The Economist has weighed in on reform for the United Nations (hat tip: American Future):
Long-awaited proposals on reforming the United Nations have been unveiled. Backers hope they will rejuvenate the world body. But they come at a time when the UN is under fire—especially from Americans, many of whom think it is irrelevant and corrupt
[…].
The UN’s sorry state became most obvious with the Iraq war. Those favouring the war were furious that after a decade of Security Council resolutions, including the last-chance Resolution 1441 threatening “serious consequences” if Iraq did not prove its disarmament, the UN could not agree to act. Anti-war types were just as frustrated that the world body failed to stop the war. But Iraq was not the UN’s only problem. It has done little to stop humanitarian disasters, such as the ongoing horror in Sudan. And it has done nothing to stop Iran’s and North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Well, yes, the Iraq War is a factor. But I believe that the critical failings of the UN were brought into sharp relief more than twenty years ago at the time of the Iran hostage crisis. What seems to be forgotten about it is that the U. S. embassy was seized and held over a very long period. I believe that the UN needed to respond to that challege: it was a challenge to diplomacy itself. Either the new revolutionary government was complicit in the hostage-taking or it was helpless or unwilling to resolve it i.e. Iran was a failed state.
International law had been violated. The local government was either unwilling or unable to correct the situation (or there was no local government). That’s a prima facie case for a UN intervention.
And there was no intervention. Nothing happened. The most obvious conclusion that Americans could draw was that the world believed that the purpose of America was to support the UN not to receive support from it.
Everyone agrees that the Security Council is an unrepresentative relic: of its 15 seats, five are occupied by permanent, veto-wielding members (America, Russia, China, Britain and France) and ten go to countries that rotate every two years and have no veto. But that the council’s composition is a throwback to the world order immediately after the second world war has been agreed on for decades, without any success in changing it. Japan and Germany, the second- and third-biggest contributors to the UN budget, believe they are entitled to permanent seats. So does India, the world’s second-most-populous country, and Brazil, Latin America’s biggest. Unlike in previous efforts, these four have finally banded together to press their case. And they are joined in spirit by the Africans, who want two seats for their continent.
Why should the Security Council be representative? As I’ve written before the General Assembly is very representative and almost completely ineffective. How will making the Security Council more closely resemble the General Assembly make it more effective?
The real question here is not why Germany, Japan, India, and Brazil aren’t on the Security Council. The real question is why are China and France on the Security Council?
The panel has proposed two alternatives. The first would give six countries (none is named but probably Germany, Japan, India, Brazil and two African countries) permanent seats without a veto, and create three extra non-permanent seats, bringing the total number of council members to 24. The second, which would expand the council by the same number of seats, creates a new middle tier of members who would serve for four years and could be immediately re-elected, above the current lower tier of two-year members, who cannot be re-elected. The rivals to the would-be permanent members favour this option.
The panel’s proposals are flawed. What should really happen is that real, hard critieria should be established for veto-wielding membership on the Security Council and that membership should be automatic when the criteria have been achieved. As of this moment only the United States and Russia meet reasonable criteria for a seat on the Council. I mean criteria that most of the General Assembly wouldn’t meet as well.
Though the Charter was written to govern war between countries, the panel argues that even without revision, Chapter VII lets the Security Council authorise force for more controversial, modern reasons like fighting terrorists and intervention in states committing humanitarian horrors. It even considers “preventive” wars against serious but non-imminent threats potentially justifiable.
But the panel also says any decision to use force must pass five tests: the threat must be grave; the primary purpose must be to avert the threat; force must be a last resort; means must be proportional; and there must be a reasonable chance that force will succeed without calamitous consequences. All common-sense stuff, but the panel proposes making these tests explicit (if subjective and unofficial), thus raising the quality of debate about any decision to go to war.
What does it mean when something is a last resort? Isn’t that a judgment call? Was the use of force in Iraq a last resort or not? After twelve years of daily violations of the cease-fire agreement that ended the Gulf War, was there any set of circumstances that would have led to the Security Council re-re-authorizing the use of force?
And, while we’re at it, to what should the means be proportional? Presumably the means should be proportional to the threat. If the threat is existential then the appropriate conclusion is that this would authorize pre-emptive annihilation of the enemy. If the threat is not existential but merely to 25 million Americans endangered by theoretical Iraqi weapons of mass destruction does that mean that it would be acceptable to kill 25 million Iraqis?
I don’t find the committee’s criteria commonsensical as The Economist does. I find them puffery.
After a brief discussion of the Oil-for-Food scandal The Economist concludes:
In this environment, the prospects for UN reform are clouded. Structural changes like those in the report require the backing of two-thirds of the delegates in the General Assembly, further ratification by two-thirds of the governments at home, and no veto by the Security Council’s permanent members. America is in a foul mood about the world body. Why bother reforming something hopelessly ineffective and even corrupt, many there ask? Despite universal agreement that the UN is in a bad way, the case for reform faces an uphill struggle.
On this I agree with The Economist. And the burden of proof is on the UN.
