After an early period in which Western countries dominated the debates and decisions of most United Nations bodies, the era of decolonization introduced several decades during which UN debates (and sometimes votes) came to be organized mainly along a North-South divide. The authors provide a brief history of this often poisonous dynamic, then focus on three recent debates at the UN: the discussion surrounding the Brahimi Report on UN peace operations, the question of humanitarian intervention, and the issue of financing for development. They argue that while the North-South divide has hampered the work (and often the reputation) of the United Nations, a more sober, less ideological mood seems to have taken hold of the UN, particularly in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001.
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References
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* David M. Malone, on leave from the Canadian Foreign Service, is President of the International Peace Academy (IPA). Lotta Hagman is a Senior Program Officer at IPA.
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1 For further information on NAM, see its website at http://www.nam.gov.za.
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2 For a list of member-states, see the G-77 website at http://www.g77.org.
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3 On the origins of these groups and their history at the UN, see Sally Morphet, `States Groups at the United Nations and Growth of Member States at the United Nations', in Paul Taylor & John Groom, eds, The United Nations at the Millennium (London: Continuum, 2000), pp. 224-261.
5.
4 For a more detailed account of the birth of UNCTAD, see Thomas G. Weiss, David P. Forsythe & Roger A. Coate, The United Nations and Changing World Politics, 3rd edn (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2001), pp. 237-239.
6.
5 Don Mills, `The Diplomat at the United Nations: Yesterday and Today', in James P. Muldoon, Jr., JoAnn Fagot Aviel, Richard Reitano & Earl Sullivan, eds, Multilateral Diplomacy and the United Nations Today (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1999), pp. 15-34, on p. 22.
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6 The potent phenomenon of conservative governments in the UK and the USA working closely together during the 1980s was thus encapsulated by the Canadian scholar and practitioner Sylvia Ostry.
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7 Both have also strongly championed the New Economic Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), the implementation of which was a key item on the G-8 agenda in 2002.
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8 Nicole Winfield, `US Politicking Keeps Sudan off UN Security Council', Associated Press, 11 October 2000.
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9 For information and articles on Security Council reform, see http://www.globalpolicy.org.
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10 Although still comparatively high, voting coincidence between the USA and the EU in the General Assembly has decreased since 1995. Excluding consensus votes, the voting coincidence was 62.5% in 2000, compared to 73.0% in 1997; US Department of State, `Voting Practices in the United Nations for 2000', Report to Congress, 31 March 2001.
12.
`EU-US Gulf as Wide as Ever as Kyoto Talks Get into Their Stride', Agence France Presse, 17 July 2001.
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12 See David Malone & Yuen Fong Khong, eds, Unilateralism and U.S. Foreign Policy: Views from Abroad (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2002, forthcoming).
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13 `Hållbart', Svenska Naturskyddsföreningen, November 2000.
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14 These observations are based on the experience of one of the authors as a national representative to ECOSOC and on interviews with contemporary UN delegates from countries of both the North and the South.
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15 The full title of the conference was the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, Durban, South Africa, 31 August-7 September 2001.
17.
Lynda Hurst , `Bush's Pro-Life Move Felt Around the World', Toronto Star, 4 February 2001.
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17 `US Vetoes UN Observer Force To Protect Palestinians by Robert Holloway', Agence France Presse, 28 March 2001. NAM cohesion on this Middle East question in the council nevertheless appeared to crumble in August 2001, when NAM failed to unite in support of a resolution seeking to revive the protection force idea.
19.
18 `Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations', A/55/305/S/2000/809, 21 August 2000 (Brahimi Report).
20.
19 `Report on the Fall of Srebrenica', A54/549, 15 November 1999; `Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Actions of the United Nations During the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda', S/1999/1257, 15 December 1999.
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20 `United Nations Millennium Declaration', A/RES/55/2, 18 September 2000.
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21 The term `peace operations' itself raised hackles among some delegations that wish to see peacekeeping, of which most approve, clearly delineated from preventive action, UN mediation, and post-conflict peacebuilding.
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22 See, for example, Barbara Crossette, `UN Plan for a New Crisis Unit Opposed by Wary Poor Nations', New York Times, 26 November 2000.
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23 On 30 July 2001, the UN Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations concluded a lengthy debate on the Brahimi Report, endorsing many of the recommendations within the remit of member-states. This positive outcome sadly remains obscured by the bitter, often ill-informed, discussions preceding it.
25.
24 International Peace Academy, `Refashioning the Dialogue: Regional Perspectives on the Brahimi Report on UN Peace Operations', April 2001; available at http://www.ipacademy.org/Publications/Reports/Research/PublRepoReseBrahimi_body.htm.
26.
25 Ibid.
27.
