American Enterprise Institute

October 16, 2007

[Edited transcript from audio tapes]

2:15 p.m.	Registration
2:30		Keynote Address
	Introduction:	John R. Bolton, AEI
	Keynote Speaker:	Senator Norm Coleman (R-Minn)
3:15		Panel Discussion
	Panelists:	Richard “Terry” Miller, Heritage Foundation
		Ambassador Welile Nhlapo, Embassy of South Africa
		Brett Schaefer, Heritage Foundation
	Moderator:	Danielle Pletka, AEI
4:45	Adjournment

Proceedings:

John R. Bolton:  Thank you all very much for attending today, another event in the series of AEI’s programs on foreign policy, particularly on the UN and multilateral organizations.  I have two functions today, the most important of which is to introduce Norm Coleman.  But before I get to that function, which will be a great pleasure, I wanted to just offer a few observations of my own on the subject of today’s address and panel discussion.

I do think that the question of the political dynamic within the UN system is a very important and troubling one, especially for the United States.  Watching the way regional groups and affinity groups within the UN operate and the way they are able to pursue their respective agendas in the UN system is something that is not well understood outside the family of people who follow the UN in detail.

Especially from the U.S. perspective, it leads to the question that many Americans ask in frustration, why is it that we seem to have the difficulty that we do in getting the UN to pursue policies we think are appropriate?  The real starting point in contemporary terms for understanding the divergence in reaction between the United States on the one hand, and much of the rest of the world on the other, is the oil for food scandal in Iraq.

In this country, there was enormous attention to the fraud, waste and mismanagement that was discovered in the oil for food program.  Congress was interested -- Senator Coleman was one of the leaders of those who tried to better understand what had happened and supported the analytical work of Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board on the issue.

I remember well in the fall of 2005, that Paul Volker testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and had a very important colloquy with Senator Coleman, one part of which went something like this.  Senator Coleman said, “Do you think there is a culture of corruption in the UN?”  And Volcker said, “No, I don’t think that there is a culture of corruption, although there is corruption; there is a culture of inaction.”

A culture of inaction – I thought it was one of the most profound insights that an outside observer had produced in the UN system.  In fact, Volcker had another insight that was important.  As he had gone through the oil for food program, he came to realize that the defects, the problems of the oil for food program, did not originate in that activity but that the program grew out of the UN itself.  It contained a lot of UN personnel.  It followed UN practices.  It reflected the culture of the UN.  And the problems that had come to the surface in oil for food were problems endemic in the UN system itself.

He proposed a number of recommendations, some of which were later taken up by Secretary General Kofi Annan and which were considered by the General Assembly and rejected.  One of Volcker’s most far reaching proposals in the universe of suggestions he made was to have a truly independent outside auditing authority for UN programs.  Now how is that for raising the flag of revolution - an independent outside auditing authority?

I’m sorry if any of you here are accountants and I have rubbed you the wrong way, but independent outside auditing is not a debatable proposition in my view.  And yet we couldn’t get that, we got an independent outside advisory committee, which will probably have all of the weight that you would expect from it.  Even now, we see bodies like the Procurement Task Force, the task force that was set up by former Undersecretary General for Management Chris Burnham, on the verge of being eliminated in a budget fight in the General Assembly. 

Other countries did not view the oil for food scandal the same way.  I remember one intense negotiation over the outcome document in 2005 at the Summit where one representative from the G77 said, “Why do we have to call this oil for food scandal?  Why don’t we call this the oil for food matter?”  Now in my typically diplomatic style I said that we were going to call it the oil for food scandal or there would not be an outcome document.  And indeed, that is how it turned out.

Even to have this discussion reveals part of the problem in perception between the United States and many other countries.  I have concluded, based not only my 16 months in New York but also on over 25 years of dealing with and studying the United Nations, that at this point there is only one reform that makes any sense.  The efforts at marginal and incremental reforms are almost surely doomed to failure.  As we fix one thing, we find another.  We try and deal with oil for food and the next thing we find is cash for Kim, as The Wall Street Journal calls the UN’s difficulties in North Korea.

That is why I come down to one reform to rule them all, and that is to shift from a system of mandatory assessed contributions for most parts of the UN system to voluntary contributions.  The historical experience of the World Food program, UNICEF, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and other agencies which are essentially funded by voluntary contributions, is that they are more efficient, more effective, more transparent, and more responsive.

The reason for this is that the management of those agencies is very familiar with the fact that if they do not deliver, the donors can take their money elsewhere.  This is competition among international organizations.  It is good in the marketplace for goods and services; it is good in the marketplace for solving international problems.

Now I know that an effort to switch from mandatory or assessed contributions to a system of voluntary contributions would be enormously difficult and the subject of considerable opposition within the UN system.  Why is that?  It is because the United States pays 22 percent of the assessed budget and 27 percent of the assessed budget for peacekeeping.

Nonetheless, I have my own revolutionary slogan: “We should pay for what we want and insist that we get what we pay for.”  In the UN, that is truly revolutionary.  And it would give people the impression that we are not content to be one vote among 192 in a General Assembly where we pay more than three times the contribution of about 120 of the lowest paying contributors.  This is a phenomenal divergence that is simply not explainable in terms of one nation, one vote.  I think it’s perfectly appropriate for the overwhelming majority of the General Assembly to vote for whatever the majority wants to vote for, as long as it is content to fund it as well.  The principle of voluntary funding has worked well for UNICEF, it has worked well for the High Commissioner, and for refugees.  It will work well for the rest of the UN system, too.

On that happy note, I want to say that it is my great pleasure to introduce Senator Coleman.  He has, in the course of his first term here in the United States Senate, devoted a considerable amount of effort to studying the specific workings of the UN system.  He has looked at oil for food, as I mentioned earlier, and has also served as one of the Congressional representatives to the US delegation to the United Nations, coming to New York several times, meeting with ambassadors from many of the other members, and meeting with members of the Secretariat.  He has worked to learn an enormous amount about the workings of the institution, understanding its political dynamic and trying to gain the broadest possible appreciation for the work that the organization does. 

