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Reports & Statements | Working Groups | Photos from the Halifax Conference | Schedule | Participants 53rd Pugwash Conference on Science and World
Affairs
The view that the United
Nations is "dead" (Richard Perle) is not new. For rigid
supporters of international peace enforcement - peace by military
means wherever required - the organization had served its turn already
in 1956 when it failed to put an end to the Soviet occupation of Hungary.
Serious disappointments would follow: Tibet, Czechoslovakia, Poland,
Afghanistan, East Timor, to mention just a few. The UN's major concern
has always been international security in its prime meaning
of the avoidance of war, while all that refers to "positive peace"
- in the sense of peace with justice - is seen as subservient to that
strategic thrust. It was only after the end of the Cold War that some
new optimism could arise regarding a corrective role for the UN in
cases of major aggression and grossly oppressive regimes; yet, what
followed were the disappointing 1990s, that period of missed opportunities. Strikingly, it is precisely
that "idealistic" peace enforcement discourse that is now
employed by the so-called realists who declare the UN to be dead again.
It is true, of course, that Saddam Hussein constituted a major dilemma
to the international community, as Tony Blair put it to the House
of Commons. However, in such dilemmas between human rights, democracy
and disarmament on the one hand, and international security on the
other hand, it used to be the latter that tipped the balance. This
was probably in line with the intentions of the 51 states that had
signed the Charter of the United Nations on 24 October 1945, a more
realistic design than the "softie" Pact of the League of
Nations. "Negative peace", in other words, was grounded
in that primary emotion of 1945: Never Again! Yet, what happened in
Iraq cannot be simply interpreted as a victory of American peace idealists
against the realism of a Security Council in line with the UN's founders.
One should rather speak of a new type of realism, based on unilateral
economic interests - the oil supply to the North, for example - and,
above all, a unipolar view on power. In the Declaration of 7 June
1997, signed by men like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz,
this new American realism had already been made explicit. An appeal
is made to accept America's unique role in the world and to maintain
an international order conducive to its security, welfare and principles.
In his State of the Union message of January 2002, George W. Bush
based his presidential doctrine on the following three principles:
active global American leadership, regime change in the case of "rogue"
governments and global promotion of neo-liberal democracy. During
the past years the United States has acted in conformity with that
line, showing time and again that they are with the UN only when it
suits them. Instances coming to mind include the Kyoto Protocol and
the International Criminal Court. Bypassing the Security Council in
a pre-emptive war fits into also that picture. Not surprisingly, the
US dealt with the "rogue" issue in the Middle East. Above
all, however, in its forceful opposition to the already heavily weakened
Iraqi state, Bush had an excellent opportunity to demonstrate American
supremacy as the foundation of a new international political order.
How to assess the consequences of that "New American Century"
in respect of the United Nations, and how to react? In the search for a new
foreign policy, e.g. in the European Union, reference is sometimes
made to a Pax Americana. With that term, comparisons come to
mind with the Pax Romana at the start of the first millennium and
the Pax Britannica in the 19th century. Notably, these hegemonies
served "negative peace", particularly in the case of the
British Empire outside Europe2.
The American obsession with "axes of evil" and regime change,
however, primarily implies war: a series of Bella Americana.
Strikingly, since 9/11 the United States considers itself as being
"in war". A first reaction, then,
that merits serious consideration is Tony Blair's attitude of "If
you can't beat them, join them!" While not his official political
line - which moved from the dangers of weapons of mass destruction
deployable within 45 minutes to "just war" against regimes
that cause their own subjects unnecessary suffering - it would at
least be a strategy one could understand. In the new century, American
military supremacy is a fact of life, and the only way to contain
its consequences with regard to the international political order
is to stay within the Atlantic alliance. Unfortunately, however, it
is not the coalition but the mission that decides policies ("the
mission must determine the coalition, the coalition must not determine
the mission"3).
Illustratively, when Blair seemed to face trouble in his parliament,
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld rushed to point out the possibility of
"going it alone". In Washington today, even NATO is seen
as an impediment to the necessary flexibility. As for the European
Union, "disaggregation" appears to be the core of American
foreign policy, as a State department official recently declared4.