26 See `Comprehensive Review of the Whole Question of Peacekeeping Operations in All their Aspects: Report of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations', A/C.4/55/6, 4 December 2000; `Comprehensive Review of the Whole Question of Peacekeeping Operations in All their Aspects: Report of the Special Political and Decolonization Committee (Fourth Committee)', A/55/572, 6 December 2000.
28.
27 Lakhdar Brahimi, `Alastair Buchan Memorial Lecture', International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, 22 March 2001.
29.
28 See Press Release, SG/SM/7136, 20 September 1999. This and other speeches on intervention have been collected in Kofi A. Annan, The Question of Intervention: Statements by the Secretary-General (New York: United Nations Department of Public Information, 1999).
30.
29 General Assembly, 20 September 1999, A/54/PV.4; available at http://www.un.org/ga/54/pv54e.htm.
31.
30 See David M. Malone, `The Security Council in the 1990s: Inconsistent, Improvisational, Indispensable?', in Ramesh Thakur & Edward Newman, eds, New Millennium, New Perspectives (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2000), pp. 21-45.
32.
Nicholas J. Wheeler , Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). See also the online project by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) at http://www.onwar.org.
33.
32 Kofi A. Annan, `Opening Remarks, International Peace Academy, Humanitarian Action Symposium, New York, 20 November 2000; available at http://www.ipacademy.org.
34.
33 See `Report of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Armed Conflict', S/2001/574, 7 June 2001.
35.
34 Its report, `The Responsibility to Protect', was presented at the UN on 18 December 2001; see http://www.iciss.gc.ca/menu-e.asp. A companion volume of research, edited by Thomas G. Weiss & Don Hubert, was simultaneously issued by the IDRC Press in Ottawa.
36.
35 Comments by Annan at an International Peace Academy roundtable, New York, 15 February 2002; available at http://www.ipacademy.org.
37.
36 See UN Document A/Conf.198/3, 1 March 2001, containing the `Monterrey Consensus'; see also the earlier A/RES/210 (2001); both documents can be found through http://www.un.org.
38.
`Preparatory Committee is Told Draft Document Fails To Meet Potential for Development Financing Conference to Help Poor Nations', M2 Presswire, 17 October 2001.
39.
38 Although several NGOs, including Greenpeace, denounced the absence of new binding commitments by states, unmet commitments have been a significant cause of erosion of the UN's credibility over the years.
40.
39 Commendable efforts in the South to mobilize a corresponding group to the G-7, the G-15, to respond to and dialogue with the Western G-7 have foundered substantively.
41.
40 See Karen A. Mingst & Margaret P. Karns, The United Nations in the Post-Cold War Era, 2nd edn (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2000), particularly p. 137.
42.
41 Overseas Development Institute, `Global Governance: An Agenda for the Renewal of the United Nations?', Briefing Paper 1999(2); available at http://www.odi.org.uk/briefing/2_99.html.
43.
42 For information, see Group of 20 website at http://www.g20.org.
44.
43 See `G-8 Commits to "Plan for Africa" ' on Genoa Summit website at http://www.genoa-g8.it/eng/summit/in_diretta/in_diretta_6.html.
45.
44 Juliet Eilperin, `House Approves U.N. Payment: Legislation Would Provide $582 Million for Back Dues', Washington Post, 25 September 2001.
46.
45 One recent example being the US withdrawal from the International Criminal Court.
47.
46 In the run-up to and at the Doha launch of a new World Trade Organization round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations (MTNs) in 2001, discussions were marked by some sharp disagreements along the North-South divide.
48.
47 See, for example, Jakkie Cilliers, `The UN in Structural and Terminal Imbalance? Without Change in Character and Focus, It Will Become Increasingly Irrelevant', United Nations Chronicle, vol. XXXVI, no. 4, 1999, pp. 44-45.
49.
48 United Nations Special Session on HIV/AIDS, New York, 25-27 June 2001.
50.
49 `Special Session Opens with Dispute over Declaration', UN Wire, United Nations Foundation, 25 June 2001.
51.
50 Louis Emmerij, Richard Jolly & Thomas G. Weiss, Ahead of the Curve? UN Ideas and Global Challenges (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001), p. 212.
52.
51 However, with the retirement or reassignment of several key champions of the human security perspective among foreign ministers (including Canada's Lloyd Axworthy, the UK's Robin Cook, and Norway's Knut Vollebæk), the concept is now short of strong advocates at the political level. However, a Japanese-sponsored international commission, chaired by Sadako Ogata and Amartya Sen, is seeking means of breathing further life into it.
53.
52 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, 18 September 1997.
54.
53 For information on the coalition, see the ICBL website at http://www.icbl.org. Such NGO participation is not uncontroversial, however. Within coalitions like these, the divide sometimes re-emerges over their status and role in UN negotiating processes, with most industrialized countries favoring NGO participation while many developing countries remain reserved on this score.