I think it is a real credit to Senator Coleman and his interest in this subject that he has remained engaged.  This is not an issue that grabs a lot of political attention in the United States.  You know the Washington saying in the Senate, “There are show horses and workhorses.” -- Senator Coleman is definitely one of the workhorses.  I think he is a star, if you admit a partisan remark, in the Republican Party and somebody I have personally enjoyed working with and am grateful to for all of his support in my confirmation effort.  He has a real continuing contribution to make to public policy in our country.  Senator Coleman, thank you for coming to AEI.

Senator Norm Coleman:  Thank you, John.  There are a lot of smart people in this town, but I do not know anybody, when it comes to international issues, who is as perceptive and thoughtful and clear in his thinking as John Bolton.  So thank you all of my friends, and thank you John.  I am going to share a few thoughts on the question of who controls the United Nations. 

Who controls the United Nations?  Similar questions might be who controls teenagers, who controls a hurricane, who controls the New York Yankees?  Who controls what happens when you put polar opposites at various dimensions under the same roof and then call them united? 

In many ways, the challenges regarding control and direction in the United Nations are part of its structure.  I am going to mirror some of the thoughts that Ambassador Bolton has laid out here.  Much like our founders in setting up the United States Congress, the Congress is an institution.  It is an institution that is not geared to work quickly.

I had a conversation with Malaki in Iraq one day who was complaining about why they have to bring in the Sunnis into this and that.  He talked about where the majority is.  I said that respectfully speaking, I represent the United States Senate and we protect one of the great enemies of democracy, the tyranny of the majority.  I did not tell him that we also protect against one of the other enemies of democracy, the tyranny of the urgent.

The UN structurally is created not to move urgently.  I am reminded of the words Eleanor Roosevelt said about the condition of her husband’s New Deal programs, “If you are not confused, you’re not thinking clearly.”  If you think you know who is controlling the UN, I think you have to think again.

It is well worth thinking and reflecting upon this question as we try to determine what the best approach is to pursuing US objectives.  It is my view that the fundamental premise of the General Assembly, which is universal membership, presents very clear advantages and disadvantages.  You are talking about international diplomacy. 

Clearly, the UN provides a forum for discussions that may not otherwise take place, and that is a positive.  I think there is value in having a multilateral dialogue.  When it is not in our interest to speak to some countries directly, the UN provides that opportunity.  On the other hand, our experience at the UN does show that universal membership in a one country, one vote system can result in some very distorted outcomes depending on the issues in question and through which UN mechanism they are addressed.

I will try to be a little more specific about what I mean by the structural challenges that stem from UN membership.  Out of 192 member countries, only 88 are fully free democracies.  This means that the vast majority of UN members do not share the same commitment to democracy and human rights, nor are they interested in promoting either.  One of the challenges we sometimes have in diplomacy is that when you sit down with someone you are thinking that they think just like you do

That is not always true in the international arena.  Some people simply approach it with a very different value system and I think you see that played out.  The membership challenge at the UN is compounded by the funding structure.  The scholars here at AEI and as the Ambassador pointed out that the US provides 22 percent of the annual assessed budget yet has the same voting power in the General Assembly as Zimbabwe or Cuba which provides less than a fraction of a percent of the budget.

Back at the UN, the top ten contributors account for 75 percent of the assessed budget.  Conversely, this means that 182 countries at the UN provide only 25 percent, yet 182 countries represent quite a strong voting block in the General Assembly.  This helps create a curious culture of representation without taxation which then surprisingly leads to inefficiency and unfortunately, often corruption.  Member states of the UN with absolutely no financial skin in the game, have little incentive to make the United Nations more transparent and they do dominate the General Assembly, where budget decisions are made. 

Another structural issue that is often exacerbated, is the distorted outcomes that we have seen at the UN through a system of regional groupings.  Basically what you have is regional groups with a broader framework of consensus-based decision making.  This has basically enhanced the ability of countries with minority viewpoint positions, which can be antithetical to democratic interests to wield disproportionate power. 

It serves to divide democracies and facilitate coalitions with undemocratic states, especially when certain democratic states overlook fundamental ideas in the name of regional solidarity and consensus.  That is why the likes of Iran get to serve as vice-chairs of the UN Commission on Disarmament and Libya and Cuba get to school the world on human rights. 

It has been this context of UN membership structure that groups such as the Non-Aligned Movement, and now the G77, have flourished.  The Non-Aligned Movement, if you look at it historically, was really a product of the US/Soviet Union, East/West struggle.  In the you had a movement that was non-aligned, but was not truly not aligned.  Cuba was part of the Non-Aligned Movement, most of India was within the Soviet sphere at that time but was not non-aligned.  The groups names is somewhat of a misnomer. 

I will speak for a few minutes of where we have seen the negative effects, but I am going to try to end on an optimistic note.  The most negative effects have been in the areas of attempts for UN reform and human rights.  During 2005, after the oil for food scandal was thoroughly played out, it was clear, through Ambassador Volcker’s efforts, that there was waste within the system.  And as Volcker said, he thought it reflected the culture itself.  Corruption was part of what he challenged.

Thanks to the ambitious work of our UN Ambassador, John Bolton, an outcome document was signed in which members of the UN General Assembly generally agreed to a set of general UN reforms.  The outcome document itself was actually watered down compared to the objectives that we had in terms of US objectives but nevertheless, it represented an opportunity to push forward with at least an amount of minimal reform.  References were made in the document for priorities, such as implementing a systemwide whistleblower policy and conducting mandate review.  These are not radical concepts.

Importantly, the outcome document was signed by virtually all members of the General Assembly, which was of no small significance.  Following the 2005 Summit, Ambassador Bolton spearheaded a major effort to follow through on the reform priorities that were outlined in the outcome document.  Nevertheless, resistance was faced on all sides, even on the most self-evident and basic forms of review, such as reviewing thousands of obsolete mandates.

In a very telling event in May of 2005, the UN General Assembly rejected a modest management reform proposal put forward by the Secretary General, a historic vote in the Budget Committee.  In this vote, the US and other countries accounting for 87 percent of the UN’s budget saw their reform expectation blocked by a voting block of 108 countries, including members of the G77, who combined account for only 12 percent of the UN regular budget.

