Interventions (18 page)

It was clear that those aspiring to permanent seats favored the first model—indeed, India was unhappy not to be getting a veto as well—but which countries should get the seats? Japan, Germany, India, and Brazil pressed ahead on this basis, assuming their candidacy, while member states in the Africa group could not decide among the competing claims of Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt. The continent's traditional rivalries came to the fore, with Egypt arguing that there had to be a seat for the countries north of the Sahara, and South Africa maintaining that it would be able to represent all countries from its position. To this, Nigeria responded that its size, population, and resource base justified a seat for Abuja. On the Latin American side, the divisions between the big countries were equally apparent, with Argentine president Carlos Menem charging furthermore that a fight over representation on the Council would serve only to resurrect bitter rivalries that at long last had been put behind them.

The divisions that ensued were welcomed by some states that saw new permanent seats as a mistake—and, of course, a threat to their positions of privilege. Indeed, the policy of a good number of countries appeared to be to support Council expansion in theory but to oppose any specific proposal in practice. There were some who opposed particular states: Pakistan essentially said India would get a permanent seat over its dead body; China was deeply ambivalent about Japan; and so on.

This jostling was shortsighted. If the Council is to remain relevant, then some expansion is needed. In light of past efforts, the semi-permanent model is the most promising, with the creation of a half dozen extra seats that could be held on a long-term basis by regional powers, perhaps renewed every eight to ten years. Divisions such as those that plagued the Africa group might be resolved through regional mechanisms like the African Union—in the same way that the European Union coordinates some of the foreign policies of its members.

Critics of my decision to press for Security Council reform in 2003 argued that it was a distraction from other problems plaguing the UN, or that it would create division at a time when unity was required. But to propose reform of the UN without addressing the problems on the Council would have been seen as dodging a fundamental issue for many member states, making it harder to get countries to focus seriously on the other reform questions.

Other people said I tried to do too much, and perhaps that was true. The UN (not unlike the Vatican) doesn't always treat reformers kindly. But this ignores the real achievements of the 2003 reform drive that we were able to extract in the months and years that followed.

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T
he problems confronting the UN at that time were not only structural. In many ways, a more fundamental problem was the different manner in which member states perceived the world and its dangers. This issue became particularly acute after September 11, 2001. From that point a great many Americans and others were primarily concerned about the threat of terrorism. This was understandable, and the UN provided a vehicle for addressing some of those threats through support to the United States in Afghanistan, curbing terrorist financing, and other measures. But for those, for example, in Africa or South Asia that found themselves with not enough to eat, the perception of threat was quite different. And if you are in a region where there is serious conflict or a possible explosion of ethnic conflict, you have different fears again.

So what I tried to make clear was that we needed a comprehensive understanding of these threats. To say the world is interdependent had become the worst kind of cliché—true in the literal sense, but unable to generate the kinds of multilateral engagement befitting a world where no threat was limited to one country or region. Member states engaged selectively, and sporadically, on the major issues: some cooperating on threats like terrorism and, to a lesser extent, disease, but dividing when it came to confronting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Major reforms in an international institution of such size usually coincide with a crisis. It took World War I to establish the League of Nations, and World War II to create the UN. The Charter had only been amended in the 1960s following decolonization and the near doubling of the UN membership. When crisis came during my tenure over the invasion of Iraq, it was unclear whether it was of a kind that would bring the world together or tear it apart.

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F
rom late 2003 we set about devising an extensive package of reforms. These included reform of the governing bodies of the UN, particularly the Security Council, but also the creation of new bodies and norms governing the activities of the organization. In my address to that year's General Assembly, I announced the creation of a High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change to propose new ideas for advancing collective security in the twenty-first century. We suggested the creation of a Human Rights Council, to replace the long-maligned Commission on Human Rights, in order to energize the issues surrounding human rights violations at the heart of the UN. We set forward proposals for the creation of a Peacebuilding Commission, one that would serve to bring together the multifaceted requirements of intervention in civil war zones, across the spectrum of military, development, and humanitarian activities that also reflected the long tail of involvement required for effective intervention in such territories. And we included the new doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect as part of this reform package, alongside issues of WMD in international security and—most controversially—preemptive war, as core questions regarding the future of the UN's governance, outlook, and sense of mission.

One of the great ironies of that period was the manner in which the United States—which had done more than any other country to establish the UN—found itself in the position of being the main obstacle to reforming it. Another irony was how that opposition actually made some reforms possible.

The creation of the Human Rights Council was one example. As we approached a vote on the reforms, the chief opponents were the United States, Cuba, and Pakistan—a curious coalition. At the time, I was traveling in South Africa, and I called the president of the General Assembly, Jan Eliasson, to find out how things were going. “It's very tough,” he told me. “I'm not sure we will get an agreement.” The problem, he said, were these three countries. By that point the U.S. ambassador John Bolton—so deeply opposed personally to the entire existence and purpose of the UN—had isolated himself so much that he was out on his own. But I suspected he was still hoping to hide behind Cuba and Pakistan, so that they would be blamed for the failure of the creation of the Human Rights Council.

In response, I decided to call the president of Cuba. Fidel Castro was sleeping, but I got Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque on the line and I explained that Cuba could not play this role. The member states, especially the developing countries, needed an improved human rights institution. Cuba held itself up as the voice of developing countries, but now it was on a path that would lead to its being blamed for killing human rights at the UN. Cuba should be backing, not obstructing, this move, I said.

