and later Crimea, eastern Ukraine, election interference, it was extremely challenging to maintain a constructive relationship, and yet we knew we needed to find a way to work together because the Security Council becomes totally dysfunctional if Russia and the United States are at loggerheads.” They attended hockey games together, met regularly for dinner, and with other ambassadors went to the theater, “but it got harder and harder as Russia’s aggression beyond its borders increased.”

Diplomatically Speaking “We’re diplomats, so whatever feeling people may have, they’re going to be muted, guarded, and careful. I think most diplomats feel that you can disagree without being disagreeable. That’s part of our work ethic, because otherwise you could live in quite unbearable circumstances.” —John Negroponte, US ambassador to the UN under President George W. Bush

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Where’s the Secretary-General? Missing in this discussion is the secretary-general, whose official residence is on Sutton Place, uptown from the UN headquarters but nevertheless part of the village. Every secretary-general, socially minded or not, expects to spend time in the village attending diplomatic dinners, affairs, cocktail hours, and receptions. But beyond those official duties, the secretary-general typically spends less time in the village than most other diplomats, owing both to the workload and the need to travel. There is also a personality issue to consider. Some secretaries-­ general have been social animals. Kofi Annan and his wife, Nan, had spent a lot of time in New York before his election to be secretary-­ general and had become part of the local social and media scenes. They could be seen around town, sometimes taking walks in Central Park, always poised, sociable, and comfortable at public events both inside and outside the UN Village. Other secretaries-general, like Kofi Annan’s predecessor, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and his successor, Ban Ki-moon, chose a more private lifestyle while off duty—to the extent that a secretary-general can ever be considered “off duty.” Ban’s overstuffed schedule of travel to hotspots and UN venues around the globe (sometimes with his wife) and his workaholic style left little time for social affairs, though it is said that he seemed to enjoy the informal social interaction. Secretary-General António Guterres participates in diplomatic and other UN functions, “but it’s not the center of his life,” according to Stéphane Dujarric, his spokesperson. He relishes time spent at UN sites and programs, where the action is. “The more time he can spend in the field visiting humanitarian operations, peacekeeping ops, and time with young people, the happier he is,” explains Dujarric. What does the world’s most visible diplomat do on his rare days off in New York? When possible he likes to get out of the village to visit galleries and museums that feature one of his passions, contemporary art.

CHAPTER 8

Peace Operations

A peacekeeping operation is not an army, or a counter-terrorist force, or a humanitarian agency. It is a tool to create the space for a nationallyowned political solution. . . . Put simply, peace operations cannot succeed if they are deployed instead of a political solution, rather than in support of one. —UN Secretary-General António Guterres Although keeping the peace is one of the UN’s essential functions, the UN Charter mentions it only briefly, and its full scope and nature emerged over the decades in response to pressing needs. Since the first UN peace operation in 1948, some one million personnel have served in seventy-two peacekeeping missions around the world. During the 1990s the United Nations launched more peace-related operations than in the previous four decades, and the scale of operations increased during the first decade of the twenty-­ first century to more than one hundred thousand police and troops deployed annually. The trend then sloped the other way, as UN member states, led by the United States, reined in the peacekeeping budget and the size of peacekeeping missions. In October 2019, the

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thirteen active missions deployed approximately eighty-eight thousand blue-helmeted police and troops plus civilian personnel, at an annual cost of about $6.7 billion. The UN’s peacekeepers constitute the second-largest deployed military in the world. Formal UN peace operations, called missions, come into being through the Security Council. Some missions exist solely to monitor a truce, in which case the military observers are unarmed. Others exist to keep combatants apart and protect civilians, in which case the troops carry arms. In either case, the peacekeepers usually seek to avoid armed conflict, although that is not always the case, as will be noted below. The Security Council’s first peace-related resolution, in 1948, established an unarmed military observer mission, the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), to oversee the truce between Arabs and Jews after the United Kingdom relinquished control over Palestine, which it had been governing as a League of Nations mandate. As with peace operations today, member states provided most of the personnel. UNTSO set the model for nomenclature: the organization is invariably referred to by its acronym rather than its full name. The UN’s first armed military mission was UNEF, the UN Emergency Force, established in 1956 to help resolve a conflict over the Suez Canal involving Egypt, Israel, France, and the United Kingdom. This was the first UN peacekeeping mission to wear the distinctive blue helmets.

An Evolving Concept Peacekeeping has changed as the nature of conflicts has evolved. The norm used to be that conflicts occurred between nation-states, which fought with field armies that targeted combatants, not civilians; that was the theory, anyway. Early UN peace operations involved troops capable of acting both as buffers between hostile forces and as monitors of truces, troop withdrawals, and borders or demilitarized zones. But these days nation-states have been better behaved toward one another, and in some places, such as Europe, they have even forged close political ties. Instead, conflicts tend to occur within

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nations, in the form of civil wars or insurgencies (as in Syria and Yemen) or national resistance movements (such as the East Timorese against Indonesian occupation). UN peacekeeping missions are now often “multidimensional,” as in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), combining military and police personnel with experts in governance, health (Ebola virus), and public services, and seeking to protect civilians from attack by insurgent forces.

Staying on Course In a presentation to the Security Council in April 2020, Secretary-General António Guterres assured world leaders that the coronavirus pandemic would not prevent the United Nations from fulfilling its peacekeeping mandates: “Our peacekeeping operations and special political missions will continue to be guided by four key objectives: First, to support national authorities in their response to COVID-19. Second, to protect our personnel and their capacity to continue critical operations. Third, to ensure that our own personnel are not a contagion vector. And fourth, to help protect vulnerable communities and continue to implement mission mandates.”

The Security Council authorizes a peacekeeping mission as a way of ending a conflict and a step toward a political or diplomatic settlement. A mission typically consists mainly of combat units with some military police and civilian experts. Peacekeepers may use force, with the authorization of the Security Council, if acting in self-defense or in defense of their mandate. The UN does not regard its peacekeepers as combatants, although that is changing. Once the Security Council authorizes the deployment of a peacekeeping operation, defines its mission, and recommends the way the mission should be carried out, the secretary-general appoints a head of mission, a director, who reports to the under-secretary-­ general for peace operations at the New York headquarters. The Department of Peace Operations (DPO) oversees the mission, through three main offices. The first, the Office of Rule of Law and Security

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Jean-Pierre Lacroix, under-secretary-general for peace operations, reviewing troops of the UN mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), January 11, 2019. United Nations Photo / Igor Rugwiza. Institutions (OROLSI), works with national authorities to protect civilians and reestablish law and order. The Office of Military Affairs (OMA) selects the appropriate UN military capability and is also responsible for the general improvement of military components in peacekeeping missions. The third office, the Policy, Evaluation and Training Division (DPET), as its name suggests, deals mainly with training and the assessment of performance in the field. Peacekeeping is divided into eight geographical regions, co-managed by the DPO and the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, soon to be discussed.

Reappraising Methods and Risks Over the decades, as the focus of peace operations shifted from wars between countries to conflicts within nations, and as the num-

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United Nations peacekeeping operations, November 2019. UN Office of Information and Communications Technology. ber and scope of operations increased, the Security Council decided it was time to reexamine peacekeeping. It commissioned a study by Lakhdar Brahimi, the former foreign minister of Algeria, whose final report, presented in 2000, became a point of reference for most discussions about peace operations. The Brahimi report made

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many recommendations about updating the concept of peacekeeping to address modern situations and stressed the growing need for better funding and administration. Among its recommendations it urged that military functions be integrated with historically civil functions, such as dealing with human rights, policing, food, shelter, and medical services. Almost twenty years after the Brahimi report came another UN-commissioned study, this one led by Lieutenant General (Retired) Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz of Brazil and submitted in December 2017. The Cruz report focused on the need to improve the security of peacekeepers. “Since 1948,” it noted, “more than 3,500 personnel have lost their lives serving in United Nations peace operations with 943 due to direct acts of violence. During the past four years (2013–17) a consistent increase in peacekeeper fatalities due to violent acts resulted in 195 deaths.” The Cruz report proposed a more active stance for peacekeepers. “Unfortunately, hostile forces do not understand a language other than force,” the report declared. “To deter and repel attacks and to defeat attackers, the United Nations needs to be strong and not fear to use force when necessary.” The proposals for doing this included principles clarifying “that in high-risk areas featuring high-intensity conflicts (ambushes, for instance), troops should use overwhelming force and be proactive and preemptive.” Rather than a defensive stance, peacekeeping forces should take the offensive and seek to disrupt and confuse their potential attackers. “Fatalities rarely occur as a result of troops and leadership taking action,” argued the report; “the United Nations is most often attacked as a result of inaction.” The report’s recommendation for more aggressive action, and also better training and equipping of missions, was not new. The Security Council had on occasion given UN peacekeeping operations “robust” mandates authorizing the use of “all necessary means” to “protect civilians under imminent threat of physical attack, and/or assist the national authorities in maintaining law and order” and to deter violent attempts to “disrupt the political process.” This way of defining “robust” moved the peacekeepers into peace enforcement,

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a stance that was more likely to involve them in physical conflict. For example, when internal armed conflict threatened to undermine the government of the Central African Republic in 2013, the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) responded by asking the Security Council for the deployment of a peacekeeping mission. Representatives from ECCAS and the African Union “agreed on the urgent need for the international community to act and that a United Nations peacekeeping mission with a robust mandate would be required.” In 2014 the Security Council accepted the request and authorized creation of a such a peacekeeping operation—MINUSCA. The strong UN response may have encouraged the various rebel groups in their decision to negotiate a peace agreement, in February 2019. As the peacekeeping aspect became less pressing, the need for political expertise became urgent, and the foreign minister of the Central African Republic asked the UN to adjust MINUSCA’s mandate to provide more support for implementing a peace agreement. The situation had changed from mainly military to mostly political, exactly what the Security Council was hoping when it authorized the mission.

The Push to Slim Down “The really big shift is, most people in the UN recognize, that the days of big, slow moving relatively costly blue-helmet missions like the ones we had in Darfur and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are coming to an end. A lot of governments are losing patience with peacekeeping. . . . And so, fairly or unfairly, a lot of UN officials up to and including Guterres are saying, What are the lightweight options, how do we do conflict management without ten thousand troops? There is more about what smaller mechanisms like the Peacebuilding Office can do. That’s a big change.” —Richard Gowan, International Crisis Group

The DRC: More Robust and Costly The Security Council supported a more aggressive stance when it directed the establishment of an “intervention brigade” in 2013 among the twenty thousand peacekeeping troops in the Democratic

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Republic of the Congo (DRC), whose eastern regions saw one of the UN’s longest-running and most expensive peace operations. After a rebel movement seized part of the eastern regions in 1998, a ceasefire agreement brokered by the Security Council led to the authorization in 1999 of the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC). The Security Council later expanded the mandate from observation of the ceasefire and disengagement of forces to include supervision of the ceasefire agreement and other tasks related to political institutions, the military, and the rule of law. During the approximately ten years of its deployment, from 2000 to June 2010, MONUC enabled the UN to help the national government in Kinshasa gain stability and organize elections, but at the cost of 161 UN personnel killed and the expenditure of $8.73 billion.

A Multidimensional Approach “Today’s multidimensional peacekeeping operations are called upon not only to maintain peace and security, but also to facilitate the political process, protect civilians, assist in the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of former combatants, support the organization of elections, protect and promote human rights and assist in restoring the rule of law.” —UN Department of Peace Operations

In July 2010 the Security Council renamed MONUC to MONUSCO, the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and authorized it to use “all necessary means” to protect civilians, humanitarian personnel, and human rights defenders under threat of physical violence and to support the government of the DRC in its efforts to consolidate peace. Despite the presence of the UN force, the DRC’s eastern regions remained contested ground, though relatively free national elections were held in 2018 and led to hopes that the UN might be able to withdraw its peacekeeping mission at some point. David Malone, rector of UN University and former Canadian ambassador to the UN, says he is one of many UN insiders who fault

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Rosemary DiCarlo, under-secretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs, briefing the Security Council on the situation in Syria, August 7, 2019. United Nations Photo / Loey Felipe.

the DRC mission because after more than twenty years of deployment it lacks a viable political strategy yet remains extremely expensive to maintain (more than $1 billion annually). “Why are we there peacekeeping? There’s no foreseeable endgame. We’re just receiving blows from various guerilla groups, unhelped by the government.” Conceding that the mission had done some “good work,” for example in assisting with efforts to control an outbreak of Ebola virus disease, he nevertheless remarks that “it’s a very expensive way of making a helpful contribution on Ebola.”

Political and Peacebuilding Affairs: The DPPA Secretary-General António Guterres, as part of his reform agenda when he assumed his post in 2017, wanted to reorganize peace operations to provide better coordination in the field. As a result of the reforms, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations was renamed

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the Department of Peace Operations, and the Department of Political Affairs became the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA), charged with preventing conflict, if possible, and helping navigate the restoration of peace when a conflict has been resolved. As its name suggests, DPPA has two main functions, each with its own office: the Department of Political Affairs (DPA) and the Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO). The Department of Political Affairs monitors political developments in nations around the world to identify situations that might develop into violent conflict, and it can also assist in resolving conflicts once they begin. Working closely with the secretary-general and his envoys, as well as with UN political missions, it can deploy its peacemaking expertise to the field and cooperate with local and regional organizations involved in the conflict. One of the department’s important functions is to support the UN’s efforts to establish the rule of law, for example by coordinating UN assistance in holding free and fair elections once a conflict has ended. The department manages several special political missions, with mandates involving areas ranging from strengthening national systems of justice, police, and corrections to protection of human rights. The Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO), according to the UN web site, “fosters international support for nationally owned and led peacebuilding efforts,” meaning that it assists national governments in their efforts to establish a solid basis for a peaceful society once conflicts have been resolved. Peacebuilding includes efforts to strengthen the rule of law, improve respect for human rights, provide technical assistance for democratic development, and promote conflict resolution and reconciliation techniques. PBSO’s offices include the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) and the Peacebuilding Fund (PBF). The Peacebuilding Commission is an intergovernmental body consisting of delegates from thirty-one member states, elected by the General Assembly, the Security Council, and the Economic and Social Council, along with representatives from the countries that contribute the most funds and troops to UN peace operations. It has a liaison role between the Secretariat and the member states. The

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Political and peacebuilding missions, October 2019. UN Office of Information and Communications Technology. Peacebuilding Fund is a pot of money dedicated to supporting peace in countries seeking to end or avoid a conflict. One pressing need in holding national elections, for example, would be to pay the costs of balloting, whether done by paper or by machines. The PBF can do this quickly, without the need for special discussions with the General Assembly or with non-UN partners. According to the

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UN, in 2019 the fund allocated $191 million in thirty-four recipient countries. DPPA’s staff, numbering more than five hundred personnel based in the New York headquarters, supervises political and peacebuilding missions employing about four thousand staff around the world, and with the Department of Peace Operations it jointly oversees eight regional divisions that cover the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. The broad responsibility of this far-flung enterprise came home to Rosemary DiCarlo, a former US ambassador at the UN, when she became head of DPPA. “I have never had a position before in my career where I was covering the entire world,” she explains. At DPPA, some of the countries on her list are subjects of Security Council resolutions and peacekeeping operations, but others are not. “We may be involved in many countries that never come before the Security Council, and the hope is that they will not come before the Security Council, and that’s why we are engaged with them.”

Warning Signs The Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs scans the globe for warning signs of trouble. “You see increased human rights violations, increased drug trafficking,” explains Rosemary DiCarlo, the department’s director, “which is a sign that instability is around the corner. Small-scale violence, attacks on demonstrators. Also climate change, we see this with movements of populations because of climate change, desertification. When you have several of them in a country there is a real cause for concern.”

If the New York headquarters cannot negotiate a settlement to a potential conflict, it may try to do it through an on-site mediator. DPPA maintains teams of mediators who can travel to trouble spots on short notice. Most of this preventive work is invisible to the world, precisely because its success forestalls media-grabbing conflict and violence. “That is the part of the work that most people don’t know about,” explains DiCarlo. “We don’t talk about it very much. I could

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list a lot of countries but I’m not going to for the very simple reason that our goal is not to be taking credit for helping to resolve things; our goal is to enable parties to help themselves do it, and we often work very discreetly.” Richard Gowan is favorably impressed with the political mission as a general concept. “Political missions have, just like peacekeeping, turned out to be a remarkable tool for the UN . . . and in some ways a more flexible one because they are smaller, lighter, easier to put together than peacekeeping operations.” He warns, however, that they are not panaceas. “Sometimes I hear people say, We don’t think peacekeeping is working in Sudan, we should think about a political mission. It’s not that simple. Political missions lack that leverage that having troops gives you.”

Getting Funding and Troops Peacekeeping missions can be large, with budgets in the billions of dollars and personnel in the thousands, as table 2 shows. Where do the dollars and troops come from? Peace operations have their own budgeting process, separate from other UN budgets. The peacekeeping assessments distinguish ten levels of support, with the least developed countries paying 10 percent of what they would have owed according to the assessment scale for the UN’s regular budget, and the five permanent Security Council members paying a surcharge. The top ten contributors to the peacekeeping budget all have large economies and contribute the bulk of funds for peacekeeping. In fact, the top ten contribute more than 80 percent of the assessed peacekeeping costs annually. The United States and China combined provide more than 43 percent of the budget. Troops, police, and other personnel come from all over the world, literally. The Department of Peace Operations has an administrative staff but no trained military force, so it must borrow from member states, who agree to provide personnel, equipment, and logistics. The UN pays member states $1,428 and allowances per peacekeeper per month, with supplements for specialists, gear, and weaponry, but the member states pay the troops according to their own scales.

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Table 2. UN peacekeeping operations, April 2020, including number of deployed military and police personnel. The cost of the thirteen peacekeeping missions consumed most of the UN’s peacekeeping budget of $6.5 billion. Mission

Date Established

Troops and Observers

Police

UNTSO UNMOGIP

1948 1949

152 43

0 0

UNFICYP UNDOF UNIFIL MINURSO UNMIK UNAMID MONUSCO UNISFA UNMISS MINUSMA MINUSCA   Total

1964 1974 1978 1991 1999 2007 2010 2011 2011 2013 2014

771 1,007 10,180 194 8 4,348 14,064 3,760 14,421 12,271 10,939 72,158

63 0 0 0 9 2,163 1,185 35 1,696 1,748 2,043 8,942

Budget (US$) $35.3 million $19.8 million (2018–19) $54.2 million $74.0 million $512.1 million $60.5 million $39.7 million $258.0 million $1.1 billion $279.1 million $1.3 billion $1.2 billion $976.4 million $5.9091 billion

Note: For full names of the missions, see the map of UN peacekeeping operations earlier in this chapter or the list of selected abbreviations at the end of the book.

Most of the troops come from developing nations, like Egypt, Ghana, and India, while most of the money to pay for the troops comes from the leading developed nations. Although the United States does not usually provide troops for UN peacekeeping missions, it is the largest financial contributor to the UN and it provides significant aid in the form of training, intelligence, equipment, and logistical support through a State Department program called the US Global Peace Operations Initiative. As table 3 shows, the ten member states contributing the most personnel provided more than half of the 87,879 police and peacekeepers deployed in May 2019. Member states retain control over

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Table 3. Top ten providers of peacekeeping troops, May 2019 Member State

Police

Troops

Staff Officers

Other

Total

Ethiopia Rwanda Bangladesh India Nepal Pakistan Egypt Indonesia Ghana Senegal   Total

55 1,197 673 334 575 140 846 204 345 1,249 5,618

6,855 5,204 5,702 5,831 4,937 4,805 2,382 2,543 2,313 1,358 41,930

116 81 101 105 106 88 68 45 72 39 821

99 42 35 37 45 51 53 24 47 3 436

7,125 6,524 6,511 6,307 5,663 5,084 3,349 2,816 2,777 2,649 48,805

their units and are responsible for enforcing discipline and punishing any wrongdoing by the troops. As peacekeeping mandates began encompassing elements like rule of law and public administration that might be considered aspects of nation building, the UN found itself including personnel dedicated to keeping civil order—in other words, police. According to a recent Security Council resolution (S/2016/952), UN Police, which is the entity responsible for the police component of peace operations, is authorized to “build and support, or, where mandated, act as a substitute or partial substitute for host-State police capacity to prevent and detect crime, protect life and property and maintain public order and safety in adherence to the rule of law and international human rights law.” The UN police personnel are professional law-enforcement personnel who are seconded, that is, loaned, by member states to UN peace operations. Detachments may include Formed Police Units, which are more heavily armed than regular UN police teams and fill the gap between the military component of peacekeeping and the local law-enforcement establishment. Such units helped reestablish government control in gang-run parts of Haiti in 2007 and

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Blue-helmeted UN police from Indonesia serving on the UN mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA). They greet a child in Bangui, July 29, 2019. United Nations Photo / Herve Serefio. evacuated civilians caught in gun battles in the DRC. In Haiti, a new mission, authorized in 2017 and operating until October 2019 and consisting solely of police, was tasked with helping train local law-­ enforcement units. The small Kosovo mission, active since 1999, similarly consists only of police. The number of police personnel in UN missions rose from 5,840 in 1995 to more than 13,500 in 2012, but then began to decline with the decreasing number of peacekeeping missions. In October 2019, with the closure of the mission in Haiti, UN peacekeeping missions deployed approximately 9,500 police.

Women, Peace, Security Most of the police personnel are men, though the proportion of women has increased somewhat as the result of strenuous efforts at gender balance. As Rosemary DiCarlo, under-secretary-general for

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political and peacebuilding affairs under Secretary-General Guterres, remarks, “It’s a cliché but it’s not cliché, that if you’re not taking into account the needs of women in the society or the needs of women, particularly after a conflict, then you’re not going to have the kind of stability that is needed.” She notes that in societies where women can’t inherit property, and spend their working lives in the home, they and their families may suffer greatly in a conflict if their men are killed. “All this needs to be factored into any kind of peace agreement in order to have stability in a country,” which means putting more women into the police force and the other aspects of peace operations. When António Guterres became secretary-general in 2017, he promised that he would push hard to achieve gender balance in all aspects of the UN, including peace operations. According to a 2019 US State Department blog, “evidence shows that having women in meaningful roles increases the effectiveness of peacekeeping and improves missions’ abilities to protect civilians. Accordingly, we are actively supporting the UN’s goals to increase the percentage of female peacekeepers deployed.” A female presence in peace operations can help empower women in the host community and address specific needs of female ex-combatants during demobilization. It can also make the peacekeepers approachable to women, and they can be mentors for female cadets at local police and military academies as well as provide people who can interact with women in societies where they are discouraged from speaking to men. The more-female face of peace operations appeared first in Li­ beria’s capital, Monrovia, where Formed Police Units consisting of women from India, dressed in blue uniforms and toting rifles, patrolled the city streets and enforced curfews, prevented crime, arrested suspects, and in general ensured the safety and security of residents. Haitians and residents of the DRC benefited from the presence of all-female UN police units from Bangladesh. The process of including women begins with the initial negotiations to establish peace. “I’ll give you an example,” offers DiCarlo. “There was a conference recently in Italy on Libya. We all of a sudden realized that there were no women in the Libyan delegation, so we worked very closely with our representative on the ground and

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with the Italian mission here, because Italy was hosting the event, to ensure that women were engaged and were at the table. We didn’t get a 50–50, by any stretch, but we got some important women at the table who could make a difference.” Efforts to increase the number of female peacekeepers in the field have been a slow slog. In 1993 women were 1 percent of deployed uniformed personnel. More than two decades later, in 2018, women constituted approximately 22 percent of the civilian peacekeeping personnel but only 4 percent of military personnel and 10.8 percent of police personnel. The UN’s police office set a target of 20 percent women officers worldwide by 2014, and some peacekeeping missions approached that goal, such as the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), with 19 percent female officers. On the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, divided between Greek and Turk-

UN Police officers speaking with residents of Bouar, in the Central African Republic, August 2018. The UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (­MINUSCA) included Formed Police Unit (­FPU) members and UN Police (­UNPOL) officers who provided security for the town. UN Photo / Herve Serefio.

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ish sectors, the police unit of the UN’s mission (UNFICYP) exceeded its target with 22 percent women, and in 2019 the Cyprus mission became the only peacekeeping operation led by a woman; in addition, it had women leading its police and military units.

Policing the Peacekeepers The UN is trying to address an abuse that has plagued peacekeeping missions for a long time: allegations that some troops have sexually exploited civilians. These accusations became more common as the scale of peacekeeping grew, leading to renewed efforts to investigate and prosecute the persons accused and to help the victims. The Security Council, the General Assembly, and the Secretariat have given sexual abuse issues a high priority. All personnel deployed in peacekeeping receive DPO training on the prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse, and countries that contribute troops are urged to cooperate in investigating allegations of wrongdoing. Further impetus to monitor human rights abuses comes from some member states. For example, the US Congress tied payment of government funds for peacekeeping to the issue of sexual exploitation and abuse by troops and personnel. Congressional acts require the Secretary of State to certify that the UN is implementing effective policies and procedures to prevent its forces from engaging in violations of human rights. These efforts are offered as one reason for a decline in sexual abuse accusations in peacekeeping operations. “We are encouraged,” said Secretary-General Guterres in May 2019, “that the number of allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse in peacekeeping appears to be decreasing. But we are also mindful that we must be vigilant in our prevention efforts and seek accountability whenever the zero-tolerance policy has been violated.”

Achieving Results Peacekeeping operations have had mixed results. Some have failed in their mandates, such as the mission in Rwanda, where in 1994

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the UN force was unable to prevent widespread massacres of Tutsis and others—perhaps as many as a million victims—by members of the Hutu majority. The following year saw thousands of civilians massacred in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, in the former Yugoslavia, which had been declared a UN safe area and was defended by a UN protection force. Outright failures are uncommon among UN peace operations, however, and usually the missions provide a modicum of good, and sometimes a lot of good. Others have neither succeeded nor failed but have continued as permanent features in the local landscape. The Security Council established the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) in 1964 to prevent hostilities between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities, and it expanded the mandate after a period of conflict in 1974. Absent a political settlement, UNFICYP has remained on the island to monitor the ceasefire, maintain a buffer, and provide humanitarian assistance. UNFICYP is perhaps one of the examples, along with the big missions in the DRC and Darfur, that former US ambassador John Bolton had in mind when he complained about missions that “seem to have gained a degree of immortality” to the extent that they may even perpetuate the conflict because the parties can avoid having to negotiate a settlement. “The general problem,” he says, is to know when to start a peacekeeping operation and how to finish it. “The Security Council really doesn’t fulfill its role, and . . . you’re not resolving the underlying dispute but yet you’re keeping the peacekeeping operation in the field.” Former ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who succeeded Bolton as permanent representative, offered a similar analysis in 2008 when he declared that peacekeeping should not be a substitute for ending conflict. “While we understand the risks of leaving too soon, we should look to terminate nonviable peacekeeping operations.” Many UN leaders would agree. “We should always have a strategy in parallel with peacekeeping,” declares former deputy secretary-­ general Jan Eliasson. “You can’t have just peacekeeping on and on for years, without seeing any political movement. There has to be a

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stronger connection between the political work and the peacekeeping work.” Mark Malloch-Brown, who was deputy secretary-general under Kofi Annan, notes that peacekeeping missions proliferated during the Annan years (1997–2006) and that “not enough of them have gone out of business in the years since. They’ve become too much a part of the furniture in too many countries.” The operation in Darfur, begun in 2007 under then secretary-­ general Ban Ki-moon, is an example. There, a complicated internal conflict involving the central government and rebel militias had produced death, misery, and destruction throughout an area larger than France. The usual UN peacekeeping operation consists solely of UN forces, but the government of Sudan refused to accept such a mission. The UN therefore partnered with the African Union to deploy a joint peacekeeping force consisting of military units from both organizations. The African Union–United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) became one of the largest and most complicated peacekeeping missions ever deployed under the UN banner, fielding nearly twenty thousand troops and more than six thousand police. It has been attempting to establish a secure environment until negotiations can achieve a lasting civil and political settlement. Against the open-ended and sometimes ineffectual missions, some successes stand out. Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Côte d’Ivoire could begin functioning as countries again after horrific civil wars, thanks in part to the presence of peacekeeping operations. Haiti no longer needed the UN mission that helped it end gang violence and bring a semblance of civil order. The success of these missions may be a reason that some outside observers have been impressed with the significance of peacekeeping operations in helping to make the world a safer place. The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) published an analysis in 2018 concluding that the United States had contributed approximately $700 million to the UN peace operation in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), compared with the $5.7 billion it would have cost the United States to send a comparable mission of its own forces. A US State Department report noted that the government “supports peacekeeping operations when they can be an effective means of containing conflict and resolving dis-

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UNMIL (United Nations Mission in Liberia) leaves Liberia, March 27, 2018. Residents give a festive send-off to the UN peacekeeping mission in Monrovia when it completes its work and formally closes. United Nations Photo / Albert González Farran. putes in support of U.S. national interests.” As one of the Permanent Five, the United States can exercise tight control over the whole peacekeeping process, from authorizing a mission and defining its purposes, or mandate, to deciding on its size, composition, and level of funding.

Hopeful Cases And then there are UN peace operations that seem to fail, yet sow the seeds for later promises of success. A case in point involves a long-standing border conflict between Ethiopia and one of its breakaway provinces, Eritrea, now an independent nation and a UN member state. In 1998 Eritrean armed forces occupied a slice of disputed territory on the border with Ethiopia. The Organization of African Unity (OAU), a regional body, worked out an agreement for settling

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the dispute, but neither side would commit to it, even after urging from the UN Security Council. When the two countries resumed hostilities, the Security Council moved to its next stage of action, which was to tell the combatants to stop fighting, start talking, and arrange a ceasefire. The United States joined the ceasefire efforts, to no avail. Finally, once the fighting ended, the Security Council created the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) in 2000 and mandated it with monitoring the border and ensuring that the ceasefire provisions were honored. The antagonists accused each other of infiltrating troops into a buffer zone, however, and with no end of conflict in sight, the Security Council decided to terminate UNMEE’s mission in 2008. There things remained, locked in stalemate, until 2018, when a new leader in Ethiopia boldly announced he wanted to resolve the conflict. Rosemary DiCarlo notes that the new leader in Ethiopia, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali, “came in with a very different mindset on two aspects, both in terms of relations with his neighbors but also reforms within Ethiopia. He’s been moving very quickly on reforms as well. He’s got a government that’s 50 percent female . . . [;] the president of the parliament is female, a former colleague of ours, a former UN official.” The protagonists began talking, and it emerged that both were ready for some kind of settlement. Agreements concluded between the two governments ended the conflict, to the immense satisfaction not only of the UN, which had spent so much time trying to find a solution, but to the committee that awarded Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali the Nobel Peace Prize for 2019.

CHAPTER 9

International Terrorism and WMDs

There is no more urgent threat to the United States than a terrorist with a nuclear weapon. Nuclear weapons materials are stored in dozens of countries, some without proper security. Nuclear technology is spreading. —Susan E. Rice, US ambassador to the UN under President Barack Obama Imagine you are a screenwriter asked to produce a script for a really scary movie involving a crew of global police trying to prevent a shadowy terrorist group from launching a devastating attack on a major city like New York or Tokyo. Where would you begin your search for information for such a horrific narrative? The UN might be just the place. The UN’s oldest agency focusing on nuclear issues is the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is the world’s forum for discussing and monitoring both peaceful and military uses of atomic energy. The IAEA’s director-­ general, at a conference on nuclear security, once remarked that each year his organization received notices of more than a hundred incidents of theft and other unauthorized activities involving nuclear and radioactive material. “This means the material is outside regu-

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latory control and potentially available for malicious acts,” he declared. “Most of the incidents reported to us are fairly minor, but some are more serious.” His solution to the problem, that “effective counter-measures are possible if all countries take the threat seriously,” was hardly reassuring, given the realities of our nuclear age. Much of the nuclear material that exists today was created by private businesses and governments that use it to generate electricity or other beneficial purposes. The secret US nuclear program that produced the world’s first atomic bombs in 1945 was soon adapted for the commercial production of electricity and other civilian uses. Ruth Wedgwood of Johns Hopkins University calls this crossover between peaceful and military potential a “fatal flaw” in the UN’s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which we will discuss in more detail to come. “The assumption was that you could segregate civilian and military uses. . . . But enriched uranium is enriched uranium, as North Korea and Iran have shown. The irony is that if you have the proliferation of civilian uses, you’re going to have proliferation of weapons uses.” Which brings us back to our movie script, and also to the UN’s efforts to combat both terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear materials and other weapons of mass destruction.

Atomic Offenses The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) maintains the In­ cident and Trafficking Database, established in 1995, through which member states share information. As the title suggests, the goal of the database is to identify instances of illegal trafficking in nuclear and other radioactive materials, as well as cases in which such materials were lost or disposed of in an unauthorized manner.

