WHO OWNS THE UN? - 'WE THE PEOPLE'
Remarks by SHRIDATH RAMPHAL, Co-Chairman of the Commission
on Global Governance, at a luncheon hosted by the UN50 Committee
of San Francisco, 24 June 1994
This is a luncheon address. Good manners, not
to say good governance requires brevity.
I shall try to be good on both counts. I
compress, therefore, congratulations and salutations to the UN
50 Committee. To be worthy of the vision and the creativity
consummated here in San Francisco 50 years ago was a formidable
challenge. You have been eminently successful.
It seems appropriate on this day in this City,
50 years after the Charter was proclaimed in our name, to ask
the question: 'Do we the people own the UN - or did we ever'?
The relationship between the UN and the world's people is at the
heart of the work, and now the Report, of the Commission on
Global Governance. We are convinced that the relationship of
people to the United Nations and of a people-oriented UN to
human society is of fundamental importance to the future of the
world body and of the world. We are convinced that the United
Nations - its health, vigour, effectiveness, legitimacy, success
- depends on the extent to which people identify with it and
feel it to be their organisation, their UN.
Today, among the world's people, the UN does
not evoke that kind of sentiment, certainly not on any
significant scale; the predominant feeling is one of distance,
of the UN and its various units being external agencies, of its
not belonging to us. The opening words of the Preamble to the
Charter 'We the Peoples' are often quoted, but more in piety
than conviction. San Francisco was not devoid of a spirit of
idealism and of internationalism. But the nations gathered there
were, of course, not all the nations of the world; only fifty
countries participated. The inference that they spoke for all
the people of the world is not tenable. Of course, the 'united
nations' of 1945 have grown to embrace all nations of the world,
to include those defeated in World War II, as well as those
whose status as imperial possessions denied them a voice in
shaping the post-war order.
Additionally, the universalisation of the
United Nations has been followed by progress towards
universalisation of democratic forms of government. oOo However,
as we have found at the domestic level that two minutes in the
polling station are an insufficient guarantee of the role of
people in government, so at the global level, the machinery of
democracy at home has been an unreliable guarantee of the role
of people in influencing the conduct of their governments
abroad.
Despite the mythology,'We the peoples' of the
world have been, for most of the UN's first 50 years, very
remote from the functioning of the UN system. Some governments
have taken steps that show sensitivity to people's sense of
being blocked off from the UN. They have included backbench MPs
and in some cases NGO representatives in national delegations to
the General Assembly. But this is hardly enough to address the
problem.
We have made two specific proposals to enhance
the role of people in the UN and make the sense of their
ownership of the world organisation stronger. One is to create a
Forum of Civil Society to meet annually before each session of
the General Assembly and to provide its views to the GA. The
idea is to offer people through civil society formal
opportunities to provide an input into - and therefore an
opportunity to exercise some influence over - the
intergovernmental deliberations of the UN on key global issues.
We envisage that this Forum would provide for
the representation of a wider range of people by embracing
organisations of civil society rather than NGOs only - though
NGOs would be the predominant element. We believe it is
essential to cast the net wide to include such elements of civil
society as the labour movement, the business sector and the
academic community, whose organisations may not be captured
under the rubric of NGOs.
We have suggested that the Forum should meet
in the Plenary Hall of the Assembly itself. This has both a
functional and symbolic significance, and is a pointer to the
importance we assign to this proposal.
Our second proposal to give people stronger
links to the UN is tied to our conviction - which forms one of
the central themes of the report - that improved global
governance requires stronger protection for the security of
people - that is, people as distinct from states, which have
hitherto been the principal, if not exclusive, focus of
international security arrangements.
We have recommended new institutional means by
which people's organisations might be enabled to draw the
attention of the United Nations to situations that could lead to
extensive violations of the security of people and therefore
require early international action. Our recommendation envisages
the UN establishing a Council for Petitions, made up of a group
of eminent independent persons, to which people's organisations
could make representations. This proposal is inspired in part at
least, by the role played by people and their organisations
through the UN Committee of 24 on Decolonisation; heroic
petitioners like the Rev. Michael Scott and Chief Luthuli were
able to alert the world to the horrors of Southern Africa. The
Council would be empowered to bring impending humanitarian
crises to the notice of the Secretary-General and the Security
Council as appropriate, requiring them to determine at an early
stage if international action, including where necessary action
particularly under Chapter VI, but even Chapter VII, of the
Charter, is warranted.
Civil society , not the Security Council alone
- or the five sentries who guard its gates - must be able to
bring the concerns of people on to the UN's agenda.
Besides these specific proposals, the
Commission has expressed its strong general support for
intensifying the UN's interaction with the NGO community and for
UN action to involve the NGO sector on a wider basis. There has
been impressive evidence lately of the contribution NGOs make -
and have the potential to make - to international governance in
many fields, from development to human rights, from population
to emergency relief, from environmental protection to conflict
resolution.
The recent string of global conferences, from
the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 to this year's Social Summit in
Copenhagen, have provided a showcase for - and greatly benefited
from - the vigour and variety of the NGO movement. Co-operation
between the UN and NGOs has to be built upon and improved.
Interaction must be strengthened not just at large conferences
and headline events but in the myriad, humdrum, day-to-day
activities that are vital to make this world a more secure one
for all its people.
The UN has made many advances but within the
UN system there are still parts where the residual inertia, if
not resistance, of bureaucrats needs to be overcome. The 50th
anniversary year must be marked by progress in improving global
governance. It would be unrealistic to expect agreement to be
reached this year on the more fundamental specific changes. But
we must begin seriously the dialogue of change. If all the
proposals were to be mere candles on the UN's birthday cake we
would light them up in October, then blow them out and put them
away for another celebration. We must do better.
The Commission has urged that at the very
least there should be agreement this year to launch a
preparatory process leading towards a global conference on
reform of the UN in 1998 so that agreed reforms may be in place
by 2000.
Here then is my challenge to you. Our global
neighbourhood is first and foremost a neighbourhood of people.
States, governments, institutions all derive their legitimacy
from people. The ultimate authority is in people. In the end, it
is the people of the world that must secure their global
neighbourhood for themselves and future generations. Left to
governments alone proposals for major change will just twinkle
as distant stars in the night sky of 1995 - a sky that will
eventually cloud over for all - even those who were minded to
reach for them. 'We the people' must now make a virtue of
mythology.
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