The price one pays for
the "join them" formula is its enhancement of the position
of the current American administration in the struggle for international
legitimacy. We are touching upon a complicated notion here, and one
that in international debate is often overlooked. Even when power
is "a fact of life", it is still confronted with the need
for reception by those affected by its execution. The ruled,
in other words, have to accept the rule of the rulers. The new American
leadership recognizes this; hence the "imbedding" of journalists
in their war machine. In our modern world, legitimacy is the inescapable
condition for holding power without repressing one's own people. Apparently,
the legitimation effort of the Bush II administration appears to be
focused on a combination of ideological persuasion and an emphasis
on outcome: "All 's well that ends well." However, legitimacy
is a matter of three things: the right principles and institutions,
the right processes and the right outcomes. As to the principles,
the new American leadership no longer recognizes the United Nations'
Charter as an International Constitution. Here, a political philosophical
battle has to be fought with all possible force, based on a combination
of realism and moral conviction. As to the former, world peace
through world law5 is,
indeed, not yet a fully realized option and most probably never will
be. In a global context, formation and execution of power without
a solid legal base remains inevitable. But wherever that takes place,
its objectives and focus have to be questioned continuously, and a
real effort has to be made to incorporate not only political, but
also military and economic power, in an international legal setting.
Insofar as global power formation cannot be based on principles of
representative democracy, power sharing constitutes the next best
option. Essential in this respect is not the incorporation of primarily
"the willing", but precisely the incorporation of opposing
forces. Military power may, indeed, provide security, but it can also
attract danger and new threats6,
as illustrated today in post-war Iraq. International law, as positivized
in the Charter of the United Nations and further developed through
decades of UN practice, is based on the primary principle of non-intervention.
Notwithstanding the international character of human rights obligations
as obligationes erga omnes, humanitarian intervention cannot
be based on unilateralist action7.
It is the principle of the rule of law, so vigorously defended domestically
in the United States, that have to be extended to global forms of
governance: limited government, government by law and respect for
subjective rights, both of individuals and of groups. Fortunately, this political philosophical confrontation of the "New American Century" position, based as it is on the wrong principles, is already becoming part of the daily debate within the United States. Europe, that birthplace of international law, also has to join in the debate, refuting the attempts at "disaggregation". International civil society will doubtless take part, too: watch the coming World Social Forum IV in Bombay, January 2004. For Pugwash International, an inspiring role seems an obvious consequence of our strategic thrust in international affairs, with the Annual Conference as a prime opportunity. No less important is the international corporate world. An increasing focus on "corporate responsibility" may well result in a global interest in these matters, too: watch the coming World Economic Forum in Davos, January 2004. Genuine universality exists in market-related rights and values, rather than in the fundamental freedoms and entitlements following from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights whose quinquennial celebration is loudly announced every five years. The People deficit in the new triple value approach - People, Planet, Profit - in global business might worry the participants at the World Economic Forum as much as it does the non-governmental community at the World Social Forum. (Rather urgent, by the way, is the establishment of structural connections between these two principal global fora.) In respect of global legitimacy,
a discussion of the right principles is a great deal easier than an
examination of the right institutions. There is a lot of well-founded
criticism on the UN, and here it is worth listening to the current
American administration as well. (Evidently, a focus on legitimacy
implies that, in terms of their military supremacy, the United States
is not necessarily right, but nor is it necessarily wrong.) Inefficient
and ineffective bureaucracies, irrelevant discussions, and endless
procedures undermine the organization. The point is that the right
processes, the next major element in establishing legitimacy in
the realm of global power, are necessarily connected with the United
Nations, and it happens to be that the UN itself suffers from a lack
of democratic legitimation in its decision-making processes. This
applies to the United Nations as such, but also to connected agencies
such as the World Trade Organization. An impression is created that
whatever has been decided in the upper levels, corrections downstream
are never possible. Operational structures will have to be found to
facilitate decent and credible association with civil society at both
the global and the local level. It is true, of course, that in their
exclamation, "Thank God for the death of the United Nations",
Richard Perle and the likes have to be convincingly confronted. But
that battle has to be fought with more than words alone; it is, indeed,
high time for a revitalization of the United Nations in line with
its new tasks. Hence, Kofi Annan's immediate reaction on the war that
bypassed the international community - you stumble, you fall, you
rise, and then you walk again - misses the seriousness of the current
crisis in the international political order8.