The UN Response to Terrorism “International cooperation is the first priority of our counterterrorism strategy,” declared Secretary-General António Guterres before a high-level meeting of Security Council members in September 2019. “No single country or organization has all the answers to the

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cross-border challenges posed by terrorism. . . .” His statement follows in a long line of UN words and actions to combat international terrorism, beginning in the late 1990s. The UN has defined several important counterterrorism roles for itself, shaping international standards and passing conventions that outlaw terrorism and help member states to cooperate with each other on specific policies and actions. In 1999, the Security Council passed Resolution 1267, requiring the Taliban government in Afghanistan to give up Osama bin Laden, whose al-Qaeda network had been targeting US government and military facilities. Next, Resolution 1269 pledged a “common fight against terrorists everywhere” and specified that member states should share information and refuse to provide a safe haven to terrorists. At the end of 1999, the General Assembly voted to adopt the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, which criminalized participation in fundraising for terrorist activity, even if no terrorist act ensued.

The UN’s Key Role “In this fight the UN is playing a key role to help us better prevent terrorism fighters from going to Syria and Iraq and returning from these countries. The UN is also key in terms of drying up the funding of these terrorism organizations with the sanctions which we together put in place. And finally, the UN is important in what I would call the counter-narrative: how to better fight against terrorist propaganda on the internet.” —François Delattre, former ambassador of France to the UN

September 11 and Resolution 1373 Then came 9/11 and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The next day, the Security Council officially decreed that acts of international terrorism were threats to international peace and security. Security Council Resolution 1373, approved on September 28, 2001, required every UN member state to freeze the financial assets of terrorists and their supporters, deny them travel or safe haven, prevent terrorist recruitment and weapons sup-

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ply, and cooperate with other countries in information sharing and criminal prosecution. Resolution 1373 also established the Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC), a subsidiary body of the Security Council, to help member states fight terrorism and coordinate the counterterrorism efforts of regional and intergovernmental organizations both inside and outside the UN system. In 2004 the council adopted Resolution 1535, which created the Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate, designed to give the CTC greater technical capability and expand its ability to help member states implement the provisions of Resolution 1373. “The UN rewrote the law after the 9/11 attacks by stating [in Resolution 1373] that countries have an affirmative duty not to give any kind of assistance to terrorist groups,” remarks Ruth Wedgwood, of Johns Hopkins University. “It changed the terms of state responsibility. It was a hugely important resolution.” The shocking attacks of September 11 placed the United States at the top of the list of terror-­ afflicted nations and helped raise international awareness about the urgency of the threat. An immediate response by the United States and many of its allies was to treat terrorism as a variety of military threat, to be countered with the use of force, as in Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda had formed a close alliance with the Taliban government and was using its resources to train recruits. The United States launched an invasion in 2001, with UN approval, that overthrew the Taliban regime and forced al-Qaeda into hiding. Another response, not only by the

Security Council Language on Terrorism The Security Council has developed language to condemn terrorist acts and terrorism in general, a good example being Resolution 2462, passed in 2019, which addresses the financing of international terrorism and its relationship to international crime. The resolution states that the Security Council reaffirms “that terrorism in all forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security and that any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable regardless of their motivations, whenever, wherever and by whomsoever committed.”

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United States and its friends but also by the UN, was to treat international terrorism as a form of criminal activity that needed to be made clearly illegal everywhere, both within nations and in international law. As the world’s global forum, the UN would seem well suited for this task.

Renewing the Commitment to Counterterrorism The Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2368 in July 2017, which reiterated the commitment to counterterrorism and urged governments to improve their mechanisms for preventing terrorists from traveling, receiving funding, and obtaining arms. Council members knew from annual reports of the CTC that numerous smaller or less developed nations lacked key elements of an effective strategy, such as the legal, administrative, and regulatory capabilities to freeze financial assets, deny safe haven to terrorists, or prevent terrorism groups from recruiting new members and acquiring weapons. In 2019 the council passed Resolution 2462, requiring that member states prevent and suppress the financing of terrorist acts and refrain from providing support to those involved in them. Among other things, it requested the CTC and the 1267 committee to hold a joint special meeting on terrorist financing threats and trends as well as on the implementation of the resolution. It also asked member states to report on what they were doing to disrupt terrorist financing. What these resolutions did not do was define what constitutes terrorism. Neither the Security Council nor the General Assembly has been able to find a generally held definition of the nature of terrorism and terrorist acts, despite many attempts to do so. Nor can the UN agree on the best lines of action to eliminate terrorism. At a special Security Council session on terrorism, for example, then secretary-general Ban Ki-moon opened with a call to strengthen global cooperation against terrorism. He urged an in­ tegrated approach providing “education and job opportunities, ­promoting development and inter-cultural dialogue, and addressing the grievances that terrorists exploited.” In the ensuing debate,

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US President Barack Obama chairs the Security Council Summit on Nuclear Proliferation and Disarmament, September 24, 2009. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is at the lower left. United Nations Photo / Erin Siegal.

representatives of member states denounced terrorism and, like Ban, endorsed the integrated approach, but the speakers had differing views about the relative importance of the military, law-enforcement, and civil and government policies in the integration effort. The ambassador of China stressed the need to address the “root causes” of terrorism “through integrated measures in development, as well as through a fight against intolerance and extremism,” and warned that “relying on military means was counterproductive.” The Indian representative likewise preferred an integrated approach, because “terrorism could not be countered by law enforcement alone”—a view echoed by the representative from South Africa. But the debate produced no consensus on exactly how to proceed.

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An Unprecedented Threat “We face an unprecedented threat from intolerance, violent extremism and terrorism. It affects every country, exacerbating conflicts and destabilizing entire regions, and it is constantly evolving. A new frontier is cyberterrorism, use of social media and the dark web to coordinate attacks, spread propaganda, and recruit new followers. In response to this unprecedented threat we are taking unprecedented action. . . . We must complement security measures with prevention efforts and identifying the root causes while always respecting human rights.” —Secretary-General António Guterres, addressing a high-level meeting of the Security Council

Former US ambassador John Bolton has a criticism about such debates. “The conclusion you have to draw from the record on terrorism,” he says, “where the Security Council creates a committee on terrorism but can’t even agree on a definition of what terrorism is . . . is that it’s not going to be effective in those areas.” Pakistan’s ambassador, Munir Akram, has been just as impatient with the debates about finding a definition of terrorism, but for quite different reasons. “Perhaps the search for a definition of terrorism is a red herring,” he has argued. “We all know what terrorism is when we see it, and therefore the search for a legal definition perhaps is not the most urgent effort.” Rather, he has maintained, it is more important to understand that terrorism takes many forms, divergent from place to place. “We have to address it globally but we have to act locally.” The Security Council’s willingness to move ahead, without trying to gain consensus on a carefully devised definition, has been hastened by concerns that time is wasting. Representatives of member states have often remarked on a growing connection between terrorism and organized crime, as well as rising use of the Internet and other aspects of information technology to recruit terrorists and disseminate terrorist propaganda. The Security Council and the UN in general find themselves in a grim race with the terrorists, and winning it requires both reflection and action.

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Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) Much of the urgency comes from the fear that a terrorist group might acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), such as poisonous chemicals, deadly microorganisms, or radioactive or even fissile material that could cause harm on a scale far beyond what happened on 9/11. During the Cold War the United States and the Soviet Union, the two dominant nuclear powers, helped the UN negotiate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1970, with 190 signatories. Addressing both disarmament and proliferation, the treaty obligated the signatories to reduce their atomic arsenals (though without setting a schedule) and forbade acquisition of nuclear weaponry by nonnuclear states. One of Kofi Annan’s last speeches as secretary-general dealt with proliferation. He characterized the NPT as a bargain between the nuclear states and the rest of the world. The nuclear states declared they would negotiate in good faith on nuclear disarmament, would prevent proliferation, and would encourage the peaceful use of nuclear energy. In return, noted Annan, the nonnuclear nations agreed not to acquire or manufacture nuclear weapons and to place all their nuclear activities under the verification of the IAEA. The nonproliferation aspect of that treaty held up pretty well for the next few decades, with only India, Pakistan, and Israel refusing to join, and North Korea announcing its withdrawal in 2003.

Resolution 1540 and WMD Proliferation The concerns of the UN’s nuclear affairs watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), extend to information about how to manufacture nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. The danger heightened in 2004, when it was discovered that a Pakistani nuclear scientist, A. Q. Khan, who had helped develop his nation’s nuclear bomb, had sold sensitive information to North Korea. It is not hard to imagine that someone else, likewise well placed in a national atomic weapons program, might offer to provide similar information to a terrorist organization. Recognizing the threat, the Security Council passed Resolution

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1540 on April 28, 2004. Among other things, the resolution required member states to “refrain from supporting by any means non-State actors from developing, acquiring, manufacturing, possessing, transporting, transferring or using nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and their delivery systems.” Non-state actors are private persons or groups, whether a secret terrorist ring with international connections or a vigilante coven seeking to destroy some aspect of a government. The resolution also required member states to pass laws preventing the proliferation and trafficking of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. Concern about keeping WMDs out of the hands of those who don’t have them gains point from the fact that such weapons are now within the reach even of nations with small industrial and technological bases, such as North Korea.

A Travel Program for Terrorists In 2019 the UN established a special program designed just for those international terrorists who need to travel about the globe in search of targets, accomplices, or recruits. Instead of offering the travelers points and other perks, however, the program helps countries keep track of itinerant terrorists through the collection and sharing of travel data. The UN’s Countering Terrorist Travel Program focuses on the growing global movement of terrorists, called “a major transnational threat” by Secretary-­ General Guterres. As an add-on, he said, the new program “will also enable the detection and disruption of human trafficking and other forms of serious organized crime and to faster identify their victims.”

North Korea and Iran The stability engendered by the NPT lasted until two states, North Korea and Iran, which had ratified the treaty, were accused of trying to develop nuclear weapons. The government of North Korea started a serious nuclear program in 1989 aimed at producing weapons-­ grade materials, even though it had agreed to the NPT. Inspectors from the IAEA who visited North Korea under terms of the treaty complained that the government was not providing full information about its nuclear facilities, and the dispute escalated. In 2003 the

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North Koreans declared they would withdraw from the NPT, and several years later they began nuclear and ballistic missile tests. In response, as we noted in chapter 5, the Security Council passed Resolution 1718, in 2006, mandating that North Korea should cease its missile and nuclear programs. In addition to imposing an asset freeze, limitations on travel by North Korean leaders, and mandating that UN member states abstain from providing North Korea with nuclear technology and military equipment, like combat aircraft, the resolution prohibited sale to Pyongyang of “luxury” items, like culinary delicacies and whiskey. Resolution 1718 had many successors during the next decade, as the Pyongyang regime repeatedly flouted and tried to evade UN sanctions. Resolution 1874 (2009) strengthened the sanctions after the Pyongyang regime detonated another nuclear device. Kim Jong-un, who assumed power in 2011, continued his father’s nuclear policy, leading to more Security Council responses. Resolution 2087, approved in 2013, after a satellite launch that used missile technology prohibited by previous sanctions, demanded abandonment of all nuclear and ballistic missile programs. After North Korea’s third nuclear test, Resolution 2094 banned international travel for certain North Koreans associated with the arms trade and froze the assets of a state organization devoted to arms research, among other items. Two more resolutions followed in 2016. Resolution 2270 condemned a nuclear test as a violation of the NPT and prohibited the sale of aviation fuel to the Pyongyang regime. It also declared a trade embargo in certain strategic raw materials. Resolution 2321, passed in November 2016, among many actions prohibited Pyongyang from exporting certain metals and helicopters and vessels, and it imposed financial sanctions and suspended scientific and technical cooperation.

Stiffer Sanctions against Pyongyang Undeterred, North Korea conducted more nuclear and missile tests in 2017, prompting the Security Council to pass three more resolutions (2371, 2375, 2397) requiring the Pyongyang regime to end its nuclear programs and extending travel bans on workers and other

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The UN’s Counterterrorism Treaties and Protocols 1. Convention on Offenses and Certain Other Acts Committed on Board Aircraft, 1963 (Tokyo Convention) 2. Convention for the Suppression of the Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft, 1970 (Hague Convention) 3. Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation, 1971 (Montreal Convention) 4. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons, 1973 5. International Convention against the Taking of Hostages, 1979 (Hostages Convention) 6. Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, 1980 7. Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts of Violence at Airports Serving International Civil Aviation, 1988, supplementary to the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation 8. Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation, 1988 9. Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Fixed Platforms Located on the Continental Shelf, 1988 10. Convention on the Marking of Plastic Explosives for the Purpose of Detection, 1991 11. International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, 1997 12. International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, 1999 13. International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, 2005 14. Convention on the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Relating to International Civil Aviation, 2010 

North Koreans and imposing various economic sanctions and an asset freeze. The Security Council also called for the resumption of multilateral negotiations, the Six-Party Talks, between Pyongyang, South Korea, China, Japan, Russia, and the United States, which were begun in 2003 to address the issue of nuclear weapons on the

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North Korea’s ambassador to the UN, Ja Song Nam, addressing a high-level Security Council meeting on nuclear nonproliferation, December 15, 2017. United Nations Photo / Manuel Elias. Korean Peninsula. The US ambassador at the time, Nikki Haley, thanked the Chinese delegation and others for their cooperation in developing the text of the resolution. She said that the council’s unanimous action reflected outrage at North Korea’s actions. The cumulative effect of so many sanctions, each tougher than its predecessor, may, in the opinion of some observers, have moved the North Korean government to seek negotiations with the United States government, leading to meetings between the Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, and US president Trump in 2018 and 2019. “We had a potential crisis in Korea,” observes Jan Eliasson, who was deputy secretary-general under Ban Ki-moon, “and here I want to commend President Trump for seeming to go the road of negotiations . . . because it looked very dangerous two years ago.”

Iran’s Nuclear Program Iran was the other member state accused of trying to develop a nuclear weapons program despite having signed the NPT. The Ira-

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nian government claimed it was creating a civilian nuclear power industry, but many UN member states and the US government believed that Iran also aimed to make weapons-grade material. Unlike the North Koreans, the Iranians continued to accept the NPT and allowed inspectors to visit some of their nuclear facilities. When the IAEA’s inspectors reported that Tehran was no longer complying with the NPT, however, the Security Council passed resolutions aimed at preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. In 2006, the Security Council passed Resolution 1696, demanding the Iranian government halt its nuclear enrichment efforts and agree to monitoring by the IAEA. After the Iranian government refused to comply with 1696, the council approved Resolution 1737, also in 2006, which toughened the sanctions and prohibited countries from providing materials and technology that might help Iran’s uranium enrichment effort or the development of ballistic missiles. Tehran’s continued pursuit of nuclear enrichment led to further sanctions. Resolution 1747 called on the Iranian government to verify that its nuclear program was for civilian purposes only, and it urged a negotiated settlement of the issue. The next year, after Iran continued to disregard terms of 1747, the Security Council approved two more resolutions, which reaffirmed the four previous resolutions and again asked the Iranian government to seek a negotiated settlement. Resolution 1929, passed in 2010, reaffirmed previous sanctions and imposed new ones. Two more resolutions in 2011 and 2012 largely reaffirmed the previous sanctions regimes. In 2016 the Security Council removed most of its sanctions after the Tehran government negotiated an accord with the P5 plus Germany and the European Union. In exchange for the UN’s lifting of damaging economic sanctions, Iran formally agreed not to pursue development of nuclear weapons and to use its uranium enrichment program for peaceful purposes only. The Security Council then approved Resolution 2231, endorsing the agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran Nuclear Deal, and lifted most of the sanctions. However, after the US government withdrew from the agreement in 2018, Iran announced it would resume enrichment activities.

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The UN as a Target The UN’s efforts to forestall the development of WMDs and prevent their transmission to terrorist groups derive in part from firsthand experience with the victims of mass violence. “Terrorism in all its forms and manifestations remains a global challenge,” declared Secretary-General António Guterres in 2019, at a UN event commemorating the victims of terrorist acts around the world. The General Assembly established August 21 as an international day to honor and support the victims and survivors of terrorism and to promote and protect human rights and the rule of law to prevent and combat terrorism. Unfortunately, the UN has itself become a target of terrorists. The first attack came during the early stages of the US-led occupation of Iraq in 2003, when a car bomb at the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq killed at least twenty-two people, including the UN’s special representative in Iraq, Sérgio Vieira de Mello. An alQaeda leader claimed responsibility for the blast, which was followed by another bombing a month later. Attacks in later years included an al-Qaeda–inspired suicide bombing in 2007 that destroyed the UN headquarters building in Algiers and killed nearly forty people, and a car bombing that killed many staff members at a UN building in Abuja, Nigeria, in 2011. Mali provides another example of where the UN may be considered a target. Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group explains that while the African Union and the Sahel countries are fighting local terrorist groups in Mali, they don’t have adequate military equipment and must ask the UN for assistance. “The UN’s role in that situation is ambiguous,” he argues, because “we get the UN being drawn into providing logistics, advice on human rights; the UN is sort of there in the background, enabling the much more aggressive regionally led missions. In some cases, such as Mali, that has been relatively successful . . . but a lot of UN people worry that in the end that sort of complicity in fighting terrorists could backfire.” One of the UN’s longtime troubleshooters, Lakhdar Brahimi, while head of a panel to review security at the organization’s facilities

UN offices in Algiers destroyed by terrorist bombing, December 11, 2007. United Nations Photo / Evan Schneider.

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worldwide, said, “I think there are quite a lot of people who do not make a secret that they consider that the UN has become their enemy.” He told reporters ominously, “I think the UN has been put on notice that their flag is not anymore a protection.”

Leading UN Actors • The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was established in 1957 and is based in Vienna. It is the global forum for addressing and regulating the civil and military uses of atomic energy, and its verification work gives it an essential role in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. The Department of Technical Cooperation helps countries improve their scientific and technological capabilities in the peaceful application of nuclear technology, such as the development of nuclear markers for medical applications, an area where IAEA laboratories did important work supporting research into the COVID-19 pandemic. Inspectors watch more than a thousand nuclear installations worldwide that are covered under the IAEA Safeguards Program, which verifies that states are honoring their international legal obligations to use nuclear material and technology only for peaceful purposes. In 2005, the IAEA and its then director, Mohamed ElBaradei, shared the Nobel Peace Prize. • The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is headquartered at The Hague. Its primary task is to monitor the provisions of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling, and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction, which entered into force in 1997 and was the first multilateral disarmament and nonproliferation agreement addressing the verifiable worldwide elimination of a whole class of weapons of mass destruction. The organization received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 for its work in Syria. • The Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-­ Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), established in 1996, is based in Vienna. The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty

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(CTBT) bans all nuclear explosions on the Earth’s surface and in its subsurface, atmosphere, or bodies of water. The commission’s main job is to ensure that the signers of the treaty adhere to its terms. • The UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA), based in New York City, promotes nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation; encourages disarmament efforts in connection with other weapons of mass destruction and chemical and biological weapons; and advances postconflict disarmament programs for conventional weapons, especially land mines and small arms. UNODA had a role in the General Assembly’s approval (April 2013) of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which regulates the international trade in conventional arms with the aim of curbing arms flows to conflict regions.

CHAPTER 10

Human Rights and R2P

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. —Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 2 Rights come first everywhere you look at the United Nations. According to Article 1 of the Charter, one of the UN’s main purposes is to promote and encourage “respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.” The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as we saw earlier, is literally all about rights (see appendix B). Nearly all countries that joined the UN have agreed to accept its principles by signing and ratifying two international covenants, one addressing civil and political rights, and the other, economic, social, and cultural rights. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which entered into force in 1976, are legally binding documents.

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When combined with the Universal Declaration, they constitute the International Bill of Human Rights. Having rights, real ones that you can actually exercise, requires more than rhetoric and fancy legal language. Rights imply the rule of law, based on the notion that all citizens are equal before the law and that the law will be applied in a rational, consistent manner. You also need mechanisms for protecting and enforcing both the law and the exercise of rights. All of these things are represented in the UN’s law and rights establishment, ranging from national tribunals to international courts and a council and an executive dedicated to human rights issues.

An Emerging Body of Law The UN helped create a large body of international human rights law. Most member states have signed and ratified some eighty treaties (also called “conventions” or “covenants”) that address particular aspects of human rights. The International Law Commission does the actual drafting of text for international conventions. Here are a few treaties, with the year when the General Assembly adopted them for signing: • 2003 UN Convention against Corruption • 1984 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment • 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women • 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees • 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide When a convention enters force, the UN creates an oversight committee charged with ensuring that its provisions are honored by member states. For example, the Committee on the Rights of the Child oversees the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which entered into force in 1989 and has become an international voice for

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children. All offices and staff of the UN and its peacekeeping operations are responsible for adhering to international human rights law and reporting possible breaches of it to the proper authorities.

Front and Center “The COVID-19 pandemic is a public health emergency—but it is far more. It is an economic crisis. A social crisis. And a human crisis that is fast becoming a human rights crisis. . . . Human rights cannot be an afterthought in times of crisis—and we now face the biggest international crisis in generations. . . . The message is clear: People—and their rights— must be front and center.” —António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations

“The UN has meant more to the field of human rights than it has to other fields that it works in,” declares Felice Gaer, a human rights advocate who directs the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights in New York City. Though the UN has done a lot in areas like security and development, she says, “in human rights it’s been a really big factor.” Other experts offer a similar assessment. Ruth Wedgwood of Johns Hopkins University praises the human rights treaties as being “a great step forward” for many countries. Esther Brimmer, a former State Department official in the Obama administration, makes a similar point when discussing the emerging nations: “The interesting thing about these countries is that most of them are democracies in some way; their publics have connections to their government. They’re actually interesting on topics that are relevant to Western countries, issues like human rights or freedom of speech. You want to talk to these emerging countries because they have views on these topics which have credibility. It’s a very different thing than if you’re trying to talk to China.”

Human Rights Commission The UN Charter gives the General Assembly primary responsibility for human rights. To implement this mission the assembly

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created the Human Rights Commission in 1946, chaired originally by former First Lady and public figure Eleanor Roosevelt. For decades the commission was the main UN body for making human rights policy and providing a forum for discussion. It convened each year in Geneva, Switzerland, and held public meetings on violations of human rights. When necessary, it appointed experts, called special rapporteurs, to examine rights abuses or conditions in specific countries. Unfortunately, the commission gained a reputation for biases against certain nations, such as Israel, and for turning a blind eye to gross rights abuses by authoritarian regimes. Critics commented that the commission’s members often included nations notorious for their failure to observe the human rights standards that the commission was supposed to be monitoring. After the United States and European and other member states began to push for improvement, the General Assembly abolished the commission and replaced it in 2006 with a body called the Human Rights Council (HRC).

Human Rights Council, Not a Commission The Human Rights Council describes itself as “an inter-governmental body within the United Nations system responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe and for addressing situations of human rights violations and making recommendations on them. It has the ability to discuss all thematic human rights issues and situations that require its attention throughout the year.” The council meets in Geneva for three regular sessions each year, when it considers human rights issues that members of the council, or UN members generally, think need attention. It can also meet in special session at the request of least one-third of its members. The composition of the council’s membership has drawn comment, including criticism that it is as flawed as its predecessor. Critics point to the regional basis on which the forty-seven members are elected by the General Assembly for three-year terms (renewable

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once). The regional representation influences the weight of the ­various political and cultural groupings represented on the council, leaving the Western countries, who are associated with a strong human rights emphasis, in a minority: thirteen from Africa, thirteen from Asia-Pacific, six from Eastern Europe, eight from Latin America and the Caribbean, seven from Western Europe and others (including North America). When the General Assembly elects members to the council, it is supposed to take into account, in the HRC’s own words, “the candidate States’ contribution to the promotion and protection of human rights, as well as their voluntary pledges and commitments in this regard.” But the regional system allows groups of neighboring member states to decide who can run, and that means that in regions with numerous governments with poor rights records, a country with a poor rights record has a good chance of gaining a seat. In 2019 the forty-seven members included several with poor or questionable human rights reputations. One of the HRC’s most important functions is to investigate allegations of abuse, which can be brought by civil-society groups, UN member states, the UN Secretariat and other UN bodies, and even individuals. The council relies on several sources for its information. At its regular sessions, which are open to the media, it hears testimony from civil-society organizations (NGOs) with expertise in human rights and international law. Also, like its predecessor commission, the council makes frequent use of unpaid representatives, called special rapporteurs, or working groups consisting of one or more independent experts, whom it appoints as monitors and in some cases as investigators for human rights issues, either in specific countries (country mandates) or across the spectrum of member states (thematic mandates). The rapporteurs and working groups rely on the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which we will soon discuss, to provide them with assistance to discharge their mandates. The rapporteurs typically report their findings to the council in public sessions that may attract considerable media attention. In that way the HRC can shine a light on rights abuses, as it did in a rapporteur’s report,

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The United States joins the Human Rights Council. Susan E. Rice (right), US ambassador to the UN, receives congratulations on winning a seat on the Human Rights Council, May 12, 2009. UN Photo / Eskinder Debebe. issued in 2019, on the Iran government’s execution of children accused of serious crimes. The council produces various reports, declarations, and resolutions. Though investigations are usually done confidentially, reports are often made public, and some of them are pretty hard-hitting. As an example, in 2018 the council appointed an expert panel to study the human rights situation in Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition was supporting the government in its fight against a rebel group. The panel’s report, published in August 2018, concluded that mem-

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bers of the government of Yemen and the coalition, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, had committed acts that might amount to “international crimes.” Louis Charbonneau of the NGO Human Rights Watch praises the council’s report on Yemen and also its reports on the human rights situations in North Korea, Burundi, and South Sudan, among others. “These things have a real impact in that we get information out in the world.” Equally important, for Charbonneau, is the Human Rights Council’s willingness to step in where the Security Council seems unable to act. Referring to ethnic conflicts in Myanmar, which led to massive population displacement and human rights violations, he argues that while the Security Council was paralyzed by indecision, the Human Rights Council sent a fact-finding mission that “has done good work, it mentioned the G word, genocide, as a possibility that should be investigated.” Charbonneau therefore sees the Human Rights Council “as an increasingly important tool for the human rights community to get substantive things out of the UN that we can’t get out elsewhere.”

The United States Leaves the HRC “I spoke before this body last year and warned that the U.N. Human Rights Council had become a grave embarrassment to this institution, shielding egregious human rights abusers while bashing America and its many friends. Our Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, laid out a clear agenda for reform, but despite reported and repeated warnings, no action at all was taken. So the United States took the only responsible course: We withdrew from the Human Rights Council, and we will not return until real reform is enacted.” —US president Donald Trump addressing the UN General Assembly, September 2018

US Ambivalence One of the UN member states known for holding abusers accountable is the United States, which, however, chose not to seek a place on the new HRC. The George W. Bush administration con-

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cluded that the new council would not be any better than the old commission and saw no point in joining. John Bolton, who was the US ambassador to the UN at the time, accuses the Europeans of failing to push for reforms that the United States wanted, which meant “that the new body was not going to be that much divergent from the prior body, and in fact that’s exactly what happened. That’s one reason we voted against it in 2006, because we said it’s not much divergent from the Human Rights Commission.” Rights expert Ruth Wedgwood agrees that the Europeans did not push hard enough for meaningful changes in the new council. “The attempted reform was done too quickly,” she argues. “The number of countries was only slightly cut down and the predominance of the South was increased. With regional loyalties, even on human rights issues, this made it more likely that the council would spend the bulk of its disposable time on Israel and Palestine.” UN insider Jeffrey Laurenti is critical of “this crazy drive to shrink it,” which meant the loss of four Western seats. UN leaders also voiced concern that the council was focusing excessively on a few issues, especially Israel-­ Palestine. Former secretary-general Kofi Annan advised the council to pay attention also to human rights situations involving member states other than Israel. And former secretary-general Ban Ki-moon issued a statement of similar nature, pointing out the many alleged human rights violations, occurring all over the world, that the council was not examining. Despite these criticisms, the US government under President Barack Obama decided that engagement was better than a boycott, so the United States sought and won a seat on the council. Later the newly installed Trump administration declared that participation had failed to achieve any substantive change in the council’s behavior, citing in particular the persistent focus on Israeli-Palestinian issues. The United States formally relinquished its seat in 2017, something no other member of the Human Rights Council had ever done voluntarily. The president of the Human Rights Council, Coly Seck of Senegal, was understandably disappointed in the departure of one of the most rights-oriented members of the council. Like many at the UN,

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he argues that the council needs members with good human rights records to serve as role models for those who are trying to do better. “Some have to improve their human rights situation, but for that we need [the rights-oriented countries] to be in the same room and we need to have frank discussion on what is the common ground, the common denominator we can put in place, common understanding of freedom and liberties.”

The Universal Periodic Review Every five years, a member state must undergo the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), leading to a kind of report card. The government under review has the opportunity to declare what actions it has taken to improve its human rights situations and to fulfill its human rights obligations. In theory the review provides an opportunity for carefully and objectively examining the rights situation in a member state, but in practice, according to many observers, the UPR is sometimes a whitewash, with HRC member states giving passing grades to blatant rights violators. Hillel Neuer, director of UN Watch, calls it a “mutual praise society.”

Hillel Neuer of UN Watch also would prefer a US presence. “Eleanor Roosevelt was the founding chair of the Human Rights Commission in 1946, and US leadership was always essential. Even as we are watchdogs and critics of the UN and the human rights system, we believe that America was better being there than not being there. . . . We want America to be forceful and speaking out.” Neuer notes that despite its departure from the HRC, the United States remains a presence in UN rights efforts and continues to participate in the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). The United States also continues to comment on the reviews of other member states, such as North Korea, whose UPR appeared in 2019. An official summary of the US review stated that “the human rights situation in North Korea is deplorable and has no parallel in the modern world.” Additionally, according to Neuer, the United States continues to host side events at the HRC’s sessions. Side events are public sessions or panels, held outside the HRC’s official chambers, that UN member states or NGOs organize on topics of their choice, “like the

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Arria-formula,” he explains. They may include topics that are controversial or even obnoxious to some governments, such as an examination of police brutality in Venezuela or advocacy for the human rights of China’s Uighur ethnic minority. Finally, the United States remains active on the General Assembly’s Third Committee, whose mandate includes human rights.

The High Commissioner Criticisms of the council sometimes obscure the presence of another force in the UN rights establishment, the UN high commissioner for human rights. The high commissioner is appointed by the secretary-general, with approval by the General Assembly, and serves a four-year term renewable once. The high commissioner’s office in Geneva, with some thirteen hundred staff, reports to the secretary-general. The high commissioner oversees the UN’s human rights activities, helping develop rights standards, promoting international cooperation to expand and protect rights, and sometimes briefing the Security Council. “It’s an extremely important job,” says Charbonneau. But it’s an office that has little formal authority over either the Human Rights Council or the special rapporteurs. Human rights expert Ruth Wedgwood says that the high commissioner’s role “is not defined, so it’s up to each high commissioner” to define it. The

UN High Commissioners of Human Rights The position of high commissioner of human rights was established as part of the Secretariat in 1993. Michelle Bachelet Jeria of Chile (2018–) Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein of Jordan (2014–18) Navanethem Pillay of South Africa (2008–14) Louise Arbour of Canada (2004–8) Sérgio Vieira de Mello of Brazil (2002–3) Mary Robinson of Ireland (1997–2002) José Ayala-Lasso of Ecuador (1994–97)

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high commissioner also lacks authority to halt human rights abuses in a country, except by referring the matter to the Security Council or the General Assembly or through publicly shaming the violators. The NGO Human Rights Watch explains that the high commissioner “has neither the power of the sword nor of the purse. It is with her moral voice alone that she goes into battle against human rights violations around the world. This power, limited though it may be, is by no means insignificant.”

New Rights Human rights at the UN are strongly associated with the Western European tradition of personal freedom and independence. Although we may think of rights as universal and immutable, they are actually an evolving package that can contain new understandings of personal freedom. Emblematic of this is the emergence in recent decades of the LGBTI movement by activists for gay and other sexual orientations. At the UN, the Human Rights Council, in 2016, established an independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity, the “SOGI expert,” to draw attention to the disproportionate persecution and discrimination that LGBTI people face worldwide. In 2019 the council voted to renew the mandate for another three years, in what one activist called “a continuation of the UN’s efforts to ensure that all people, regardless of their sexual orientation and gender identity, have full access to their human rights, including protection against violence and discrimination.” The LGBTI movement, though controversial in many countries, has enough broad-based support in world opinion to move ahead. “We have championed at the UN the proposition that human rights should apply to all individuals regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity,” said Samantha Power, who was the US ambassador to the UN under President Obama. As early as 2010 the United States joined the UN LGBTI Core Group in New York, a cross-­ regional grouping of member states. The United States pushed the Human Rights Council in 2011 to recognize LGBTI rights as human rights. In 2015, noted Power, the Security Council held its first-ever

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meeting on LGBTI rights to examine “how ISIL systematically targeted LGBT persons in Iraq and Syria.”