For the most part, large scale management reforms have stagnated ever since.  I was struck by the comment of the British Ambassador of the United Nations at that time, who said, “They should realize that we pay 82 percent of the budget and we are not going to have impose on us by the Draconian tactics of the G77.”  And he went on to say that if they want to play with fire, they are going to get their fingers burned.

So clearly, this is not just a US perspective, but a perspective of those countries that do have a stake in reform.  And by the way, I’m going to touch upon this later, but I believe that every nation in the United Nations has a stake in reform.  It is in the interest of the G77, of the United Nations as a whole, to have an organization that is transparent, that is accountable and that in fact, has dollars going to the things that they should be used for.

That is what is critical.  There are needs out there and development capabilities that are instead being sucked away in a system that isn’t transparent.  I think those who have the greatest needs suffer the most.  The outcome reforms with respect to the UN human rights body are even more disappointing.

The outrages of the Human Rights Commission led to an agreement outlined in the 2005 outline document to eliminate the body and create a new Human Rights Council.  During its first year of operation, it has made a mockery of its stated purpose.  It actually makes its predecessor commissions seem like an improvement.

In short, a little after a year of operation, the Council has really focused principally on one nation, on the State of Israel.  Despite the fact that the Human Rights Council is tasked with monitoring the human rights situation of all 192 members of the UN, the only country that has been directly condemned through country specific resolutions is Israel, which has been subject to 75 percent of all resolutions passed by the Council during the first year. 

In keeping with this selective focus, the Council last year called three special sessions, which were intended to address only the most egregious human rights violations and they called it on one situation, one country, on Israel.  They didn’t talk about Darfur, they didn’t talk about Zimbabwe, they didn’t talk about Cuba.  And for anyone that remains unconvinced about the bias of the Council and the decisions that were adopted in June on the governing rules of the program of work, we are stuck with only one country specific permanent agenda item, the human rights violations of Israel.

Due to the abominable performance of the Human Rights Council, I introduced an amendment to the 2008 Senate Foreign Relations operations bill that prohibits US funding from being used to support the UN Human Rights Council.  I also introduced the measure as a stand-alone bill that was unanimously passed, by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  I think it is important, even at a mostly symbolic level, for Congress to make a statement, a statement of protest against the Council.  You hope that the message is then received because funding does make a difference. 

But getting back to my previous analysis of UN membership, it does not come as any big surprise that the UN has not had a stellar performance on reform of human rights issues.  The bottom line is we have to recognize that the structure of the UN does impose fundamental constraints about its ability to serve as a constructive multilateral forum in every circumstance.  Any organization in which the majority of members are not fully democratic by definition will not have a perfect performance in promoting human rights and spreading democracy.

Nevertheless, I do not believe that the structural constraints necessarily prevent the UN from being useful in any circumstance.  I think there is opportunity out there; we just need to be realistic about what we can achieve and creative in how we approach our priorities.  As an optimist and somebody who understands that we need a factor of multilateral instruments to pursue global objectives, I believe we can still work towards affecting change at the UN and meeting certain key objectives.

While the UN has not been particularly effective for balancing its approach to human rights, in the interest of balance, I do want to note some modest success during the past year.  The third committee, the General Assembly, in which all member states have a vote actually passed several resolutions this year that addressed acute human rights violations.  These resolutions deal with human rights in Belarus, Iran, Burma and North Korea.

While I do not believe that these resolutions alone will have a strong and lasting impact, they do demonstrate what can be done when we choose our battles and work with the UN in pursuing certain US, and I believe global, objectives.  That said, the US should never be constrained from doing the right thing, even when we cannot get a majority of United Nation members to agree with us.

One other important reason for measured optimism outside of the General Assembly, other mechanisms exist at the UN where the United States can exert a positive influence.  The Secretariat, of course, is the most obvious entity and I think that the change in leadership this past year has been a breath of fresh air for the UN and a very positive development certainly for the United States.

After the investigation was concluded by the Volcker Commission, I could come to no other conclusion than that Kofi Annan did not have either the capacity or the authority in the wake of the scandals to affect UN reform.  I believe that his personal style of management and leadership stemmed from and, in effect, I think kind of became part of that culture of indifference, the culture of inaction that Ambassador Volcker talked about.

And so I will tell you that I was very pleased with the appointment of Secretary Ban Ki-moon.  I had read his works on reform before he got elected Secretary General and had an opportunity to have conversations with him about this issue and he expressed his belief in its importance.  He has demonstrated a willingness to work in a constructive way, something that his predecessor was simply not prepared to do. 

Upon entering office, Secretary Ban Ki-moon took several unprecedented steps to make the Secretary more accountable and efficient.  He disclosed his financial information, a very welcome and appropriate step after all.  By going public with his financial disclosure form, the Secretary General avoids even the appearance of impropriety and it was a challenging issue that I had with his predecessor.

He also took steps to improve staff mobility that in the long run will hopefully serve to combat the system of patronage that has so long dictated UN hiring practices.  And after much effort, Secretary Ban Ki-moon has also managed to put several reform efforts through the General Assembly, including a plan to reform the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. 

While we can debate the merits of the specific reform initiative the Secretary General has sought to implement, the point is that he has demonstrated a willingness to work on reforming the UN that we haven’t seen before and to the same degree in UN leadership.  While this clearly doesn’t rise to the challenges we face at the UN, particularly in the General Assembly, I believe it is of fundamental importance that the leader of the United Nations, the head of the Secretariat, is committed to promoting a culture of transparency and efficiency. 

His leadership does make a difference and I am willing to try to work with him to overcome at least some of the major diplomatic hurdles that we face in the General Assembly and other areas of the UN system.  The good news is that the G77 doesn’t control all aspects of the UN system and the US does have the ability to achieve at least some of its objectives through various mechanisms, such as the Security Council and separate agencies like the World Food Program and the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations. 

Again, I think our goals and the goals of the G77 are not antithetical.  We want to make sure that there are dollars there to lift up those that have the greatest need.  But if you have a system that by its very nature is not accountable, you never know whether that is taking place to the maximum extent.  Those that have the greatest need, as I said before, are those who will suffer.

