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Part four A more effective United Nations for the twenty-first century

Synopsis The United Nations was never intended to be a utopian exercise. It was meant to

be a collective security system that worked. The Charter of the United Nations provided the most powerful States with permanent membership on the Security Council and the veto. In exchange, they were expected to use their power for the common good and promote and obey international law. As Harry Truman, then President of the United States, noted in his speech to the final plenary session of the founding conference of the United Nations Organization, “we all have to recognize — no matter how great our strength — that we must deny ourselves the license to do always as we please”.

In approaching the issue of United Nations reform, it is as important today as it was in 1945 to combine power with principle. Recommendations that ignore underlying power realities will be doomed to failure or irrelevance, but recommendations that simply reflect raw distributions of power and make no effort to bolster international principles are unlikely to gain the widespread adherence required to shift international behaviour.

Proposed changes should be driven by real-world need. Change for its own sake is likely to run the well-worn course of the endless reform debates of the past decade. The litmus test is this: does a proposed change help meet the challenge posed by a virulent threat?

Throughout the Panel’s work, we have looked for institutional weaknesses in current responses to threats. The following stand as the most urgently in need of remedy:

• The General Assembly has lost vitality and often fails to focus effectively on the most compelling issues of the day.

• The Security Council will need to be more proactive in the future. For this to happen, those who contribute most to the Organization financially, militarily and diplomatically should participate more in Council decision-making, and those who participate in Council decision-making should contribute more to the Organization. The Security Council needs greater credibility, legitimacy and representation to do all that we demand of it.

• There is a major institutional gap in addressing countries under stress and countries emerging from conflict. Such countries often suffer from attention, policy guidance and resource deficits.

• The Security Council has not made the most of the potential advantages of working with regional and subregional organizations.

• There must be new institutional arrangements to address the economic and social threats to international security.

• The Commission on Human Rights suffers from a legitimacy deficit that casts doubts on the overall reputation of the United Nations.

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• There is a need for a more professional and better organized Secretariat that is much more capable of concerted action.

The reforms we propose will not by themselves make the United Nations more effective. In the absence of Member States reaching agreement on the security consensus contained in the present report, the United Nations will underachieve. Its institutions will still only be as strong as the energy, resources and attention devoted to them by Member States and their leaders.

XIII. The General Assembly

240. The General Assembly is, first and foremost, a universal body, representing almost every State in the world. Its unique legitimacy must be used to move us towards global consensus on the policy issues of greatest contemporary importance. We cannot overestimate the importance of holding a general debate every year in which the view of every Government is presented, providing a crucial opportunity to gauge the pulse of the international community. The General Assembly provides a unique forum in which to forge consensus. Members should use the opportunity provided by the Millennium Review Summit in 2005 to forge a new consensus on broader, more effective collective security.

241. The keys to strengthening the General Assembly’s role are focus and structure. Its norm-making capacity is often squandered on debates about minutiae or thematic topics outpaced by real-world events. Its inability to reach closure on issues undermines its relevance. An unwieldy and static agenda leads to repetitive debates. Although some resolutions, such as the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 2000 United Nations Millennium Declaration, are highly significant, many others are repetitive, obscure or inapplicable, thus diminishing the credibility of the body. But detailed procedural fixes are not going to make the General Assembly a more effective instrument than it is now. That can only be achieved if its Members show a sustained determination to put behind them the approach which they have applied hitherto.

242. Member States should renew efforts to enable the General Assembly to perform its function as the main deliberative organ of the United Nations. This requires a better conceptualization and shortening of the agenda, which should reflect the contemporary challenges facing the international community. Smaller, more tightly focused committees could help sharpen and improve resolutions that are brought to the whole Assembly.

243. We believe that civil society and non-governmental organizations can provide valuable knowledge and perspectives on global issues. We endorse the recommendation of the recently released report of the Panel of Eminent Persons on United Nations-Civil Society Relations (see A/58/817) that the General Assembly should establish a better mechanism to enable systematic engagement with civil society organizations.

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XIV. The Security Council

244. The founders of the United Nations conferred primary responsibility on the Security Council for the maintenance of international peace and security. The Security Council was designed to enable the world body to act decisively to prevent and remove threats. It was created to be not just a representative but a responsible body, one that had the capacity for decisive action. The five permanent members were given veto rights but were also expected to shoulder an extra burden in promoting global security. Article 23 of the Charter of the United Nations established that membership in the Council as a whole was explicitly linked not just to geographical balance but also to contributions to maintaining peace and security.