The World Court When we think of the rule of law, we may imagine an impressive courtroom scene, dominated by the imposing figure of the robed judge, seated on high, flanked by the jury box, faced by the prosecutor and the defendant, and with a silent, respectful audience sitting in front. Although the UN is not a government, it does have courts and tribunals, some of them as imposing and solemn as anywhere in the world. The International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, is one of the six principal organs of the UN. Based in The Hague, the court does not hear cases involving individuals but only governments and UN bodies. It offers two kinds of services. First, it gives advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by UN organs and agencies, and second, it settles legal disputes submitted to it by UN member states. Member states are not bound by the court’s decisions unless they agree to be bound before the trial begins. Sometimes one member state will bring a case against another member state, but in other situations the contending states may mutually agree to bring their case before the court. The court’s fifteen judges, who serve nine-year terms, are elected by the Security Council and the General Assembly through a complicated procedure. No two judges may be nationals of the same state. The World Court’s first case concerned a boundary jurisdiction involving the United Kingdom and Albania and was filed in May 1947. Since then it has heard a huge variety of cases, involving everything from international borders to the implementation of UN treaties. A selection of pending cases in 2019 gives a sense of the issues that the court addresses: • Maritime Delimitation in the Indian Ocean (Somalia v. Kenya) • Certain Iranian Assets (Islamic Republic of Iran v. United States of America)

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• Application of the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Ukraine v. Russian Federation) • Appeal Relating to the Jurisdiction of the ICAO Council under Article 84 of the Convention on International Civil Aviation (Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates v. Qatar) • Relocation of the United States Embassy to Jerusalem (Palestine v. United States of America)

The International Criminal Court Very different from the World Court is the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is solely a criminal tribunal. Established by the Rome Treaty of 1998, the ICC institutionalizes the concept of an international tribunal for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide. Strictly speaking, it is an independent body, and its prosecutors and eighteen judges are not formally part of the UN. They are accountable only to the countries that have ratified the Rome Treaty (which was negotiated within the UN). The court is not a venue of first resort. Instead, the accused come before the ICC only if their home country has signed the Rome Treaty but is unable or unwilling to act. To prevent malicious or frivolous accusations, the Rome Treaty requires prosecutors to justify their decisions according to generally recognized principles that exclude politically motivated charges. Cases may be referred to the court by the Security Council, by UN member states, and by the court’s own prosecutor. Before the creation of the ICC there were no international courts for trying persons accused of committing atrocities. The Security Council tried to fill this gap through the creation of special tribunals designed to bring justice to specific nations ravaged by civil war. It created the first such tribunal in 1993 to investigate massacres in the former Yugoslavia. Other tribunals established by the Security Council or with its cooperation have followed, among them one to address alleged genocide and other crimes in Rwanda (1994); another to investigate atrocities against civilians in Sierra Leone

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(2002); and another focusing on serious criminal offenses in Lebanon (2007). The United States applauded the formation of the UN tribunals and was their most generous donor, but it was far less enthusiastic about the ICC. When the Rome Treaty came to the United States for ratification, it got a cool reception. The Clinton administration signed it with reservations based on concerns about the possibility  of capricious prosecutions. The George W. Bush administration stated that it would not send the treaty to Congress for ratification without major changes aimed at protecting US military and government personnel against “politically motivated war crimes prosecutions.” It also removed the US signature from the treaty, to the satisfaction of those in Congress who claimed it violated US sovereignty. The Obama administration was somewhat friendlier, but the Trump administration condemned the court as an infringement of US sovereignty. President Trump’s then national security advisor, John Bolton, gave a speech in 2018 in which he declared the ICC threatened US sovereignty and national security interests. He said that the United States would not cooperate with the ICC, and that if the court ever visited the United States the government would prosecute the judges. Even though the US government resisted ratification, the rest of the world made the ICC a reality. The Rome Treaty gained enough signatures in 2001 to establish the court, which meets in the Netherlands at The Hague.

US Condemnation of the ICC “[T]he United States will provide no support in recognition to the International Criminal Court. As far as America is concerned, the ICC has no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority. The ICC claims near-universal jurisdiction over the citizens of every country, violating all principles of justice, fairness, and due process. We will never surrender America’s sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy.” —US president Donald Trump, addressing the UN General Assembly, September 2018

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The ICC tried its first case in 2007, with the filing of charges against an alleged militia leader from the DRC for “enlisting, conscripting and using” children to “participate actively in hostilities.” As of 2019, the court had opened “preliminary examinations” in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, Colombia, Guinea, Iraq, Nigeria, the Philippines, Ukraine, and Venezuela, and had “situations under investigation” in Burundi, the Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Darfur, DRC, Georgia, Kenya, Libya, Mali, and Uganda. Its actual cases led to a variety of results, including several acquittals. One of those convicted and sentenced to prison was Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi, arrested in 2015, who belonged to a group associated with al-Qaeda in northern Africa and was convicted of committing war crimes in Mali. Still at large is Sudan’s former president, Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, whom the court charged with responsibility for crimes in Darfur. Since the court does not try cases in absentia, it could not yet bring him to justice, but meanwhile the government of Sudan did take him into custody on corruption charges.

Time to Leave, Maybe Two member states that ratified the ICC later withdrew. First to go was Burundi, in 2017, after the court decided to investigate the government’s efforts to suppress political protests. Next, in 2019 the Philippines withdrew when the court said it would investigate the government’s brutal war on drugs. Gambia and South Africa said in 2016 they would leave but later decided to stay.

The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) Everyone is “for” human rights, but people may not agree on how to enforce rights when they seem to conflict with national sovereignty. If mass atrocities are being committed within a nation— something that has happened with lamentable frequency—does the world community have the obligation or the right to intervene to stop it? The usual response over the decades has been no. Kofi Annan proposed to alter the historical approach by arguing that international human rights law must apply in each member state and

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that certain acts, such as genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, cannot be allowed to occur with impunity. He based his view, no doubt, on his own bitter recollection of events in places like Rwanda and Bosnia, where the UN was accused of doing too little to prevent mass murders. Annan was under-secretary-general for peacekeeping during those years (1992–96). Annan formally stated his new approach to intervention in an address at the General Assembly in September 1999, in which he asked member states “to unite in the pursuit of more effective policies to stop organized mass murder and egregious violations of human rights.” At Annan’s urging the Canadian government established the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, whose report, issued in 2001, laid out the basic principles of what became known as the responsibility to protect (R2P). In 2005 world leaders at the UN World Summit endorsed the concept, and in 2009 then secretary-general Ban Ki-moon issued a report, “Implementing the Responsibility to Protect,” which sought to make the concept into a working principle. This basic document set forth the three pillars of R2P: 1. States have the primary responsibility for protecting their citizens from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. 2. The international community is responsible for helping states protect their citizens from these crimes. 3. The international community is responsible for acting decisively and in a timely manner to prevent or halt these crimes when a state is evidently failing to protect its citizens. Since the secretary-general’s report, R2P has been invoked by various parties, including the UN and human rights NGOs. The Security Council has incorporated it into numerous resolutions. The council first mentioned the term officially in 2006, in Resolution 1674, on the protection of civilians in armed conflict, and later referred to the resolution when passing Resolution 1706, authorizing deployment of a peacekeeping mission to Darfur. Since then various council resolutions and statements mentioned R2P.

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Libyan Intervention The effort to implement R2P brought complaints, chief among them that it could be used as a pretext for other aims. That charge was made in connection with the Security Council’s decision to intervene in the Libyan civil war that toppled dictator Muammar Gaddafi. After civil unrest became overt in 2011, speeches by Gaddafi and the actions of his military forces suggested that the government would try to suppress the uprising brutally. When international and regional attempts to encourage a political resolution failed, the Security Council intervened with Resolution 1970, in February 2011, which declared that the Libyan government had a responsibility to protect its citizens. It also imposed an arms embargo and other sanctions and asked the International Criminal Court to investigate allegations of crimes against humanity. When the Libyan government seemingly ignored the resolution, the Security Council passed a much stronger one, Resolution 1973, also in 2011, that, among other items, authorized UN member states to impose a no-fly zone over Libya and to apply all measures necessary to protect civilians in threatened areas. Proponents of Resolution 1973 argued that peaceful attempts to prevent crimes against humanity had failed, leaving no alternative to the use of military force. A significant minority of council members—Brazil, China, Germany, India, and Russia—had reservations about the resolution, though instead of opposing it, they simply abstained from voting. The final vote was ten in favor with five abstentions. Skeptics wondered whether all peaceful means really had been exhausted. Moreover, the application of military force raised serious issues: How much force, and for how long? Should it be aimed solely at protecting civilians, or could it be applied to advance the cause of the rebels? NATO air forces began air strikes to stop the Gaddafi regime from sending tanks against civilians. They also helped the rebels counterattack the government forces and eventually take control of the country. According to Mark Malloch-Brown, the air strikes went beyond the scope of the Security Council resolution. “Somehow this

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correlation was being introduced between R2P and the right to intervene,” he remarks. “In fact, the R2P doctrine was always meant to assume a lot of pre-intervention effort to mitigate, head off, or resolve conflict, and was not meant to be a rush to arms.” As he sees it, it requires “a clear framework of agreed action” that will not be exceeded. Diego Arria, formerly Venezuela’s ambassador to the UN, holds that R2P “never implied regime change” but is “more a moral and political commitment and solidarity.” In his view, the Libya intervention gave R2P a bad name and sullied “the noble concept, of the moral commitment. It’s like humanitarian intervention: How much is humanitarian and how much is intervention?” Part of the fallout from the Libyan intervention, in Malloch-­ Brown’s view, was a loss of trust among the five permanent members of the Security Council. The Chinese and Russians, he says, may see R2P as simply a device to justify intervention involving regime change and other goals not directly related to protecting civilians. That concern, he argues, was a major reason why China and Russia prevented attempts by the Security Council to intervene strongly in the Syrian civil war. Caught in the middle is the UN secretary-general, who must satisfy all P5 members if he is to attain his objectives. Ban Ki-moon strongly supported R2P during his tenure, and so has Secretary-­ General Guterres. Speaking before the General Assembly in June 2018, Guterres urged member states to put aside any misgivings about R2P, including “possible double standards and the selective use of the principle in the past.” He declared that R2P “does not create a new mechanism for intervention or coercion,” and argued that through open and frank discussion member states could strengthen R2P as a vital tool of protection and prevention. He noted the primary responsibility of national governments to protect their citizens, and emphasized the potential contribution of civilsociety and regional organizations in enhancing national human rights institutions and preventing serious rights abuses and atrocities. “Only when peaceful means are inadequate, and national authorities are manifestly failing to protect their populations, may there be

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a responsibility for collective action.” He concluded with a rhetorical flourish that was also a plea: “At this time of extreme challenges, we must not abandon the responsibility to protect or leave it in a state of suspended animation, finely articulated in words but breached time and again in practice.”

CHAPTER 11

ECOSOC and the Trusteeship Council

The Economic and Social Council shall consist of fifty-four Members of the United Nations elected by the General Assembly. —UN Charter, Chapter X, Article 61 The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) is a principal organ of the United Nations, charged with promoting better social and economic conditions worldwide. Many important bodies in the UN system report to ECOSOC, including the nine functional commissions, the five regional commissions, and the specialized agencies. ECOSOC is the UN’s primary forum for discussing and offering policy recommendations regarding international economic and social issues. It also has responsibility for overseeing relations between the UN system and the thousands of civil-society organizations, commonly referred to as NGOs, which are active in key areas of concern, such as health, education, political rights, and humanitarian work. UN member states covet a seat on ECOSOC’s board, whose fifty-­ four members are elected by the General Assembly to three-year terms. The members, in turn, elect one of their number to serve as president.

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High-Level Meetings and Conferences As a coordinating body, ECOSOC holds many meetings throughout the year, with a variety of experts and organizations inside and outside the UN. Once a year, it meets in July for a four-week “substantive” session that addresses broad themes, including humanitarian, developmental, and organizational affairs, among others. ECOSOC’s mandate to address global social and economic development makes it the prime venue for discussing and monitoring the UN’s most ambitious development effort. “It has a unique role in addressing the 2030 Agenda [ for Sustainable Change] and rallying intergovernmental bodies and the UN system around it,” according to Inga Rhonda King, of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, who was the president of ECOSOC in 2018–19. ECOSOC hosts a special gathering known as the High-Level Political Forum for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, under the oversight of the deputy secretary-general.

Commissions The UN’s nine functional and five regional commissions, focusing on specific aspects or regions of social and economic development, were created over a span of many decades, as needs arose, either by the General Assembly or by ECOSOC itself. The first to be established was the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, created by ECOSOC in 1946 as the UN’s prime group for making drug-related policy and monitoring international drug-control conventions. In the same year, 1946, ECOSOC established a body that later became the Commission on Population and Development. A year after that saw the advent of the United Nations Statistical Commission. The remaining functional commissions appeared in the 1990s and later. The Commission on the Status of Women makes policy for the advancement of women. The Commission on Sustainable Development is responsible for following up on the Earth Summit, while the Commission for Social Development follows up the Copenhagen Declaration and Program of Action. The Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, established in 1991, is the succes-

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sor to a crime-prevention committee formed in 1971. The Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) offers policy suggestions and advice to UN bodies. Newest of the functional commissions is the United Nations Forum on Forests, created by ECOSOC in 2000. ECOSOC’s five regional commissions address economic development in specific parts of the world—Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Western Asia (ESCWA).

Working with the NGOs One of ECOSOC’s most important tasks was barely on the radar screen back in 1945, when the organization was created. ECOSOC is the intermediary between the General Assembly and most of the nongovernmental organizations that seek to have a relationship with the UN. NGOs are independent, civil-society groups. The UN’s Department of Global Communications (previously the Department of Public Information) defines an NGO as “a not-for-profit, voluntary citizens’ group that is organized on a local, national or inter­ national level to address issues in support of the public good. Task-­ oriented and made up of people with a common interest, NGOs perform a variety of services and humanitarian functions, bring citizens’ concerns to Governments, monitor policy and program im-

A Public-Private Partnership “NGOs play a more and more important role not only in the policy debates but equally important, maybe even more important, are critical in implementing many of these policies. A lot of the aid and emergency humanitarian assistance, like food distribution by the World Food Program, is done through the NGOs. There really is a public-private partnership, or an NGO partnership, that is very important. NGOs are effective, and part of the reason is they are private and they are accountable, they watch their pennies. People have a choice as to whom to give their money.” —John Negroponte, US ambassador to the UN under President George W. Bush

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plementation, and encourage participation of civil society stakeholders at the community level.” There were few NGOs decades ago when the UN was founded, but their number worldwide has multiplied many times over since then. They represent a major addition to the international scene in many key sectors, such as human rights, the natural environment, health, labor rights, children’s rights, and the fight against political corruption, to name only a few. Many of these organizations strongly advocate for a specific right, policy, or method of implementation, and they are not shy in seeking a place at the UN table. For its part, as the UN has come to value civil society for contributing to open and democratic societies, it has offered NGOs a greater role in making policy and in practical applications. Former secretary-general Kofi Annan stressed creating partnerships between the UN and civil society to achieve “a new synthesis between private initiative and the public good, which encourages entrepreneurship and market approaches together with social and environmental responsibility.”

Civil Society Matters “Civil society matters not because it will always validate the opinions we hold, but because it has the capacity to test, prod, and stretch our way of looking at the world so that we will understand more tomorrow than we do today. That is how civilization progresses. It is how we alleviate the immense pain we see around us. And it is how we translate the abstract promise of democracy into a world constantly renewed by lively debate, innovative ideas, and accountable government.” —Samantha Power, US ambassador to the UN under President Barack Obama

ECOSOC negotiates the agreements that define relations between the UN and NGOs, including those that hold consultative status, which gives them the right to participate in certain UN meetings, conferences, studies, and projects and to submit reports to ECOSOC. NGOs have their own liaison body, the Conference on Non-Governmental Organizations in Consultative Relationship (CoNGO), to

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represent their interests before ECOSOC and hold meetings about issues of common interest. ECOSOC’s then president, King, in her parting speech as she finished her term in 2019, urged her colleagues “to keep the door open to civil society and the business sector. They anchor our work in the realities of the day and hold us accountable.” Nongovernmental organizations may serve as technical experts, advisers, and consultants to governments and the Secretariat. As advocacy groups, they may support UN plans of action, programs, and declarations. Despite their close relationship, however, NGOs remain independent bodies and do not become actual parts of the UN. To the contrary, their influence often depends on their reputation for independence from outside authority. This independence is in part why Diego Arria, who was Venezuela’s ambassador to the UN, and president of

ECOSOC’s president Inga Rhonda King (center) speaking during the 2019 ECOSOC Youth Forum, on the theme “Youth: Empowered, Included and Equal,” April 8, 2019. María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, president of the General Assembly, is at the left. United Nations Photo / Evan Schneider.

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the Security Council in 1992, regards cooperation with NGOs as “one of the best things that ever happened to the UN.”

Challenges ECOSOC’s broad and varied mandate, oriented heavily toward process and coordination, has challenged the organization to define a clear identity. Some insiders, like former Canadian ambassador David Malone, have complained that perceived long and sometimes open-ended discussions are hard to endure. This has spawned recommendations for reworking the body. Pakistan’s UN ambassador, Munir Akram, for example, has argued that ECOSOC would be more functional and relevant if it had the same kind of binding authority on economic decisions that the Security Council has for political and security issues. “You have to empower ECOSOC,” he asserts. “You have to see how to make it work in a system that is relevant to the real world.” Malone is skeptical that reforms will transform the organization’s corporate culture and mode of thinking. “It’s gone through formalistic reforms,” he says, “but none of them seem to have made the forum more dynamic.” Ambassador Munir Akram won the opportunity to show what ECOSOC can do late in 2020, when he was elected to be the council’s president, succeeding Mona Juul of Norway. He had been president in 2005. In presenting his agenda, Akram laid out a broad program, touching many of the issues, like human rights, youth, and climate change, that ECOSOC has long discussed, and he added a new challenge, COVID-19. Warning that the pandemic’s global economic impact was threatening fulfillment of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals campaign, he called on ECOSOC to “help build a coordinated approach to ensure the required capital flows to developing countries to recover from the current recession and revive the prospect of achieving the SDGs.”

The Trusteeship Council Of the six principal organs of the UN, the Trusteeship Council is the least well known, and for good reason. It was created to oversee

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islands and land areas scattered around the world that were neither nations nor colonies of other nations, but wards of the now-defunct League of Nations. The UN created the Trusteeship Council to ensure that the guardian nations would truly look after the best interests of their charges and help them secure self-government, either on their own or as parts of larger entities. Decolonization and the establishment of new nations in succeeding decades brought an end to the trust territories. Palau, an island group in the Pacific, was the last trust territory. When it became a UN member state in 1994, the Trusteeship Council no longer had any functions to perform. It suspended operations on November 1, 1994.

CHAPTER 12

The UN to the Rescue

Firstly, the world humanitarian system is an effective system. Every year at the moment we are reaching more than 100 million people and we are unquestionably saving millions of lives. And investing in humanitarian action is in fact one of the cheapest ways of saving a life. —Mark Lowcock, UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator under Secretary-General António Guterres The UN has always regarded disaster aid as one of its primary missions, defining “disaster” in both natural and human-made terms to encompass earthquakes and floods, disease, famine, and armed conflict, to name just a few. Typically, the UN seeks to find partners in government and civil society. Humanitarian aid organizations operate in collaboration with the UN emergency relief coordinator and representatives from UN agencies like the World Food Program (WFP) and such NGOs as the Red Cross. Increasingly, the UN has tried to anticipate situations and possibly even take steps to forestall them. Mark Lowcock, the UN’s head of humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator (ERC), doesn’t want to delay until the

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worst happens, but prefers another option. “We can anticipate the looming crisis and act now to prevent it from turning into a famine with all the horrors that that will bring. That is the cheaper—and more humane—option.” The UN’s humanitarian relief system consists of many components, tied together through the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Much of the money needed to support the UN’s relief efforts comes from voluntary donations by governments, foundations, and other organizations. The United States is the biggest donor, and, as Lowcock has recently said, Germany is second.

A Global System Emerges No grand plan governed the evolution of the UN’s humanitarian agencies and organizations. Instead they were established to meet immediate needs, and they tended to operate individually and with their own methods and priorities. Such was the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), founded in 1949 to provide emergency humanitarian aid to Palestinians displaced during the creation of the state of Israel. UNRWA became a permanent agency providing health, education, and social services to millions of Palestinian refugees in the Middle East. As the UN’s humanitarian responsibilities and organizations grew in number during the 1960s and 1970s, and then kept growing during the 1980s and 1990s, it became evident that more could be accomplished through better coordination. The General Assembly

Prevention Better Than Cure “The World Bank estimates that responding early to famine risks can lower costs by as much as 30 percent. And according to the World Food Program, the cost of food aid is cut by between a third and a half when it is procured early.” —Mark Lowcock, UN head of humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator under Secretary-General António Guterres

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sought to provide coordination for these efforts by establishing what was to become the Department of Humanitarian Affairs, which became OCHA. Today a staff of some two thousand works in more than thirty offices worldwide.

Collaborating UN Bodies OCHA can mobilize the expertise and capability of many UN bodies, selecting those that are most appropriate for a given situation. For acute needs of food and shelter the World Food Program (WFP) might be the lead agency in a disaster-struck region. Although the WFP engages in social and economic development, its main focus is on helping disaster victims, long-term refugees, and displaced persons. If the rescue effort includes medical issues, OCHA might call on the World Health Organization, or perhaps even the

Food for storm survivors in Mozambique, July 2019. A young man carries a bag of grain distributed by the World Food Program (WFP). UN humanitarian agencies and partners provided food, drinking water, medicine, and shelter to the hundreds of thousands displaced by two devastating storms. United Nations Photo / Eskinder Debebe.

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International Atomic Energy Agency. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, the IAEA began what Director Rafael Grossi called “the largest technical cooperation project” in the agency’s history. Using its contacts in nuclear research and medicine, it was able to provide free COVID-19 testing equipment and gear to hundreds of labs in the developing world. OCHA draws on the resources of other UN bodies as well, such as the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), as well as NGOs that help distribute aid and ensure that it goes where most needed. Media coverage has made the UNHCR’s blue plastic tents familiar to people around the world as they view media coverage of conflicts in Asia (Myanmar), Africa (Somalia), the Middle East (Yemen), and elsewhere. Each year the agency finds itself called on to assist ever more refugees. One of the more sobering UN publications is UNHCR’s monthly Refugee Brief, which provides a concise summary of the most pressing refugee crises worldwide. A recent issue had stories on Rohingya refugee children in Bangladesh and the need for aid to Venezuelan refugees in Brazil. To deal with so many crises, UNHCR has developed “quick impact projects,” or QIPs, to bridge the gap between emergency assistance for refugees, including refugees returning home, and longer-­term development aid undertaken by other agencies. Typical QIPs rebuild schools, repair roads, or restore water supplies. The

Getting Down to Business “What’s striking about the current crop of agency leaders is they’re very much focused on the task and they’re personally low-key. . . . Today it’s much more about the substance of the work and keeping the agencies running in businesslike ways . . . and that’s particularly true of the big agencies, funds, and programs—UNICEF, WHO, World Food Program. . . . It’s much more businesslike now and much less about individual, big personalities at the top. And I think that’s healthy.” —David Malone, rector of UN University and former Canadian ambassador to the UN

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UNHCR was recognized for its efforts helping and protecting refugees with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1954 and in 1981.

Just for Kids Not surprisingly, the UN has a humanitarian organization devoted solely to protecting the interests of children. It created the International Children’s Emergency Fund in 1946 to provide food, clothing, and health care to European children in the aftermath of World War II. Seven years later the General Assembly extended the fund’s mandate indefinitely and changed its name to UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund. Though UNICEF retained its largely hands-on, field-based focus (for example, immunization programs), it soon expanded its activities from acute emergency relief to addressing the needs of the whole child, including education, and to pursuing even longer-term goals, such as global monitoring and assessment. It has been a principal actor in generating public discussion about children’s issues, both within the UN, through debates and treaties, and globally, through movies, videos, its famous holiday cards, and Goodwill Ambassadors. In 1989, UNICEF sponsored the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which passed in the General Assembly and soon entered into force. Ratified by all the world’s nations (except the United States and Somalia), it lays out a bill of rights for children and encourages governments to adopt internationally recognized ethical standards assuring that citizens have the basics to survive. UNICEF’s advocacy has given children’s issues a highly visible place in the world body. The Security Council has since 1998 often debated issues related to children and armed conflict, and the General Assembly held a special session in 2002 that included children as official delegates. A high-level General Assembly meeting in 2019 met to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. UNICEF’s interests and programs range from adolescent and childhood development and hygiene to immunizations, nutrition, sanitation, and water. Its work on statistics and monitoring is valued

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by experts for providing national and global data and assessments on key child-related issues. Each year it publishes the State of the World’s Children, an assessment of the condition of children from a specific perspective. One of the reports, for instance, focused on children and the digital age. “One in three internet users worldwide is a child,” the report noted, “and young people are now the most connected of all age groups. From photos posted online to medical records stored in the cloud, many children have a digital footprint before they can even walk or talk.” Digital technology can offer new opportunities for disadvantaged children, or become yet another dividing line, the report warned, and it urged the need to “make the internet safer for children while increasing access to digital technology for every child, especially the most disadvantaged.”

WHO for Health Most crises have an unwelcome accomplice, illness, and in some cases, the illness itself is the crisis, as with the HIV/AIDS epidemic, Ebola virus disease, or the COVID-19 pandemic. That is when the World Health Organization (WHO) steps in. “WHO works worldwide to promote health, keep the world safe, and serve the vulner­ able,” according to one of its web self-descriptions. It sets its goals in tranches of a billion each: “[T]o ensure that a billion more people have universal health coverage, to protect a billion more people from health emergencies, and provide a further billion people with better health and well-being.” From the headquarters in Geneva, WHO coordinates the work of more than seven thousand personnel in 150 offices worldwide. Its staff include not only medical doctors, public health specialists, scientists, and epidemiologists, but experts in the management of information systems, health statistics, and emergency relief. A recent list of WHO program topics runs from “air pollution” and “malaria” to “zoonoses and veterinary public health.” WHO’s response to crises varies depending on the need. Sometimes it consists of medications; at other times it involves sending health specialists to the affected region. And in other cases, as with

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swine flu and Ebola virus disease, it provides monitoring to track the outbreaks and may offer guidance on how to respond, among other things. Whatever the nature of the health emergency, WHO cannot respond unless it knows the location and nature of the crisis. To meet the need for quick information, WHO has therefore developed its Early Warning, Alert and Response System (EWARS). Simple and cost-effective, EWARS is an emergency system packaged in a box, literally, that contains all the equipment necessary for setting up surveillance and response activities, even in field settings without Internet or electricity. Each box contains sixty mobile phones, laptop computers, and a local server, along with a solar generator and solar chargers to provide connectivity and power. Though expensive, at $15,000, a single box can support fifty fixed or mobile clinics serving as many as five hundred thousand people in total. It was deployed, to cite one example, after a major earthquake in Papua, New Guinea, in 2018.

From Crisis to Recovery The transition from crisis or disaster aid to recovery or development assistance is a big issue within the UN system. “What I hope to see,” said Jan Eliasson, when he was deputy secretary-general under Ban Ki-moon, “is to make sure that we don’t get stuck in the humanitarian stage for a longer time. When I was in Darfur I noticed that there were too many people in the camps. It cost $800 million every year, and I said there has to be an element of recovery or reintegration and development and the possibility of returning to the villages. We must have a continuum between relief and development.”

Recovering from a Crisis At some point a crisis ends and the next stage begins. What is that next stage, and when does it succeed the crisis? The decision about when a crisis has ended is a judgment call, and the timing may vary even among the experts. That is a huge challenge for the UN system, and it seems to have no simple answer. “I think there are promising signs,” says Jan Eli-

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asson, who was deputy secretary-general under Ban Ki-moon. “You see it in the Sahel strategy, how the two areas come together in the humanitarian crisis and development.” He is referring to an attempt by the UN and its partners to address the acute problems affecting millions of people in the vast geographical region that separates the Sahara to the north from tropical Africa to the south. The “triple crisis,” as it is called, involved high food prices and diminished harvests owing to severe drought, the sapping of human resilience owing to chronic food shortages and malnutrition, and a conflict in Mali that produced large numbers of refugees and internally displaced people. Since the Sahel region extends across many countries, a national approach was not workable. Nor was crisis management

Mother and child in Imvepi refugee settlement, northwest Uganda, June 2017. The camp received thousands of refugees from violence in the Central African Republic. UNHCR is the world’s largest provider of emergency assistance to persons displaced by disaster. United Nations Photo / Mark Garten.

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sufficient by itself, because of the complex interweaving of acute problems with long-term underlying factors. Similarly, the acute needs made long-term development methods insufficient by themselves. The solution, according to Eliasson, was to combine them in an integrated approach. This integrative approach expresses a new method of providing humanitarian assistance, a new way for the UN to come to the rescue, and it is also another aspect of former secretary-general Ban Ki-moon’s frequent plea that “no organization, no country, however powerful . . . can do it alone.”

Leading UN Actors • The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) helps tens of millions of the world’s displaced persons. Based in Geneva, its staff of about 16,800 work in 134 countries. In 2019, almost all of the $8.6 billion budget came from voluntary donations from governments. The General Assembly and ECOSOC oversee UNHCR, and the assembly appoints the chief executive officer, the high commissioner. UNHCR’s executive committee approves the biennial programs and budget, and the high commissioner presents them to the General Assembly and ECOSOC for approval. • The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is headquartered in New York but works in 190 countries. It seeks to help children in developing countries achieve their potential as human beings, which it does by focusing on rights, needs, and opportunities. A thirty-six-member executive board, representing the regional groups of member states, governs UNICEF and reports to the General Assembly and ECOSOC. The US government has invariably been UNICEF’s largest single donor. • The World Food Program (WFP) was created in 1961 to provide emergency food and shelter in crisis areas around the globe. Headquartered in Rome, the WFP is the world’s largest humanitarian agency focused on the alleviation of hunger. The US government, the program’s largest donor, has praised the program

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for its lean and cost-effective performance. The European Commission and Germany also provide extensive funding. The program won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020 “for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict.” • The World Health Organization (WHO), founded in 1948, is based in Geneva and has 150 facilities worldwide. One of the largest specialized agencies, with more than seven thousand staff, WHO seeks to protect and improve world health by responding to control diseases such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The global eradication of smallpox is considered one of its most significant accomplishments.

CHAPTER 13

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

The transformation we need requires us to acknowledge that everyone is a development actor. Governments alone cannot achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. —Amina Mohammed, deputy secretary-general of the United Nations under Secretary-General António Guterres From its beginning, the UN has been committed to improving the lives of poor, disadvantaged, and neglected people, no matter where they may live. One of the reasons the UN was created, according to the Charter, was “to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.” Given the large number of poor nations, development has usually been understood as an effort to bring affluence to the less affluent, in other words, to alleviate poverty. As the world has grown richer, in recent decades, however, and as concern has grown that rising affluence may strain the world’s resources, development has expanded to include the idea of sustainability, of being able to keep doing what we are doing, without running out of clean water, farmland, breathable air, energy, or a thousand other things that make the affluent life possible. A related

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issue is to ensure that the largest possible segment of the population can enjoy the rewards of development. These rewards are not just physical ones, like a nice home, but others, like a good education and access to law courts and medical care. In 2015 the UN officially embraced a campaign called the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, or the 2030 Agenda for short, consisting of seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which include a wide array of targets for improving the world. Unlike previous UN development efforts, this one applies to all nations, poor and rich alike. Its focus is not just on improving the world’s economies, cities, and natural environments, but doing so in a way that will be sustainable and not exhaust global resources. The hope of the UN and world leaders is that during the campaign’s fifteen-­ year lifetime it will encourage governments to aim for carefully defined benchmarks as they formulate national policies and implement them. The 2030 Agenda attracted a lot of attention for its ambitious scope and depth, and it has also raised the issue of feasibility. Will it work? Some insiders worry that the campaign is not delivering as much as expected, as quickly as hoped for. UN Deputy Secretary-­ General Amina Mohammed, who helped create the 2030 Agenda and oversees it, spoke at the first global summit to assess its progress in September 2019. While noting that member states had renewed their commitment to the seventeen SDGs that comprise the

A Development Emergency “We are facing a development emergency,” declared UN Deputy Secretary-­ General Amina Mohammed in April 2020. “COVID-19 may have put a pause on life as we know it, but not on climate change or poverty. Inequalities and vulnerabilities are being exacerbated. . . . While the world prepared to accelerate action towards the 2030 Agenda, COVID-19 has placed the bar even higher. We must respond with determination to ensure countries remain on track towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Our development programs across the world must proceed in spite of COVID-19. Livelihoods depend on this imperative.”

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agenda, she also said she sensed “wide recognition that we are off track to achieve the Goals by 2030 and real determination to get us back on track.” During the remaining years of the campaign, she declared, “together with colleagues across the United Nations development system, I look forward to working with you all to kick-start the decade of action.”