In looking back again at this logic question of who controls the UN, I think we need to be very realistic about the fact that the UN is made up of individual states who have individual interests.  Its numbers are dominated by non-democracies who do not have the same financial stake in the UN as the United States does.  So therefore, we should not be afraid to look at other venues for achieving US objectives when we hit a wall at the UN. 

The UN, after all, is not the only game in town, but it is one  which we need to try to work with.  Let’s work with the Secretariat where we can.  But then finally reflecting on what the Ambassador said, let’s also show a willingness to apply leverage to the General Assembly, which comes in the form of US dues provided by the US Congress and the possibility of shifting from mandatory to voluntary contributions. 

The possibility of looking at what we do and saying we, as US taxpayers who make significant contribution think that it is reasonable for us to say we demand accountability.  It is in our interest to have an effective United Nations. 

We have an old expression in Minnesota, and since the Ambassador used it elsewhere, I will repeat it, “you get what you pay for.”  If we continue to subsidize murky finances, that is what we will get, bizarre outcomes.  But if we say this is what the United States expects, transparency and accountability, and for that we are willing to pay for this, then the UN will either become more relevant to the world as it is or try to make it on its own nickel and not the largesse of the American taxpayer. 

I think the choice is clear.  I think there is a good reason for the choice.  And if the right choice is made in the end, we will have a more effective and constructive partner forum in the international community to do the right things.  Thank you very much.

Danielle Pletka:  I am standing up here like a behemoth.  The Senator is going to take just a few questions.  Please identify yourself and just wait for the microphone.

Nina Rosenwald:  Thank you very much. Nina Rosenwald, American Securities, LLC.  Thank you so much, Senator.  I was wondering what we can do in the Congress to ensure that the upcoming conference in Durban, whether it is in Durban or not, is not a rerun of Durban One in 2001?

Norm Coleman:  One of the challenges, Nina, that we face in Congress is to have a united vision on how we work with the United Nations.  This should not be a partisan issue and I hope that it does not devolve into that.  I think we have challenges.  When you say what can we do in Congress, I’m not sure that we are in a position to act with a unified voice right now in Congress. 

But I think we have to make that step.  I think that although we are talking about the UN, we could have this whole discussion on the US Congress. That is that we find ourselves, in a paralytic partisan divide that is not healthy.  I think that what we have to do is try to figure out a way to have some conversation to develop a bipartisan vision so that we can speak with one voice.  When we speak with one voice, we have more effective outcomes in the global context.

I think we face our own challenges.  I am one who has always tried to reach across the aisle to work with my colleagues.  I modified my resolution on the Human Rights Council, time limited it and did a number of other things just to secure the support of Senator Biden and folks on the other side of the aisle and then we got a unanimous resolution.  I think we have to sit down and try to get some bipartisan focus and then perhaps have some outcomes, a different outcome than what we saw before.

Frank Fletcher:  Thank you, Senator.  My name is Frank Fletcher and I will make it brief.  Iran, what can you tell us or what would like to tell us?

Norm Coleman:  Well, you wanted to make it brief.  I’m going to make three observations about Iran in the context, by the way, of UN action and some of the challenges we face.  First, the threat of Iran getting a nuclear weapon is real.  And it is real not just in terms of the threat to Israel, but also in terms of the destabilizing influence it will have in the region.

What are the Saudis going to do if Iran has a nuclear weapon?  Are they going to sit back and say we’re not going to be a nuclear power?  I think the threat of proliferation is a threat to all of us.  This is not a US issue, this is one we all have a stake in, limiting proliferation.  So Iran not having a nuclear weapon is very, very critical. 

The challenge, of course, is getting unanimity.  The good news is we see the French and the Germans understanding that this is an issue.  The French Foreign Minister had very strong statements.  It is an issue for all of us.  We have a stake in non-proliferation, particularly by a nation that says it will want to destroy the State of Israel.

But it also represents a great challenge, and this may be a situation where, in fact, the Security Council may not, on its own, be able to do things while others can.  One of the things you are going to see is the use of sanctions.  Sanctions can be done through the Security Council but if not, the European banks in the international community will put a great deal of pressure on the Iranians to step back.

Iran imports 40 percent of its gasoline and does not have a refining capacity.  Iran needs $100 billion of financial investment to maintain its oil infrastructure or in the next ten years, it will be in trouble.  I can tell you that a year ago, I would have said that the US sanctions were at about the 20 percent level.  But I think you will see sanctions, not just US, but others as well. 

Danielle Pletka:  One more question?

Norm Coleman:  Sure – and that’s about as brief as you can be on Iran.

Robert Copaken:  I am Bob Copaken and I’m a student of the UN.  I’m a little troubled by the concept of shifting from mandatory assessed contributions to voluntary contributions.  A lot of us belong to clubs and other organizations, we are taxpayers locally and we don’t always get what we expect in terms of our tax dollars or our dues and membership in organizations.  How do you square that concept with your idea?

Norm Coleman:  I believe market forces work.  And so, if in fact, people need to have levels of performance, I think that is a net positive.  I don’t think it needs to be across the board.  So I’m still fighting the battle for reform in other areas, but with the message is that reform is not about protecting our interests; reform is about protecting the interests of those who have the greatest need.

I am involved in an investigation of looking at UNDP.  Some of this stuff has been laid out very publicly.  UNDP is one of the main UN development tools.  If the tool then is allowed to be corrupted and you don’t put in place mechanisms to deal with the corruption there, you are going to have trouble sustaining something that is absolutely important. 

I think that voluntary contribution is a piece of the puzzle.  I do believe that we must continue to pursue the reform agenda.  But let’s have realistic expectations.  Let us use the forums when we can, but I go back to the Iran question.  If the Russians choose, for whatever reason, to look at their energy interests and Iran’s and place those over the interests of the global community and stemming proliferation in that area and are not aggressive in dealing with the threat that Iran raises, we will find another forum where they can’t block it.

You hope that is not the case.  I think we need a range of things we do all with the same interests.  And that is in the end, our goal and should be the goal of our friends in South Africa. 

