President George W.
Bush's final address to the United Nations was, in many ways, an encapsulation
of America's primary objectives in the U.N over the past eight years. Several
issues were featured prominently in the speech, including:
- An appeal for the organization and the member states to
more forcefully confront terrorism;
- A demand for more action by the U.N. and the member
states on human rights;
- An exhortation for the President's freedom agenda
accompanied by justifications for why representative government bolsters
international peace and stability; and
- A call for the organization to implement reforms.
As is typical for these
speeches, details were largely absent. The responsibility now falls to the
State Department and the U.S. Mission to the U.N. to follow through and see
that the U.N. moves forward on the President's agenda.
A Call for Action
President Bush gave his
final speech to the U.N. General Assembly at the opening of the body's 63rd
session on September 23.[1]
The speech served as a final exhortation for the U.N. to take action on a number
of issues that the Bush Administration championed: the fight against global
terrorism, human rights, bolstering democracy and freedom, and U.N. reform.
The President is right
to emphasize these issues. They are important not just to U.S. interests but to
help make the U.N. a more effective, accountable vehicle for advancing the
principles outlined in its charter: to discourage conflict, reaffirm faith in
fundamental human rights, promote justice and respect for the obligations
arising from treaties and other sources of international law, and promote
better standards of life in larger freedom.
Unfortunately, many
member states have blunted efforts to advance the principles and priorities
advocated by President Bush in his address. In the waning days of the
Administration, U.S. officials at the State Department and the U.S. Mission
must focus on a few critical tasks to realize progress on the themes of the
President's speech:
- Terrorism.
Terrorism is an affront to international peace and security and human rights.
"Like slavery and piracy, terrorism has no place in the modern
world," the President noted, "A few nations—regimes like Syria
and Iran—continue to sponsor terror, yet their numbers are growing fewer
and they're growing more isolated from the world." President Bush
acknowledged the steps that have been taken to address terrorism in the
U.N., including Security Council resolutions "declaring terror
unlawful and requiring all nations to crack down on terrorist
financing" and a conference to highlight victims of terror. The
President warned, "As the 21st century unfolds, some may be tempted
to assume that the threat has receded. This would be comforting; it would
be wrong. The terrorists believe time is on their side, so they made
waiting out civilized nations part of their strategy. We must not allow
them to succeed."
Unfortunately, in praising U.N. efforts on combating terrorism, the
President glossed over the near complete ineffectiveness of the U.N. in
addressing the issue beyond meetings and rhetoric. In reality, the
"few nations" that continue to sponsor terrorism are members in
good standing at the U.N. They were in the U.N. chamber listening to his
speech. They seek, often successfully, to block efforts to combat
terrorism. The U.N. is hamstrung by their membership on the issue of
terrorism. A clear case in point is the fact that the U.N. has failed to
adopt a definition of terrorism.[2]
How can the organization, even with a number of treaties and committees
dedicated to terrorism, be an effective agent to combat terrorism when it
will not precisely state what "terrorism" is?
Subsequently, the U.N. should adopt an official definition of terrorism
that includes—beyond the actions condemned in existing terrorism treaties,
the Geneva Conventions, and Security Council Resolution 1566—any action
intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or
non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population, government,
or international organization.[3]
This would be the most lasting legacy of the Administration in the realm
of the U.N. response to terrorism and would immediately increase the
effectiveness of existing U.N. efforts to confront terrorism. - Human rights.
Since the birth of the U.N, protecting and advancing fundamental human
rights has been one of the organization's primary objectives. U.N.
treaties and conventions, such as the Universal Declaration on Human
Rights, which the General Assembly passed in 1948, form the core of
international standards for human rights. Sadly, the U.N.'s record in
getting member states to adopt and protect the fundamental human rights
identified in that document has been riddled with failure and inaction.
Such shortcomings occurred largely because governments hostile to human
rights used their influence to blunt efforts in the U.N. to hold them accountable
for their actions, particularly in U.N. bodies like the Commission on
Human Rights.