Need for Sharper Focus: The MDGs The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is the UN’s attempt to bring focus and cohesion to a global development effort that arose piecemeal and lacked clear organization and coordination. Late in the 1990s, then secretary-general Kofi Annan urged the UN member states to create a single campaign, with realistic longterm goals, that would maximize the impact of the limited funds and staff of the world body’s commissions, funds, and other entities. World leaders accepted his challenge at the General Assembly in New York City on September 8, 2000, when they launched the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) campaign. It was defined as a fifteen-year campaign focused on improving living standards by targeting eight goals, such as eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, promoting gender equality and empowering women, and ensuring environmental sustainability. All member states were expected to address the goals of the UN’s most ambitious development effort to date. World leaders reconvened at a follow-up summit in New York in 2005, again in 2010, and finally in 2015 to review progress. They learned that during the span of the campaign, global rates of extreme poverty fell by half, and two billion more people gained access to safe drinking water. The first MDG, which addressed the need to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, was the first to be met. Maternal and child mortality dropped considerably (though not as much as hoped), and a record number of children were in primary school, with the number of girls equaling the number of boys for the first time. The battle with killer diseases such as malaria and AIDS made real gains. David Malone, rector of UN University and former Cana-

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dian ambassador to the UN, recalls that “it’s fashionable now to badmouth the MDGs as not ambitious enough. I thought they were plenty ambitious when they were announced. And the good news was, many of them were achieved including [a lessening of ] the poverty gulf.” These and other advances persuaded world leaders that the campaign had accomplished enough to justify launching an expanded and refined version. But what would that be? During the last few years of the campaign, then secretary-general Ban Ki-moon commissioned an expert panel to assess the MDGs and offer a plan for extending or expanding them. In their 2013 report, A New Global

High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, September 25, 2019. Heads of state and government and key UN officials gathered in New York to review progress in advancing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. From left to right: Liu Zhenmin, under-­ secretary-general for economic and social affairs; Deputy Secretary-­ General Amina Mohammed; and Lise Kingo, chief executive officer and executive director of the UN Global Compact. United Nations Photo / Kim Haughton.

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Partnership: Eradicate Poverty and Transform Economies through Sustainable Development, the experts praised the accomplishments of the Millennium Development Goals campaign while also enumerating shortfalls. They stressed the importance of integrating various approaches into a coherent plan. The MDGs fell short “by not integrating the economic, social, and environmental aspects of sustainable development as envisaged in the Millennium Declaration, and by not addressing the need to promote sustainable patterns of consumption and production.” As a result, “environment and development were never properly brought together. People were working hard—but often separately—on interlinked problems.”

Even Better: The SDGs The panel urged adoption of a new approach that would help achieve sustainable development. This recommendation met strong approval at a summit of world leaders in 2015 and led to the creation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals campaign. Secretary-­ General António Guterres embraced the agenda when he became the UN’s chief executive and designated the deputy secretary-general, Amina Mohammed, as the point person for both the 2030 Agenda and UN development efforts in general. The experts who designed the SDGs that are the bones of the agenda provided a detailed breakdown for each of the seventeen goals. For example, in table 4, one of the items listed under Goal 2, which addresses hunger and food security, specifies that by 2030 the aim is to “end all forms of malnutrition, including achieving, by 2025, the internationally agreed targets on [preventing] stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age, and address the nutritional needs of adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women, and older persons.” In all, as noted in table 4, there are 169 of these items for the seventeen SDGs. While most of the seventeen goals focus on issues of concern for the less affluent nations, like clean drinking water and universal basic education, some apply to all countries, rich and poor. Goal 8, for example, “Promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic

Table 4. Summary of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This table, adapted from official UN information, lists each of the seventeen goals of the SDGs, with two or three associated items per goal selected from the 169 targets contained within the entire campaign. Goal 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere

Goal 2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture

Goal 3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

• By 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, currently measured as people living on less than $1.25 a day • By 2030, build the resilience of the poor and those in vulnerable situations and reduce their exposure and vulnerability to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social, and environmental shocks and disasters • By 2030, end all forms of malnutrition, including achieving, by 2025, the internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age, and address the nutritional needs of adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women, and older persons • By 2030, double the agricultural produc­ tivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, in particular women, indigenous peoples, family farmers, pastoralists, and fishers • By 2030, reduce the global maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100,000 live births • Achieve universal health coverage, including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health-care services, and access to safe, effective, quality, and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all continued

Table 4. continued Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

Goal 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

Goal 6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all

Goal 7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

Goal 8. Promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all

• By 2030, eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, and children in vulnerable situations • By 2030, ensure that all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy • Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation • Undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance, and natural resources, in accordance with national laws • By 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all • By 2030, achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation • By 2030, double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency • By 2030, expand infrastructure and upgrade technology for supplying modern and sustainable energy services for all in developing countries • Sustain per capita economic growth in accordance with national circumstances and, in particular, at least 7 percent gross domestic product growth per annum in the least developed countries • Protect labor rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all

Table 4. continued

Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and foster innovation

Goal 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries

Goal 11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable

Goal 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

workers, including migrant workers, in particular women migrants, and those in precarious employment • Increase the access of small-scale industrial and other enterprises, in particular in developing countries, to financial services, including affordable credit, and their integration into value chains and markets • Significantly increase access to information and communications technology and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries by 2020 • By 2030, progressively achieve and sustain income growth of the bottom 40 percent of the population at a rate higher than the national average • Facilitate orderly, safe, regular, and responsible migration and mobility of people, including through the implementation of planned and well-managed migration policies • By 2030, provide access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems for all, improving road safety, notably by expanding public transport . . . • By 2020, substantially increase the number of cities and human settlements adopting and implementing integrated policies and plans toward inclusion, resource efficiency, mitigation and adaptation to climate change, resilience to disasters • By 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including postharvest losses • By 2020, achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all continued

Table 4. continued

Goal 13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

Goal 14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources for sustainable development

Goal 15. Protect, restore, and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss Goal 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all, and build effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions at all levels

wastes throughout their life cycle, in accordance with agreed international frameworks, and significantly reduce their release to air, water, and soil in order to minimize their adverse impacts on human health and the environment • Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies, and planning • Implement the commitment undertaken by developed-country parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to a goal of mobilizing jointly $100 billion annually by 2020 from all sources to address the needs of developing countries • By 2025, prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds, in particular from land-based activities, including marine debris and nutrient pollution • By 2020, effectively regulate harvesting and end overfishing, illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing and destructive fishing practices, and implement science-based management plans • By 2030, combat desertification, restore degraded land and soil, including land affected by desertification, drought and floods, and strive to achieve a land degradation–neutral world • By 2020, integrate ecosystem and biodiversity values into national and local planning, development processes, poverty reduction strategies, and accounts • Promote the rule of law at the national and international levels and ensure equal access to justice for all • By 2030, provide legal identity for all, including birth registration

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Table 4. continued Goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development

• Enhance North-South, South-South, and triangular regional and international cooperation on and access to science, technology, and innovation and enhance knowledge sharing on mutually agreed terms • Encourage and promote effective public, public-private, and civil society partnerships, building on the experience and resourcing strategies of partnerships • By 2030, build on existing initiatives to develop measurements of progress on sustainable development that complement gross domestic product, and support statistical capacity-building in developing countries

growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all,” is something that every country would likely want to achieve. Similarly, Goal 13, “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts,” applies to everyone. In fact, a review of the table shows that most of the seventeen goals apply to all. Sustainability, the table is saying, is not a concern only for the poorer nations. The goals are interrelated. “If you think of the MDGs, they were stand-alone goals on very specific issues,” remarks David Malone. But the SDGs are integrated with one another, he says, offering as an example the need for “affordable energy and reliable energy” to achieve the targets for both education and health. Ayodele Odusola, former chief economist for the UN Development Program’s Regional Bureau for Africa, also uses energy access to emphasize the interrelated nature of the SDGs. Energy access, he explains, “gives you the opportunity of addressing all the other SDGs. That’s why we call it the multiplier of the SDGs.” He notes that Africa, with more than 40 percent of the world reserve of solar energy, has the potential to generate a lot of renewable energy, “unlike the fossil energy, that you use to generate growth, but you use it at the expense of the future generations[;] it’s against the environment.”

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The World’s Toolbox Former deputy secretary-general Jan Eliasson calls the SDGs “a toolbox to repair the world, a survival kit for humanity.” Arguing that “all countries are developing countries,” he considers the goals as being important to all governments. “You have to take action on energy, on transport, on agriculture, on water . . . [;] they are as relevant to the rich countries as to the poor.”

Assessing the SDGs Like all of the UN’s major campaigns, the 2030 Agenda effort is closely watched to assess its performance. Part of the campaign includes a series of High-Level Political Forums (HLPFs), two of which were held in 2019, the fourth anniversary of the campaign. The first HLPF, which convened in Copenhagen under the auspices of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), drew representatives from more than fifty countries, who shared their national experiences and reviewed progress in the thematic areas of education (SDG 4), work and economic growth (SDG 8), inequalities (SDG 10), climate action (SDG 13), peace, justice, and strong institutions (SDG 16), and partnerships (SDG 17). The second HLPF, which met in New York during the opening of the General Assembly, saw wide-ranging discussions on SDGs and their impacts worldwide.

The Impossible Quest “For many years the impossible quest was development,” observes David Malone, rector of UN University and former Canadian ambassador to the UN. “Now development, economic development, is actually occurring. . . . There is real progress globally, and global institutions can take credit, but the countries bear primary credit.”

The UN Secretariat plays a role in assessing the progress of the 2030 Agenda. Its Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) helped prepare for the High-Level Political Forums and related meetings and has an ongoing role in moving the SDGs to ful-

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fillment. Every four years it publishes the Global Sustainable Development Report, in which an independent group of experts assesses progress. According to the 2018 report, the signs from the opening four years suggested that many countries were aligning their national policies and institutions behind the SDGs. It cited growing business investment in new technologies and the opening up of new markets, along with greater use of the SDGs by NGOs and other stakeholders to foster change at all levels of society and government. However, progress was uneven. Growing socioeconomic inequality and proliferating armed conflicts, as well as economic, financial, and climate challenges, were concerns. UN insiders have their own personal opinions, of course. General Assembly president María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés says that “looking at the numbers and at the reports we have already produced, with data and hard information, I can say that the performance on implementing the SDGs is uneven.” The goals of eliminating poverty and reducing inequality remain elusive. “We have a lot to do, for example, in access to water and sanitation worldwide.” The fight for gender equality is encountering “a backlash,” she says, after huge gains following the 1995 women’s summit in Beijing. David Malone frets over the sheer number of goals and subgoals. “I haven’t known a single government that could deal with 150 priorities at once.” And then governments had to cope with a global crisis in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic, which appeared in 2020 and threatened to undermine the economic growth that has underpinned the 2030 Agenda. As the pandemic’s effects began rippling across the world, UN development leaders, like Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, began commenting on the need for renewed commitment to the SDGs as a basis for action. “Our common objective is clear,” she said in 2020—to respond to the effects of COVID-19 “while helping Governments recover better, with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as our guiding light.” Whatever the ultimate outcome of the SDGs, the 2030 Agenda is officially embraced by all parts of the UN, which have committed themselves to making the campaign a success. And for one of these

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A Triple Threat to Development “The world has seen many crises over the past 30 years, including the Global Financial Crisis of 2007–09. Each has hit human development hard but, overall, development gains accrued globally year-on-year. COVID-19—with its triple hit to health, education, and income—may change this trend.” —Achim Steiner, head of the UN Development Program

UN bodies, the commitment to global development runs deep into its core, into its organizational DNA.

UNDP and the SDGs One of the UN’s oldest development organizations is the UN Development Program (UNDP), which operates in some 170 countries. The UNDP sees itself as a partner with nations that want to reduce poverty, achieve democracy, prevent disasters and recover from them when they occur, protect the environment, and gain adequate access to energy for sustainable development. Like all UN entities, it embraced the 2030 Agenda as a basis for planning and operations. The prologue to its strategic plan for 2018–22 states that the plan is “anchored” in the 2030 Agenda and designed to “help countries achieve sustainable development by eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, accelerating structural transformations for sustainable development and building resilience to crises and shocks.” The plan presents a vision of what UNDP ought to be and defines goals to achieve the vision. “It proposes a bold transformation for UNDP because the Sustainable Development Goals are bold—and because we believe that UNDP can achieve this ambition building on our decades of experience, deep country partnerships and the dedicated, professional and innovative people who are our greatest asset.” The plan specifies that UNDP will rely on other UN bodies, like the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Labor Organization (ILO), and UN Women, for technical and implementation assistance.

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People Matter “Development, after all, is about people. Their aspirations and ambitions must shape our policies and goals. I am determined to make sure that what a farmer says in Tanzania, or a student says in Vietnam, or a mother says in Honduras, will be heard at UN Headquarters.” —Ban Ki-moon, former secretary-general of the UN

Human Development Report Annually the UNDP publishes the Human Development Report. In twenty detailed tables on a wide range of topics, from life expectancy to per capita income, it presents a comprehensive review of the pace of development for all the world’s peoples and countries. The baseline summary of the whole report is the “Human Development Index” (HDI), which rates each country on a scale of social and economic development. The index addresses a range of factors, from health to education to environmental quality, but it also pre­ sents a single HDI rating that ranks the nations from most to least developed. Of the Human Development Report’s many tables, one focuses on the position of women in development, a topic of growing interest at the UN. When António Guterres became secretary-general, he promised that he would place the advancement of women at the head of his agenda, not only in the UN staff but in all aspects of the UN’s efforts across the globe. The desire of UN leaders to place women more centrally in development efforts had begun with Kofi Annan’s tenure as secretary-general. “Gender equality is more than a goal in itself,” Annan once remarked. “It is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance.” Under his successor, Ban Ki-moon, the UN decided in 2010 to streamline its women-related efforts by merging several organizations under a new office, UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. UN Women aims to help countries achieve gender equality through the improvement

Table 5. “Gender Development Index.” This selection draws from the UNDP’s Human Development Report (2018). The first column ranks a country by its Human Development Index (HDI).

HDI Rank 1 3 5 7 9 13 14 19 22 28

Country Norway Australia Germany Hong Kong Singapore United States United Kingdom Japan Israel Italy

Female Life Expectancy at Birth

Male Life Expectancy at Birth

Female Mean Years of Schooling

Male Mean Years of Schooling

Female Income per Capita US PPP$

Male Income per Capita US PPP$

84.2 85.0 83.5 87.1 85.2 81.8 83.4 87.1 84.3 85.3

80.5 81.2 78.9 81.2 81.1 77.3 79.9 80.7 80.9 80.9

12.6 12.9 13.6 11.6 11.0 13.4 12.8 12.9 13.0 10.0

12.5 12.8 14.5 12.4 12.1 13.3 13.5 12.5 13.0 10.4

60,153 35,323 37,689 43,813 69,508 43,899 28,043 27,209 24,620 25,767

75,731 51,857 54,843 75,577 95,809 66,208 50,485 51,326 40,910 45,326

33 39 49 58 74 86 113 123 130 142 157 168 173 178 186

Poland Saudi Arabia Russian Federation Kazakhstan Mexico China Philippines Morocco India Kenya Nigeria Haiti Ethiopia Yemen Chad

81.6 76.5 76.8 74.8 79.7 78.0 72.8 77.2 70.4 69.7 54.7 65.8 67.8 66.6 54.5

73.9 73.4 65.6 65.3 74.9 74.9 65.9 74.9 67.3 64.9 53.1 61.4 64.0 63.7 52.0

12.3 8.8 12.0 11.8 8.4 7.6 9.5 4.5 4.8 5.7 5.0 4.3 1.6 1.9 1.2

12.3 9.9 12.1 11.7 8.8 8.3 9.2 6.5 8.2 7.1 7.3 6.6 3.8 4.2 3.4

20,367 17,422 19,510 16,814 11,065 12,053 7,582 3,197 2,722 2,529 4,433 1,400 1,304 149 1,412

32,343 73,945 29,671 28,815 22,873 18,295 10,705 11,561 9,729 3,398 6,008 1,937 2,136 2,308 2,088

Note: The income columns are for estimated national per capita income in US dollars PPP for 2011. Purchasing power parity (PPP) is a way of measuring what an amount of money will buy in different countries.

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of laws and services for women and girls. Jan Eliasson, who was Ban’s deputy secretary-general, predicted that the twenty-first century would be “the century of the women” and would unleash great potential. “We have women in the UN, but the empowerment of women politically, economically, there’s still a long way to go, but it will happen during the century. It is hopefully unstoppable.” Gender equality is Goal 5 of the SDGs. To gauge how women are faring globally, the Human Development Report offers a table presenting the “Gender Development Index,” which compares how men and women fare in each country in three key sectors: life expectancy, educational attainment, and per capita income. Our table 5 draws on this compilation to provide twenty-five selected countries, ranging from the richest to the poorest, for comparison. The left-hand column shows the “Human Development Index” (HDI) ranking, which is based on life expectancy, educational attainment, and per capita income. Norway ranks first, while some relative newcomers to the developed world, like Hong Kong (7) and Singapore (9), are in the top ten, higher than the United States (no. 13). Certain nations remain at the bottom of the list, owing to low life expectancy, low educational attainment, or other factors. The development distance between a country like Chad or Haiti and the United Kingdom or Japan, for instance, remains wide. In between are countries like Saudi Arabia (no. 39), the Russian Federation (no. 49), and China (no. 86). The “Gender Development Index” presents a varied picture of the situation as of 2017. For example, it shows that on average women outlive men. It also shows that in a significant minority of nations women have caught up to men in years of formal education. For decades it was commonly assumed that in most countries, especially the less affluent ones, men got more years of formal education than women and were therefore better placed to succeed in work outside the home. The gap, in some cases, has disappeared, and in a few nations women now get more education than men. Finally, the index shows that despite women’s longer life spans and improving educational attainment, they earn considerably less than men in the

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workplace in all the 189 countries listed, except for Burundi, where the women earned $807 per year while the men got $594. Though the “Gender Development Index” focuses on gender, it also shows something that goes beyond male and female: the strong correlation between high per capita income, high number of years of schooling attained, and high life expectancy. In other words, affluence matters. Which is why the UN spends so much of its money and rhetoric on global development issues.

The World Bank Probably the UN body most associated in the popular mind with global economic development is the World Bank, founded in 1945 and based in Washington, DC. The bank, which is actually a group of five organizations, is a major source of financial support and services to developing countries. Its motto is “Working for a world free

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (left) conferring with Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank, January 23, 2014. On the far right is Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson. United Nations Photo / Eskinder Debebe.

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of poverty,” and it pursues its goals through various strategies, including grants and loans to national governments to support projects that contribute to social and economic development. Funded by the developed nations, especially the United States, the bank’s head has historically been an American. Since 1947 the bank has funded more than twelve thousand development projects. One of the bank’s five components is the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), which lends to “governments of middle-income and creditworthy low-income countries.” Another is the International Development Association (IDA), which provides grants and credits, that is, interest-free loans, to governments of the poorest countries. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a third component, focuses exclusively on the private sector; it offers financial and advisory services to businesses and governments. The fourth component, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), promotes foreign direct investment by offering political risk insurance to investors and lenders. The fifth component, the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), provides international facilities for conciliation and arbitration of investment disputes. Many developing nations now are creditworthy enough to draw on sources of development capital outside of the World Bank, and some national economies are growing so fast that their capital needs are outstripping the bank’s ability to lend. The bank has refocused itself on a campaign to reduce extreme poverty to 3 percent of the world’s population by 2030, with particular emphasis on raising the

Reaching Out to Business “Governments and partners from the private sector must work more ­effectively to overcome current financing challenges. We need to think innovatively about how to catalyze the growing interest and potential of private investment for the SDGs.” —Amina Mohammed, deputy secretary-general of the UN under Secretary-­ General António Guterres

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incomes of the poorest 40 percent in every country, even the richer ones. That goal fits with the 2030 Agenda.

Moving Goalposts From the daily media accounts about the world’s shortcomings and ills, it might seem that global social and economic development is a never-ending battle that seldom accomplishes much except to keep mass ignorance and starvation inches from the door. But as we have seen, many of the world’s people are better off now than they have ever been. To give only one example, Africa, as David Malone observes, “on balance has been doing much better over the last nearly twenty years than any previous decade of the independence period of African history.” The perception that the world remains stuck in misery may spring in part from the phenomenon of rising expectations. People who have gained a better life can now imagine an even better one. What was adequate two decades ago now seems barely tolerable, reminding us that development, like life, changes and evolves.

Leading UN Actors • The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), based in Rome, is the lead UN agency for agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and rural development. In 2019 it employed 11,561 professional and support staff and had a total budget of $2.6 billion, including voluntary contributions by members and other partners to support technical and emergency (including rehabilitation) assistance to governments as well as direct support to FAO’s core work. • The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), founded in 1977, is a specialized agency of the UN based in Rome. It is mandated to combat hunger and rural poverty in developing countries by providing long-term, low-cost loans for projects that improve the nutrition and food supply of small farmers, nomadic herders, landless rural people, poor women, and others. IFAD also encourages other agencies and govern-

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ments to contribute funds to these projects. The United States is one of the agency’s largest contributors. The International Labor Organization (ILO), created in 1919, is based in Geneva. The ILO formulates international labor standards through conventions and recommendations that establish minimum standards of labor rights, such as the right to organize, bargain collectively, and receive equal opportunity and treatment. One of the ILO’s most important functions is to investigate and report on whether member states are adhering to the labor conventions and treaties they have signed. The United States, which has a permanent seat on the ILO’s governing body, considers the organization vital for addressing exploitative child labor. A US government report stated that the programs have “removed tens of thousands of children” in Central America, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and elsewhere “from exploitative work, placed them in schools, and provided their families with alternative income-producing opportunities.” On its fiftieth anniversary, in 1969, the ILO received the Nobel Peace Prize. The UN Center for Human Settlements (Habitat), created in 1978, is headquartered in Nairobi. Habitat describes itself as promoting “sustainable human settlement development through advocacy, policy formulation, capacity-building, knowledge creation, and the strengthening of partnerships between government and civil society.” The UN Development Program (UNDP), founded in 1965, is based in New York. The UNDP concentrates on four aspects of development: poverty, the environment, jobs, and women. A US government report observed that the UNDP gives the United States an “important channel of communication, particularly in countries where the US has no permanent presence.” The United States has been the organization’s biggest donor. The UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), which became a specialized agency in 1985, is based in Vienna. UNIDO helps developing nations establish economies that are globally competitive while respecting the natural environment. It me­ diates communication between business and government and

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works to encourage entrepreneurship and bring all segments of the population, including women, into the labor force. Its staff include engineers, economists, and technology and environment specialists. • UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, was established in 2010 with responsibility for assisting in the formulation of policies, global standards, and norms and helping member states to implement these standards. An example of its work is the “Millennium Development Goals Gender Chart,” published in 2014, which assessed progress in meeting the MDGs relating to the status of women. UN Women is also charged with holding the UN system accountable for its own commitments to gender equality. • The World Bank, based in Washington, DC, was established in 1944 with the goal of reducing global poverty by improving the economies of poor nations. It does this through grants and loans to national governments. Its largest underwriter is the United States, followed by the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Japan. The bank raises additional capital through bonds offered to global financial markets. • The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), based in Geneva, is part of the UN Secretariat. It assists developing countries “to access the benefits of a globalized economy more fairly and effectively” through a suite of services, such as offering advice on economic integration, helping attract investment, diversifying the economy, improving access to digital technology, promoting entrepreneurship and innovation, and adapting to climate change.

CHAPTER 14

Global Connections

The United States is a global power. Global political, economic, and social power needs to have a certain amount of global standards. There’s a set of UN technical agencies, including things like the ICAO, that are the bedrock of this structure; there are whole sections of the United States which benefit from global technical norm-setting. —Esther Brimmer, former State Department official under President Barack Obama We live in a world of interconnections. A single computer, sitting by itself, can perform impressive computational and information-­ management functions, but it doesn’t begin to reach its full potential until it is connected with other computers. Each new connection makes the computer far more useful, not just to process information but to obtain it, create it, and disseminate it. Connectivity gives the machine a whole new dimension. The UN plays a vital role in facilitating and managing the world’s many forms of interconnectedness, whether over the Internet, through financial markets and currency exchanges, over the airwaves, across shipping lanes, on postal routes, or along the avenues of international trade and com-

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merce. All of these important areas of human interconnectedness depend upon rules, standards, norms, and agreements between nations, which are facilitated by various UN-related treaties, organi­ zations, and agencies.

Helping Make Things Work Although the UN is not the only player fostering connectivity, it is an important one, owing to its unique position in the world community. As some observers have remarked, the UN can act as an honest broker in mediating and enabling discussions about how to regulate, monitor, or define major global issues and functions. UN bodies take a broader, international view that is helpful in reaching agreement among national governments, transnational industries, and businesses. They have become valuable as monitors, administrators, and facilitators of the many infrastructures that enable complex international systems to work reasonably well most of the time. They have provided assistance to governments trying to cope with the fast pace and intensity of modern economic relations; rapid swings in currency and capital flows can send a seemingly sound national economy into sudden crisis. The UN is especially effective in setting standards for the world’s soft infrastructure of laws, procedures, and other intangible but essential elements.

Making Phone Calls Oldest of all the UN bodies is the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), founded in 1865 in Paris as the International Telegraph Union. Its original purpose was to help standardize telegraph services, which at that time were the world’s only means of electronic communication. It became the ITU in 1934 and joined the UN as a specialized agency in 1947, by which time telephones, radios, and televisions had greatly broadened the nature of telecommunications and created additional needs for standards and compatibility. Today the ITU helps governments and the private sector coordinate and improve global telecommunication networks and services.

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It develops standards for enabling networks and technologies to interconnect, seeks to improve electronic telecommunication access for underserved communities, and assigns global radio spectrum and satellite orbits. Satellite orbits? That’s taking connectivity pretty far from regulating the telegraph. So is artificial intelligence (AI), but the ITU is becoming a player in it. It has hosted several global summits intended to examine how AI can accelerate sustainable development. The first summit, in 2017, began a global dialogue on AI as a force for good, and the 2018 summit expanded the discussion through numerous projects and task forces, including one led by the ITU and the World Health Organization (WHO). Alone among UN agencies, the ITU has both government and nongovernment components. In addition to the 193 UN member states, its members include regulators, academic institutions, and approximately seven hundred private companies. For its third global summit on AI, to cite one example, the ITU collaborated with the XPRIZE Foundation, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and almost thirty United Nations agencies. In an increasingly interconnected world, notes the organization, “ITU is the single global organization embracing all players in this dynamic and fast-growing sector.”

Delivering the Mail Next in seniority is the Universal Postal Union (UPU), established by the Bern Treaty of 1874, to help create standards for and compatibility among the world’s postal systems. Before the electronic age, the delivery of physical letters, documents, and packages was the primary means of communication among individuals, businesses, government entities, and indeed all organizations. It was essential that the various national systems be able to work with one another to ensure that the mail would reliably reach its destination, no matter where that might be. The UPU took on the job. It became a UN specialized agency in 1948, charged with regulating and assisting cooperation among international postal services, as well as pro-

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viding advice, mediation, and technical assistance. Every four years it convenes the Universal Postal Congress. As you might imagine, any organization devoted to the world’s postal systems is grappling with the effects of the telecommunication revolution and the panoply of digital communications media. Why send a letter when you can send email? The UPU’s director-­ general acknowledged the challenge in an annual report. “While much has been achieved, much more must be done to lift the public postal sector out of the doldrums,” he wrote. “The Union must focus its efforts on ensuring that the use of new technologies permeates the postal business and on breaking down barriers impeding the flow of mail across the globe. It must boldly face the rising volumes of e-commerce parcels in the network, improve customer-­ service levels and respond quickly to rapidly changing client needs.” Surely the leaders of the US Postal Service are rooting for the UPU’s success in this quest.

Flying Anywhere Postal services deliver many kinds of packages, but not human beings. Airplanes deliver pretty much anything that they can lift, including millions, even billions, of passengers each year. Four decades after the Wright brothers made their historic flight at Kitty Hawk, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) was created, in 1944, upon the signing of the Convention on International Civil Aviation, also known as the Chicago Convention, a treaty that ICAO oversees. A UN specialized agency since 1947, ICAO is responsible for setting international standards and regulations necessary for the safety and efficiency of civilian air transport. It does this by establishing international standards for aircraft, pilots and flight crews, air traffic controllers, ground and maintenance crews, and security in international airports. ICAO and the signatories of the convention, along with global industry and aviation organizations, establish international standards and recommended practices (SARPs), which nations use to create their civil aviation regulations. The nine-

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teen annexes of the Chicago Convention currently have more than ten thousand SARPs. The organization claims that these SARPs and ICAO’s policy, auditing, and capacity-building efforts ensure that “today’s global air transport network is able to operate over 100,000 daily flights, safely, efficiently and securely in every region of the world.”

Helping Money Flow In the year of the ICAO’s founding, another organization fostering connections came into existence. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was established at the Bretton Woods Conference and became an agency of the UN, charged with facilitating international monetary cooperation and providing financial capital, fiscal and monetary advice, and policy recommendations to national governments. To maintain stability and prevent international monetary crises, the IMF monitors member-country policies as well as national, regional, and global economic and financial developments through a system known as surveillance. Among its many reports, perhaps the best known are the World Economic Outlook and the Global Financial Stability Report. Unlike the World Bank, the IMF’s writ runs to all nations, not just the developing ones. In times of crisis, if a member nation is unable to meet its foreign obligations or its financial system becomes unstable, the IMF can offer essential aid in the form of large loans.

Promoting Culture and Ideas One of the UN’s most creative approaches to promoting interconnections dates to 1945, with the founding of the United National Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), “in order to respond to the firm belief of nations, forged by two world wars in less than a generation, that political and economic agreements are not enough to build a lasting peace. Peace must be established on the basis of humanity’s moral and intellectual solidarity.” The organization explains that it “strives to build networks among

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nations that enable this kind of solidarity.” UNESCO focuses on four general areas. First is ensuring that children have access to good education “as a fundamental human right and as a prerequisite for human development.” Second is building intercultural understanding through the protection of cultural heritage and diversity. UNESCO invented the concept of the World Heritage Site, which has become an accepted part of our discourse about cultural heritage. Third is advancing scientific cooperation “to strengthen ties between nations and societies.” The fourth area is protecting freedom of expression as “an essential condition for democracy, development and human rights.” History shows that societies that value freedom of expression usually provide a better environment for the creation of knowledge than those that try to control expression. In 2019, UNESCO’s director-­ general, Audrey Azoulay, denounced the killing of journalists in various countries and called for governments to bring the killers to account. “Bringing those responsible for these crimes to justice is essential for press freedom in the country, and for journalists’ ability to inform citizens and hold authorities to account.” UNESCO promotes the safety of journalists through awareness-raising and by supporting actions such as the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity. UNESCO is probably best known for its creation of the World Heritage Site label, which brings certain cultural treasures to special public attention and in that way helps ensure they are available for future generations. Some of these sites are in cities; others are in jungles or deserts or other out-of-the-way places; and some of them are underwater. “Underwater Cultural Heritage encompasses all traces of human existence that lie or were lying under water and have a cultural or historical character,” declares UNESCO. But even treasures lying out of sight under water need protection from treasure hunters and looters. UNESCO drafted the Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage in 2001, which provides an international legal framework for protecting underwater sites. When signed by twenty member states, it came into force in 2009.

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One of UNESCO’s founding members, the United States, withdrew from the body in 2017, citing concerns over costs, the need for organizational reform, and anti-Israel bias.

Safer and Cleaner Seas Many of the underwater treasures that UNESCO wants to protect are vessels from decades ago (the Titanic, for example), or centuries or even millennia ago, that sank while engaged in commerce. Maritime commerce did not have a UN connection until 1959, with the creation of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). That’s a rather late date considering that maritime commerce has a history dating back thousands of years and that today ships carry about 90 percent of international trade. The IMO’s mandate is to make shipping goods for international trade safe and unlikely to pollute the seas. Immediately upon starting operations, the IMO revised the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), a treaty made after the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, which the IMO labels “the most important of all treaties dealing with maritime safety.” Regarding pollution by ships, IMO has introduced measures aimed at preventing oil tanker accidents, minimizing their effects, and limiting the environmental damage caused by the cleaning of oil cargo tanks, the disposal of engine room wastes, and other routine operations. The most important of these efforts, according to the IMO, is the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships of 1973, as modified by the Protocol of 1978. It covers accidental and operational oil pollution as well as pollution by chemicals, goods in packaged form, sewage, garbage, and airborne contaminants. Through its meetings, forty conventions, and one thousand codes and recommendations, IMO has helped develop common standards of safety and efficiency in navigation, technical regulations and practices, and pollution control. That is no small task given that a ship’s ownership may be separate from its management and may involve more than one country, and that the ship’s itinerary may take it to many different countries, none of which might be its place of ownership or management. “There is, there-

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fore, a need for international standards to regulate shipping,” notes the IMO, “which can be adopted and accepted by all.”

Protecting Products of the Mind Ships are big and physical, but a lot of today’s infrastructure is intangible and soft, such as the rules and standards for the creation, ownership, and development of intellectual property. Intellectual property can be anything from songs and novels to inventions, pharmaceuticals, and even genes. As with any form of property, disputes arise about ownership and use. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) provides such services as helping nations harmonize their laws and procedures about intellectual property, so that creators in each country can more easily be protected in other countries. It administers eleven treaties that set out internationally agreed-on rights and common standards, which the signatory states promise to enforce within their own borders. The agency’s global patent system, which processes more than two hundred thousand applications every year, enables inventors to protect their intellectual property in multiple countries with a single filing. Similarly, the International Trademark System gives coverage in more than ninety countries with a single application. Countries sometimes need protection, too, so WIPO maintains a database relating to an article of the Paris Convention that protects the flags and emblems of states that are party to it against their unauthorized registration and use as trademarks. In other words, it prevents someone from claiming the French flag as a trademark. A more useful WIPO service, for many people, may be the Arbitration and Medi­ ation Center, which is available to resolve Internet domain-name disputes without resort to litigation.

