Global Policy Forum

By S. Faizi

Indian Express
October 24, 1998

 

Although we have only one earth, we have not yet reached the concept of one world. The polarisation of wealth and poverty, the asymmetrical power structure keeps us away from the cherished goal of a single world. The United Nations is seen by the marginalised as the source of a hope that will help us advance towards an equitable and sustainable global future.

But such innocent hopes founder on the rocks of the global financial market and the reefs of the military-industrial complex. We are told: Talking about poverty is politics, poverty eradication is something the market forces alone should work on, the UN should be purged of politics and do "what it does better than others", that is peace-keeping or, in other words, disciplining the developing countries.

When the UN Charter was adopted on this day 53 years ago, the larger part of the world was under the yoke of colonialism. This meant that more than two-thirds of the current membership of the UN had no role in shaping the Charter to which they havebeen required to adhere. The victors in a ruthless war, who have structurally entrenched their position of hegemony through the asymmetrical Security Council, have been largely liberal in formulating the rest of the text of the Charter. Thus, except for the incongruous Security Council, we have a structurally democratic global mechanism within the UN system.

Development and socio-economic concerns are central to the mission of the UN. The reform call from the West is replete with demands for whittling away the socio-economic mandate of the UN, which they would like to see being the exclusive domain of the Brettenwood institutions and the WTO. It is indeed disturbing that the West is already having its way. The position of the Director-General for Development and International Cooperation, created earlier by the General Assembly along with the unit for monitoring the socio-economic impacts of transnational corporations, was abolished by former Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. There have beenconstant attempts to downsize the UNCTAD and the UNIDO. And, Secretary General Kofi Annan's report on Renewing the United Nations: A Programme for Reform targets the regional economic commissions, too. These commissions serve as regionally sensitive, decentralised organs and hold a reasonably good track record in implementing, within their resource constraints, the development age-nda of the low-income countries of their respective regions. Those training their guns on the UN accuse the organisation of a sprawling bureaucracy and politicisation. The total staff strength of the UN secretariat and the multiple agencies amo-unted to 51,500 in 1990. This number, in comparison with a regional body like the European Community, with a staff strength of 48,000, certainly does not qualify to be termed a "sprawling bureaucracy". But, at the same time, the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO are fast expanding the size of their staff, in the process of usurping new mandates. The Western harangue convenientlyignores this.

Politicisation is a word used to describe derogatorily the representation of developing world concerns. Posturing against the "Third World-dominated" United Nations and questioning the principle of one country one vote is a fanatical reaction of the colonial mind to the democratisation of global governance. However, the anachronistic Security Council and its repeated misuse of powers are never called into question. Even as the regular session of the General Assembly is progressing in New York, the US is refusing to fulfill its statutory obligation to pay the mandatory contribution. It is doing so despite the fact that most of the UN staff are Western, predominantly American, nationals, and most of the UN budget, except what is earmarked for development assistance, is spent within Western territories. Even after the General Assembly conceded the US demand for a consensus on financial decisions, Washington's position remains unchanged. This is obviously a pressure tactic against the majorityof developing countries and also an attempt to destroy the UN family. In a rare moment of truth, the US Permanent Repre-sentative, who now holds the number two job in her country, admitted to an international audience in Geneva on December 11, 1995: "It is tragic and ironic that one of the principal threats to the United Nations comes from political elements in the very country which helped create it."

The permanent members are tacitly seeking to avoid a debate on the democratisation of the skewed Security Council by yet another tactic. They seek to open up space for demands for new permanent positions for all those who care to demand -- forgetting the requirement of the two-thirds majority in the General Assembly (and ratification by the eternal five). This tactic also ensures that the inverted power relations between the tiny Security Council and the all-member General Assembly is not questioned. The immutable hegemony of the eternal five is further set to grow with the linking of the InternationalCriminal Court-in-formation to the Security Council. The West is riding the IMF and the World Bank into the previously insulated domestic affairs of the developing countries. Globalisation, by creating a band of client capitalists in the South, is likely to create a new world order where global capitalism will emerge as a borderless nation pitted against the countries holding four billion poor of the world.

With the steady weakening of the democratic organs of the UN, one can see a ray of hope only in the WTO -- yes, the WTO -- in the long run. For, the WTO is essentially democratic, with its one-country-one-vote system, and has no veto-wielding powers there, at least in principle. Of the 132 members of the WTO, 98 are from the developing world. If the South has the political will and professional capacity to use its nearly two-thirds majority to assert its interests and set a proactive agenda, it can pave the way for a different kind of globalisation where equity will be a central concern. However, itwill be long before the developing world will be able to play a proactive role, asserting its majority. By then, the West would have already disowned the WTO as its baby.

Despite its drawbacks, the UN is the only global forum to which the deprived South can turn. If the South stands together, with the component states realising their shared interests, the UN can be saved from the designs of the capitalist theology. We, the peoples, the owners of the UN Charter, have a role to play here.