A revitalization of the UN is to be founded in the three grand projects with which the organization started after World War II: international security, human rights and development. The major challenge today is to create an approach that integrates across these ventures' three separate institutional settings: the Security Council, with its international political focus; ECOSOC and the human rights institutions with their juridical focus; and the United Nations Development Program, the specialized agencies and the Bretton Woods institutions with their economic focus. When the Roosevelt Foundation in Middelburg (NL) gives out its "four freedoms awards" it nominates not only four prize winners for the freedom of speech, the freedom of worship, the freedom from fear and the freedom from want, but the Academy also awards a fifth: for the four together9. In all three major fields
of international governance - international security, human rights
and development - a re-engineering seems well in place. If the current
crisis were to contribute to such an undertaking, it might even be
seen as positive. Finally, there remains
the issue of outcome. In the three areas of this international mission,
our world today is confronted with huge deficits. The international
security deficit expresses itself in endless manifestations of intra-state
collective violence. Grave instances of complete failure of the international
community come to mind here (Rwanda, Srebenica). The realization of
human rights suffers from a huge deficit too, which is all
too often submerged in the general euphoria over human rights declarations,
conferences, committee meetings and workshops. Despite the International
Criminal Court (confronted by the United States with its "Hague
Invasion Act"), a virtually worldwide struggle has to be fought
against the impunity of state-related perpetrators of civil and political
rights. Moreover, other human rights problems continue to exist: there
is an apparent lack of protection offered to minorities; a continued
public-private divide, which paralyzes the struggle against domestic
violence; and daily non-implementation of economic, social and cultural
rights in a world in which so many people's basic needs remain denied.
There is an enormous development deficit, too, manifesting itself
in gigantic inequalities between countries and between people. In
spite of all progress made since the UN's foundation, these deficits
are still far from being effectively tackled. Confronting these deficits
will require a different style in international politics at all levels.
This style will need to be tuned to the consultation and involvement
of people, rather than geopolitical maneuvering, and it will need
to deal primarily with the real threats, such as lack of water, rather
than outward manifestations of power like the possession of weapons
of mass destruction. Within an international
setting tuned to negative as well as positive peace, a special position
for the United States, with its impressive power in terms of military,
financial and human resources, will have to be accepted. Essential
in that respect is a legal framework based on a re-engineering of
international principles regarding sovereignty and the prohibition
of violence. To further this goal, the old principle of proportionality
applies: even justified interests are not to be pursued with means
that result in disproportionate damage to people outside the actual
conflict. Obviously, then, in the current crisis in the international political order, much more is at stake today than just international security in a narrow sense. Indeed, it is not merely a revision of the Security Council and a discussion on the prohibition of violence between states that are part of the agenda, but also at stake is the role of the United Nations in conflict prevention. For those working on that agenda, the realism of the United Nations' founders may offer profound inspiration, but their ideals may ultimately prove to be even more crucial. 1. [back]
Professor of Political Economy of Human Rights, Utrecht University; 2. [back] Cf. W.F. de Gaay Fortman, Recht en vrede, in B. de Gaay Fortman (ed.), Christendom en oorlog, Kampen: Kok, 1966, pp. 146-147. 3. [back] Quoted by Peter van Ham, Pax Americana als conservatieve revolutie: gevolgtrekkingen voor Europa, in Internationale Spectator, Vol. 57, No 7/8, July/August 2003. 4. [back] Quoted by Timothy Garton Ash, "Are You With Us? Are We Against You?", in The New York Times, 30th May 2003. 5. [back] See the magnum opus of Grenville Clark and Louis B. Sohn, World Peace through World Law Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press, 1958. 6. [back] W.F. de Gaay Fortman, op.cit., p. 151. 7. [back] In case of force majeure ("quod est illicitas lege necesitas facit licitum"), the international community may legitimize the action through acquiescence ("qui tacit consentire videit"). 8. [back] See Jan Pronk, VS en VN, in Roodkoper, Vol 8, No2, Summer 2003, p. 16. 9. [back] In 2002 that was awarded to Nelson Mandela. |