Crime and Drug Trafficking Criminals have learned to exploit the interconnections common in modern life. Air travel, electronic communications, and global financial connections are not only vulnerable to attack but are in

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some instances being used for nefarious purposes. Drug trafficking is one of the illegal uses that draw special attention from the UN, which concentrates its efforts on monitoring drug use worldwide, compiling statistics, and offering expert analyses to assist policymakers and law-enforcement officials. The Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), a functional commission of ECOSOC, is the UN’s main source of drug-related policy and is the governing body of the UN’s International Drug Control Program. Three international conventions form the basis for the CND’s policies. The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (1961) tries to confine drugs to medical use; the Convention on Psychotropic Substances (1971) seeks to control synthetic drugs; and the UN Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (1988) deals mainly with drug trafficking and related issues like money laundering. However, the CND does not actually monitor implementation of these treaties. That task is the responsibility of the International Narcotics Control Board, an independent panel of thirteen persons elected by ECOSOC and financed by the UN.

Monitoring International Drugs and Crime The rapid growth of the international narcotics trade led the UN to coordinate its antidrug operations under the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), established in 1997. The UNODC has two components, the Crime Program and the Drug Program. The Crime Program focuses on corruption, organized crime, trafficking in human beings, and terrorism. The Drug Program offers an integrated approach that begins with the farmer and ends with the drug dealer and money launderer. It compiles and disseminates information about illicit drugs, monitors illegal drug-related agriculture, fights the laundering of drug-related money, and helps governments write antidrug legislation. One of the UNODC’s major efforts, the Global Assessment Program, provides accurate information about the international drug problem. Another, the Drug Alternative Development Program, tries to nip the drug problem at its source by offering farmers alternative

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Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon meeting with villagers in Kyauk Ka Char, Myanmar. The secretary-general was visiting the Drug Alternative Development Project, cosponsored by the Myanmar government and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, April 30, 2012. United Nations Photo / Mark Garten. crops that will enable them to earn a decent, and legal, living. Results of the alternative crop program seemed promising in its early years, but recent data are not so good. According to UNODC’s own experts, global opium production jumped to the highest level recorded by UNODC since it started monitoring global opium production at the start of this century. One of UNODC’s best known contributions is its annual World Drug Report, an authoritative and comprehensive survey of the global drug scene. A recent report explained that while drugs like heroin and cocaine have been available for a long time, they now coexist with new psychoactive substances and a growing stream of prescription drugs, making the drug problem extremely complex. Expanding on this argument, the report noted the growing illegal use of prescription drugs, specifically the opioids, which accounted

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for 76 percent of drug-related deaths. The report then cataloged other drugs by region, noting, for example, that fentanyl and its analogues “remain a problem in North America, while tramadol—an opioid used to treat moderate and moderate-to-severe pain—has become a growing concern in parts of Africa and Asia. Accessibility of fentanyl and tramadol for medical use is vital for treating pain, but traffickers manufacture them illicitly and promote them in illegal markets causing considerable harm to health.” Growing concern about linkages between organized crime and international terrorism caused the Security Council to convene meetings on the issue. In April 2019, for example, the UN Counterterrorism Committee, the 1267/1989/2253 Sanctions Committee, and the 1988 Afghanistan Sanctions Committee met jointly to explore regional strategies and responses for addressing the crime/terrorism nexus. The Security Council also adopted Resolution 2462, focused on the financing of terrorism through crime. During an open debate in July 2019 on the financing of terrorism, the executive director of UNODC and other experts briefed the council. The UN’s efforts, like those of law-enforcement agencies across the globe, aim at identifying and breaking the connections that enable international crime, including the illicit drug trade, to flourish. But this is proving to be a slow and difficult process. In his summary remarks in the 2018 issue of the World Drug Report, the executive director wrote, “The findings of this year’s World Drug Report show that drug markets are expanding, with cocaine and opium production hitting absolute record highs, presenting multiple challenges on multiple fronts.” It is a sober but frank assessment.

Leading UN Actors • The Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) was established in 1946 and has its headquarters in Vienna. It makes UN policy about drugs and is the governing body for the UN Drug Control Program. • The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is based in Montreal. ICAO sets the international safety and efficiency stan-

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dards and regulations for civil aviation. The United States is a strong supporter of the organization. The International Maritime Organization (IMO), headquartered in London, focuses on ensuring that shipping is safe and nonpolluting. The IMO founded the World Maritime University in 1983 in Sweden and has also established the IMO International Maritime Law Institute and the IMO International Maritime Academy. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), based in Washington, DC, has 189 member countries, which subscribe to the IMF through contributions to the budget and can draw on IMF loans according to the level of their subscription. Member states comprise the board of governors, responsible for policy and oversight, while regular operations are managed by a twenty-four-member executive board. The IMF monitors member-country policies as well as national, regional, and global economic and financial developments. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), located in Geneva, helps governments and the private sector coordinate and improve global telecommunication networks and services. Its responsibilities include developing standards to enable networks and technologies to interconnect. It also offers technical assistance to developing countries. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), based in Vienna, assists member states to address the threat posed by drugs, crime, and terrorism. It was established in 1997 through a merger between the United Nations International Drug Control Program and the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Division in the United Nations Office at Vienna. UNODC operates in all regions of the world through an extensive network of field offices. Most of its funding comes from voluntary contributions by member states. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), founded in 1945, is based in Paris. Its programs are aimed at promoting the free flow of ideas, open access to education, the transfer of scientific knowledge, and the protection of cultural and natural heritages.

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• The Universal Postal Union (UPU), with headquarters in Bern, Switzerland, helps postal systems deliver the world’s mail. The UPU’s funds are independent of the UN system and come from the member countries. The organization claims to have the smallest annual budget in the UN system. • The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), based in Geneva, helps protect intellectual property worldwide. WIPO raises its annual budget largely through earnings from registration systems.

CHAPTER 15

Climate Change

This generation, which we represent, is the first in history that has to think about the future of the planet. If I ask myself how many of my generation’s parents even mentioned climate change, I don’t think that anyone can say yes. —Jan Eliasson, deputy secretary-general of the UN under former secretary-general Ban Ki-moon We all know the saying “People talk about the weather but no one does anything about it.” That’s only partly true nowadays. Not only do we talk about the weather, especially that part of it called global warming, but we are trying to do something about it. Talk of climate change calls to mind melting glaciers and rising sea levels, a reduction in farm productivity, threats to social and political stability. Experts speak of it as a “threat multiplier,” capable of aggravating existing problems and creating new ones. But the effort to slow human-induced climate change is actually part of a much broader discussion about the global environment and the plants and animals within it: the biosphere. Like the canary in a coal mine, measurable human-­induced climate change can offer warnings about

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further changes across the entire global space of air, land, water, and living beings. The UN is in the middle of the discussion of what we can do to slow or reduce climate change. It engineered the world’s best-known climate treaty, the Paris Agreement, in 2015, which aims to limit the rise of global temperature to 2.0 degrees Celsius above the pre­ industrial level (1.5 degrees, if possible). To help countries deal with the impacts of climate change, the agreement encourages new financial flows and technology and also requires all parties to report regularly on their emissions and their implementation efforts. The Paris Agreement is the latest in a succession of UN-sponsored international efforts to address major climate and environmental issues, among them a very effective treaty that protects the atmosphere’s ozone layer. While the ozone program succeeded, the Paris Agreement has encountered some difficulties.

An Immediate Threat As a UN media release noted, “Of the 146 Member States that raised the issue of climate change during the general debate of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly in September 2018, many [world leaders] cited climate change as the defining challenge of this era. This reflects the nature of climate change as a cross-cutting and immediate threat to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and to the survival and wellbeing of island nations and coastal communities.”

Possible Impacts The consensus position among scientists and other experts is that if human-caused global warming continues at its current pace it will disrupt many aspects of life and possibly bring social and economic upheaval. It is clear, for example, that a warmer Earth will cause the melting of glaciers and polar ice sheets, leading to a rise in sea levels. Coastal cities like Shanghai, New York, and Mumbai and low-lying island nations might have to plan for a very wet future. Other effects seem likely, too, such as the drying out of the American Midwest, which might be extreme enough to limit large-scale

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agriculture in the famous Corn Belt. Alongside the losers there would probably be some winners, as clouds move to new latitudes and bring rain to deserts, but these improvements might be small compared to the harm done in densely populated regions. The scale of potential climate-change effects led the Security Council to pay more attention to the issue, beginning in 2007. During the following years the council held open debates enabling member states to gain scientific information, state their views, and offer ideas for solutions. The council went beyond speculation in 2017, when it passed Resolution 2349, highlighting climate-related risks in the armed conflict in the Lake Chad Basin. In January 2019, the Security Council held an open debate on the impact of climate change on peace and security, and examined ways to diminish the effects of global warming. It asked for input from several key sectors of the UN system, such as the chief scientist of the World Meteo­ rological Organization (WMO) and Achim Steiner, head of the UN Development Program. Steiner told the council that climate change is “not only affecting the atmosphere, but also the biosphere” and that the world is “not keeping up with the challenge.” As climate change alters natural environments, many groups of people will have to migrate to new lands. Steiner estimated that in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and South Asia, more than 140 million people would have to move by 2050. Rosemary DiCarlo, the under-secretary-­ general for political and peacebuilding affairs, declared, “The risks associated with climate-related disasters do not represent a scenario of some distant future. They are already a reality for millions of people around the globe—and they are not going away.” UN leaders and experts place great emphasis on adopting a “green approach” to economic development. Ayodele Odusola, formerly chief economist in the UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Africa, asserts that the continent is a leader in protecting the natural environment, in part because it has suffered the ravages of industrialization less than the developed regions of the world. “Most of the things in Africa are nature-based,” he explains. “At the same time, if you look at the spillover effect, countries that are doing well on industrialization” are “indirectly exporting the impact of climate change” to those that

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Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visiting Ilulissat Icefjord, Greenland, to see the impact of global warming, March 27, 2014. United Nations Photo / Mark Garten. are contributing least to greenhouse gas emission. His remarks remind us of the interconnected nature of the biosphere.

Defining the Response One of the most influential groups in this discussion is the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), established in 1988 by the UN Environment Program (UNEP) and the WMO. The IPCC reviews the world’s scientific literature to make an impartial assessment of human impacts on the climate. Its official reports, issued since 1990, have helped influence how the world thinks about climate change. In sober and reasoned prose, the IPCC’s reports lay out the facts—based on the research and analysis of thousands of scientists worldwide—and explain that human activity is indeed changing the climate and will continue to do so if current conditions persist. For its work, the IPCC was awarded the 2007 Nobel

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Peace Prize jointly with environmental activist, writer, and former US vice president Al Gore. Going beyond studies, in 1992 the UN convened the Conference on Environment and Development, commonly known as the Earth Summit, in Rio de Janeiro, where the attendees adopted the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This treaty entered into force in 1994 and sought to limit the emission of greenhouse gases through voluntary goals for individual countries. To push matters along, the UN sponsored a meeting in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, at which major industrialized nations signed a document, often referred to as the Kyoto Protocol, setting mandatory targets for decreasing the emission of six greenhouse gases by more than 5 percent by 2012. Developing nations were exempted from the reduction target, although the largest of them, China, became the world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide in 2006. The United States refused to ratify the agreement, and other countries began withdrawing from the treaty, such as Canada in 2011. A consensus emerged that Kyoto wasn’t working and that something else was needed. Former secretary-general Ban Ki-moon moved climate change up the list of UN priorities and even considered it an “existential threat.” Under his urging the UN convened meetings of stakeholders and sought to raise public awareness of the need for global action, not only by governments but by civil society and the business sector. All the member states that had signed the UNFCCC in 1992

The Weatherman Speaks The Security Council set a precedent in 2019 when it requested a climate-­ change briefing from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a global leader on weather and the atmosphere. Pavel Kabat, chief scientist at the WMO, explained that climate change “has a multitude of security impacts—rolling back the gains in nutrition and access to food; heightening the risk of wildfires and exacerbating air quality challenges; increasing the potential for water conflict; leading to more internal displacement and migration.”

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met in Paris, in 2015, to define targets for controlling greenhouse gas emissions. They decided that, unlike Kyoto, the agreement’s emissions targets should be voluntary, not legally binding, and could be adjusted by national governments as conditions required. Their aim remained to limit global warming to no more than 2.0 degrees Celsius (or even 1.5 degrees, if possible) above the preindustrial level. The Paris Agreement, sometimes referred to as the Paris Accord, entered into force in 2016 and was endorsed by the United States and other major emitters of greenhouse gases.

Off Track? Ban’s successor, Secretary-General António Guterres, moved climate change even higher on the agenda. Concerned about the slow pace of progress and worried by a report of the IPCC in 2018 that warming was happening much faster than expected and with more serious impacts, he called a summit of world leaders to meet in New York in September 2019 when the General Assembly began its 74th session. His office notified world leaders beforehand to bring ideas for action. “This summit will be action oriented,” the note said. “The deliverables and initiatives that will be showcased need to be implementable, scalable and replicable and have the potential to get us in line with the commitments of the Paris Agreement.” Guterres was also responding to data showing that few countries had met, or were soon likely to meet, the targets set forth in the Paris Agreement, which meant that a broad gap had opened between hope and reality. “And so, it’s absolutely essential that countries commit themselves to increase what was promised in Paris because what was promised [there] is not enough,” he was quoted as saying. Six months after the summit the World Meteorological Organization bolstered Guterres’s concerns by issuing a major report, Statement on the State of the Global Climate in 2019, showing that global temperatures were continuing to rise, with impacts not only on the natural environment but on human society as well, in areas as diverse as agriculture, migration, and health. The summit’s organizers were especially concerned to engage

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Secretary-General António Guterres (left) in Suva, Fiji, on May 15, 2019, as part of his trip to the South Pacific to publicize the issue of climate change. He speaks with a crew member of the Uto Ni Yalo, a traditional Polynesian sailing canoe with a solar-powered propulsion system. United Nations Photo / Mark Garten. the most economically developed nations, the G20, which account for most of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. According to a report by the NGO Climate Action Tracker, many of the largest economies, like those of the United States, China, and India, were continuing to produce climate-changing emissions at a rate beyond the Paris Agreement targets. The UN’s nature as an association of national governments means that it can act only when enough of those governments are ready and willing, but Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group worries that the UN process on climate change is “only crawling along.” Worse, from the UN perspective, some national governments have questioned whether the economic costs of curbing climate change are worth the effort. The administration of President Trump in the United States was particularly vocal on this point and announced in 2017 that it would withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement. Without the partici­

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pation of the world’s second largest greenhouse gas emitter (after China), and the largest single UN financial contributor, the UN may struggle to provide credible leadership.

A Climate Umbrella “[Climate change] is an existential threat that we must face together. Here the UN is doing a good job in helping reach out to the financial community, to the investors, pension funds in particular but also investment bankers, in order to see how they can translate the Paris Accord to embrace the path toward the low-carbon economy. All this we did with the UN umbrella because it’s reassuring for them. The Paris Accord is a stable framework and offers a predictable path to this low carbon economy.” —François Delattre, former UN ambassador of France

Protecting the Biosphere When UN leaders and world leaders think of climate change as part of a larger issue, they follow the latest scientific understanding, which replaces traditional silos of factors, like water pollution, air pollution, or species loss, with a broader concept, the biosphere, embracing all the components that support life. Talk by policy­ makers and entrepreneurs about developing a low-carbon economy draws immediate interest from environmentalists and others concerned about the state of the natural world. Conversely, environmental research into the biosphere seems to touch not just advocacy or policy but business and commerce. The UN has become increasingly active in dealing with biosphere-­ related concerns. One of the UN’s successes in addressing a global environmental issue concerned the thinning of the atmosphere’s ozone layer, which the US Environmental Protection Agency calls the Earth’s “sunscreen,” protecting living organisms from the damaging effect of excessive ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Certain manufactured chemicals, especially chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), can catalyze the breakdown of ozone in the upper atmosphere and thus increase the amount of ultraviolet sunlight reaching Earth. In response to the threat, the world community took decisive ac-

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tion under the leadership of the UN Environment Program. Following the terms of the Montreal Protocol of 1987, the industrialized countries banned production of CFCs, beginning in 1996; developing countries were granted a grace period for compliance. The protocol has been very effective, and the US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the ozone layer should be fully restored by 2065. But CFCs are one class of many types of chemicals created by humans and emitted into the environment. UN treaties attempt to control the global use and disposition of these chemicals, to protect both humans and other living organisms. Three conventions anchor international efforts for these chemicals: • The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal covers a wide range of wastes as well as household trash and incinerator ash. • The Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure (PIC) for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade is administered by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the UN Environment Program (UNEP). The signatories, who include most UN member states, agree to manage chemicals in international trade and to exchange information on hazardous chemicals and pesticides. • The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants regulates chemicals that persist in the biosphere with potentially harmful effects on the environment and human health.

The Plastics Peril Plastics, those adaptable and usually inexpensive materials, have become signature items of modern living, in part owing to their impressive durability. Unlike paper, wood, or other natural materials, plastics last forever, or so it seems. Degrading slowly or hardly at all, even after years in a landfill or floating about in a lake or the sea, they find their way into the most remote and unexpected places. As empty bottles or wrappers, they are swallowed and clog the guts of fish and sea mammals, and as finely ground particles they become

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components of sand. The growing volume of discarded plastic items began to attract attention, especially when plastic waste washed up on resort beaches and other places it definitely wasn’t wanted. In response to the cries for remedial action, in May 2019 the UN convened fourteen hundred delegates from some 187 governments to take global action. The delegates amended the Basel Convention, noted earlier, to include plastic waste in an international framework that makes the trade in plastic waste more transparent and better regulated, while also ensuring that its management is safer for human health and the environment. Delegates also established the Partnership on Plastic Waste to help business, government, and civil society implement the new measures. Some commentators offered qualified approval to the result of the May gathering, noting that while it showed broad international recognition of the need for action, it did not engage one of the largest producers of plastics, the United States, which had neither participated in the meeting nor signed the amendment to the Basel Convention. Others asserted that the amendment was merely a first step toward the real need, a comprehensive treaty on control of plastics. The mood at the meeting was more upbeat, however. In concluding remarks at the gathering, UNEP’s Rolph Payet said that plastic waste “is acknowledged as one of the world’s most pressing environmental issues, and the fact that this week close to 1 million people around the world signed a petition urging Basel Convention Parties to take action here in Geneva . . . is a sign that public awareness and desire for action is high.” So the next time you toss that empty plastic bottle into the trash, take time to consider that its future in the cycle of creation and disposal will be defined, at least in part, by the UN’s efforts to protect the biosphere.

Leading UN Actors • The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), founded in 1972, is based in Nairobi, Kenya. UNEP describes itself as an “advocate, educator, and facilitator to promote the wise use and

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sustainable development of the global environment.” UNEP was a leader in international efforts to limit the emission of mercury into air and water and is now focused on the nature and effects of human-induced climate change. The US government values UNEP’s function as a global catalyst of ideas and action and has been the program’s biggest donor. • The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), established in 1988 by the UN Environment Program (UNEP) and the WMO, provides governments with scientific information for developing their climate policies. Rather than conduct its own research, the IPCC produces reports that characterize and analyze scientific findings about climate change: the drivers, impacts, future risks, and possible adaptation and mitigation. The assessment reports are often cited in international discussions and agreements related to climate. • The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), founded in 1951, is based in Geneva. A specialized agency of the UN, it provides scientific information about the atmosphere, fresh water, and climate, including depletion of the ozone layer, global warming, and droughts. Its staff of more than three hundred serves 186 member states and six territories. Beyond that the agency contributes to policy formulation in these areas at national and international levels.

CHAPTER 16

Keeping Tabs on How Nations Vote

The UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly are arguably the most important international bodies in the world, dealing with vital issues such as threats to peace and security, disarmament, development, humanitarian relief, human rights, the environment, and narcotics—all of which can and do directly affect major U.S. interests. —US Department of State Because the United States is the leading player at the United Nations, its words, actions, and nonactions are parsed in a hundred divergent ways by the world’s media, governments, and analysts. But people are not generally aware that the US government does its own parsing of member states’ behavior, especially their voting rec­ ords. The US government places such great importance on positioning itself strongly within the UN system that it monitors how other nations vote in the 193-member General Assembly and the 15-member Security Council. Public Laws 101-246 and 108-447 require the State Department to inform Congress annually about how UN member states have voted in comparison with the United States. The resulting report, Voting Practices in the United Nations, has been

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published annually since 1984, usually in the spring, and mounted on the State Department’s web site. The report provides data for the year previous to the publication date, and so, for example, the report that appeared in 2019 analyzes UN voting in 2018.

Security Council Each year, the State Department’s analysts tote up how UN member states voted on the issues, whether with or contrary to the US voting position. For the fifteen-member Security Council, there is usually little suspense about the numbers, because most resolutions are carefully negotiated in advance. In 2018, for instance, the State Department report shows that the council passed almost all of its resolutions by unanimous vote. It considered sixty draft resolutions and adopted forty-five unanimously and nine by majority vote. Only six resolutions, or 10 percent, failed to pass, owing to vetoes, and they addressed especially contentious topics like the insurgency in Yemen, the war in Syria, and Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Russia cast three vetoes in 2018, and so did the United States. France and the United Kingdom cast two vetoes each on Syria-related resolutions. The State Department report also calculates the frequency with which the P5 voted with or against the United States on Security Council resolutions. For 2018 the “coincidence” of P5 votes with the US position on the sixty resolutions considered was: • • • •

China, 87 percent France, 98 percent Russia, 83 percent United Kingdom, 98 percent

The pattern of passing most resolutions by mutual agreement has a long history in the Security Council, as may be seen in table 6, which covers the period from 2000 to 2018. John Negroponte, who was the US ambassador to the UN under President George W. Bush, remarks that “for all the talk about our being unilateral, the number of resolutions and issues that we succeed in dealing with on a totally consensus basis is really quite striking.”

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Table 6. Security Council resolutions, 2000–2018. Most of the resolutions considered were adopted. Year

Resolutions Considered

Resolutions Adopted

60 67 81 66 65 48 55 68 59 49 66 57 89 71 62 69 70 54 52 1208

54 61 77 64 63 47 53 66 59 48 65 56 87 71 59 67 68 52 50 1167

2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000   Total

General Assembly Votes The 193-member General Assembly passes most of its resolutions by consensus. According to the State Department’s report, in 2018 the assembly passed 68 percent of its 343 resolutions by consensus and had to hold a formal vote on only 110. The State Department report concludes that in 2018, the voting “coincidence” between the United States and the other 192 member states was 32 percent for the 110 resolutions on which a vote occurred, the same as in 2017 and about average for the previous twenty years. As the State Department’s data shows, the degree of voting coincidence in the

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General Assembly has varied greatly during the past three decades, starting at a low of 22 percent in 1989, during the Cold War, peaking at 45 percent in the late 1990s, while the world was enjoying relative quiet after the end of the Cold War, falling sharply by 2007, during the last years of US president George W. Bush’s administration, and then rising during the presidency of his successor, Barack Obama, before falling again under President Trump. The data on voting coincidence did not attract much public attention until 2017, when the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, cited it in statements about US-UN relations. According to an article written by one of her associates, the staff of the US Mission to the UN were directed to collect data on how often member states voted with the United States and compare it with how much US foreign aid they were receiving. “The disparity is remarkable,” wrote the author. “Just one of dozens of examples: South Africa receives half a billion dollars in U.S. aid annually but votes with us on key issues at the UN just 18 percent of the time.” Ambassador Haley brought this to the attention of President Trump, who “was outraged and determined to change our foreign-aid policy.” It is not clear if or how this assessment of General Assembly voting policy affected US foreign policy.

“Important Actions” Other tabulations in the State Department report show voting coincidences by “important” votes, meaning votes on issues that the United States holds especially close to its national interest. For the General Assembly in 2018, it identified twenty-four resolutions for inclusion in this section; four were adopted without a vote, and twenty with a vote. Of the twenty important resolutions adopted with a vote, the United States voted in favor of seven and opposed thirteen. These twenty included votes on the following: • the promotion of human rights • Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) • the decision of the World Court concerning various Mexican nationals

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• cooperation between the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) • cyberspace and international security • militant groups in Gaza • the need to end the US economic embargo of Cuba • rights of the Palestinian people, Israeli settlements on the West Bank, and related issues • human rights in Crimea, Iran, and Syria US interests in the “important votes” often differed from those of other governments or blocs. For Africa, whose fifty-four nations stretch from Algeria to Zimbabwe, the average voting coincidence with the United States in 2018 was 29 percent. The Asia-Pacific Group, a conglomeration of fifty-three nations reaching from India to Indonesia, voted with the United States 32 percent of the time. Europeans were more likely to vote with the United States: the twenty-­three nations in the Eastern Europe Group, 41 percent of the time, and the nations in the Western Europe and Others Group, 47 percent. Latin America and the Caribbean represented a decline in coincidence, the thirty-three members voting with the United States, on average, 33 percent of the time.

Taking a Multidimensional Perspective “A country’s behavior at the United Nations is always relevant to its bilateral relationship. Nevertheless, a country’s voting record in the United Nations is only one dimension of its relations with the United States.” —US Department of State, Voting Practices in the United Nations, 2009

Conclusions and Explications Generally speaking, European nations, most of which are affluent and developed, were more likely to vote with the United States, whereas developing nations were not. In other words, the NorthSouth divide seems to be in play. The divide’s influence may be exacerbated by another factor suggested by Jeffrey Laurenti, inter­ national affairs analyst. “Developing country democracies do not

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behave the way Washington does by dint of being democracies, or see things by dint of being democracies,” he says. “The thing that is striking, and very hard for many in Washington to understand, including many liberal voices, is that India, South Africa, and Brazil tend to see international crises more like China does than the United States does.” Compared with rich and powerful countries, says Laurenti, poorer countries “have a divergent optic. . . . So they have a tug of claims: the claim of solidarity among the poor of being able to understand things that wealthier countries don’t instinctively get, and a sense of doubt about the motivations perhaps of the rich and powerful—in many cases the rich and powerful that have colonized those same countries within living memory.” Stewart Patrick of the Council on Foreign Relations likewise remarks on the difference in perception. “The US loves it when the emerging powers do more in the UN as long as they agree with the

The General Assembly voting on a resolution, December 11, 2018. The tally appears on the large boards flanking the podium. United Nations Photo / Eskinder Debebe.

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US.” Often they don’t. “The difficulty is, of course, these countries actually have minds of their own and they aren’t always aligned with the US. It’s one thing to ask them to shoulder a greater burden of global order and international good. It’s another to expect that they’re going to align with the United States.” This has caused frustration on the US side. According to Patrick, citing his sources at the UN, some member states will be closely aligned with US interests during bilateral negotiations, but in the General Assembly they will take a divergent position and “play to the galleries.” However we interpret the lesser degrees of coincidence, we are left with yet another question: What do these numbers mean in terms of American foreign policy? As the State Department observes, “voting coincidence data in this report refers only to the UN context and does not take into account support for U.S. policy po­ sitions in other multilateral fora or bilateral contexts.” A particular aspect of that relationship is US foreign aid, which some experts have argued should be linked to how a nation votes in the UN (something that the US Congress has not required). Even without any formal linkage, it is possible that the State Department’s report may have an effect on how other nations vote. The department sends copies to the foreign ministries and missions of UN member states as a friendly reminder that Uncle Sam is watching.

C H A P T E R 17

Three Pillars of Reform

The goal of reform is a 21st-century United Nations focused more on people and less on process, more on delivery and less on bureaucracy. The true test of reform will be measured in tangible results in the lives of the people we serve—and the trust of those who support our work. —UN Secretary-General António Guterres Upon entering office as the UN’s secretary-general, António ­Guterres stated his intention to implement significant changes at the world body to make it more effective in the rapidly changing world of the twenty-first century. “The UN needs to be nimble, efficient, and effective,” he has declared. Previous secretaries-general had proposed reforms of one kind or another, but Guterres had an interrelated cluster of them, which soon were referred to as the “three pillars of reform.” He wanted first to streamline peace operations; second, to make the development infrastructure more effective; and third, to improve the efficiency and transparency of the UN’s management.

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Purpose of the Reforms The secretary-general’s goal was to reduce the organizational and psychological compartmentalization that characterized many vital activities, such as peace operations and global social and economic development. In place of traditional modes of working and thinking, he wanted to cement activities, like conflict prevention and economic development, into a coherent system for a given country. Instead of silos of activity, each centrally managed, he was proposing a series of mutually supporting activity centers empowered to allow more decision-making at the local level. The far-reaching nature of the changes meant that they would have impacts of varying types and scales on most parts of the UN system. The reform package called for reorganizing the UN’s peace operations to emphasize prevention of conflicts and peacebuilding. It established two new entities in the Secretariat, the Department of Peace Operations, to oversee traditional peacekeeping missions, and the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA), to prevent conflict and help sustain peace when a conflict had been resolved. To bolster fulfillment of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the reform package divided development work between two coordinators. In each member state that hosted a UN development effort, the country head of the UN Development Program would remain responsible to UNDP, as before, but a new resident coordinator position would be responsible to the UN deputy secretary-general, Amina Mohammed. By giving the resident coordinators more decision-making authority, the change would enable them to operate more effectively and with greater control over the strategic deployment of UN expertise, funds, and networking. The reform package attacked management issues by creating two new entities intended to simplify processes, increase accountability and transparency, and improve productivity.

Well Received by the Member States Guterres presented the reform package to the member states and then to the General Assembly, which has sole authority to make sig-

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nificant changes in the organization of the world body. “It’s the General Assembly that endorses and gives the political backing to the secretary-general to implement the reforms,” explains María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, president of the General Assembly in 2018–19. And endorse the agenda the General Assembly did, in an extremely supportive statement issued on September 18, 2017, with cheers from the United States and other major member states. “I applaud the Secretary-General for laying out a vision to reform the United Nations so that it better serves the people we all represent,” said US president Donald Trump in remarks at a UN meeting in September 2018. “We support your efforts to look across the entire system and to find ways the United Nations can . . . be better at development, management, peace, and security.” Espinosa Garcés characterizes the reform agenda as ambitious

Discussing UN reform. Secretary-General António Guterres (left) and US president Donald Trump chair a high-level meeting on UN reform convened by the United States, September 18, 2017. United Nations Photo / Mark Garten.

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and dealing with basic UN issues, with far-reaching implications. “If you think about a new peace and security architecture and a new mainstreamed, modern, transparent management system, but also a new development system that is more connected with the delivery of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, it changes the working methods of the organization, making them more efficient and less bureaucratic,” she explains.

Previous Reform Efforts Success in gaining approval for the entire reform package came after several decades of efforts by previous secretaries-general to improve the operations of the UN. One of the first substantive efforts began in 1994, under Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, with the establishment of the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), charged with making the bureaucracy more effective and efficient. Creation of the office pleased the US government, which described it as “one of the most significant management reforms adopted by the General Assembly in many years.”

An Obvious Choice According to former US ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the UN “is the flawed but indispensable institution that we have two choices with: weaken it by undermining it or [try] to strengthen it by getting it to correct its flaws.” For him, the choice was obvious: “In America when we discern flaws we try to fix them. We should do the same with the UN because in the end, it’s a highly leveraged organization that helps America and the nation’s interest and world. But what a mess it is.”

When Kofi Annan became secretary-general in 1997, he launched what he called his “quiet revolution” to streamline the organization and make it both more efficient and more effective without raising costs. The Secretariat gained a new reform tool in December 2000, when the General Assembly authorized it to start “results-based budgeting.” Long urged by the United States as a way of rationaliz-

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ing the allocation and spending of funds, results-based budgeting establishes objectives for each department or program and develops “performance indicators” to measure progress in reaching them. Many observers credit Annan’s quiet revolution with making real improvements. It was pushed along by the Procurement Task Force, established in January 2006, largely at the urging of the under-­ secretary-general for management at the time, Christopher Burnham. A former official in the US State Department, Burnham was appointed in spring 2005 and left the UN in fall 2006. During his brief but energetic tenure he secured the creation of the UN Ethics Office, which officially opened in 2007. He is also credited with establishing a whistleblower protection policy for UN staff, introducing international public-sector accounting standards for the UN, and modernizing the UN’s information and communication technology infrastructure.

Three Reform Pillars to Support the UN The reform program of Secretary-General António Guterres has three parts: • Peace and security: prioritize prevention of conflict and adjust organizational boundaries for better integration of peace operations and special political missions. • Development: establish resident country coordinators responsible to the deputy secretary-general and focused on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. • Management: reimagine management to simplify processes, increase transparency, and improve the fulfillment of mandates.