The General Assembly voted in March 2006 to replace the discredited
Commission on Human Rights with a new Human Rights Council to serve as the
U.N.'s premier human rights body. Sadly, governments hostile to human
rights have undermined the council's agenda by eliminating scrutiny of
states such as Iran and Cuba, constraining the independence of human
rights experts, and obtaining passage of a resolution on defamation of
religion that condones constraints on freedom of expression. The U.S. has
increasingly distanced itself from the council's failings, including
refusing to run for a seat.[4]
President Bush called for an immediate review of the council which, based
on the General Assembly resolution establishing the council,[5]
is mandatory before 2011. If the council is to live up to its potential,
the review must result in the adoption of substantial membership criteria
to prevent it being captured by governments that seek to block scrutiny of
human rights abuses or groups such as the Organization of the Islamic
Conference that support constraints on fundamental rights like freedom of
speech and expression through its proposals on the Defamation of Religion. - Democracy and the freedom agenda. A continuing theme throughout the Bush
Administration's two terms has been its determination to spread
representative government and liberty. It has sought to advance those
principles in the U.N. by supporting popular demonstrations for democracy
and initiating the U.N. Democracy Fund. The President rightly derided
those who say that some peoples do not desire freedom:
From
the voting booths of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Liberia, to the Orange Revolution
in Ukraine and the Rose Revolution in Georgia, to the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon
and the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan, we have seen people consistently make
the courageous decision to demand their liberty. For all the suggestions to the
contrary, the truth is that whenever or wherever people are given the choice,
they choose freedom.
Unfortunately,
the U.S. has been fighting an uphill battle to support freedom in the U.N.
Despite a growing number of democracies in the world over the past 20 years, a
majority of the U.N. member states remain neither politically nor economically
free, according to Freedom in the World 2008[6]
published by Freedom House and the 2008 Index of Economic Freedom[7]
published by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. The
U.N. practice of "one nation, one vote" allows the many members with
repressive economic and political systems and the worst human rights offenses
to vote together to block efforts to promote economic and political freedom.
Worse, these repressive governments exert pressure through regional voting
blocs and other political groupings—such as the Group of 77 and the Non-Aligned
Movement—to dissuade newly democratic countries or other countries that may
otherwise be positively disposed to efforts to promote freedom from voting in
favor of those efforts in the U.N. For instance, even though members of the
U.N. Democracy Caucus comprise over 75 percent of the membership of the Human
Rights Council, it has ignored ongoing state-sanctioned human rights abuses in
Belarus, Cuba, China, Iran, Uzbekistan, Zimbabwe, and elsewhere while spending
an inordinate amount of time criticizing Israel.
To counter the influence of anti-democratic, repressive governments, the State
Department and the U.S. Mission should seek to build and strengthen coalitions
among economically and politically free nations that share America's values and
principles. The U.S. should also use its foreign assistance to encourage
political and economic freedom in recipient countries and link disbursement of
that aid to support for U.S. initiatives in the U.N.[8]
- U.N. reform.
The U.N. is charged with many serious responsibilities and tasks. Millions
of individuals around the world rely on the U.N. for protection and other
assistance, but at times the U.N. has proven unreliable or even
detrimental in discharging these duties. As the President noted,
In
the 21st century, the world needs a confident and effective United Nations.
This unique institution should build on its successes and improve its
performance. Where there is inefficiency and corruption, it must be corrected.
Where there are bloated bureaucracies, they must be streamlined. Where members
fail to uphold their obligations, there must be strong action.
President
Bush is too generous. As evidenced by the well-publicized scandals involving
the Iraq Oil-for-Food program, abuses by U.N. peacekeepers, recent revelations
of corruption in U.N. procurement, and the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP)
violating its own rules and regulations in North Korea, the U.N. all too often
has proven vulnerable to corruption and fraud, unaccountable in its activities,
lacking in transparency and oversight, and duplicative and inefficient in its
allocation of resources. The U.N. General Assembly agreed in the 2005 Outcome
Document to adopt a number of reforms to address these problems. Despite
voluminous reports on reform and additional proposals by former Secretary
General Kofi Annan and current Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. General
Assembly has failed to implement or enforce a number of overdue reforms to
improve oversight, accountability, transparency, efficiency, and effectiveness
such as a review of U.N. mandates, enhancing oversight, and outsourcing to
reduce costs.[9]
While the reforms outlined in the 2005 Outcome Document are hardly sufficient,
they represent a starting point—one with the backing of all U.N. member states.