Our goal is to have an organization that has the trust and respect of the global community, that is seen as being transparent and accountable and is seen as being effective in carrying out its mandates and its missions.  I think we all have an interest in doing that.  I do not believe that is the reality today, so we have to make some changes.  Thank you all very much.

Danielle Pletka:  Thank you all. Why don’t we go directly into our next panel and chat about some of these very provocative issues that have been raised?   I am Danielle Pletka, I am the Vice President for Foreign and Defense Policy Studies here at AEI.  Let me welcome our panelists who have been patiently sitting here as we go through our other presentations.  Ambassador, and don’t hesitate to correct me if I mispronounce it, Welile Nhlapo, is joining us here, I think for the first time, at AEI.  We are very pleased to have him here and I think he will be able to give us a very important perspective based on his own experiences.

He has served as the Director in the Africa Division in the Department of Political Affairs at the United Nations and he is, of course, currently the South African Ambassador to the United States.  He served previously as South Africa’s Ambassador to Ethiopia and their permanent representative to the Organization of African Unity and to the United Nation’s Economic Commission for Africa.  In other words, he is a man who knows whereof he speaks.  South Africa, of course, plays a very important role in some of the very organizations that we have been talking about and I believe also has a very strong interest in reform.

Also with us today, is Terry Miller who is now the Director of the Center for International Trade and Economics at the Heritage Foundation.  However, prior to joining Heritage just two weeks ago, he had a distinguished career as a public servant.  He was the Ambassador to the United Nation’s Economic and Social Council.  Before that, he was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Global Issues and he has also served in Italy, France, Barbados and New Zealand.  That is probably the only resume that ever made me think about actually joining the Foreign Service.

So thank you, Terry, for being here, especially having so recently joined the private sector, if we can call ourselves the private sector.  Brett Schaefer and certainly a very old friend of mine and of ours is the Jay Kingman Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs at the Heritage Foundation.  He specializes in a broad range of issues, but focuses for our purposes a great deal on international organizations and Sub-Saharan Africa. 

I should add that he, with me and his boss, the President of the Heritage Foundation Ed Feulner, worked on the United States Institute of Peace Commission on United Nations reform, where I feel safe in saying he was one of the most knowledgeable people without whom we would not have been able to recommend, although we certainly did not achieve, reform.  Let me, if I might, ask the Ambassador if he would be kind enough to just lead off.  I think he is just going to make a few brief comments because we would like to be able to leave the maximum amount of time for our audience to ask questions.  So if I may turn to you, Ambassador and ask you to say a few words.

Welile Nhlapo:  Well, thank you very much.  Let me say that I welcome and appreciate the opportunity to participate in this event in regards to a very crucial question.  I am only about two and a half months in my new job.  And when I was told that I would have to come here, I started developing the stress fracture before it actually occurred.

South Africa was one of only four African countries that was present in San Francisco when the United Nations charter was signed in the 25th of June of 1945 - the other four were South Africa, Ethiopia, Liberia and Egypt.  So we’ve been with this organization for a long time and for me personally since its very inception.

It has also been acknowledged that General Jan Smuts contributed quite largely in the discussions of what led to the drawing up of the preamble of the United Nations, so we have a very eminent South African who made that contribution.  He was not speaking for all South Africans, but I think he actually did make the right mark. 

Around the same period, in 1943, the African National Congress developed what was called African claims whose main office elements could be found in the preamble of the charter of the United Nations.  Although we are not in government marginalized and isolated, we did make our voice and we did raise our own observations as to what we think needs to be done to address the problems that are facing us and the rest of humanity at that time. 

We did also made our voice heard then through the African claims.  The historical document reveals that we were quite advanced in our thinking in terms of what we thought our problems were and where the solutions lie.  We have never been an isolationist country.

That is why, when South Africa was still a member and we were calling for a suspension and isolation.  It was because we thought that the international community, through this organ, must exercise this responsibility and isolate this country that had violated all basic elements of the charter because of the apartheid system.  We were able to win the day in the end and we still cling very much and very dearly to the over-arching concept of the establishment of the United Nations.

I think it is interesting, and many people overlook the opening of that preamble, that it does not say we the states; it says we the people of the United Nations, we the people of the United Nations.  But also recognize that only sovereign states can enter into certain treaties and agreements and representing these people in organizations of this nature and when the United Nations was established.

We understand that governments also have a responsibility to bring to the fore aspirations the problems and the needs of their own people.  But a lot of things went wrong.  And I think that from what has been said here, there is an observation that with the excitement of the so-called New World order because of the collapse of the Soviet system and its constellation of states, we failed to realize that we have not yet come out of some of the characteristics of the Cold War as nations. 

We still have a very serious Cold War and that is what explains to you what happens in the United States and the cleavages that form around that.  Based on that experience and the survivalist tendencies that developed during that time and the fact that with the charter that has not evolved with the processes in the world , in certain instances it cannot be relied on for guidance because it is outdated.  That is why when you call for the reform of the UN and the revision of the charter overall, some of the issues that have been noted, it is something that needs to be done.

When you talk about reforms, you find this problem creeping up of preference.  Certain reforms are preferred than others.  I think this is how the UN system has been able to suffer because of this tendency of not engaging and trying to find common ground on some of the issues of primary concern.  This is what led to the very foundation of the United Nations, to end all wars and to ensure that people can live in peace and security and prosperity.  I think we have lost sight of that.

We need to go back to those founding principles of the UN and see whether we are still serving the people of the world and all governments which are formed in different ways.  What has been said is very true.  The governments that are representing the people, some of them are the worst enemies of their own people.  It is a fact.  And that is why in Africa we are trying to stop this by outlawing all coups. 

In Africa, if you get involved in a coup, you cannot sit in the midst of other heads of states in the EU – you get immediately suspended and never get recognized.  At least we are advancing as far as that is concerned, but I am saying that there are possibilities of dealing with these issues and there are ways of dealing with them.

So I am to say that we are going to remain true and dear to these principles.  We are not going to waiver and are very much aware of the reality of where we are and what is happening within that framework – the advantages and disadvantages.  But I also want to address one or two issues which I thought I needed to reflect on.