Annan’s successor as secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, supported the reform effort but met much institutional inertia. Esther Brimmer, who was a State Department official in the Obama administration, sees reform during the Ban years as succeeding in some parts of the system but lagging in others, such as information technology and budgeting. Similarly, reports by a respected and impartial US government body, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), usually

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gave mixed reviews, speaking of progress in some aspects of the UN’s operations, from the practice of professional ethics to oversight and efficient management, but complaining about the slow pace of change. Annan’s quiet revolution managed to stop the Secretariat’s budget creep for a few years, beginning in 1998, and even reduced it a little. But it did not alter key aspects of the UN’s corporate culture, such as North-South suspicion and the lack of strong fiscal and budgetary controls. Mark Malloch-Brown notes that the less developed countries worried that the affluent nations were taking all the best posts. Recalling the establishment of the post of deputy secretary-­ general under Kofi Annan—a post that Malloch-Brown filled for nearly a year—he recalls suspicions that the secretary-general was “ceding certain management responsibilities to a Western deputy,” and yet “the powers were those which in any corporate setting would be seen as the powers not of a chief executive but of a chief operating officer.” The division of responsibility was necessary and reasonable, says Malloch-Brown, “unless you assume a secretary-general is to do everything, from turning off the lights at night to signing off on payroll every month.” Nor did the quiet revolution change the view among some member states that UN budgets were more entitlements than operational necessities. According to Shepard Forman, of New York University, “the UN doesn’t have an effective system of checks and balances.” Budgets, for example, may be treated as entitlements rather than limits to spending, and in that way they become vulnerable to uncontrollable growth. Samantha Power, when she was the US ambassador, referred to the backwardness of the budgeting system in December 2013, speaking before the General Assembly’s Fifth Committee, the one that shapes the budget. “Under the leadership of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon,” she began, “the UN has taken some important steps to improve the organization’s relevance and performance. Over the past two years the Secretariat has operated within its budget allocation for special political missions; that is a laudable break from the past, and one that my government commends.” Unfortunately, she continued, “promises of future change are simply not enough.”

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Partners in Reform “The good news is that, despite the deep divide between the United States and Russia, we and the other members of the Security Council agreed . . . on an extremely qualified and capable new Secretary-General, António Guterres, to lead the United Nations for the next five years, so the United States should have a strong partner in championing UN reform.” —Samantha Power, US ambassador to the UN under President Barack Obama

Time Will Tell Against the background of the UN’s decades-long struggle to fix itself, the Guterres plan might seem like just another item on a list, except for two things. First is the welcoming response his plan received from the General Assembly, suggesting that the world community was largely agreed that significant change must come. Second, Guterres’s own long experience in the UN system gives him insight into how to make effective change. His plan seeks to break out of organizational and mental silos so that the key components of the Secretariat can work more efficiently and effectively. As Guterres noted in remarks to the General Assembly, the world of the twenty-­ first century moves much faster and in more complex ways than was true even a few decades ago. Business as usual just won’t get the job done, is his argument. History suggests that even the best plans require steady application, over the long haul, to succeed. Will Guterres and his successors have the fortitude and support to push the reform agenda year after year? Will the entrenched interests manage to deflect or preempt the reformers? Reform is possible at the UN, according to Malloch-­ Brown, but progress “is generally quite low.” He explains: “My prob-

A Flexible Approach “The future of the UN will be determined by its readiness to change and adapt.” —António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations

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lem always is, the demands on the UN grow exponentially; the rate of reform is a much lower trend line. It’s a gentle uphill move, whereas the demands on the UN rise vertically, so the gap between expectations and performance continues to grow.”

Reform for What and for Whom? The big question at the UN whenever a change looms is, Will it work? The answer, as so often at the UN, is, It depends. “Reform” is a loaded word. The call for making improvements may imply that better things are coming, but it also raises the prospect that some people or groups may lose privileges or coveted status. “In theory,” observes former UN assistant secretary-general Edward Luck, now of Columbia University, “all the member states want reform; in practice they all mean very different things by it. It’s very hard to get a consensus among the members for change in the organization.” He adds that “the big powers are afraid that they’ll lose some degree of control; the small powers are afraid that whatever pledges they’ve received regarding the bureaucracy will be lost in a more sweeping reform controlled by the bigger powers and bigger contributors.”

CHAPTER 18

Paying for It All

I’d like to have a Ferrari, but since I can’t afford it, I’m probably going to get a cheaper car when I leave this job. So therefore, we have to work hard with the Secretariat, with the other member states, to do what we must, what we can afford, but the whole budget process needs to be looked at to make it more rational, to make the presentation a single comprehensive budget so the members can make a determination. —Zalmay Khalilzad, US ambassador to the UN under President George W. Bush There is no free lunch, not even at the United Nations. Each month the UN’s financial office sends out millions of dollars’ worth of checks to pay for staff salaries, computer services, electricity, technical consultants, housekeeping for its big New York City headquarters, and a thousand other things. It is estimated that the annual operating budgets of the Secretariat, other UN organs, peacekeeping operations, and the UN agencies, funds, and programs, excluding the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, add up to some $50 billion each year. Where does the money come from? Not

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from taxes. The UN is not a government, so it cannot levy taxes. The bulk of the funding comes from the UN members themselves. Think of the UN as a condo apartment building—we’ll call it Global Towers—located on prime real estate on the east side of Manhattan in New York City, with a breathtaking view of the cityscape and the East River. Periodically the condo owner members (member states) meet to vote on setting a budget for the coming years, based on regular membership fees, voluntary contributions, and occasional special assessments. Discussion invariably focuses on how big the expense budget should be and how the costs should be allocated among the owners, who vary widely in wealth, outlook, and commitment to keeping the condominium safe, comfortable, and solvent.

Money Talks “The test of the American commitment to the UN, above all, is financial. That’s what tests it, and whether we seek to strengthen the UN through a combination of resources and reform or weaken it through neglect and punishment.” —Richard Holbrooke, US ambassador to the UN under President Bill Clinton

As in any condo where the owners are well known to one another, the budget debate inevitably runs along ruts worn during decades of meetings, with occasional sharp exchanges when opinions clash. Something of this sort unfolds in the General Assembly’s Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) as it deliberates on the size of the assessments that each country must contribute. That is when the General Assembly can really flex its muscles, because its decisions affect all parts of Global Towers, from the airy thirtyeighth-floor office of the secretary-general to the stuffy basement, where the building engineers hang out. Membership in the UN comes with the obligation to help pay for its support—something that has never been questioned. Instead, the focus has been on the size of each member state’s contribution. Financial support takes three basic forms:

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• Required. The mandatory assessment for the general UN budget, also referred to as the “regular” or “administrative” budget, funds the Secretariat and related bodies. There is also the mandatory assessment for the peacekeeping budget. In addition are the assessed contributions that member states make for specific UN agencies and organizations, such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the World Health Organization (WHO). • Discretionary. Member states contribute voluntarily to such UN programs as the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Program (WFP). • Special. Occasional extraordinary assessments pay for large capital expenses, like the $2-plus billion that the members had to pay to renovate the New York City headquarters.

The Budget Process Discussions in the media about UN funding often relate to the “regular budget,” which runs from January 1 to December 31 and pays for the Secretariat’s activities, staff, and basic infrastructure, but not peacekeeping. The General Assembly has traditionally approved the regular budget in two-year chunks, with a supplement, or “recosting,” after the first year of the biennium to provide for extraordinary expenses and other costs not anticipated when the biennial budget was approved. In 2019, for example, the budgeted annual amount was slightly less than $2.7 billion, or half of the original biennial budget of approximately $5.4 billion. The actual budget for 2019 was higher, and as a result the gross assessments of the 193 member states amounted to $3.06 billion. Using this figure, and knowing that the United States was assessed 22 percent of the total regular budget, we get a US assessment of $674,206,698. The system of biennial budgeting has met criticism over the years, for various reasons, and when António Guterres became secretary-­ general, he urged the General Assembly to try the experiment of budgeting for single years. For 2020, therefore, the General Assembly decided to pass the regular budget for one year only. Formulas for calculating a nation’s assessed contributions for the

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Beginning the budget-making process. Secretary-General António Guterres (left) confers with members of the General Assembly’s Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) on the proposed new UN budget. United Nations Photo / Eskinder Debebe. regular budget and the peacekeeping budget are based largely on the country’s share of the world economy. In other words, the rich pay more than the poor. Nations with a low per-capita income get a discount, as do those with a high level of foreign debt. The United States, having the world’s largest economy, pays the largest share, about 22 percent, and very poor nations pay a nominal amount. The poorest nations pay a minimum of $27,883 annually for their UN dues. For the regular budget, a complicated process ensures that all interested parties have their say in how funds are obtained and spent. The secretary-general proposes a draft budget and gives it to the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) for review. The advisory committee consists of sixteen individuals nominated by their governments, usually including a US

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national, and elected by the General Assembly. Then the Committee for Program and Coordination (CPC), consisting of thirty-four experts elected by the General Assembly, reviews the program aspects of the budget. Unlike the advisory committee, in which the experts serve in their personal capacity, the program committee experts represent the views of their governments. Next, the revised draft goes to the General Assembly’s Fifth Committee for approval. The Fifth Committee makes a final adjustment and votes to approve the budget, which it then sends to the General Assembly for a vote by the full membership of the UN. That vote makes the document the official UN regular budget. Each country has the opportunity to suggest changes in the draft budget, but the changes may not necessarily be adopted.

Sharing the Burden Although the residents of Global Towers understand the financial calculation that underlies the assessments for the general budgets and other budgets, like peace operations, that does not mean they all agree with it. Most discussions about excessive burdens have focused not on the poorest nations, however, but on some of the richest member states. For the 2019 regular budget, as noted in table 7, the top fourteen nations were assessed a total of $2.208 billion, or about 77 percent of the total of $2.85 billion, leaving the remaining 179 member states to pay the balance of about 23 percent. The United States, China, and Japan, the three largest contributors, together were assessed approximately $1.25 billion, nearly 43 percent of the 2019 general budget dues. The United States is one of the most vocal nations about sharing the burden fairly and has negotiated several downward adjustments in its assessment rate. Looking at the UN more broadly, to include the major agencies and other entities, it is the largest single funder. According to a report by the Council on Foreign Relations, the United States in 2017 provided more than $10 billion of the approximately $50 billion UN budget, with some $7 billion in voluntary contributions. The United States negotiated several reductions in its share

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Table 7. Assessments of the top fourteen funders of the $2.85 billion UN regular budget, 2019. The actual amount paid may have differed owing to additions and adjustments. Member State United States China Japan Germany United Kingdom France Italy Brazil Canada Russian Federation Republic of Korea Australia Spain Netherlands   Total

Net Assessed Contribution (US$)

Scale of Assessments (%)

$674,206,698 $334,726,585 $238,783,713 $169,802,990 $127,338,301 $123,434,785 $92,206,648 $82,196,915 $76,230,111 $67,056,845 $63,209,094 $61,619,804 $59,835,339 $37,808,350 $2,208,456,178

22.00 12.00 8.56 6.10 4.56 4.43 3.30 2.95 2.73 2.40 2.27 2.21 2.15 1.36 77.02

of the general budget. For example, in 1974 the UN agreed to place a cap of 25 percent on the size of a member state’s assessment, effectively lowering the US share in subsequent years. Another change came in 2001, when the General Assembly reduced the US share of the regular budget to a maximum of 22 percent and its share of peacekeeping costs from 31 percent to about 28 percent. Both reductions came at the urging of the US government in response to a US law stipulating that the United States would pay nearly $1 billion in assessment arrears if the UN met certain conditions, such as a reduction in the assessment rate. The Japanese, too, were able to negotiate reductions in their share of the general budget, from more than 19 percent in 2006 to roughly 16 percent in 2007, and then again to about 12 percent in 2010. By contrast, the Chinese, with their rapidly growing economy,

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assumed a greater share of the general budget, and in 2019 they displaced Japan as the second largest funder of the UN’s general budget. As a concession to some of the wealthier and more highly assessed member states, the assembly and its Fifth Committee began passing UN budgets by consensus in 1988, allowing individual member states to block adoption of a budget. This was intended to give the wealthier states some leverage in the budget process. Despite the consensus approach, the general budget continued to grow, in part owing to supplemental appropriations, or “recostings,” considered necessary to cover unexpected costs and other demands. Budget creep has led to friction in the assembly. Under the Obama administration, the then US ambassador, Samantha Power, chided the General Assembly for agreeing to supplemental appropriations that exceeded the formally approved budget. “Recall that two years ago, we approved a budget based on the understanding that if some costs exceeded expectations, others would be reduced to keep the overall level roughly the same. This pledge has not been kept.” The problem, Power continued, was that “we are essentially budgeting by looking backward, saying the UN budget is what we spent, rather than saying a UN budget is the envelope defining what we have available to spend.” At the conclusion of her remarks, Power reminded the committee members that in the final analysis the UN budgets depend on the willingness of the more affluent nations to pay the greater part of the organization’s expenses.

Peace Operations Peace operations are treated separately from other budgets. The scale used to make peacekeeping assessments has ten levels of support, with the least developed countries receiving a discount and paying 10 percent of what they would have owed according to the assessment scale for the regular budget. The five permanent Security Council members (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States) pay a surcharge of about 25 percent. As table 8 shows, in the 2019–20 budget, for its share of peacekeeping costs, China

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Table 8. Top ten assessed contributors to UN peacekeeping operations, 2019. The approved budget for UN peacekeeping operations for the fiscal year July 1, 2019–June 30, 2020, was $6.5 billion. Member State United States China Japan Germany United Kingdom France Italy Russian Federation Canada Republic of Korea   Total

Assessed Contribution (% of total peacekeeping budget) 27.89 15.21 8.56 6.09 5.79 5.61 3.30 3.04 2.73 2.26 80.48

was assessed 15.21 percent, France, 5.61 percent, Russia, 3.04 percent, United Kingdom, 5.79 percent, and the United States 27.89 percent. That means that the P5 were assessed a total of 57.54 percent, or more than half of the peace operations budget.

Other UN Entities Each UN agency, commission, and program has its own budget. Some, like UNICEF and WFP, are supported through voluntary contributions coming mainly from national governments. When a national government threatens to cut its voluntary contributions, as the US government has done occasionally, that means a potentially large cut in income and therefore operations. Many UN entities, like WHO and UNHCR, receive a mix of voluntary and assessed funds and are therefore less vulnerable to sudden reductions in voluntary contributions. Instead, they must compete for funding in the UN’s internal budgeting process. Periodically each director draws up a budget and sends it to the secretary-general, who incorporates the

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Pay Now, Please According to the General Assembly’s Committee on Contributions, which publishes a tally, the “Honor Roll,” in 2019 only thirty-four member states had paid their full regular budget dues by the January 31 deadline. The five largest on-time contributors were Australia ($61.6 million), Canada ($76.2 million), Sweden ($25.3 million), Switzerland ($32.1 million), and the Netherlands ($37.8 million). The five smallest on-time contributors were Bhutan, the Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu ($27,883 each); Malawi ($55,765); and Rwanda ($83,647). The thirty-four fully paid-up countries represented about 18 percent of the UN member states.

information into the overall UN budget, which is sent to the General Assembly’s Fifth Committee.

Budget Arrears Ideally, each member state accepts its assessment as being appropriate and immediately transfers funds to the UN for the full amount. According to Financial Regulation 3.5, the official deadline for paying the annual dues in full is January 31, but reality is more complicated. Even for routine and predictable budgets, like the regular budget, the UN has a hard time getting everyone to pay fully and on time. Some member states delay their payments for various reasons, often unrelated to their ability to pay, while others (like the United States) pay on their own schedule, depending on when their legislature or national assembly votes the funds. By October 2020, only 128 of the 193 member states had paid their full assessment. The Charter (Article 19) permits the UN to penalize a member that is two years in arrears by suspending its right to vote in the General Assembly. This has been done infrequently, during the UN’s seventy-five-year history, as a last resort. In 2020, four states were notified that they had lost their vote owing to arrears: Comoros, São Tomé and Principe, Somalia, and Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of). Discussions about UN budget assessments and arrears have generated suggestions about possible fixes, including a global tax on

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Pay to Play “A Member of the United Nations which is in arrears in the payment of its financial contributions to the Organization shall have no vote in the General Assembly if the amount of its arrears equals or exceeds the amount of the contributions due from it for the preceding two full years. The General Assembly may, nevertheless, permit such a Member to vote if it is satisfied that the failure to pay is due to conditions beyond the control of the Member.” —UN Charter, Chapter IV, Article 19

currency transactions and even one on international air travel, but they haven’t gone beyond talk. One observer, Shepard Forman of New York University’s Center on International Cooperation, offers his own solution. “I once suggested rather facetiously,” he says, “that there should be a reverse scale of assessments in which countries that act badly and therefore cost the UN more . . . should have to pay more dues.” Getting those nations to pay, however, might be a true “mission impossible.”

APPENDIX A U N I T E D N AT I O N S C H A RT E R

WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED • to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and • to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and • to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and • to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

AND FOR THESE ENDS • to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbors, and • to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and

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• to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and • to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,

HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS Accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations.

CHAPTER I: PURPOSES AND PRINCIPLES Article 1 The Purposes of the United Nations are: 1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace; 2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace; 3. To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and 4. To be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.

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Article 2 The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following Principles. 1. The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members. 2. All Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits resulting from membership, shall fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter. 3. All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered. 4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations. 5. All Members shall give the United Nations every assistance in any action it takes in accordance with the present Charter, and shall refrain from giving assistance to any state against which the United Nations is taking preventive or enforcement action. 6. The Organization shall ensure that states which are not Members of the United Nations act in accordance with these Principles so far as may be necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security. 7. Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter VII.

CHAPTER II: MEMBERSHIP Article 3 The original Members of the United Nations shall be the states which, having participated in the United Nations Conference on In-

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ternational Organization at San Francisco, or having previously signed the Declaration by United Nations of 1 January 1942, sign the present Charter and ratify it in accordance with Article 110. Article 4 1. Membership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-­ loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations. 2. The admission of any such state to membership in the United Nations will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. Article 5 A Member of the United Nations against which preventive or enforcement action has been taken by the Security Council may be suspended from the exercise of the rights and privileges of membership by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. The exercise of these rights and privileges may be restored by the Security Council. Article 6 A Member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the Principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.

CHAPTER III: ORGANS Article 7 1. There are established as principal organs of the United Nations: a General Assembly, a Security Council, an Economic and Social Council, a Trusteeship Council, an International Court of Justice and a Secretariat. 2. Such subsidiary organs as may be found necessary may be established in accordance with the present Charter.

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Article 8 The United Nations shall place no restrictions on the eligibility of men and women to participate in any capacity and under conditions of equality in its principal and subsidiary organs.

CHAPTER IV: THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY COMPOSITION

Article 9 1. The General Assembly shall consist of all the Members of the United Nations. 2. Each Member shall have not more than five representatives in the General Assembly. FUNCTIONS AND POWERS

Article 10 The General Assembly may discuss any questions or any matters within the scope of the present Charter or relating to the powers and functions of any organs provided for in the present Charter, and, except as provided in Article 12, may make recommendations to the Members of the United Nations or to the Security Council or to both on any such questions or matters. Article 11 1. The General Assembly may consider the general principles of co-operation in the maintenance of international peace and security, including the principles governing disarmament and the regulation of armaments, and may make recommendations with regard to such principles to the Members or to the Security Council or to both. 2. The General Assembly may discuss any questions relating to the maintenance of international peace and security brought before it by any Member of the United Nations, or by the Security Council, or by a state which is not a Member of the United Nations in accordance with Article 35, paragraph 2, and, except as provided

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in Article 12, may make recommendations with regard to any such questions to the state or states concerned or to the Security Council or to both. Any such question on which action is necessary shall be referred to the Security Council by the General Assembly either before or after discussion. 3. The General Assembly may call the attention of the Security Council to situations which are likely to endanger international peace and security. 4. The powers of the General Assembly set forth in this Article shall not limit the general scope of Article 10. Article 12 1. While the Security Council is exercising in respect of any dispute or situation the functions assigned to it in the present Charter, the General Assembly shall not make any recommendation with regard to that dispute or situation unless the Security Council so requests. 2. The Secretary-General, with the consent of the Security Council, shall notify the General Assembly at each session of any matters relative to the maintenance of international peace and security which are being dealt with by the Security Council and shall similarly notify the General Assembly, or the Members of the United Nations if the General Assembly is not in session, immediately the Security Council ceases to deal with such matters. Article 13 1. The General Assembly shall initiate studies and make recommendations for the purpose of: a. promoting international co-operation in the political field and encouraging the progressive development of international law and its codification; b. promoting international co-operation in the economic, social, cultural, educational, and health fields, and assisting in the realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion. 2. The further responsibilities, functions and powers of the Gen-

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eral Assembly with respect to matters mentioned in paragraph 1 (b) above are set forth in Chapters IX and X. Article 14 Subject to the provisions of Article 12, the General Assembly may recommend measures for the peaceful adjustment of any situation, regardless of origin, which it deems likely to impair the general welfare or friendly relations among nations, including situations resulting from a violation of the provisions of the present Charter setting forth the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations. Article 15 1. The General Assembly shall receive and consider annual and special reports from the Security Council; these reports shall ­include an account of the measures that the Security Council has decided upon or taken to maintain international peace and security. 2. The General Assembly shall receive and consider reports from the other organs of the United Nations. Article 16 The General Assembly shall perform such functions with respect to the international trusteeship system as are assigned to it under Chapters XII and XIII, including the approval of the trusteeship agreements for areas not designated as strategic. Article 17 1. The General Assembly shall consider and approve the budget of the Organization. 2. The expenses of the Organization shall be borne by the Members as apportioned by the General Assembly. 3. The General Assembly shall consider and approve any financial and budgetary arrangements with specialized agencies referred to in Article 57 and shall examine the administrative budgets of such specialized agencies with a view to making recommendations to the agencies concerned.

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VOTING

Article 18 1. Each member of the General Assembly shall have one vote. 2. Decisions of the General Assembly on important questions shall be made by a two-thirds majority of the members present and voting. These questions shall include: recommendations with respect to the maintenance of international peace and security, the election of the non-permanent members of the Security Council, the election of the members of the Economic and Social Council, the election of members of the Trusteeship Council in accordance with paragraph 1 (c) of Article 86, the admission of new Members to the United Nations, the suspension of the rights and privileges of membership, the expulsion of Members, questions relating to the operation of the trusteeship system, and budgetary questions. 3. Decisions on other questions, including the determination of additional categories of questions to be decided by a two-thirds majority, shall be made by a majority of the members present and voting. Article 19 A Member of the United Nations which is in arrears in the payment of its financial contributions to the Organization shall have no vote in the General Assembly if the amount of its arrears equals or exceeds the amount of the contributions due from it for the preceding two full years. The General Assembly may, nevertheless, permit such a Member to vote if it is satisfied that the failure to pay is due to conditions beyond the control of the Member. PROCEDURE

Article 20 The General Assembly shall meet in regular annual sessions and in such special sessions as occasion may require. Special sessions shall be convoked by the Secretary-General at the request of the Security Council or of a majority of the Members of the United Nations.

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Article 21 The General Assembly shall adopt its own rules of procedure. It shall elect its President for each session. Article 22 The General Assembly may establish such subsidiary organs as it deems necessary for the performance of its functions.

CHAPTER V: THE SECURITY COUNCIL COMPOSITION

Article 23 1. The Security Council shall consist of fifteen Members of the United Nations. The Republic of China, France, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America shall be permanent members of the Security Council. The General Assembly shall elect ten other Members of the United Nations to be non-permanent members of the Security Council, due regard being specially paid, in the first instance to the contribution of Members of the United Nations to the maintenance of international peace and security and to the other purposes of the Organization, and also to equitable geographical distribution. 2. The non-permanent members of the Security Council shall be elected for a term of two years. In the first election of the non-permanent members after the increase of the membership of the Security Council from eleven to fifteen, two of the four additional members shall be chosen for a term of one year. A retiring member shall not be eligible for immediate re-election. 3. Each member of the Security Council shall have one representative. FUNCTIONS AND POWERS

Article 24 1. In order to ensure prompt and effective action by the United Nations, its Members confer on the Security Council primary respon-

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sibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and agree that in carrying out its duties under this responsibility the Security Council acts on their behalf. 2. In discharging these duties the Security Council shall act in accordance with the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations. The specific powers granted to the Security Council for the discharge of these duties are laid down in Chapters VI, VII, VIII, and XII. 3. The Security Council shall submit annual and, when necessary, special reports to the General Assembly for its consideration. Article 25 The Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter. Article 26 In order to promote the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources, the Security Council shall be responsible for formulating, with the assistance of the Military Staff Committee referred to in Article 47, plans to be submitted to the Members of the United Nations for the establishment of a system for the regulation of armaments. V OT I N G

Article 27 1. Each member of the Security Council shall have one vote. 2. Decisions of the Security Council on procedural matters shall be made by an affirmative vote of nine members. 3. Decisions of the Security Council on all other matters shall be made by an affirmative vote of nine members including the concurring votes of the permanent members; provided that, in decisions under Chapter VI, and under paragraph 3 of Article 52, a party to a dispute shall abstain from voting.

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PROCEDURE

Article 28 1. The Security Council shall be so organized as to be able to function continuously. Each member of the Security Council shall for this purpose be represented at all times at the seat of the Organization. 2. The Security Council shall hold periodic meetings at which each of its members may, if it so desires, be represented by a member of the government or by some other specially designated representative. 3. The Security Council may hold meetings at such places other than the seat of the Organization as in its judgment will best facilitate its work. Article 29 The Security Council may establish such subsidiary organs as it deems necessary for the performance of its functions. Article 30 The Security Council shall adopt its own rules of procedure, including the method of selecting its President. Article 31 Any Member of the United Nations which is not a member of the Security Council may participate, without vote, in the discussion of any question brought before the Security Council whenever the latter considers that the interests of that Member are specially affected. Article 32 Any Member of the United Nations which is not a member of the Security Council or any state which is not a Member of the United Nations, if it is a party to a dispute under consideration by the Security Council, shall be invited to participate, without vote, in the discussion relating to the dispute. The Security Council shall lay down such conditions as it deems just for the participation of a state which is not a Member of the United Nations.

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CHAPTER VI: PACIFIC SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES Article 33 1. The parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice. 2. The Security Council shall, when it deems necessary, call upon the parties to settle their dispute by such means. Article 34 The Security Council may investigate any dispute, or any situation which might lead to international friction or give rise to a dispute, in order to determine whether the continuance of the dispute or situation is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security. Article 35 1. Any Member of the United Nations may bring any dispute, or any situation of the nature referred to in Article 34, to the attention of the Security Council or of the General Assembly. 2. A state which is not a Member of the United Nations may bring to the attention of the Security Council or of the General Assembly any dispute to which it is a party if it accepts in advance, for the purposes of the dispute, the obligations of pacific settlement provided in the present Charter. 3. The proceedings of the General Assembly in respect of matters brought to its attention under this Article will be subject to the provisions of Articles 11 and 12. Article 36 1. The Security Council may, at any stage of a dispute of the nature referred to in Article 33 or of a situation of like nature, recommend appropriate procedures or methods of adjustment.

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2. The Security Council should take into consideration any procedures for the settlement of the dispute which have already been adopted by the parties. 3. In making recommendations under this Article the Security Council should also take into consideration that legal disputes should as a general rule be referred by the parties to the International Court of Justice in accordance with the provisions of the Statute of the Court. Article 37 1. Should the parties to a dispute of the nature referred to in Article 33 fail to settle it by the means indicated in that Article, they shall refer it to the Security Council. 2. If the Security Council deems that the continuance of the dispute is in fact likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, it shall decide whether to take action under Article 36 or to recommend such terms of settlement as it may consider appropriate. Article 38 Without prejudice to the provisions of Articles 33 to 37, the Security Council may, if all the parties to any dispute so request, make recommendations to the parties with a view to a pacific settlement of the dispute.

CHAPTER VII: ACTION WITH RESPECT TO THREATS TO THE PEACE, BREACHES OF THE PEACE, AND ACTS OF AGGRESSION Article 39 The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.

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Article 40 In order to prevent an aggravation of the situation, the Security Council may, before making the recommendations or deciding upon the measures provided for in Article 39, call upon the parties concerned to comply with such provisional measures as it deems necessary or desirable. Such provisional measures shall be without prejudice to the rights, claims, or position of the parties concerned. The Security Council shall duly take account of failure to comply with such provisional measures. Article 41 The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures. These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations. Article 42 Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations. Article 43 1. All Members of the United Nations, in order to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security, undertake to make available to the Security Council, on its call and in accordance with a special agreement or agreements, armed forces, assistance, and facilities, including rights of passage, necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security. 2. Such agreement or agreements shall govern the numbers and types of forces, their degree of readiness and general location, and the nature of the facilities and assistance to be provided.

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3. The agreement or agreements shall be negotiated as soon as possible on the initiative of the Security Council. They shall be concluded between the Security Council and Members or between the Security Council and groups of Members and shall be subject to ratification by the signatory states in accordance with their respective constitutional processes. Article 44 When the Security Council has decided to use force it shall, before calling upon a Member not represented on it to provide armed forces in fulfilment of the obligations assumed under Article 43, invite that Member, if the Member so desires, to participate in the decisions of the Security Council concerning the employment of contingents of that Member’s armed forces. Article 45 In order to enable the United Nations to take urgent military measures, Members shall hold immediately available national air-force contingents for combined international enforcement action. The strength and degree of readiness of these contingents and plans for their combined action shall be determined within the limits laid down in the special agreement or agreements referred to in Article 43, by the Security Council with the assistance of the Military Staff Committee. Article 46 Plans for the application of armed force shall be made by the Security Council with the assistance of the Military Staff Committee. Article 47 1. There shall be established a Military Staff Committee to advise and assist the Security Council on all questions relating to the Security Council’s military requirements for the maintenance of international peace and security, the employment and command of forces placed at its disposal, the regulation of armaments, and possible disarmament.

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2. The Military Staff Committee shall consist of the Chiefs of Staff of the permanent members of the Security Council or their representatives. Any Member of the United Nations not permanently represented on the Committee shall be invited by the Committee to be associated with it when the efficient discharge of the Committee’s responsibilities requires the participation of that Member in its work. 3. The Military Staff Committee shall be responsible under the Security Council for the strategic direction of any armed forces placed at the disposal of the Security Council. Questions relating to the command of such forces shall be worked out subsequently. 4. The Military Staff Committee, with the authorization of the Security Council and after consultation with appropriate regional agencies, may establish regional sub-committees. Article 48 1. The action required to carry out the decisions of the Security Council for the maintenance of international peace and security shall be taken by all the Members of the United Nations or by some of them, as the Security Council may determine. 2. Such decisions shall be carried out by the Members of the United Nations directly and through their action in the appropriate international agencies of which they are members. Article 49 The Members of the United Nations shall join in affording mutual assistance in carrying out the measures decided upon by the Security Council. Article 50 If preventive or enforcement measures against any state are taken by the Security Council, any other state, whether a Member of the United Nations or not, which finds itself confronted with special economic problems arising from the carrying out of those measures shall have the right to consult the Security Council with regard to a solution of those problems.

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Article 51 Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defense shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.

CHAPTER VIII: REGIONAL ARRANGEMENTS Article 52 1. Nothing in the present Charter precludes the existence of regional arrangements or agencies for dealing with such matters relating to the maintenance of international peace and security as are appropriate for regional action provided that such arrangements or agencies and their activities are consistent with the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations. 2. The Members of the United Nations entering into such arrangements or constituting such agencies shall make every effort to achieve pacific settlement of local disputes through such regional arrangements or by such regional agencies before referring them to the Security Council. 3. The Security Council shall encourage the development of pacific settlement of local disputes through such regional arrangements or by such regional agencies either on the initiative of the states concerned or by reference from the Security Council. 4. This Article in no way impairs the application of Articles 34 and 35. Article 53 1. The Security Council shall, where appropriate, utilize such regional arrangements or agencies for enforcement action under

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its authority. But no enforcement action shall be taken under regional arrangements or by regional agencies without the authorization of the Security Council, with the exception of measures against any enemy state, as defined in paragraph 2 of this Article, provided for pursuant to Article 107 or in regional arrangements directed against renewal of aggressive policy on the part of any such state, until such time as the Organization may, on request of the Governments concerned, be charged with the responsibility for preventing further aggression by such a state. 2. The term enemy state as used in paragraph 1 of this Article applies to any state which during the Second World War has been an enemy of any signatory of the present Charter. Article 54 The Security Council shall at all times be kept fully informed of activities undertaken or in contemplation under regional arrangements or by regional agencies for the maintenance of international peace and security.

CHAPTER IX: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CO-OPERATION Article 55 With a view to the creation of conditions of stability and well-being which are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-­ determination of peoples, the United Nations shall promote: a. higher standards of living, full employment, and conditions of economic and social progress and development; b. solutions of international economic, social, health, and related problems; and international cultural and educational cooperation; and c. universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.

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Article 56 All Members pledge themselves to take joint and separate action in co-operation with the Organization for the achievement of the purposes set forth in Article 55. Article 57 1. The various specialized agencies, established by intergovernmental agreement and having wide international responsibilities, as defined in their basic instruments, in economic, social, cultural, educational, health, and related fields, shall be brought into relationship with the United Nations in accordance with the provisions of Article 63. 2. Such agencies thus brought into relationship with the United Nations are hereinafter referred to as specialized agencies. Article 58 The Organization shall make recommendations for the co-ordination of the policies and activities of the specialized agencies. Article 59 The Organization shall, where appropriate, initiate negotiations among the states concerned for the creation of any new specialized agencies required for the accomplishment of the purposes set forth in Article 55. Article 60 Responsibility for the discharge of the functions of the Organization set forth in this Chapter shall be vested in the General Assembly and, under the authority of the General Assembly, in the Economic and Social Council, which shall have for this purpose the powers set forth in Chapter X.