245. Since the Council was formed the threats and challenges to international peace and security have changed, as has the distribution of power among members. But the Security Council has been slow to change. Decisions cannot be implemented just by members of the Security Council but require extensive military, financial and political involvement by other States. Decisions taken and mandates given have often lacked the essential components of realism, adequate resources and the political determination to see them through. The Secretary-General is frequently holding out a begging bowl to implement Security Council decisions. Moreover, the paucity of representation from the broad membership diminishes support for Security Council decisions.

246. Since the end of the cold war, the effectiveness of the Council has improved, as has its willingness to act; but it has not always been equitable in its actions, nor has it acted consistently or effectively in the face of genocide or other atrocities. This has gravely damaged its credibility. The financial and military contributions to the United Nations of some of the five permanent members are modest compared to their special status, and often the Council’s non-permanent members have been unable to make the necessary contribution to the work of the Organization envisaged by the Charter. Even outside the use of a formal veto, the ability of the five permanent members to keep critical issues of peace and security off the Security Council’s agenda has further undermined confidence in the body’s work.

247. Yet recent experience has also shown that the Security Council is the body in the United Nations most capable of organizing action and responding rapidly to new threats.

248. Thus, the challenge for any reform is to increase both the effectiveness and the credibility of the Security Council and, most importantly, to enhance its capacity and willingness to act in the face of threats. This requires greater involvement in Security Council decision-making by those who contribute most; greater contributions from those with special decision-making authority; and greater consultation with those who must implement its decisions. It also requires a firm consensus on the nature of today’s threats, on the obligations of broadened collective security, on the necessity of prevention, and on when and why the Council should authorize the use of force.

249. We believe that reforms of the Security Council should meet the following principles:

(a) They should, in honouring Article 23 of the Charter of the United Nations, increase the involvement in decision-making of those who contribute

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most to the United Nations financially, militarily and diplomatically — specifically in terms of contributions to United Nations assessed budgets, participation in mandated peace operations, contributions to voluntary activities of the United Nations in the areas of security and development, and diplomatic activities in support of United Nations objectives and mandates. Among developed countries, achieving or making substantial progress towards the internationally agreed level of 0.7 per cent of GNP for ODA should be considered an important criterion of contribution;

(b) They should bring into the decision-making process countries more representative of the broader membership, especially of the developing world;

(c) They should not impair the effectiveness of the Security Council;

(d) They should increase the democratic and accountable nature of the body.

250. The Panel believes that a decision on the enlargement of the Council, satisfying these criteria, is now a necessity. The presentation of two clearly defined alternatives, of the kind described below as models A and B, should help to clarify — and perhaps bring to resolution — a debate which has made little progress in the last 12 years.

251. Models A and B both involve a distribution of seats as between four major regional areas, which we identify respectively as “Africa”, “Asia and Pacific”, “Europe” and “Americas”. We see these descriptions as helpful in making and implementing judgements about the composition of the Security Council, but make no recommendation about changing the composition of the current regional groups for general electoral and other United Nations purposes. Some members of the Panel, in particular our Latin American colleagues, expressed a preference for basing any distribution of seats on the current regional groups.

252. Model A provides for six new permanent seats, with no veto being created, and three new two-year term non-permanent seats, divided among the major regional areas as follows:

Regional area No. of States Permanent seats

(continuing) Proposed new

permanent seats

Proposed two-year seats

(non-renewable) Total

Africa 53 0 2 4 6

Asia and Pacific 56 1 2 3 6

Europe 47 3 1 2 6

Americas 35 1 1 4 6

Totals model A 191 5 6 13 24

253. Model B provides for no new permanent seats but creates a new category of eight four-year renewable-term seats and one new two-year non-permanent (and non-renewable) seat, divided among the major regional areas as follows:

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Regional area No. of States Permanent seats

(continuing)

Proposed four-year

renewable seats

Proposed two-year seats

(non-renewable) Total

Africa 53 0 2 4 6

Asia and Pacific 56 1 2 3 6

Europe 47 3 2 1 6

Americas 35 1 2 3 6

Totals model B 191 5 8 11 24

254. In both models, having regard to Article 23 of the Charter of the United Nations, a method of encouraging Member States to contribute more to international peace and security would be for the General Assembly, taking into account established practices of regional consultation, to elect Security Council members by giving preference for permanent or longer-term seats to those States that are among the top three financial contributors in their relevant regional area to the regular budget, or the top three voluntary contributors from their regional area, or the top three troop contributors from their regional area to United Nations peacekeeping missions.

