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Al-Ahram Weekly 31 August - 6 September 2000 Issue No. 497 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 31 August - 6 September 2000 Issue No. 497
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Reshaping the UN
By Ibrahim Nafie
The Millennium Summit, to be held in New York from 6 to 8 September, will bring together a huge assembly of world leaders whose task will be to formulate a common global agenda for the 21st century.
The three-day summit marks a precedent in more ways than one. With all UN member nations participating, it promises to be truly global in scope. Also, unlike previous international gatherings, this is the first not to be precipitated by a full-scale international conflict.
Next week's summit aims to reconcile the current international order with changes that have impacted on international relations, and in so doing to overcome those problems that could potentially threaten international peace and security. The intent, too, is to generate a spirit of collective enterprise, a spirit that was epitomised in the statement announcing the forthcoming summit to the General Assembly: "The year 2000 marks a unique opportunity for the international community to take pause to reflect on the formulation of an effective vision for the role the UN should assume in confronting the challenges of the 21st century."
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been a motivating force behind this appeal, which, in effect, represents an extension of former UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali's drive to render the international organisation more democratic. Annan has consistently voiced his hopes and ideas for the UN at critical moments for the institution, the most sensitive being the Kosovo crisis.
Foremost among the concerns of world leaders in New York will be the question of UN reform. Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the bipolar order that had governed the world since the inception of the UN, there have been repeated calls to amend the UN charter so as to render the UN more effective in handling the problems of the post Cold War period. Many countries have voiced such appeals, the substance of which mirrors specific political allegiances and levels of economic and technological development. The advanced capitalist countries -- the winners of the Cold War -- want to amend the charter in a manner that would enable them to consolidate their victory and impose their vision for the ordering of international affairs. The losers of the Cold War, on the other hand, seek to preserve the essential features of the UN Charter so as to continue to secure for themselves an influential place in a multi-polar international order. Somewhere in the middle are the countries of the developing world who hope to modify the UN charter in a manner that will render the international body more democratic and, hence, more faithfully representative of their interests.
In New York each of these three camps will press vociferously for their version of "UN reform." If the developing nations of the world hope to influence the international community's outlook on this issue, they need to coordinate closely in order to achieve a degree of unanimity and a common platform. Only then will they stand a chance of transforming the UN into a "truly democratic forum" capable of providing an even keel for international relations and sustaining the confidence of all peoples of the world.
Of prime importance to the functions of the UN is the issue of humanitarian intervention as it relates to the concept of national sovereignty. This highly sensitive question is certain to cause considerable acrimony during the course of the Millennium Summit. The UN Charter explicitly prohibits international intervention in a nation's domestic affairs without a prior mandate from the Security Council, a provision that Washington and its NATO allies flagrantly ignored in their military intervention in Kosovo. However compelling the plight of the Kosovan people, NATO's circumvention of accepted international procedures marked a dangerous precedent that could threaten to undermine the UN and its established principles of safeguarding international peace and stability. Nevertheless, some action is needed in order to enhance the UN's capacity to avert such human tragedy. It is possible, for example, to consider a new set of legislation, on the lines of the rules that govern intervention in international disputes, that would enable the international community to intervene quickly and effectively for humanitarian purposes.
There is a delicate line that must be observed. Calls to modify the concept of sovereignty in order to permit for humanitarian intervention in a nation's domestic affairs have met with considerable consternation in the developing world where it is feared that a looser concept of sovereignty will be heavily abused. As Algerian President Abdel-Aziz Bouteflika aptly put it: "A nation's sovereignty is its last line of defence against the rules of an inequitable world... Where does benevolence end and meddling begin?"
Also on the agenda of the Millennium Summit are the issues of poverty and Third World debt, environmental protection and the fight against terrorism and organised crime. Developing nations must formulate a coherent stance on all these issues in order to press home their vision for the future of the UN as the embodiment of the will of the international community. At the summit, Egypt intends to voice the concerns of the developing world, a task for which it is eminently suited given its membership in the G-16 grouping. The G-16, founded in 1995 with the purpose of formulating a vision for a multi-polar world, has formulated clear and cohesive positions on the many items on the agenda of the Millennium Summit.