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CHAPTER X: THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL COMPOSITION

Article 61 1. The Economic and Social Council shall consist of fifty-four Members of the United Nations elected by the General Assembly. 2. Subject to the provisions of paragraph 3, eighteen members of the Economic and Social Council shall be elected each year for a term of three years. A retiring member shall be eligible for immediate re-election. 3. At the first election after the increase in the membership of the Economic and Social Council from twenty-seven to fifty-four members, in addition to the members elected in place of the nine members whose term of office expires at the end of that year, twenty-seven additional members shall be elected. Of these twenty-seven additional members, the term of office of nine members so elected shall expire at the end of one year, and of nine other members at the end of two years, in accordance with arrangements made by the General Assembly. 4. Each member of the Economic and Social Council shall have one representative. FUNCTIONS AND POWERS

Article 62 1. The Economic and Social Council may make or initiate studies and reports with respect to international economic, social, cultural, educational, health, and related matters and may make recommendations with respect to any such matters to the General Assembly, to the Members of the United Nations, and to the specialized agencies concerned. 2. It may make recommendations for the purpose of promoting respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all. 3. It may prepare draft conventions for submission to the General Assembly, with respect to matters falling within its competence.

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4. It may call, in accordance with the rules prescribed by the United Nations, international conferences on matters falling within its competence. Article 63 1. The Economic and Social Council may enter into agreements with any of the agencies referred to in Article 57, defining the terms on which the agency concerned shall be brought into relationship with the United Nations. Such agreements shall be subject to approval by the General Assembly. 2. It may co-ordinate the activities of the specialized agencies through consultation with and recommendations to such agencies and through recommendations to the General Assembly and to the Members of the United Nations. Article 64 1. The Economic and Social Council may take appropriate steps to obtain regular reports from the specialized agencies. It may make arrangements with the Members of the United Nations and with the specialized agencies to obtain reports on the steps taken to give effect to its own recommendations and to recommendations on matters falling within its competence made by the General Assembly. 2. It may communicate its observations on these reports to the General Assembly. Article 65 The Economic and Social Council may furnish information to the Security Council and shall assist the Security Council upon its request. Article 66 1. The Economic and Social Council shall perform such functions as fall within its competence in connection with the carrying out of the recommendations of the General Assembly. 2. It may, with the approval of the General Assembly, perform ser-

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vices at the request of Members of the United Nations and at the request of specialized agencies. 3. It shall perform such other functions as are specified elsewhere in the present Charter or as may be assigned to it by the General Assembly. V OT I N G

Article 67 1. Each member of the Economic and Social Council shall have one vote. 2. Decisions of the Economic and Social Council shall be made by a majority of the members present and voting. PROCEDURE

Article 68 The Economic and Social Council shall set up commissions in economic and social fields and for the promotion of human rights, and such other commissions as may be required for the performance of its functions. Article 69 The Economic and Social Council shall invite any Member of the United Nations to participate, without vote, in its deliberations on any matter of particular concern to that Member. Article 70 The Economic and Social Council may make arrangements for representatives of the specialized agencies to participate, without vote, in its deliberations and in those of the commissions established by it, and for its representatives to participate in the deliberations of the specialized agencies. Article 71 The Economic and Social Council may make suitable arrangements for consultation with non-governmental organizations which are

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concerned with matters within its competence. Such arrangements may be made with international organizations and, where appropriate, with national organizations after consultation with the Member of the United Nations concerned. Article 72 1. The Economic and Social Council shall adopt its own rules of procedure, including the method of selecting its President. 2. The Economic and Social Council shall meet as required in accordance with its rules, which shall include provision for the convening of meetings on the request of a majority of its members.

CHAPTER XI: DECLARATION REGARDING NON-SELF-GOVERNING TERRITORIES Article 73 Members of the United Nations which have or assume responsibilities for the administration of territories whose peoples have not yet attained a full measure of self-government recognize the principle that the interests of the inhabitants of these territories are paramount, and accept as a sacred trust the obligation to promote to the utmost, within the system of international peace and security established by the present Charter, the well-being of the inhabitants of these territories, and, to this end: a. to ensure, with due respect for the culture of the peoples concerned, their political, economic, social, and educational advancement, their just treatment, and their protection against abuses; b. to develop self-government, to take due account of the political aspirations of the peoples, and to assist them in the progressive development of their free political institutions, according to the particular circumstances of each territory and its peoples and their varying stages of advancement; c. to further international peace and security; d. to promote constructive measures of development, to encourage research, and to cooperate with one another and, when and where

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appropriate, with specialized international bodies with a view to the practical achievement of the social, economic, and scientific purposes set forth in this Article; and e. to transmit regularly to the Secretary-General for information purposes, subject to such limitation as security and constitutional considerations may require, statistical and other information of a technical nature relating to economic, social, and educational conditions in the territories for which they are respectively responsible other than those territories to which Chapters XII and XIII apply. Article 74 Members of the United Nations also agree that their policy in respect of the territories to which this Chapter applies, no less than in respect of their metropolitan areas, must be based on the general principle of good-neighborliness, due account being taken of the interests and well-being of the rest of the world, in social, economic, and commercial matters.

CHAPTER XII: INTERNATIONAL TRUSTEESHIP SYSTEM Article 75 The United Nations shall establish under its authority an international trusteeship system for the administration and supervision of such territories as may be placed thereunder by subsequent individual agreements. These territories are hereinafter referred to as trust territories. Article 76 The basic objectives of the trusteeship system, in accordance with the Purposes of the United Nations laid down in Article 1 of the present Charter, shall be: a. to further international peace and security; b. to promote the political, economic, social, and educational advancement of the inhabitants of the trust territories, and their progressive development towards self-government or indepen-

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dence as may be appropriate to the particular circumstances of each territory and its peoples and the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned, and as may be provided by the terms of each trusteeship agreement; c. to encourage respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion, and to encourage recognition of the interdependence of the peoples of the world; and d. to ensure equal treatment in social, economic, and commercial matters for all Members of the United Nations and their nationals, and also equal treatment for the latter in the administration of justice, without prejudice to the attainment of the foregoing objectives and subject to the provisions of Article 80. Article 77 1. The trusteeship system shall apply to such territories in the following categories as may be placed thereunder by means of trusteeship agreements: a. territories now held under mandate; b. territories which may be detached from enemy states as a result of the Second World War; and c. territories voluntarily placed under the system by states responsible for their administration. 2. It will be a matter for subsequent agreement as to which territories in the foregoing categories will be brought under the trusteeship system and upon what terms. Article 78 The trusteeship system shall not apply to territories which have become Members of the United Nations, relationship among which shall be based on respect for the principle of sovereign equality. Article 79 The terms of trusteeship for each territory to be placed under the trusteeship system, including any alteration or amendment, shall be agreed upon by the states directly concerned, including the man-

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datory power in the case of territories held under mandate by a Member of the United Nations, and shall be approved as provided for in Articles 83 and 85. Article 80 1. Except as may be agreed upon in individual trusteeship agreements, made under Articles 77, 79, and 81, placing each territory under the trusteeship system, and until such agreements have been concluded, nothing in this Chapter shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties. 2. Paragraph 1 of this Article shall not be interpreted as giving grounds for delay or postponement of the negotiation and conclusion of agreements for placing mandated and other territories under the trusteeship system as provided for in Article 77. Article 81 The trusteeship agreement shall in each case include the terms under which the trust territory will be administered and designate the authority which will exercise the administration of the trust territory. Such authority, hereinafter called the administering authority, may be one or more states or the Organization itself. Article 82 There may be designated, in any trusteeship agreement, a strategic area or areas which may include part or all of the trust territory to which the agreement applies, without prejudice to any special agreement or agreements made under Article 43. Article 83 1. All functions of the United Nations relating to strategic areas, including the approval of the terms of the trusteeship agreements and of their alteration or amendment shall be exercised by the Security Council.

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2. The basic objectives set forth in Article 76 shall be applicable to the people of each strategic area. 3. The Security Council shall, subject to the provisions of the trusteeship agreements and without prejudice to security considerations, avail itself of the assistance of the Trusteeship Council to perform those functions of the United Nations under the trusteeship system relating to political, economic, social, and educational matters in the strategic areas. Article 84 It shall be the duty of the administering authority to ensure that the trust territory shall play its part in the maintenance of international peace and security. To this end the administering authority may make use of volunteer forces, facilities, and assistance from the trust territory in carrying out the obligations towards the Security Council undertaken in this regard by the administering authority, as well as for local defense and the maintenance of law and order within the trust territory. Article 85 1. The functions of the United Nations with regard to trusteeship agreements for all areas not designated as strategic, including the approval of the terms of the trusteeship agreements and of their alteration or amendment, shall be exercised by the General Assembly. 2. The Trusteeship Council, operating under the authority of the General Assembly, shall assist the General Assembly in carrying out these functions.

CHAPTER XIII: THE TRUSTEESHIP COUNCIL COMPOSITION

Article 86 1. The Trusteeship Council shall consist of the following Members of the United Nations: a. those Members administering trust territories;

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b. such of those Members mentioned by name in Article 23 as are not administering trust territories; and c. as many other Members elected for three-year terms by the General Assembly as may be necessary to ensure that the total number of members of the Trusteeship Council is equally divided between those Members of the United Nations which administer trust territories and those which do not. 2. Each member of the Trusteeship Council shall designate one specially qualified person to represent it therein. FUNCTIONS AND POWERS

Article 87 The General Assembly and, under its authority, the Trusteeship Council, in carrying out their functions, may: a. consider reports submitted by the administering authority; b. accept petitions and examine them in consultation with the administering authority; c. provide for periodic visits to the respective trust territories at times agreed upon with the administering authority; and d. take these and other actions in conformity with the terms of the trusteeship agreements. Article 88 The Trusteeship Council shall formulate a questionnaire on the ­political, economic, social, and educational advancement of the inhabitants of each trust territory, and the administering authority for each trust territory within the competence of the General Assembly shall make an annual report to the General Assembly upon the basis of such questionnaire. V OT I N G

Article 89 1. Each member of the Trusteeship Council shall have one vote. 2. Decisions of the Trusteeship Council shall be made by a majority of the members present and voting.

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PROCEDURE

Article 90 1. The Trusteeship Council shall adopt its own rules of procedure, including the method of selecting its President. 2. The Trusteeship Council shall meet as required in accordance with its rules, which shall include provision for the convening of meetings on the request of a majority of its members. Article 91 The Trusteeship Council shall, when appropriate, avail itself of the assistance of the Economic and Social Council and of the specialized agencies in regard to matters with which they are respectively concerned.

CHAPTER XIV: THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE Article 92 The International Court of Justice shall be the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. It shall function in accordance with the annexed Statute, which is based upon the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice and forms an integral part of the present Charter. Article 93 1. All Members of the United Nations are ipso facto parties to the Statute of the International Court of Justice. 2. A state which is not a Member of the United Nations may become a party to the Statute of the International Court of Justice on conditions to be determined in each case by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. Article 94 1. Each Member of the United Nations undertakes to comply with the decision of the International Court of Justice in any case to which it is a party.

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2. If any party to a case fails to perform the obligations incumbent upon it under a judgment rendered by the Court, the other party may have recourse to the Security Council, which may, if it deems necessary, make recommendations or decide upon measures to be taken to give effect to the judgment. Article 95 Nothing in the present Charter shall prevent Members of the United Nations from entrusting the solution of their differences to other tribunals by virtue of agreements already in existence or which may be concluded in the future. Article 96 a. The General Assembly or the Security Council may request the International Court of Justice to give an advisory opinion on any legal question. b. Other organs of the United Nations and specialized agencies, which may at any time be so authorized by the General Assembly, may also request advisory opinions of the Court on legal questions arising within the scope of their activities.

CHAPTER XV: THE SECRETARIAT Article 97 The Secretariat shall comprise a Secretary-General and such staff as the Organization may require. The Secretary-General shall be appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. He shall be the chief administrative officer of the Organization. Article 98 The Secretary-General shall act in that capacity in all meetings of the General Assembly, of the Security Council, of the Economic and Social Council, and of the Trusteeship Council, and shall perform such other functions as are entrusted to him by these organs. The Secretary-­General shall make an annual report to the General Assembly on the work of the Organization.

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Article 99 The Secretary-General may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security. Article 100 1. In the performance of their duties the Secretary-General and the staff shall not seek or receive instructions from any government or from any other authority external to the Organization. They shall refrain from any action which might reflect on their position as international officials responsible only to the Organization. 2. Each Member of the United Nations undertakes to respect the exclusively international character of the responsibilities of the Secretary-General and the staff and not to seek to influence them in the discharge of their responsibilities. Article 101 1. The staff shall be appointed by the Secretary-General under regulations established by the General Assembly. 2. Appropriate staffs shall be permanently assigned to the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, and, as required, to other organs of the United Nations. These staffs shall form a part of the Secretariat. 3. The paramount consideration in the employment of the staff and in the determination of the conditions of service shall be the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity. Due regard shall be paid to the importance of recruiting the staff on as wide a geographical basis as possible.

CHAPTER XVI: MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS Article 102 1. Every treaty and every international agreement entered into by any Member of the United Nations after the present Charter comes into force shall as soon as possible be registered with the Secretariat and published by it.

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2. No party to any such treaty or international agreement which has not been registered in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 1 of this Article may invoke that treaty or agreement before any organ of the United Nations. Article 103 In the event of a conflict between the obligations of the Members of the United Nations under the present Charter and their obligations under any other international agreement, their obligations under the present Charter shall prevail. Article 104 The Organization shall enjoy in the territory of each of its Members such legal capacity as may be necessary for the exercise of its functions and the fulfilment of its purposes. Article 105 1. The Organization shall enjoy in the territory of each of its Members such privileges and immunities as are necessary for the fulfilment of its purposes. 2. Representatives of the Members of the United Nations and officials of the Organization shall similarly enjoy such privileges and immunities as are necessary for the independent exercise of their functions in connection with the Organization. 3. The General Assembly may make recommendations with a view to determining the details of the application of paragraphs 1 and 2 of this Article or may propose conventions to the Members of the United Nations for this purpose.

CHAPTER XVII: TRANSITIONAL SECURITY ARRANGEMENTS Article 106 Pending the coming into force of such special agreements referred to in Article 43 as in the opinion of the Security Council enable it to begin the exercise of its responsibilities under Article 42, the parties

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to the Four-Nation Declaration, signed at Moscow, 30 October 1943, and France, shall, in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 5 of that Declaration, consult with one another and as occasion requires with other Members of the United Nations with a view to such joint action on behalf of the Organization as may be necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security. Article 107 Nothing in the present Charter shall invalidate or preclude action, in relation to any state which during the Second World War has been an enemy of any signatory to the present Charter, taken or authorized as a result of that war by the Governments having responsibility for such action.

CHAPTER XVIII: AMENDMENTS Article 108 Amendments to the present Charter shall come into force for all Members of the United Nations when they have been adopted by a vote of two thirds of the members of the General Assembly and ratified in accordance with their respective constitutional processes by two thirds of the Members of the United Nations, including all the permanent members of the Security Council. Article 109 1. A General Conference of the Members of the United Nations for the purpose of reviewing the present Charter may be held at a date and place to be fixed by a two-thirds vote of the members of the General Assembly and by a vote of any nine members of the Security Council. Each Member of the United Nations shall have one vote in the conference. 2. Any alteration of the present Charter recommended by a twothirds vote of the conference shall take effect when ratified in accordance with their respective constitutional processes by two thirds of the Members of the United Nations including all the permanent members of the Security Council.

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3. If such a conference has not been held before the tenth annual session of the General Assembly following the coming into force of the present Charter, the proposal to call such a conference shall be placed on the agenda of that session of the General Assembly, and the conference shall be held if so decided by a majority vote of the members of the General Assembly and by a vote of any seven members of the Security Council.

CHAPTER XIX: RATIFICATION AND SIGNATURE Article 110 1. The present Charter shall be ratified by the signatory states in accordance with their respective constitutional processes. 2. The ratifications shall be deposited with the Government of the United States of America, which shall notify all the signatory states of each deposit as well as the Secretary-General of the Organization when he has been appointed. 3. The present Charter shall come into force upon the deposit of ratifications by the Republic of China, France, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America, and by a majority of the other signatory states. A protocol of the ratifications deposited shall thereupon be drawn up by the Government of the United States of America which shall communicate copies thereof to all the signatory states. 4. The states signatory to the present Charter which ratify it after it  has come into force will become original Members of the United Nations on the date of the deposit of their respective ratifications. Article 111 The present Charter, of which the Chinese, French, Russian, English, and Spanish texts are equally authentic, shall remain deposited in the archives of the Government of the United States of America. Duly certified copies thereof shall be transmitted by that Government to the Governments of the other signatory states.

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IN FAITH WHEREOF the representatives of the Governments of the United Nations have signed the present Charter. DONE at the city of San Francisco the twenty-sixth day of June, one thousand nine hundred and forty-five.

APPENDIX B U N I V E R S A L D E C L A R AT I O N O F H U M A N R I G H T S

PREAMBLE

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people, Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law, Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations, Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and

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women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in cooperation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms, Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge, Now, Therefore the general assembly proclaims this universal declaration of human rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction. Article 1. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. Article 2. Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty. Article 3. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

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Article 4. No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms. Article 5. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Article 6. Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law. Article 7. All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination. Article 8. Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law. Article 9. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile. Article 10. Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him. Article 11. (1) Everyone charged with a penal offense has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense. (2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offense on account of

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any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offense, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offense was committed. Article 12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. Article 13. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country. Article 14. (1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. (2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations. Article 15. (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality. Article 16. (1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution. (2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.

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(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State. Article 17. (1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property. Article 18. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance. Article 19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. Article 20. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association. (2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association. Article 21. (1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. (2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country. (3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

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Article 22. Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international cooperation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality. Article 23. (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests. Article 24. Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay. Article 25. (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

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Article 26. (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. (2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace. (3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children. Article 27. (1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. (2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author. Article 28. Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized. Article 29. (1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible. (2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

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(3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations. Article 30. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

APPENDIX C U N M E M B E R S TAT E S

Here are the 193 member states, with the date on which each joined the United Nations. Some joined UNESCO or another UN organization before they were full-fledged members of the UN and eligible to vote in the General Assembly. Afghanistan, November 19, 1946 Albania, December 14, 1955 Algeria, October 8, 1962 Andorra, July 28, 1993 Angola, December 1, 1976 Antigua and Barbuda, November 11, 1981 Argentina, October 24, 1945 Armenia, March 2, 1992 Australia, November 1, 1945 Austria, December 14, 1955 Azerbaijan, March 2, 1992 Bahamas, September 18, 1973 Bahrain, September 21, 1971 Bangladesh, September 17, 1974 Barbados, December 9, 1966 Belarus, October 24, 1945

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Belgium, December 27, 1945 Belize, September 25, 1981 Benin, September 20, 1960 Bhutan, September 21, 1971 Bolivia, Plurinational State of, November 14, 1945 Bosnia and Herzegovina, May 22, 1992 Botswana, October 17, 1966 Brazil, October 24, 1945 Brunei Darussalam, September 21, 1984 Bulgaria, December 14, 1955 Burkina Faso, September 20, 1960 Burundi, September 18, 1962 Cabo Verde, September 16, 1975 Cambodia, December 14, 1955 Cameroon, September 20, 1960 Canada, November 9, 1945 Central African Republic, September 20, 1960 Chad, September 20, 1960 Chile, October 24, 1945 China, October 24, 1945 Colombia, November 5, 1945 Comoros, November 12, 1975 Congo, Democratic Republic of the, September 20, 1960 Congo, Republic of the, September 20, 1960 Costa Rica, November 2, 1945 Côte d’Ivoire, September 20, 1960 Croatia, May 22, 1992 Cuba, October 24, 1945 Cyprus, September 20, 1960 Czech Republic, January 19, 1993 Denmark, October 24, 1945 Djibouti, September 20, 1977 Dominica, December 18, 1978 Dominican Republic, October 24, 1945 Ecuador, December 21, 1945 Egypt, October 24, 1945 El Salvador, October 24, 1945 Equatorial Guinea, November 12, 1968 Eritrea, May 28, 1993

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Estonia, September 17, 1991 Eswatini, September 24, 1968 Ethiopia, November 13, 1945 Fiji, October 13, 1970 Finland, December 14, 1955 France, October 24, 1945 Gabon, September 20, 1960 Gambia, Republic of The, September 21, 1965 Georgia, July 31, 1992 Germany, September 18, 1973 Ghana, March 8, 1957 Greece, October 25, 1945 Grenada, September 17, 1974 Guatemala, November 21, 1945 Guinea, December 12, 1958 Guinea-Bissau, September 17, 1974 Guyana, September 20, 1966 Haiti, October 24, 1945 Honduras, December 17, 1945 Hungary, December 14, 1955 Iceland, November 19, 1946 India, October 30, 1945 Indonesia, September 28, 1950 Iran, Islamic Republic of, October 24, 1945 Iraq, December 21, 1945 Ireland, December 14, 1955 Israel, May 11, 1949 Italy, December 14, 1955 Jamaica, September 18, 1962 Japan, December 18, 1956 Jordan, December 14, 1955 Kazakhstan, March 2, 1992 Kenya, December 16, 1963 Kiribati, September 14, 1999 Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of, September 17, 1991 Korea, Republic of, September 17, 1991 Kuwait, May 14, 1963 Kyrgyzstan, March 2, 1992 Lao People’s Democratic Republic, December 14, 1955

U N M ember S tates

Latvia, September 17, 1991 Lebanon, October 24, 1945 Lesotho, October 17, 1966 Liberia, November 2, 1945 Libya, December 14, 1955 Liechtenstein, September 18, 1990 Lithuania, September 17, 1991 Luxembourg, October 24, 1945 Madagascar, September 20, 1960 Malawi, December 1, 1964 Malaysia, September 17, 1957 Maldives, September 21, 1965 Mali, September 28, 1960 Malta, December 1, 1964 Marshall Islands, September 17, 1991 Mauritania, October 27, 1961 Mauritius, April 24, 1968 Mexico, November 7, 1945 Micronesia, Federated States of, September 17, 1991 Moldova, Republic of, March 2, 1992 Monaco, May 28, 1993 Mongolia, October 27, 1961 Montenegro, June 28, 2006 Morocco, November 12, 1956 Mozambique, September 16, 1975 Myanmar, April 19, 1948 Namibia, April 23, 1990 Nauru, September 14, 1999 Nepal, December 14, 1955 Netherlands, December 10, 1945 New Zealand, October 24, 1945 Nicaragua, October 24, 1945 Niger, September 20, 1960 Nigeria, October 7, 1960 North Macedonia, April 8, 1993 Norway, November 27, 1945 Oman, October 7, 1971 Pakistan, September 30, 1947 Palau, December 15, 1994

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308 Panama, November 13, 1945 Papua New Guinea, October 10, 1975 Paraguay, October 24, 1945 Peru, October 31, 1945 Philippines, October 24, 1945 Poland, October 24, 1945 Portugal, December 14, 1955 Qatar, September 21, 1971 Romania, December 14, 1955 Russian Federation, October 24, 1945 Rwanda, September 18, 1962 Saint Kitts and Nevis, September 23, 1983 Saint Lucia, September 18, 1979 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, September 16, 1980 Samoa, December 15, 1976 San Marino, March 2, 1992 São Tomé and Príncipe, September 16, 1975 Saudi Arabia, October 24, 1945 Senegal, September 28, 1960 Serbia, November 1, 2000 Seychelles, September 21, 1976 Sierra Leone, September 27, 1961 Singapore, September 21, 1965 Slovakia, January 19, 1993 Slovenia, May 22, 1992 Solomon Islands, September 19, 1978 Somalia, September 20, 1960 South Africa, November 7, 1945 South Sudan, July 14, 2011 Spain, December 14, 1955 Sri Lanka, December 14, 1955 Sudan, November 12, 1956 Suriname, December 4, 1975 Sweden, November 19, 1946 Switzerland, September 10, 2002 Syrian Arab Republic, October 24, 1945 Tajikistan, March 2, 1992 Tanzania, United Republic of, December 14, 1961 Thailand, December 16, 1946

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Timor-Leste (East Timor), September 27, 2002 Togo, September 20, 1960 Tonga, September 14, 1999 Trinidad and Tobago, September 18, 1962 Tunisia, November 12, 1956 Turkey, October 24, 1945 Turkmenistan, March 2, 1992 Tuvalu, September 5, 2000 Uganda, October 25, 1962 Ukraine, October 24, 1945 United Arab Emirates, December 9, 1971 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, October 24, 1945 United States of America, October 24, 1945 Uruguay, December 18, 1945 Uzbekistan, March 2, 1992 Vanuatu, September 15, 1981 Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of, November 15, 1945 Viet Nam, September 20, 1977 Yemen, September 30, 1947 Zambia, December 1, 1964 Zimbabwe, August 25, 1980

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S E L E C T E D A B B R E V I AT I O N S

ACABQ—Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions CoNGO—Conference on Non-Governmental Organizations in Consultative Relationship CTBTO—Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization DPPA—Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs DPO—Department of Peace Operations E10—elected ten members of the Security Council ECOSOC—Economic and Social Council FAO—Food and Agriculture Organization G-77—Group of 77, a coalition of developing countries GA—General Assembly HRC—Human Rights Council IAEA—International Atomic Energy Agency ICAO—International Civil Aviation Organization ILO—International Labor Organization IMO—International Maritime Organization

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S elected A bbreviations

IPCC—Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ITU—International Telecommunication Union MINURSO—UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara MINUSCA—United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic MINUSMA—United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali MONUSCO—United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo NAM—Non-Aligned Movement NGO—nongovernmental organization NPT—Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty OIOS—Office of Internal Oversight Services OPCW—Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons P5—Permanent Five members of the Security Council PGA—President of the General Assembly PR—permanent representative SDGs—Sustainable Development Goals SG—Secretary-General UNAIDS—Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS UNAMID—African Union–United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur UNDOF—UN Disengagement Observer Force UNDP—United Nations Development Program UNEP—United Nations Environment Program UNESCO—United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UNFICYP—UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus UNHCHR—United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights UNHCR—United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNICEF—United Nations Children’s Fund UNIDO—United Nations Industrial Development Organization UNIFIL—UN Interim Force in Lebanon UNISFA—United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei UNMIK—UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo

S elected A bbreviations

UNMISS—United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan UNMOGIP—UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan UNODC—United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime UNPOL—United Nations Police UNTSO—United Nations Truce Supervision Organization UPU—Universal Postal Union WEOG—Western Europe and Others Regional Group WFP—World Food Program WHO—World Health Organization WIPO—World Intellectual Property Organization WMDs—weapons of mass destruction

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SOURCES

I drew upon many and varied sources in preparing this book. I interviewed or held informal discussions with UN insiders—past and present diplomats and UN officials, experts, and analysts. I attended UN briefings, news conferences, seminars, and other forums and monitored discussions and debates in the Security Council, General Assembly, and other UN bodies. I reviewed speeches and public statements by UN officials, representatives of member states, and members of the US government. In addition, I analyzed UN, government, NGO, and academic reports and studies. Table sources are noted below by chapter. Most quotations in the book come from the interviews and public statements. Quotations from books, articles, and reports are noted below by chapter. Chapter 1.  The chart of the UN system at a glance is published by the United Nations Department of Global Communications, 18-00159, January 1, 2019. Ambassador Haley’s comment that the American people need to think about whether the UN “is worth it” is reported by Eli Lake, “Opinion: Nikki Haley Isn’t So Sure about the UN,” The Morning Call, December 26, 2018. Secretary of State Pompeo’s remarks on the UN and multilateralism come from Gar-

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diner Harris, “Pompeo Questions the Value of International Groups Like U.N. and EU,” New York Times, December 4, 2018. Chapter 2.  For the Dumbarton Oaks meeting and the San Francisco conference, see the UN web pages “1944–1945: Dumbarton Oaks and Yalta,” https://www.un.org/en/sections/history-united -nations-charter/1944-1945-dumbartonoaks-and-yalta/index.html, and “1945: The San Francisco Conference,” https://www.un.org/en /sections/history-united-nations-charter/1945-san-franciscoconference /index.html. Eleanor Roosevelt’s role in writing the Universal Declaration appears in Joseph Lash, Eleanor: The Years Alone (New York: Konecky and Konecky, 1972). Brian Urquhart’s statement on the declaration’s importance is from interviews at the University of California–Berkeley. Chapter 4.  Samantha Power made her remarks about the leading role of the United States in “The Role of the United Nations in Global Governance,” a conference call hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations on September 27, 2017: https://www.cfr.org/conference calls/role-united-nations-global-governance. Jon Lerner’s remarks are in his article “The UN and Israel in the Nikki Haley Era,” Hudson Institute, https://www.hudson.org/research/14971-the-un-and -israel-in-the-nikki-haley-era. Chapter 5.  Table 1, Security Council meetings, resolutions, and vetoes, is adapted from the US Department of State’s annual report Voting Practices in the United Nations, for 2019 and 2017, and from United Nations, “Security Council, Quick Links, Meetings in 2013– 18,” http://research.un.org/en/docs/sc/quick/meetings/2017. The discussion of the Saudi refusal to serve on the Security Council benefited from the analysis of Richard Gowan in “Diplomatic Fallout: Saudi Arabia’s Security Council Move More Than Just a Stunt,” World Politics Review, October 21, 2013. For Ian Martin’s reflections on the Security Council, see “In Hindsight: What’s Wrong with the Security Council? Parting Reflections of Executive Director Ian Martin,” https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/monthly-forecast/201804 /in_hindsight_whats_wrong_with_the_security_council.php. Chapter 6.  Miroslav Lajčák’s assessment of his term as PGA comes from a UN report, “With ‘Many Good Things’ Accomplished,

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It’s Still ‘a Work in Progress,’ Says UN Assembly President Reflecting on His Year in Office,” https://news.un.org/en/interview/2018 /09/1018621. Chapter 7.  For the aroma of intrigue in the North Delegates’ Lounge, see Muhamed Sacirbey, “UN Lounge: Where Diplomats and Renegades Rendezvous!,” Huffington Post, https://www.huffpost.com /entry/un-lounge-where-diplomats_b_8622624. On the Russian ambassador and Haley see Zachary Cohen, Richard Roth, and Elizabeth Joseph, “Haley Says Russia Chose ‘Protecting a Monster’ over Syrian People,” CNN, https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/10/politics/un -security-council-vote-syira/index.html (updated 8:23 PM ET, April 10, 2018). Chapter 8.  For the Cruz report, which was commissioned by Secretary-General António Guterres, see Lieutenant General (Ret.) Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz, “Improving Security of United Nations Peacekeepers: We Need to Change the Way We Are Doing Business,” December 19, 2017. Table 2, UN peacekeeping mission personnel and annual budgets, and table 3, top ten providers of peacekeeping troops, were compiled from information on the web site of UN Peacekeeping, https://peacekeeping.un.org/en, accessed in May 2020. For the UN peacekeeping forces in Cyprus (UNFICYP), see https://incyprus.com/international-womens-day-the-women-in -unficyp/. Khalilzad’s statement that peacekeeping should not be a substitute for finding a solution appears in Merle D. Kellerhals, “UN Looking for Ways to Enhance African Peacekeeping,” Peace and Security, April 22, 2008. An analysis of the US General Accountability Office report is available from the Better World Campaign, “New Report Finds U.S. Saves Big by Supporting UN Peacekeeping,” https:// betterworldcampaign.org/news-room/pressreleases/new-report -finds-u-s-saves-big-supporting-un-peacekeeping/. Chapter 9.  The comments about the UN as a terrorist target come in part from Colum Lynch, “UN Insignia Emerges as a Global Target for Al-Qaeda Attacks,” Washington Post, December 25, 2007; and a Reuters story, “UN ‘Has Become an Enemy,’ ” News24 Archives, February 29, 2008, http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/UN-has -become-anenemy-20080228.

318

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Chapter 10.  For the HRC’s position on LGBTI rights, see Sahar Moazami, “An Ode to Joy: The UN Expert on LGBTIQ Rights Stands,” July 21, 2019, https://www.passblue.com/2019/07/21/an-ode-to -joy-the-un-expert-on-lgbtiq-rightsstands/?utm_source=PassBlue +List&utm_campaign=7191557d60PassBlue_Fordham_Nov18&utm _medium=email&utm_term=0_4795f55662-7191557d60-55000705. The discussion about R2P draws on material compiled by the UN and also by the International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect. Chapter 13.  Table 4, summary of the SDGs, is adapted from the United Nations web site, “Sustainable Development Agenda,” https:// www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/development-agenda/. Table 5, from the “Gender Development Index,” 2018, is adapted from UNDP, Human Development Report of 2018, http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite /GDI. Chapter 16.  Table 6, Security Council resolutions, is based on the US Department of State’s report on voting practices in the United Nations, for 2019 and 2017, and from United Nations, “Security Council, Quick Links, Meetings in 2013–18,” http://research.un .org/en/docs/sc/quick/meetings/2017. The account of former US ambassador Nikki Haley’s mention of voting coincidence to President Trump is in Jon Lerner, “The UN and Israel in the Nikki Haley Era,” published by the Hudson Institute, https://www.hudson.org /research/14971-the-un-and-israel-in-the-nikki-haley-era. Chapter 18.  Table 7, assessments of the top fourteen contributors to the regular budget, is adapted from UN Secretariat, “Assessment of Member States’ Contributions to the United Nations Regular Budget for the Year 2019 (December 24, 2018).” For the US share of total dues and contributions to the UN system, see Laura Hillard and Amanda Shendruk, “Funding the United Nations: What Impact Do U.S. Contributions Have on UN Agencies and Programs?,” Council on Foreign Relations, updated April 24, 2020, https://www.cfr .org/article/funding-united-nations-what-impact-do-us-contributions have-un-agencies-and-programs. Table 8, the ten largest contributors to the peacekeeping budget, is from UN Peacekeeping, “How We Are Funded,” https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/how-we-are-funded.