Later, Pérez Roque called back and said that he and Fidel Castro had discussed it and decided to instruct their ambassador in New York to remove their objection to the Human Rights Council. I then told Jan, who was delighted.

This left only Pakistan. It was late, but I managed to get the ambassador, Munir Akram, on his cell phone. “I understand you have very strict instructions not to let this go through,” I told him. “I see you are in a difficult position, so I want to help you. I will call President Musharraf and ask him to give you flexibility to remove this objection. You should also know that among the developing world, you are alone. You're the only one blocking it. The Cubans have lifted their objection.”

“What?” he said. “The Cubans?”

“Yes,” I replied. “Talk to the Cuban ambassador and he will confirm it. I've been on the line with Havana and it's done. I'm prepared to help you the same way. I will call Musharraf.”

“No,” he said. “Give me fifteen minutes.”

This was typical of some ambassadors who routinely claimed to have “very strong instructions” but could then change those instructions if needed. Akram lifted his objection.

And that left the United States on its own. Bolton had nobody to hide behind, and we didn't hear from him again on this issue.

In September 2005, the member states finally voted on the reform package. There were anxious days in the lead-up to the vote. Indeed, I had my speechwriters prepare some remarks that I could use if the whole process fell apart and there was no agreement on anything. In the end, however, the vote was unanimous in support of reform.

Although we tried harder than ever before in the UN's history, reform of the Security Council remained elusive due to the intense divisions over what form it should take. There was, however, progress on some other important priorities—the Human Rights Council, the Peacebuilding Commission, the Responsibility to Protect. One thing that was missing as a result of the negotiations between member states, however, was any reference to weapons of mass destruction, an omission that I called a disgrace. The impetus for reform had come from the crisis in Iraq. It was hard to believe that more than two years of debate about how the UN should have responded to the problems of WMD in Iraq produced a thirty-eight-page document that mentioned neither.

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“I'll be damned if I'm going to let my son be dragged before some foreign kangaroo court to face judgment,” said the judge, whose son had served as a U.S. Army captain in Iraq. It was not an unusual view among American commentators and politicians. The International Criminal Court—established in 2002 to prosecute individuals for the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes—represented to many skeptics of multilateralism the ultimate act of usurpation of national sovereignty. My surprise was to hear this from a justice of the United States Supreme Court. The judges have a tradition of inviting a guest to lunch with the nine members of the court, and I was delighted to receive the invitation from Justice Stephen Breyer to join them on one of my visits to Washington DC. Over a lunch of salads and sandwiches, the International Criminal Court quickly became the main—and contentious—topic of conversation.

I tried to reassure the irate Justice about the procedures that were in place to stop frivolous prosecutions; that the ICC would act only when there was a credible accusation and the state in question was unwilling or unable to investigate and prosecute the matter. He was unconvinced.

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T
here were echoes in this conversation from the larger debates surrounding international law. Conservative commentators have argued that small states, weak states, need international law and the UN more than the bigger and more powerful states. This is partly true. But the same could be said of a national legal system. Powerful people can sometimes get away with murder. As the rule of law develops, however, such exceptions become harder to tolerate. Sometimes it is formal pressure, sometimes it is informal pressure, that leads to compliance. This can take a long time, but I think we are slowly seeing this happen at the international level.

One of the founding purposes of the United Nations, written into the Charter, is to establish the conditions for justice and respect for the law. Advancing the rule of law at the national and international level was something that I pressed for during my time as secretary-general, and in 2005, the member states unanimously endorsed this position.

As many observers have commented, however, such widespread support for the rule of law in theory is possible only because countries have divergent understandings of what it means in practice. My own understanding is that the rule of law is a principle of governance to which everyone, including the representatives of the state, is accountable, with laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced, and independently adjudicated. Those laws should be consistent with international human rights standards. The rule of law also requires fairness in the application of the law, participation in decision making, and transparency. Clearly, not all states yet embody all these characteristics. But all states have recognized the rule of law as a political ideal to which they should aspire.

At the international level, applying the rule of law to the interaction between states is far more complex. Today we lack institutions to adjudicate or enforce the law. The International Court of Justice has jurisdiction only over cases voluntarily submitted to it. There is no international police force with executive policing powers. A problem for any secretary-general seeking to promote the rule of law is how to persuade sovereign states
voluntarily
to submit themselves to the law.

Even before the world became so interdependent, it was clear that a set of rules was needed to regulate international relations. People often forget the extent to which modern life is made possible by international law: it ensures that your mail gets to where it's meant to, that radio frequencies are managed, that ships and aircraft navigate safely. The sort of global society many of us enjoy now wouldn't exist without that network of laws. But it has to be about more than mere convenience for the wealthy. Personally, I see the rule of law as offering a way to broaden access to opportunity and prosperity, and to protect those who are left vulnerable to suffering or exploitation through no fault of their own.

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D
espite the reservations of the justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and many others in the United States, the establishment of the International Criminal Court represents a major victory for the rule of law in international affairs. After the tragedies of Somalia, Rwanda, and Bosnia, the ICC held a very personal dimension for me. In the negotiations leading to its creation, I quite consciously took positions that I knew would provoke some states, occasionally offering language that other governments or NGOs could use to advance the agenda.