On the question of systems of regional groupings , there are more than the three that are normally listed.  You have the EU, CARICOM, and all sorts of groupings and others arising out of common interests: New Zealand, Australia and Canada have the Cairns Group.  There are all sorts of groups that form from time to time on a regional basis and, in certain cases, on an issue basis where people agree on a common consensus and work across all sorts of divides to take their issues forward.

I was talking earlier about the hang-up of the Cold War.  It was in the heat of the Cold War that those countries that had just emerged from colonial domination formed group such as the NAM and Group of 77.  These groups first met in 1952.  South Africa was present through the African National Congress.  So for us, for South Africa, it is not a question of now.  It is something that we have always had an interest in, that we have always been involved with.  We are not independent or a newly emerging colonial country; we are still trapped in all vestiges of colonialism, but our organization was invited and was represented in 1952 .  We know the Non-Aligned Movement, we know the history of what happens in it and what has been happening in it.

Because we were always a part of it, as an observer member and then after 1994 as a full member, we got involved in all of the problems.  The big local issue was unlocked in the Non-Aligned Movement conference in Durban.  That is why it was unlocked.  That is why we were able to have progress -- because we had to sit through the Libyans and talk through this problem. 

There was a resolution in the political committee on which people could not agree on how to respond to the crisis.  The consensus had to be found.  It was made possible because of decisions that were taken by NAM.  But of course, this one won’t be recognized.  I am saying that there are some positive things that might come out of it.  There were debates and debates even afterwards to look at whether it is still relevant given that we now have what this is called the New World Order.  But I think people came to the conclusion that we’re not yet fully out of the woods.

The group of 77 met purely to defend economic interests of the developing countries.  That is the reason why it met.  When they talk about a new economic, world economic order, that was a negotiating forum, but it continued to exist and assumed a different political character.  If it has been an obstacle to certain things, it can always be explained in one way - that smaller and developing countries have always survived through solidarity for good and for wrong reasons.

That is why, in the human rights concept, by sheer force of numbers of in committees of the General Assembly, they can use their numbers to block anything that they think is a threat to the developing countries.  And these are not homogeneous bodies.  The OIC has always existed, but it became very much interested in the issues of the UN, particularly after 9/11 and its effect that it was recognized because the question of Islam was brought to the fore as a new problem.

That’s how they come to prominence.  Otherwise, they have always been there.  Members of the OIC have always been members of either NAM or G77 or the Arab group or Africa group or Asia group.  They are spread all over.  They had this organization of theirs, but then they had to group and say that they’ve got something to defend because there was an offensive against them.  So I just wanted to make that remark so that at least you would have a balance on how we look at the problem and together try to find solutions.  Because otherwise, it becomes very difficult to have meaningful discursive dialogue along these issues.

Let me say the last thing.  When we rejoined the United Nations in 1994, I was one of the people who was sent to come to that process, because we had a number of issues that we had to negotiate -- very, very difficult.  One was the debt accrued through the suspension of the South African government because of its policies.  We managed to negotiate successfully on that one and that debt was scrapped.  So we had to start on a new page. 

But our assessments were never reduced; it is only the debt that was scrapped.  When we tried to negotiate the assessment for peacekeeping, the answer we got was a deafening no.  At the moment, in terms of peacekeeping, we contribute even more than some of the countries in Europe who are giving us overseas development assisted aid.  It’s a fact, it’s a reality.  We are paying far much more for this, but we have decided that we will continue to do so because we believe that this organization can serve a useful purpose and can be able to work with them.

We have worked with the UN on many cases.  I was the Deputy Chief, Head of Mission of the African Mission in Burundi.  And when we handed over to the UN and had to negotiate for a UN takeover of that mission, it was not an easy thing.  But at the end of the day, the event had to realize its responsibility and to accept and do something about it because we were financing our own operation in Burundi.  Not being paid by anybody.  But I must also be honest that we had contributions from the US, The Netherlands and other countries in our efforts.  Thank you very much.

Danielle Pletka:  Thank you, Ambassador.  We are going to turn to Ambassador Miller next, thank you.

Terry Miller:  Thanks a lot, Dani and thank you very much for reiterating your invitation to me after I changed jobs on you.  This is a topic that I am very interested in and I am glad to participate today.  It is also a particular pleasure for me to participate in an event that is hosted and introduced by my good friend and former boss John Bolton.  I actually worked for John on three separate occasions, each one more interesting and fulfilling than the one before.

I also want to note the major contribution of Senator Coleman.  He has been a frequent visitor to the US mission in New York and he really follows in a long line of distinguished US Senators, Jesse Helms comes to mind, Pat Moynihan comes to mind, people who really understood the nature of the United Nations and were able to distinguish in a very clear eyed way between the idealistic hopes that we all share for international cooperation.  We all want to advance peace and prosperity and the UN can be a tool to do that.

But we also have to deal with the reality of a bureaucratic institution, the United Nations, whose watchword all too often seems to be unaccountability.  Senator Coleman talked about the free rider problem and that is definitely one of the main reasons for the unaccountability.  There is another one, and that is a long tradition of sloppy thinking about sovereign equality and democracy.

Sovereign equality is the basis in the charter for the one country/one vote decision making process.  Unfortunately, sovereign equality has nothing whatsoever to do with the characteristics that determine a country’s ability to actually promote peace and security, to accept the responsibilities to maintain international peace and security.  Those characteristics are things like size, wealth, population, military power.  Those aren’t taken into account in the UN voting process.

UN advocates like to describe the one country/one vote decision making process as embodying the best principles of democracy.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Democracy, demos, is about people.  One person/one vote is the democratic ideal.  One country/one vote is something else entirely.  And when many of the countries casting those votes are themselves not democracies, then the question of just whose views are being represented is a very real one. 

The combination of this democracy deficit and the free rider budget problem is poisonous and at the root of US hesitancy about the UN and its decisions and programs.  The three groups on our agenda today, the Group of 77, the Non-Aligned Movement and the Organization of the Islamic Conference embody both the free rider problem and the democracy deficit.  I want to talk about them from the perspective of what seems to make them tick and what the future might hold.

