MOSCOW. (Yekaterina Kuznetsova for RIA Novosti) The politically literate public in the U.S. has never broken lances over the United Nations reform.
Neither has the reform ever come up in U.S.-U.K. bilateral relations.
However, Tony Blair, Great Britain's prime minister, chose the United States as the best rostrum to make clear his stance on the tentative reform and would-be global political arrangements.
Addressing a Georgetown University audience in Washington, D.C., Blair went as far as to define the basic metaphysical issue underlying international relations. "We must fashion an international community," he said. This seems to imply that an international community either does not exist today or what we mean by the phrase is not in fact a proper international community.
The British prime minister went on with a wealth of proposals to set international relations in order, which promptly became known as the Blair Doctrine. Many of the measures he proposes are both timely and reasonable, and have been already made by others, for that matter. Thus, Tony Blair calls to extend the UN Security Council, grant the UN Secretary General greater powers to place and rotate peacekeeping forces, and determine humanitarian operations arrangements.
There is more behind his proposals than what was put in words. In fact, it is their background and undercurrent that determines their content. As the British prime minister sees it, everyone used to put up with the global values of liberty, democracy, justice and tolerance trampled underfoot. Now is the time to act, and that action does not preclude the possibility of armed intervention in other countries. And, it seems, a UN reform is necessary to start such action.
The way Blair puts it, three key problems must be solved in order to build a new international community. First, the UN internal organization needs streamlining, which means improved management, more effective financing, and greater justice. Next, the UN needs practical competences to maintain peace and promote development. And finally, international institutions must be made more democratic.
All those appeals actually addressed not the United States but the countries that have been bitterly opposed to UN Secretariat and budget reforms. The British prime minister merely expressed opinions shared by the West in contrast to the other parts of the world.
Those are more than mere opinions-dire reality underlies them. The United Nations may have no budget for the last six months of 2006 already on July 1. As everyone knows, contributions from the main UN donors, namely the U.S. and Japan, are tied in with the dynamics of the above-mentioned structural reforms on which the richest countries insist. Their desire to reform the UN in keeping with their ideas and interests is understandable-but then, it clashes with the ideas and interests of other countries, which want the formal equality principle to survive, with the rights and opportunities that do not depend on the amount of contributions. Otherwise, the United Nations will no longer be what it has been.
The arrangement where some countries pay and others decide how to spend the money may seem illogical. But that was the formula the Group of 77 recently reminded of to the richer countries. In fact, the group now includes an impressive 132 countries, China among them. As the group points out, it is inadmissible to settle UN budgetary and personnel issues bypassing the General Assembly, which represents a greater part of that same international community.
The developing countries' principal objections focus on and round matters concerning General Assembly competences, especially its right of administrative and budgetary political management, and the definition of the Secretary General's mandate. A UN majority discerned expansionist trends behind Kofi Annan's proposal to assign the Secretary General the power to redistribute and reclassify up to 10% of offices throughout a budget period; to channel saved money to priority objectives; and to synchronize budget cycles, which are established according to program terms not the calendar year. More importantly, the Secretary General has not specified any mechanisms of accounting to the General Assembly.
The budget committee turned down Kofi Annan's proposal to appoint stringent deadlines for budget consideration and budget-related agendas for debates during plenary sessions and in ad hoc teams. If implemented, his initiative would grant the UN Secretary General the rights to shift assets from programs he considers too amply financed to those that are underfinanced, transfer personnel to places in the most acute need of workforce, and draft budgets proceeding from program efficiency evaluation not under member states' pressure. The initiative implied certain other rights, too.
The current confrontation in the United Nations logically stems from the difference between particular countries' stances. The majority is anxious to preserve the status quo. Clashing with that desire is a businesslike approach to the UN, which is to combine the grandeur of pursued goals with the utmost efficiency.
The largest UN donors are not just after greater influence. They want more transparency in spending their money. It will be extremely hard, however, to work out clear standards for judging UN efficiency as the organization has no pure economic objectives. As the big donors see it, the UN has long ago transformed into a kind of a charitable foundation, and an extremely non-transparent one. The UN is not responsible for anything, and makes no promises, either, while devouring sponsor money.
A corporate idea of the United Nations is evidently unacceptable to the developing countries as it reduces them to the state of minority shareholders with smaller opportunities and mere crumbs of the lucrative cake. The right of vote at holders' general meetings is no consolation because the UN will lose its identity if it is fashioned as a corporation.
It may appear pointless to argue with a majority, but the "philanthropists" are serious in their desire to bring their "charitable foundation" into order. Tony Blair's address proves that point. An impending argument may eventually pass into a full-fledged crisis.
Yekaterina Kuznetsova is the European Programs head, Postindustrial Society Studies Center, Institute of Europe, Russian Academy of Sciences.