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Photographs and illustrations are indicated by page numbers in italics. Tables are indicated by a “t” following the page number. Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), 254–55 Afghanistan, 29, 58, 66, 168; al-Qaeda network, 139–40; Sanctions Committee, 222 African Union, 39, 120, 134, 150 African Union–United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID), 134 Akram, Munir, 82, 97, 143, 178 Albright, Madeleine, 12, 15, 44, 50–51, 64, 110–12 Alemu, Tekeda, 102 Al Hussein, Zeid Ra’ad, 163 Ali, Abiy Ahmed, 136 Al Mahdi, Ahmad Al Faqi, 168 Andersen, Inger La Cour, 36

Annan, Kofi, 32, 49, 113; common destiny, 4; on deputy secretary-general, 34–35; on gender equality, 203; on human rights, 161, 168; on the MDGs, 192; missions of, 39; on NGOs, 176; on nuclear nonproliferation, 144; on peacekeeping, 134, 169; quiet revolution, 246–48; on reforms, 33, 38; scandal, 38, 69; secretary-general, 14, 28; on world scene, 41 Arbour, Louise, 163 Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), 90, 153 Arria, Diego, 61, 69, 79–80, 171, 177 atomic energy. See International Atomic Energy Agency ATT. See Arms Trade Treaty

319

320 Austin, Warren R., 51 Ayala-Lasso, José, 163 Azoulay, Audrey, 217   Bachelet, Michelle, 163 Ball, George W., 51 Bande, Tijjani Muhammad, 106 Bangladesh, 78, 130, 183, 210 Ban Ki-moon, 207; action agenda, 40; on climate change, 228–29; on Darfur, 134; on deputy secretary-general, 34; on drug use prevention, 221; on gender equality, 203; on humanitarian assistance, 188; on human rights, 161; on MDGs, 193; on R2P, 169, 171; on reform agenda, 33, 247–48; represen­ tatives for, 36; as secretary-­ general, 26, 28, 32, 39, 94, 113; Security Council and, 80, 86; on terrorism, 141; unique position of UN, 11; United States and, 14, 47 Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, 233–34 al-Bashir, Omar Hassan Ahmad, 168 Bern Treaty of 1874, 214 bin Laden, Osama, 139 Bio, Julius Maada, 106 Bloomberg, Michael, 37 blue-helmet missions. See peacekeeping Bolton, John R.: ambassador, 44, 50; ambassador (list), 51; on Ban Ki-moon, 39; diplomatic

INDEX

language of, 52; on emerging economies, 97; on HRC reform, 161; on ICC, 167; missions without end, 133; on nuclear nonproliferation, 72; on parts of the UN, 5; on Russia, 65; on terrorism, 143 Bosnia, 14, 52, 133, 169 Boutros-Ghali, Boutros, 28, 33, 79, 113, 246 Brahimi, Lakhdar, 118–19, 150 Brimmer, Esther, 77, 156, 247 budgeting: complaints, 256–57; member support, 251–53, 255–56, 259; peacekeeping budget, 254, 257, 258t; regular budget, 253–55; top funders, 256t; voluntary contributions, 258–59 Burleigh, Peter, 51 Burnham, Christopher, 247 Burundi, 160, 168, 207 Bush, George H. W., 44, 51 Bush, George W., and Bush administration, 5, 12, 44, 58, 67, 160, 167, 239   CEB. See UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination Central African Republic, 120, 131, 168, 187. See also Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic Charbonneau, Louis, 160, 163 Chicago Convention. See Convention on International Civil Aviation

INDEX

children: ICC case, 168; special representative, 37. See also humanitarian relief; United Nations Children’s Fund China, 41; climate change and, 229, 231; diplomacy with, 156, 241; interest of, 41; Libya and, 170; North Korea and, 71–73, 147; peacekeeping financing, 126, 257; regular budget, 255; Security Council role, 20, 55, 65–66, 81, 237; on terrorism, 142; Uighurs, 163 Churchill, Winston, 1, 18 Churkin, Vitaly, 111–12 climate change, 225–35; Africa’s role, 227–28; Climate Action Tracker, 231; five-year “action agenda,” 40–41; G20’s role, 231; plastics, 233–34; scientists’ projections, 226; special representative, 37; toxic chemicals, 232–33; treaties on, 226, 229, 233–34; UN focus, 30, 39, 225–26, 228–29, 232; world leaders’ summit, 230 Clinton, Bill, and Clinton administration, 47, 58, 167 CND. See Commission on Narcotic Drugs Cold War, 2, 21, 41, 65, 96, 144, 239 Colombia, 77–78, 168 Commission for Social Development, 174 Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, 174 Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), 174, 220, 222

321 Commission on Population and Development, 174 Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD), 175 Commission on Sustainable Development, 174 Commission on the Status of Women, 174 Committee for Program and Coordination (CPC), 255 Committee on Contributions, 259 Committee on the Rights of the Child, 155 communication, 212–24. See also International Telecommunication Union; Universal Postal Union Conference on Environment and Development, 174, 229 Conference on Non-Governmental Organizations in Consultative Relationship (CoNGO), 176 Convention on International Civil Aviation, 166, 215 Convention on Psychotropic Substances, 220 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling, and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction, 152 Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage, 217 Convention on the Rights of the Child, 90–91, 155, 184 Copenhagen Declaration and Program of Action, 174

322 corona virus. See COVID-19 Correia e Silva, José Ulisses, 106 Côte d’Ivoire, 134, 168 Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC), 78, 140–41 Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate, 140 COVID-19, 178, 185; divergent views, 65; economic and social aspects, 156; General Assembly resolutions, 88, 93–94; global health crisis, 2–3; Guterres on, 2, 31, 57, 75, 116, 156; IAEA and, 152, 183; peacekeeping missions and, 116; Security Council deliberations, 75–76; 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and, 191, 201–2; UN response, 12, 31; voting procedures, 88; World Health Organization role, 189 CPC. See Committee for Program and Coordination Craft, Kelly, 15, 51, 54 CTC. See Counter-Terrorism Committee Cyprus, 131–33   Danforth, John C., 49–51, 54 Darfur, Sudan, 120, 133–34, 168–69, 186 Delattre, François, 45, 73, 139, 232 Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), 116, 120–22; ICC case, 168; special representative, 37. See also United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; United Nations Or-

INDEX

ganization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Department of Humanitarian Affairs. See Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Department of Peace Operations (DPO), 116–17, 121, 123, 125–26, 132, 244 Department of Political Affairs (DPA), 123 Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA), 33, 123, 125–26, 244 deputy secretary-general (DSG), 32, 34–35, 39, 174, 244, 247–48 DiCarlo, Rosemary, 13, 33, 36, 77, 122, 125, 129–30, 136, 227 DPA. See Department of Political Affairs DPET. See Policy, Evaluation and Training Division DRC. See Democratic Republic of the Congo DSG. See deputy secretary-general Dujarric, Stéphane, 27, 80–81, 113   E10 (ten non-permanent members of the Security Council), 59–61, 64, 67, 80; selection, 58, 61, 64. See also Security Council Early Warning, Alert and Response System (EWARS), 186 Earth Summit. See Conference on Environment and Development ECCAS. See Economic Community of Central African States

INDEX

Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), 173–78; annual meeting, 96; commissions, 174–75, 220; members, 173; NGOs and, 176–77; reform of, 178; role and responsibilities, 45, 95, 173–74, 188 Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), 120 ECOSOC. See Economic and Social Council ElBaradei, Mohamed, 152 Eliasson, Jan, 5, 33–35, 41, 93, 133, 148, 186–88, 200, 206–7 Eritrea, 68–69, 135. See also UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea Espinosa Garcés, María Fernanda, 88, 94–95, 98, 110, 177, 201, 245 Ethiopia, 68, 135–36. See also UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea   FCTC. See WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Fedotov, Yury, 36 Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary), 93, 248, 252, 255, 257, 259 financing and support, 251–60 First Committee (Disarmament and International Security), 92 Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 202, 209, 233 Forman, Shepard, 248, 260 Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization), 93 France: peace operations, 257–58; Security Council role, 20, 59, 61, 65, 237; Suez Canal conflict,

323 115; Syria vote, 237; World Bank and, 211 Fréchette, Louise, 35   Gaddafi, Muammar, 38, 66, 170 Gaer, Felice, 156 gender: LGBTI issues, 76, 164–65. See also women “Gender Development Index,” 204t–5t, 206–7 General Assembly, 84–98; agenda, 29, 87; biennial budgeting, 253, 255, 257; climate change issue, 226; committees, 87, 92; debate in, 65, 88–89; E10 representatives selection, 58, 61, 64; Eleanor Roosevelt at, 23; member participation, 86, 91, 94; member states, 20, 84–85; peacekeeping, 75; reform agenda and, 245, 249; re­ structuring, 81, 83; role and responsibilities, 84–87, 89, 93; Secretary-General selection, 26; Security Council restructuring, 83; structure, 6t, 8; treaty negotiations, 89–90; United States Mission at, 45–46; videoconferencing during COVID, 31; voting in, 87–88, 96–97, 238–39, 241. See also president of the General Assembly; UN Human Rights Commission General Assembly resolutions: on COVID-19, 93–94; grandstanding and, 98; implementation, 98–99; procedures, 88; recommendations, 87, 92; on Syria, 93

324 genocide, 52, 160, 166, 169 Germany: Iran and, 74, 149; Libya and, 170; relief financing, 181, 189; Security Council and, 60, 81; World Bank and, 211 Gildersleeve, Virginia, 22 Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, 37 Global Financial Stability Report, 216 Global Sustainable Development Report, 201 Goldberg, Arthur J., 51 Goodwill Ambassadors, 32, 40, 184 Gore, Al, 229 Gowan, Richard: on climate change, 31, 231; difficult period, 14; on the General Assembly, 93, 98; on nuclear nonproliferation, 73; on peace and security, 13, 120; on the PGA, 94; on political missions, 126; on the Security Council, 65; on terrorism, 150; on Trump’s influence, 41–42 Grossi, Rafael, 183 Group of 77 (G-77), 96–97 Guterres, António: on 2030 Agenda, 194; agenda, 29–31; appointed secretary-general, 26–28, 32; on budgeting, 253–54; on climate change, 230–31; on COVID-19, 2, 31, 57, 75, 116, 156; on deputy secretary-­ general, 34; G-77 and, 96; on gender equality, 130, 203; on the General Assembly, 85, 94; on R2P, 171–72; relations

INDEX

with United States, 41–42, 53; Secretary-General role, 106, 109; on the Security Council, 88; on sexual abuse, 132; special envoys, 37; on terrorism, 138, 143, 145, 150; on UN reform, 120, 122, 243–45, 247, 249; at UN sites, 113   Haiti, 128–30, 134, 206 Haley, Nikki: diplomatic relationships, 110; HRC withdrawal, 160; on Israel, 63; on member voting records, 239; on North Korea, 73, 148; at Security Council, 45, 102; as UN ambassador, 44, 48, 51, 53; US policy, 15 Hammarskjöld, Dag, 8, 27, 29 HIV/AIDS, 76, 185, 192 Holbrooke, Richard: as ambassador, 47, 51, 100; diplomatic relationships, 107; on HIV/ AIDS, 76; on the Secretary-­ General, 27; on the Security Council, 58; US support for UN, 14, 246, 252 HRC. See Human Rights Council “Human Development Index” (HDI), 203 Human Development Report, 203, 206 humanitarian law, 29 humanitarian relief, 180–89; children, 184; famine response, 181–82; health crises, 185–86; organizations, 180; “quick impact projects,” 183; refugees, 183, 186, 188; Sahel manage-

INDEX

ment, 187–88; triple crisis, 187 human mobility, 30 human rights, 154–72; LGBTI issues, 163–65; treaties and covenants, 154–56. See also Human Rights Council; International Bill of Human Rights; Third Committee; UN Human Rights Commission; Universal Declaration of Human Rights Human Rights Council (HRC), 9, 52–53; on LGBTI rights, 164; membership of, 157–58; role and responsibilities, 158–60; “SOGI expert,” LGBTI issues, 163; special rapporteurs, 158; US withdrawal, 42, 53, 160–62 Human Rights Watch, 160, 164 Hussein, Saddam, 58, 67–69   IAEA. See International Atomic Energy Agency IBRD. See International Bank for Reconstruction and Development ICC. See International Criminal Court IDA. See International Development Association IFAD. See International Fund for Agricultural Development IMF. See International Monetary Fund India, 144 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), 73, 137, 144–45, 149, 152, 183, 253; Incident and Trafficking Database, 138

325 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), 208 International Bill of Human Rights, 24, 155 International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), 208 International Children’s Emergency Fund. See United Nations Children’s Fund International Civil Aviation ­ Organization (ICAO), 215–16, 222 International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, 169. See also responsibility to protect International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, 218 International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), 218 International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, 90 International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, 139, 166 International Court of Justice (ICJ): Iranian assets case, 165; membership of, 165, 168; recent cases, 165–66, 168; role and responsibilities, 165; war crimes cases, 168 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 24, 154

326 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 24 International Criminal Court (ICC): prosecution of atrocities, 166–67; role and responsibilities, 166; US stance on, 167 International Crisis Group, 93, 120, 150, 231 International Development Association (IDA), 208 International Drug Control Program, 220, 223 International Finance Corporation (IFC), 208 International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), 209 International Labor Organization (ILO), 210 International Law Commission, 155 International Maritime Academy, 223 International Maritime Law Institute, 223 International Maritime Organization (IMO), 218–19, 223 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 216, 223 International Narcotics Control Board, 220 International Telecommunication Union (ITU), 213–14, 223 International Trademark System, 219 Iran, 67–69; human rights and, 159, 240; NPT and, 138, 145, 148–49; nuclear agreement,

INDEX

42, 52; sanctions, 50, 53, 73–75, 149; Security Council resolutions, 149 Iran Nuclear Deal, 74–75, 149 Iraq, 150; Gulf War, 38; LGBTI issues, 76; sanctions, 69 Iraq War, 14, 58, 67–68 Israel: HRC bias, 157; Jerusalem as capital, 53, 61, 63; NPT and, 144; Security Council seat, 105; Suez Canal conflict, 115; UNESCO bias, 218. See also Palestine; UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East Italy, 64, 130–31   Japan, 60, 64, 72, 81, 147, 211, 255–57 Ja Song Nam, 148 Johnson, Herschel V., 51 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), 74, 149   Khalilzad, Zalmay, 12, 47, 50–51, 133 Khan, Abdul Qadeer, 144 Kim, Jim Yong, 207 Kim Jong-il, 70–71 Kim Jong-un, 71, 73, 146, 148 King, Inga Rhonda, 174, 177 Kingo, Lise, 193 Kirkpatrick, Jeane J., 51 Kyoto Protocol, 229   labor. See International Labor Organization Lacroix, Jean-Pierre, 117 Lajčák, Miroslav, 94, 98

INDEX

Laurenti, Jeffrey, 5, 21, 46, 91, 161, 240–41 League of Nations, 2, 17, 21, 23, 115, 179 Lebanon, 167 Lerner, Jon, 48 Liberia, 130, 134–35 Libya: civil war, 38, 170–71; conference on, 82; gender rights, 130–31; ICC preliminary examination, 168; NATO strikes, 50, 66–67; R2P in, 170–71; special representative, 37 Lie, Trygve, 27 Liu, Zhenmin, 36, 193 Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr., 51 Lowcock, Mark, 36, 180–81 Luck, Edward, 250 Luers, William, 39   Mali, 77, 150, 168, 187 Malloch-Brown, Mark: deputy secretary-general (DSG), 14–15; diplomacy in UN, 10, 50; Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, 37; on Libya, 66–67, 170; peace operations, 134; on reform agenda, 248–49; on secretary-general’s role, 28; on Security Council, 171 Malone, David: on agency leaders, 183; on American ambassador, 46–47; on diplomacy, 100; on DRC, 121; on ECOSOC missions, 178; on MDGs, 192, 199; on SDGs, 200–201, 209; on Secretariat, 33; on secretary-­ general’s role, 41; on Security

327 Council, 65; on treaties, 89; on UN’s importance, 39 Martin, Ian, 80 McHenry, Donald, 51 MDGs. See Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) campaign Mello, Sérgio Vieira de, 150, 163 Melrose, Joseph, 46, 103, 106–7 member groups, General Assembly: African Group, 81; AsiaPacific Group, 240; Eastern Europe Group, 240; Group of 77, 96–97; Group of Four, 81; LGBTI Core Group, 164; NonAligned Movement, 96; OpenEnded Working Group, 83 Messengers of Peace, 32, 40 Migiro, Asha-Rose, 34 migration, 197, 229–30; special representative for, 37 Millennium Declaration, 194 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) campaign, 38, 40, 192–94, 199, 211 Mlambo-Ngcuka, Phumzile, 36 Mohammed, Amina J., 34–35, 191, 193–94, 201, 208, 244 Montreal Protocol of 1987, 233 MONUC. See United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Moynihan, Daniel P., 51 Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), 117, 120, 129, 131, 134 Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), 208 Myanmar, 29, 65, 78, 160, 168, 221

328 Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), 229–30 Nebenzia, Vassily, 110 Negroponte, John: on bilateral relationships, 104; on diplomacy, 112; on NGOs, 175; on the P5, 59, 66; on the Security Council, 102, 237; on the UN Village, 100–101, 103; US ambassador, 44, 48, 51 Neuer, Hillel, 162 A New Global Partnership, 193–94 NGOs. See nongovernmental organizations 9/11 attacks. See terrorism and counterterrorism Nobel Peace Prize, 136, 152, 184, 189, 210, 228 Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), 96–97 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), 103, 158, 162, 169, 173, 175–78, 180, 183 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 38, 50, 66, 82, 170 North Delegates Lounge, 107 North Korea: human rights in, 160, 162; NPT and, 138, 144–48; sanctions, 42, 50, 52–53, 69–73, 146–48. See also Six-Party Talks NPT. See Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), 70–71, 73, 138, 144–46, 148–49 nuclear proliferation: Iran and, 52, 73–75; North Korea sanctions, 42, 50, 52–53, 69–73; Security

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Council debate, 57–58; UN focus, 39 nuclear weapons: “fatal flaw,” 138; UN focus, 29   OAU. See Organization of African Unity Obama, Barack, and Obama administration: cabinet-status ambassadors, 44, 50, 53; consensus-based multilateralism, 42; General Assembly voting and, 239; HRC seat, 161; ICC and, 167; Security Council restructuring, 82; Security Council Summit on Foreign Terrorist Fighters, 104; Security Council Summit on Nuclear Proliferation and Disarmament, 72, 142; on a strong UN, 10, 12 Odusola, Ayodele, 199, 227 Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 181–83 Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), 246 Office of Military Affairs (OMA), 117 Office of Rule of Law and Security Institutions (OROLSI), 116–17 Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 158 Oil-for-Food Program, 38, 68 OMA. See Office of Military Affairs Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), 152, 240 Organization of African Unity (OAU), 135

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Organization of American States, 80–81   P5. See Security Council, permanent members Pakistan, 144, 210 Palestine, 98, 115, 161, 166. See also UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Paris Agreement, 226, 230–32. See also climate change Partnership on Plastic Waste, 234 Patrick, Stewart, 13, 58, 81–82, 241–42 Payet, Rolph, 234 PBC. See Peacebuilding Commission PBF. See Peacebuilding Fund PBSO. See Peacebuilding Support Office Peacebuilding Commission (PBC), 123 Peacebuilding Fund (PBF), 123–25 Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO), 123 peacekeeping, 114–22, 126–36; internal conflicts, 114–36; Security Council, 115–16, 118 peace operations, 114–46, 128t, 131; blue-helmet missions, 120, 129; Brahimi report, 118–19; budget, 126; Cruz report, 119; list of, 127t; map of, 118t, 124t; mixed results, 132–36; police and troops, 127–29; reform of, 122–23; use of force, 119–20, 126. See also Democratic Republic of the Congo; women

329 Pérez de Cuéllar, Javier, 28 Perkins, Edward J., 51 Philippines, 168 Pickering, Thomas R., 51 Pillay, Navanethem, 163 Policy, Evaluation and Training Division (DPET), 117 political affairs and peacebuilding, 120, 122–26 Pompeo, Mike, 15, 315 Power, Samantha, 12, 43, 50–53, 111–12, 176, 248–49, 257; on LBGTI issues, 164 Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-TestBan Treaty Organization (CTBTO), 152–53 president of the General Assembly (PGA), 87, 91, 94–95, 98 Principal Organs. See Economic and Social Council; General Assembly; International Court of Justice; Secretariat; Security Council; Trusteeship Council Procurement Task Force, 247   al-Qaeda network, 78, 139–40, 150, 168   R2P. See responsibility to protect reform, 243–50; administrative, 33, 38, 247; Annan on, 33, 38; Ban Ki-moon on, 33, 247–48; budgeting, 246–48; efforts, 246; General Assembly role, 245–46, 249; Guterres on, 120, 122, 243–45, 247, 249; peacekeeping efforts, 38, 244, 247; three-part program, 30–31, 42,

330 reform (continued ) 247; UN focus, 40, 250; United States and, 27, 247–48 Refugee Brief, 183 responsibility to protect (R2P), 38, 168–72. See also human rights Rice, Susan, 13, 44, 50–51, 53, 97, 159 Richardson, Bill, 51 Robinson, Mary, 163 Rome Treaty, 166–67 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 23, 157, 162 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 1, 4, 18, 21–22 Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure (PIC) for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade, 233 Russia/Russian Federation: assessed contribution to UN, 258; diplomacy of, 110, 112; humanitarian resolutions, 67; interest of, 21, 41, 65–66; North Korea and, 72, 147; Security Council abstentions, 66, 166, 170; Security Council and, 20, 59, 65, 81, 171; Security Council veto, 60–61, 237; Ukraine and, 101, 166; UN origins, 17; UN Village, 109. See also Cold War Rwanda, 132–33, 166, 169   sanction committees, 78 sanctions. See Security Council dos Santos Cruz, Carlos Alberto, 119 Saudi Arabia, 64, 104, 160, 166

INDEX

Scali, John P., 51 Schlesinger, Stephen, 4, 20–21, 60 Scranton, William W., 51 SDGs. See Sustainable Development Goals Seck, Coly, 161 Second Committee (Economic and Financial), 92 Secretariat, 56–83; 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development role, 200–201; budgeting, 246, 248–49, 251, 253; Charter definition, 33; facilities and staff, 32–34, 99; reform of peace operations, 244; role and responsibilities, 11, 28, 123; sexual abuse issues, 132, 158; UNCTAD and, 211 Secretariat Building, 103, 108 secretary-general, 25–31; agenda, 41; annual luncheon, 28, 86, 101, 106, 109; list of former, 27–28; role and responsibilities, 25, 27–28, 32; selection of, 26; special representatives, 36–37 Security Council, 78–80; Arria-­ formula, 78–80, 163; climate change, 77; climate change issue, 229; E10, 59–61, 64, 67, 80; global security, 75–76; membership of, 59, 61, 63–64, 66–67; member travel, 77–78; mission, 56–57, 75; nontraditional matters, 76–77; Palestinian issue, 64, 105, 115; peacekeeping budget, 257; peace missions, 115; resolutions, 57, 62t, 70–73, 76, 128, 139–41, 146,

INDEX

149, 169–70; restructuring, 80–83; sanction committees, 78; subsidiary bodies, 78; on Syria, 50, 52–54, 64, 112; terrorism focus, 139–43, 222; voting in, 58, 67, 82, 170, 237. See also E10 Security Council, permanent members (P5): leadership in, 64; P5 club, 64–66, 80–82; status and clout, 59–60; United States in, 58–59; veto power, 20–21, 57, 60–62, 62t; voting, 237, 238t Security Council, sanctions, 42, 50, 53, 67–75, 132–36, 146 Security Council resolutions: Afghanistan, 139; climate change, 227; health and disease, 76; Iran, 72–74, 149; Iraq, 68; Israel, 61, 115; Libya, 66–67, 82, 170; North Korea, 65, 70–72, 146, 148; nuclear proliferation, 144–45; peacekeeping, 169; peace operations, 125, 128, 169; sexual violence, 76; Syria, 45, 61, 237; terrorism, 59, 139–41, 222; Ukraine, 111 Security Council Summit on Nuclear Proliferation and Disarmament, 72 Senior Management Group (SMG), 35–36 September 11, 2001. See terrorism and counterterrorism sexual violence, 37, 76, 132, 158 Sheehan, Michael, 28 Sierra Leone, 134, 166 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 220

331 Six-Party Talks, 71–72, 147 Sixth Committee (Legal), 93 Slovenia. See Yugoslavia SMG. See Senior Management Group social and economic inequality, 24, 30–31, 34–35, 38, 203. See also Economic and Social Council Soderberg, Nancy, 5, 88, 97, 105–6, 110 Somalia, 34, 37, 69, 165, 184, 259 South Sudan, 84, 131, 160 Soviet Union. See Russia/Russian Federation special representatives, 37 Stalin, Joseph, 1, 21, 60 Statement on the State of the Global Climate in 2019, 230 State of the World’s Children, 185 Steinem, Gloria, 112 Steiner, Achim, 202, 227 Stettinius, Edward R., Jr., 51 Stevenson, Adlai E., 51 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, 233 sustainable development. See 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) campaign, 41, 191, 195–99t, 200–202, 206, 208, 226; toolbox to repair the world, 200. See also 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Syria: chemical weapons crisis, 65, 110, 152; Civil War, 27, 39, 53, 105, 171; General Assembly debate, 93; LGBTI issues, 76;

332 Syria (continued) Resolution 2401, 45, 61; terrorism and, 139; terrorism in, 29   terrorism and counterterrorism: committees, 78, 137–53; Countering Terrorist Travel Program, 145; 9/11 attacks, 48, 139–40; Sahel region, 150; treaties and protocols, 90, 139, 147t, 166; UN as target, 150–52; UN focus, 29, 138–39, 141; United States position, 42. See also Counter-­ Terrorism Committee Thant, U, 28 Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian & Cultural), 92–93, 163 transportation. See International Civil Aviation Organization treaties, 89–91 Truman, Harry S., 19, 23 Trump, Donald, and Trump administration: cabinet-status ambassadors, 44; on climate change, 231; diplomacy in, 110; General Assembly speech, 11; Guterres and, 27, 31; HRC withdrawal, 160–61; ICC and, 167; on member voting records, 239; on North Korea, 73, 148; on reform agenda, 11, 88, 245; at secretary-general’s luncheon, 109; UN skeptic, 15; on UN Village, 101; on US role at UN, 42, 53 Trusteeship Council, 87, 178–79 Turk, Danilo, 69

INDEX

2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, 34, 41, 89, 190–211, 244, 246–47; Highlevel Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPFs), 174, 193, 200. See also Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) campaign; Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) campaign   Uganda, 168, 187 Ukraine, 61, 101, 111–12, 166, 168 UN Center for Human Settlements (Habitat), 210 UN Charter: amendment, 80; Article 1, 154; components of, 20; General Assembly, 86–87, 90, 156; General Assembly treaties, 90; human rights, 23, 154, 156; member assessments and arrears, 259–60; national sovereignty, 20–21; peacekeeping, 114; poster, 22; Preamble, 1–2, 4, 22; ratification of, 19; Secretariat definition, 32; secretary-general, 27–28, 33; Security Council mandate, 56–60, 80; signing ceremony, 19; sustainable development, 190; voting procedures, 87–88 UN Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, 220 UNCTAD. See United Nations Conference on Trade and Development UN Development Program (UNDP), 35, 40, 202, 210, 244

INDEX

UNEF. See UN Emergency Force UN Emergency Force (UNEF), 115 UN Environment Program (UNEP), 228, 233–35 UN Ethics Office, 247 UN headquarters and member nation flags, 3 UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, 163–64; list of, 163 UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 27, 183–84, 188 UN Human Rights Commission, 23, 156–57, 161–62 UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), 210 UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 228–30, 235 United National Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 42, 216–18, 223 United Nations, 1–16; attitudes toward, 4–5; definition of, 5, 8; importance of, 12; politics of, 41–42; sovereign member states, 4–5, 11; terrorism target, 150. See also peacekeeping; reform United Nations, founding of, 17–24; Allied powers, 18; Dumbarton Oaks meeting, 17; San Francisco conference (1945), 18. See also UN Charter: Preamble United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), 40, 183–85, 188, 253, 258

333 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), 211 United Nations Convention against Corruption, 90, 155 United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. See UN Women United Nations Forum on Forests, 175 United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), 135 United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), 121 United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), 121–22, 129, 133 United Nations Statistical Commission, 174 United Nations System, 6t–7t, 8–10 United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), 115 United States: ambassador, 43–55, 51 (list); assessed contribution to UN, 253, 255–56, 258; climate change, 31; commitment to UN, 14–15; human rights and, 156–57, 160–65; ICC and, 167; Iran and, 42, 50, 52, 149, 165; Iraq and, 67–68; Iraq War, 58–59; Kyoto Protocol, 229; member voting reporting, 236; nuclear proliferation, Iran and, 52, 73–75; nuclear proliferation,

334 United States (continued ) North Korea and, 42, 50, 52–53, 69–73; peacekeeping, 114–22, 126–36; peace operations, 114, 125–27, 130–36; political affairs and peacebuilding, 114–15, 122; sanctions and, 15, 50, 53, 72–73, 75, 101; terrorism, 31, 137–43; UN mission, 44–46; veto power, 21, 57, 60–61; veto power in UN, 21; voluntary contributions, 258; weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), 31, 137–38, 144–48; withdrawals, 160–62, 218 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 23–24, 154–55 Universal Periodic Review (UPR), 162 Universal Postal Union (UPU), 214–15, 224 UN LGBTI Core Group, 164 UNMEE. See UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea UNMIL. See United Nations Mission in Liberia UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), 136 UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), 37, 131 UNODA. See UN Office for Disarmament Affairs UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA), 153 UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), 221–23; Drug Alternative Development Program, 220; Global Assessment Program, 220

INDEX

UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP), 131–33 UN Police, 126–32 UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), 93, 181 UNRWA. See UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East UNSMIL. See UN Support Mission in Libya UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), 37 UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB), 28–29 UN Village, 99–113; diplomacy in, 101, 103–4, 106–7, 112; food in, 107–9; formality and informality in, 100–101, 105–6; gender issues in, 110–12; “neighborhoods” of, 101–2; secretary-­ general and, 113; Security Council in, 103–5. See also member groups: General Assembly UN Women, 202–3, 211 UPR. See Universal Periodic Review Urquhart, Brian, 11, 23–24, 83 US Government Accountability Office (GAO), 134, 247–48 US State Department: Eleanor Roosevelt and, 23; HIV/AIDS report, 76; member voting reporting, 236–42; opening session proposal distribution, 18; peacekeeping report, 136; US Global Peace Operations

INDEX

Initiative, 127; voting report, 236–39, 242   Venezuela, 163, 168, 183 veto power, 20–21, 57, 60–62, 67, 237 Voronkov, Vladimir Ivanovich, 36 voting blocs, 96–97; emerging nations, 241–42; important votes, 240–41 voting practices, 236–42 Voting Practices in the United Nations, 236, 238–40   Wadsworth, James J., 51 Waldheim, Kurt, 28 Walters, Vernon A., 51 weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), 137–38, 144–50 Wedgwood, Ruth, 138, 140, 156, 161, 163 WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), 90–91 Wiggins, James Russell, 51 women: G7 to G37, 111; gender equality, 36, 94, 195–96, 201, 203, 211; merger of UN bodies for focus, 203, 206; peacekeeping and, 76; peacekeeping personnel, 129–32; SDG Goals and, 196. See also “Gender

335 Development Index”; sexual violence; UN Village Working Group on Documentation, 78 World Bank, 181, 207–8, 211 World Court. See International Court of Justice World Drug Report, 221–22 World Economic Outlook, 216 World Food Program (WFP), 180, 182, 188, 253, 258 World Health Organization (WHO), 90, 183, 185–86, 189, 214, 253 World Heritage Site, 217 World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), 219, 224 World Maritime University, 223 World Meteorological Organization (WMO), 227–30, 235 World War II, 1–2, 17, 59, 184. See also United Nations, founding of   Yemen, 29, 65, 159–60, 237 Yost, Charles W., 51 Young, Andrew, 51 Youth Forum, 177 Yugoslavia, 69, 79, 133, 166   Zhang Jun, 66