The G77 is, in some respects, a creature of the UN and its crazy decision making rules.  The tradition of one country/one vote makes it really useful to try to have a group containing at least 97 members in the current UN.  If you have 97, you can control almost all UN decisions.  The Group of 77 currently has 135.  When it was formed in 1964 and actually only had 77 members, it was still a majority.  The UN at that time only had about 115 members.

Of the 77 original members of the group were a disparate group of countries.  Most were united by a relative lack of development, but the group included members across the political and economic spectrum.  Many were firmly committed to socialism or communism, but there were also a few even then who embraced capitalism.  What they could all agree on then, as well as now, was that the richer, more developed countries should give them more money.

Requests for more foreign aid were and are at the core of the group’s platform.  The agenda was to institutionalize as an entitlement the transfer of money from rich countries to poor.  This went so far as to include calls for a kind of tax, 0.7 percent of a rich country’s gross domestic product, to be transferred irrespective of actual need or of the ability of recipient countries to use the funds wisely or effectively.

Given the lack of democracy and the lack of respect for human rights in many of the poor countries, the reality often was that we were reallocating resources from the middle class in the north to the ruling elite in the south; hardly something to inspire idealism or inflame humanitarian impulses.  I spent most of my Foreign Service career negotiating with the G77, starting with their calls for a new international economic order. 

We have, of course, already had an economic order, one that we liked, that we were quite fond, that we knew worked well for most of the people most of the time.  We had no interest in replacing it with something based on a socialist, centrally planned model that its supporters dreamed would tax the rich and reallocate wealth and resources to poor countries.   Unfortunately, the G77 quickly learned the power of the majority and they didn’t hesitate to use it.  Soon it was controlling not just UN economic decisions, but also the management of the organization. 

This had significant implications.  For countries that collectively pay almost nothing towards the expenses of the organization, the easiest solution is always to grow and spend.  After all, it’s other people’s money and there were lucrative UN jobs, 36,000 of them, to be had.  For a country like the US on the losing side of so many UN votes but required to pay the largest share of the costs, it sometimes seemed like the tyranny of the majority.

In any case, there was a powerful package of forces driving the G77, a desire for resource transfers, gifts from the rich, the ability to command UN spending and priorities without any responsibility, and for many, an ideology based on Marxist ideas of class struggle and economic betterment of the poor through redistribution of wealth rather than economic growth.

Fortunately, even in the face of such forces and influences, life happens.  Capitalism, that great agent of evolutionary change and the efficient allocation of resources  which had already brought unheard of levels of prosperity to the United States and Western Europe, proved capable of perfecting and extending its markets, both domestically and internationally. 

Gone was the gold standard, in were floating exchange rates and a better understanding of monetary policy.  We learned how to manage growth without inflation.  The Uruguay round brought trade liberalization, unheard of before, and economic barriers among countries began to fall.  Today we call this process globalization and it is bringing high rates of sustained economic growth around the world, even in the poorest countries -- that is according to the World Bank, the IMF, and even the United Nations itself.

So a strange thing has happened to the G77, this group of self-identified underachievers.  Many of its members have begun to succeed and they have succeeded not because of the redistribution of wealth, the aid flows that they had so ardently championed, but because they found they could compete in open international markets and grow.  They haven’t changed the system, but they found ways to prosper within it. 

They have made themselves attractive targets for foreign investment, they have instituted the rule of law and they have even risked the true revolution of democracy and freedom.  Not all, but many and the successes have begun to add up to the point that calls for more aid, once the be all and end all of the group’s program, have become almost silly in light of the rapid expansion of trade flows, foreign direct investment and remittances sent home by immigrants to foreign lands.

We don’t hear many calls these days for a new international economic order.  Why create a new order when the current one is working so well for so many?  I would say the future of the G77 is uncertain.  The disparities in the group already evident at its founding are becoming ever more striking as the countries that reform prosper, while those that don’t are left behind. 

The socialist ideology that infected the group at its founding is largely discredited or at least a pale reflection of what it once was.  The G77’s ability to inspire or coerce greater aid flows has become almost meaningless in light of the massive transfers of resources going through capitalist markets.  What remains is the ability to direct and control the UN.  Maybe that’s enough to sustain the group for awhile.

But there are problems on the horizon – I’m talking specifically about climate change.  Whatever one believes about the science or the economics of climate change, it is clear that it will form a large part of the UN agenda for years to come.  It is also clear that the members of the G77 will have vastly different positions on the issue, depending on their size, their economic level and their geography.  Already this summer, we saw the group essentially paralyzed in negotiations on climate change at the Economic and Social Council.  I suspect there is more of that ahead. 

The Non-Aligned Movement is a little different.  It was created even before the G77 and as the Ambassador said, it’s really a product of the Cold War and the desire of certain Third World leaders for a larger personal voice in world affairs.  It’s not a bad strategy in theory, but in practice, there have always been a lot of problems.  The benefits of Cold War alignment were significant, in both security and economic terms.  And countries, including members of the Non-Aligned Movement, did in fact align with the super powers. 

The varying allegiances of its members have created tensions within the movement, most notably during the Russian war against Afghanistan.  As its charismatic founders have passed from the scene, the NAM has also had little in the way of theory or philosophy on which to rely.   With the Soviet Union and the Cold War things of the past, the very concept of non-alignment would seem to make little sense.

What remains for the group, at least some of the group, is a darker thing - hatred of the United States, hatred of the US supported international system that is based on Western values of respect for human rights, democracy and economic freedom and hatred of Israel. Of course, it’s obvious that most of the countries that call themselves non-aligned and belong to the Non-Aligned Movement do not, in fact, hate the United States or the Western system or even Israel.

For most of the non-aligned members, the attractions of alignment, this time with the Western system of values and economic organization that delivers both freedom and prosperity, are too much to resist.  So the Non-Aligned Movement, in many respects, has become a last haven for tyrants and dictators.  Cuba is the current chair.  The most recent major conference was in Iran, a major supporter is Venezuela.  Not surprisingly, the NAM’s influence is on the wane.  

I was struck during the last General Assembly by the spectacle of Cuba, the NAM chair, repeating the exact same statement, exhorting NAM members to oppose the country specific human rights resolutions that Senator Coleman was talking about, on at least a half a dozen different occasions.  They just kept repeating the same statement over and over again, saying don’t vote for these resolutions. 