255. The Panel was strongly of the view that no change to the composition of the Security Council should itself be regarded as permanent or unchallengeable in the future. Therefore, there should be a review of the composition of the Security Council in 2020, including, in this context, a review of the contribution (as defined in para. 249 above) of permanent and non-permanent members from the point of view of the Council’s effectiveness in taking collective action to prevent and remove new and old threats to international peace and security.

256. Neither model involves any expansion of the veto or any Charter modification of the Security Council’s existing powers. We recognize that the veto had an important function in reassuring the United Nations most powerful members that their interests would be safeguarded. We see no practical way of changing the existing members’ veto powers. Yet, as a whole the institution of the veto has an anachronistic character that is unsuitable for the institution in an increasingly democratic age and we would urge that its use be limited to matters where vital interests are genuinely at stake. We also ask the permanent members, in their individual capacities, to pledge themselves to refrain from the use of the veto in cases of genocide and large-scale human rights abuses. We recommend that under any reform proposal, there should be no expansion of the veto.

257. We propose the introduction of a system of “indicative voting”, whereby members of the Security Council could call for a public indication of positions on a proposed action. Under this indicative vote, “no” votes would not have a veto effect, nor would the final tally of the vote have any legal force. The second formal vote on any resolution would take place under the current procedures of the Council. This would, we believe, increase the accountability of the veto function.

258. In recent years, many informal improvements have been made to the transparency and accountability of the Security Council’s deliberative and decision- making procedures. We also remind the Security Council that troop contributors have rights under Article 44 of the Charter to be fully consulted concerning the

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deployment of troops to Council-mandated operations. We recommend that processes to improve transparency and accountability be incorporated and formalized in the Council’s rules of procedure.

259. Many delegations on the Security Council lack access to professional military advice. Yet they are frequently called upon to take decisions with far-ranging military implications. We recommend therefore that the Secretary General’s Military Adviser and the members of his staff be available on demand by the Security Council to offer technical and professional advice on military options.

260. We welcome greater civil society engagement in the work of the Security Council.

XV. A Peacebuilding Commission

261. Our analysis has identified a key institutional gap: there is no place in the United Nations system explicitly designed to avoid State collapse and the slide to war or to assist countries in their transition from war to peace. That this was not included in the Charter of the United Nations is no surprise since the work of the United Nations in largely internal conflicts is fairly recent. But today, in an era when dozens of States are under stress or recovering from conflict, there is a clear international obligation to assist States in developing their capacity to perform their sovereign functions effectively and responsibly.

262. The United Nations unique role in this area arises from its international legitimacy; the impartiality of its personnel; its ability to draw on personnel with broad cultural understanding and experience of a wide range of administrative systems, including in the developing world; and its recent experience in organizing transitional administration and transitional authority operations.

263. Strengthening the United Nations capacity for peacebuilding in the widest sense must be a priority for the organization. The United Nations needs to be able to act in a coherent and effective way throughout a whole continuum that runs from early warning through preventive action to post-conflict peacebuilding. We recommend that the Security Council, acting under Article 29 of the Charter of the United Nations and after consultation with the Economic and Social Council, establish a Peacebuilding Commission.

264. The core functions of the Peacebuilding Commission should be to identify countries which are under stress and risk sliding towards State collapse; to organize, in partnership with the national Government, proactive assistance in preventing that process from developing further; to assist in the planning for transitions between conflict and post-conflict peacebuilding; and in particular to marshal and sustain the efforts of the international community in post- conflict peacebuilding over whatever period may be necessary.

265. While the precise composition, procedures, and reporting lines of the Peacebuilding Commission will need to be established, they should take account of the following guidelines:

(a) The Peacebuilding Commission should be reasonably small;

(b) It should meet in different configurations, to consider both general policy issues and country-by-country strategies;