The U.S. should continue its efforts to implement these reforms and to work
with nations that are committed to improving the effectiveness and efficiency
of the U.N. through reformed management, human resources, budgetary, and
oversight practices. If the U.S.—with its one vote out of 192 U.N. member
states—is to be effective, the Administration must work with Congress to use
financial leverage to press for these changes. Pressure from the U.S. Congress
has been effective in the past and would further increase the pressure for
reform.[10]
Overwhelming Need for
Fundamental Reform
In his final speech to
the General Assembly, President Bush stated that the U.N. and other
multilateral organizations "are needed more urgently than ever." He
was partly right. The U.S. and the world would greatly benefit from an
effective U.N. focused on promoting its founding principles. Unfortunately,
that U.N. does not exist.
The U.N. is too often
opaque, unaccountable, inefficient, and vulnerable to fraud and corruption. It
is slow to act, when it can act at all. It is paralyzed by ideological
wrangling that prevents it from even agreeing on a definition of terrorism or
acknowledging massive human rights violations when they occur.
The President's speech
was a call for the U.N. and the member states to take the steps necessary to
make the U.N. relevant and effective. The need for fundamental reform is
overwhelming. The difficulties in accomplishing that reform, in the face of
widespread opposition among the membership, are even more overwhelming. In its
waning days, the Bush Administration and the U.S. Congress should work together
to achieve a few key initiatives to realize the reforms outlined in the
President's speech.
[1]
President Bush, address to the United Nations General Assembly, New York, NY,
September 23, 2008, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/09/20080923-5.html
(September 24, 2008).
[2]
This ambiguity is commonly expressed as "one man's terrorist is another
man's freedom fighter." The U.N. General Assembly stated that the
"definition of terrorism must distinguish between acts of terrorism and
acts in the exercise of the legitimate right to self-determination and defence
against foreign occupation." See "Terrorism Must Be Addressed in
Parallel with Poverty, Underdevelopment, Inequality, General Assembly Told, As
General Debate Concludes," Fifty-Sixth General Assembly, GA/9971, November
16, 2001. Security Council Resolution 1566, an anti-terrorism resolution
adopted in 2004, "recalls that criminal acts, including against civilians,
committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of
hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public
or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population or
compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from
doing any act, which constitute offences within the scope of and as defined in
the international conventions and protocols relating to terrorism, are under no
circumstances justifiable by considerations of a political, philosophical,
ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other similar nature, and calls upon all
States to prevent such acts and, if not prevented, to ensure that such acts are
punished by penalties consistent with their grave nature." However, the
resolution does not itself define terrorism. See Security Council Resolution
1566, October 8, 2004, at http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N04/
542/82/PDF/N0454282.pdf (September 24, 2008 )
[3]
Such a definition was proposed in the U.N. High-Level Panel on Threats,
Challenges and Change, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility, 2004, at
www.un.org/secureworld/report2.pdf (September 24,
2008).
[4]
Brett D. Schaefer, "The U.S. Is Right to Shun the U.N. Human Rights
Council," Heritage Foundation WebMemo No. 1910, May 2, 2008, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/International
Organizations/wm1910.cfm.
[5]
"Human Rights Council," General Assembly Resolution A/RES/60/251,
April 3, 2006, at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/
docs/A.RES.60.251_En.pdf (September 24, 2008).
[6]Freedom
House, Freedom in the World 2008: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and
Civil Liberties, at http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=395
(September 24, 2008).
[7]Kim
R. Holmes, Edwin J. Feulner, and Mary Anastasia O'Grady, 2008 Index of
Economic Freedom (Washington, D.C.: The Heritage Foundation and Dow Jones
& Company, Inc., 2008), at http://www.heritage.org/index.
[8]
See Brett D. Schaefer and Anthony B. Kim, "How Do U.S. Foreign Aid
Recipients Vote at the U.N.? Against the U.S.," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder
No. 2171, August 18, 2008 at http://www.heritage.org/Research/International
Organizations/bg2171.cfm.
[9]
Brett D. Schaefer, "Enough Reports: More Action Needed on U.N.
Reform," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 1988, December 8,
2006, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/International
Organizations/bg1988.cfm#_ftn4; "Who Leads the United
Nations?" Heritage Foundation Lecture No. 1054, December 4, 2007,
at http://www.heritage.org/Research/International
Organizations/hl1054.cfm.
[10]
Brett D. Schaefer, "A Progress Report on U.N. Reform," Heritage
Foundation Backgrounder No. 1937, May 19, 2006, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/International
Organizations/bg1937.cfm.