Opening Remarks of Clovis Maksoud from the Conference “Evaluating the U.N.
Millennium Summit: Global South Perspectives”
Perhaps the first key issue confronting the UN today is:
When is the United Nations useful for the global role of the United States and when
can the United States bypass the United Nations? As it has done in Kosovo, NATO
undertook enforcement measures, and then subsequently bestowed upon the United
Nations the responsibility of governance in the province. It is this type of scenario
that renders the United Nations a multi-layer organization. There is the United
States in the United Nations; the United States parallel to the United Nations; the
United States competitive with the United Nations; then there is the United States
empowering the United Nations, as in Iraq; and the United States marginalizing the
United Nations, as in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Without clarity concerning the nature of the relationship between the United States
and the United Nations, the equation will remain seriously flawed. Besides, the
United States has veto power with the other four permanent members, adding to the
asymmetry that developed at the end of the Cold War. We mention this because it
is crucial that we bring to the forefront a condition where both the US and the UN
will feel mutually comfortable. That is a task that, perhaps, was in the subconscious
of many who deliberately glossed over substantive issues during the Millennium
Summit. It also explains the frustrations many felt because of unmet expectations.
The other dilemma the UN faces is the problem of the North-South divide. More
than two-thirds of humanity is excluded from partaking in the technological,
economic, communication, and scientific revolution that is taking place around the
world.
Globalization is a process that is irreversible and inevitable. In the South,
globalization is beginning to replace the ennobling commitment to internationalism.
It is important to inquire into this phenomenon. Is internationalism reinforced by
globalization, or is it being replaced by globalization?
It is in this area the North-South relationships that globalization can reinforce
internationalism and internationalism can benefit from the process of globalization.
In the next two days, much will be said about development; not only as a human
right, but as a preventive action to conflicts that arise in many of the developing
countries particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. I hope we will seek to reintroduce
internationalism as an instrument of, as Secretary-General Kofi Annan put it,
“humanizing globalization.” This means an empowerment of the Global South, not
in a patronizing fashion or as a process of alleviation, but as a matter of conviction
and commitment. This, indeed, might entail a quest for an enlightened,
interdisciplinary and a comprehensive approach, and a realization that issues of
poverty lie at the root of conflict. Ethnic disputes and religious/sectarian conflicts
are forms of scapegoating and they gloss over the root causes of poverty. The North
must realize that investment in the economic empowerment of the South should be
one of the principle outcomes of the UN Millennium Summit.
Turning to the Middle East: The latest developments in the region have shown that
one deviation from the predicates of international law becomes a pattern. The flaws
in the “peace” process begin to unravel, and that is what we are experiencing,
unfortunately, today.
The term “occupation” was never mentioned in the operative parts of the Oslo
Agreements, where the United States, because of its status as the only remaining
superpower, was put exclusively in charge of managing the peace process. This flaw
began to seriously erode the UN’s credibility, as well as the possibility for a
constructive outcome of the peace process.
I welcome Secretary-General Annan’s initiative in going to the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict to exercise his moral authority, and to prove to the world community that
the world authority can and should play a key contributive role to peacemaking and
peacekeeping. The decision on the part of the United States to step back and allow
the international community, represented by the Secretary-General, to seek and
diffuse the situation was wise and should continue.
Then with respect to Serbia: what has taken place in Serbia has shown that civil
society, when energized, can constitute the ultimate corrective to reckless aggression
and dictatorship; and that is why the United Nations has to begin afresh to inquire
into the relevance of the ongoing and indiscriminate sanctions on the people of other
countries.
In many instances, sanctions can have a devastating effect on civil society and break
the social bonds that bring peoples together, thereby disabling their empowerment.
Only when empowered can people rectify and remove all sorts of authoritarian
regimes.
What we need at this moment in time, and the reason we are evaluating the results
of this very important UN Millennium conference, is to introduce into the
constituency of conscience in the Northand in the United States in particular the
absolute priority of humanizing globalization. There is the need to study the
consequences of sanctions on civil society, and how sanctions can impair the struggle
for democratization and liberation in many societies. We must also avoid bypassing
the United Nations and introducing situations where the United Nations is brought
in as an afterthought as in Kosovo, where the United Nations trained to bring about
governance and restoration of refugees who had been forcibly removed from their
homes and homelands.
This is why it is necessary to evaluate, assess, and mobilize ourselves intellectually,
culturally and politically, to see how best to enforce the various UN resolutions so
they do not become many other documents we have experienced in the past
declarations without implementation.
The United Nations Millennium Summit was preceded by profound analysis of the
problems that the United Nations confronts. There have been positive strides such
as the United Nations nurturing a closer relationship with the Bretton Woods
financial institutions, whose governance remains a preserve of Western powers.
There is now more sensitivity to the issues of poverty and the need for aid.
Sensitivity is a step forward, but not a substitute for policy commitment on an
ongoing basis. Interruption in the fulfillment of legitimate expectations might have
tragic political consequences as we experience in many countries especially in
Africa.
Dr. Mack, who will probably address these problems in a much more structured
and informed manner, will show us that prevention and the preventive mechanism
of the United Nations has to be strengthened by a viable early-warning system
because the United Nations is the most proximate, objective group equipped to give
the various options an analytical basis for proper intervention.
Today, the question of sovereignty, a cherished legacy for the peoples who have
struggled against colonialism, is an important legacy. But, it is also developing into
an equally important liability. So many autocrats and dictators have claimed that
they are protective of their nation’s sovereignty as a pretext to persist in the
dehumanizing process of ethnic cleansing, violation of human rights and ruthless
measures against minorities. In these cases, humanitarian intervention must be
weighed in a manner where the concept of sovereignty as a cherished legacy of
liberation does not become transformed into a pretext for denying human dignity to
peoples, to groups and to individuals. From this perspective, to open up the
deliberations of this conference, not only for the input of experts, panelists and
strategists, but also for the input of representatives of civil society and academic
communities must be brought in where we bridge states and societies. The UN
Charter says, “We the people.” Of course states remain the legal underpinning of
the United Nations, but “We the People” remains the legitimizing instrumentality.
So it is not only important to have the legal attributes that a state provides, it is even
more important today that peoples’ consent gives legitimacy to the legal attributes.
Legality can be a negation of legitimacy as we have seen in Yugoslavia during
Milosevic’s term, the Apartheid regime, and occupying powers. They are legal but
not legitimate. And the UN has to continue to bring an ongoing dynamic balance
between the requirements of legality and the imperatives of legitimacy.
Today there are many spots in the world that are preventable flash points.
Let us hope that what Secretary-General Kofi Annan is doing in the Middle East
now can be replicated in many parts of Africa, Kashmir, and in other areas.
Perhaps, one day, it will become realistic for the United Nations to undertake
initiatives that have been the exclusive preserves of superpowers. In that sense,
globalization will assume its humane direction and the human face that up until now
has eluded us.
Thank you very much. May I now introduce Dr. Andrew Mack, the Director of
Strategic Planning in the Office of the General Secretary of the United Nations.