Well, almost all of the resolutions passed anyway with significant support from NAM members.  Why?  Because most of the people and most of the NAM countries actually do believe in human rights and abhor abuses of human rights.  With the growth of democracy and advances in communication, the transmit UN debates and resolutions around the world, the citizens of most NAM countries now have the ability to hold their governments accountable in some degree, for their actions.  It’s hard to see how a movement like the NAM can survive very much longer in an open transparent and democratic world.  Of course we don’t quite have that world yet and the demagogues and dictators who remain will do everything in their power to preserve and promote the Non-Aligned Movement. 

Finally, I want to say just a few words, a very few words about the OIC.  It is not big enough to command an absolute majority by itself in the UN, but its size is significant in determining G77 and non-aligned positions.  In many ways, the OIC is the most challenging of the groups to deal with because its rationale is so foreign to those of us used to freedom of religion and the separation of church and state.

The OIC exists to promote Islam and Islamic values.  It is implacably opposed to Israel and committed to a system of values that are inconsistent in part with fundamental tenets of Western philosophy, including some of the basic tenets embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  The OIC’s strength comes not so much from its numbers as from its focus and its belief in its own rightness. 

It is not clear to me if the West has collectively the courage of our own convictions to match that currently seen in the OIC.  This is one of the great ideological cultural and political issues of our time.  Its resolution will influence lives and events far beyond the United Nations.  Thanks.

Danielle Pletka:  Thank you very much.  Brett?

Brett Schaefer:  Thank you to the American Enterprise Institute for putting on the panel.  I think it is an interesting topic and certainly an interesting question to start a discussion.  I think that the answer to the question of who leads the United Nations is going to differ depending on exactly who is answering the question, and my answer to that is that no one leads the United Nations.

Certainly the Secretary General doesn’t lead the organization.  Even Kofi Annan, who has been described by his admirers as a secular pope or the conscience of the world or whatever you want to call him as far as praiseworthy terms, wasn’t able to force the organization to go in a direction that it didn’t want to go.  I doubt that the current Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon is going to be any more successful in doing that.  He doesn’t seem to be nearly as ambitious or as forceful in pursuing an agenda as his predecessor so it seems even less likely.

Not even a permanent member of the Security Council, which is undoubtedly the most powerful individual nation within the UN system, can drive the organization to go in a direction that it doesn’t want to go.  The limitations of the permanent members of the Security Council are to stop things in certain limited circumstances.  It can’t take – force positive action by the organization.

And so based on my observation, I think it’s quite clear that the UN has 192 leaders – the member states, which of course, in my interpretation, means that it has no leaders, has no single leader.  In any organization with 192 generals and no privates, you’re going to have an extensive amount of gridlock.  The UN exacerbates this problem in a point that Ambassador Miller talked about, by ignoring the differences among nations. 

The most clear illustration of that is the fact that each member state has one vote in the General Assembly despite the vast differences in military power, population, geographical size, economic strength and financial contributions to the organization.  Under the parameters established by the charter, UN member states are granted equal standing and privileges in the organization, regardless of these very real world differences. 

The UN operates under the theory that each member states abides by the founding principles of the charter, the founding principles of the organization and shares an equal desire to confront and overcome the problems facing the world today.  This, quite evidently, is not the case.  If you look at the organization, it includes many members that, for instance, do not respect the fundamental rights of their citizens.  This is one of the founding principles of the charter and many member states don’t observe it.

Disparate levels of development, geographic size, location and power and other characteristics among the member states virtually ensure that the members will disagree over the priority and the urgency of various issues before the body.  On matters that they care about, each member state will seek to lead the organization, will seek to lead the UN to adopt its position.  But inevitably, on matters of substance, not mostly these consensus positions which are substance-less, members will inevitably rise up to oppose these measures of substance that will affect their interests negatively.

The result is often sly maneuvering among the member states in a low level conflict that undermines both initiatives and assures sort of a low level, lowest common denominator outcome.  The leadership in this context requires coalitions among the member states to resolve and get things done.  This is enormously difficult as organizing any group of generals together around one kind of concept is likely to be.  But inevitably, the group with the most votes dominates and by default leaves the organization. 

And that brings us to the topic that was raised in the question in the groups that was mentioned in the announcement.  Among the most effective groups in getting the organization to rally under an agenda and rally around a purpose are the three groups mentioned in the blurb for the announcement today, the Group of 77, the Non-Aligned Movement and the Organization of the Islamic Conference. 

I am going to briefly describe each group – briefly, because we’ve already had some conversation about it.  I think it is always fun to have illustrations to show people where things are and provide a little bit of visual accompaniment to what we are talking about here.  As mentioned, the Organization of the Islamic Conference was established in 1969 to – and I’ll quote from the websites of the organizations – “to strengthen solidarity and cooperation among Islamic states in the political, economic, cultural and scientific and social fields.”

The OIC is obviously very much focused on Israel and includes a pledge among its membership to, quote, “Support the struggle of the people of Palestine to help them regain their rights and liberate their land.” 

The Non-Aligned Movement was founded in 1961 to, quote, “Ensure the national independent sovereignty, territory integrity and security of non-aligned countries in their struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, Zionism and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony, as well as against great power and block politics.”  Pretty much everything.

Ostensibly, the NAM was set up to avoid an alignment with the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.  In reality, most of the NAM membership was aligned with the Soviet Union if not directly and officially, but sympathetically.  In recent years, it has lost its main purpose for being with the end of the Cold War and has become, as Terry mentioned, a forum for certain states to voice their displeasure over American policies led by Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Venezuela, Cuba, etc.

The G77 was established in ’64 by 77 countries and the G77 was created specifically to leverage the numbers of the membership, the joint negotiating capacity on the membership in terms of the G77, on all matters of major international economic issues in the United Nations system and and also to offer a number of declarations and statements on UN reform issues.

I am now  going to illustrate the membership in terms of the General Assembly and what it means there.  Under the General Assembly rules, as Terry mentioned, most decisions are made by a simple majority.  However, important decisions like admitting new members or approving the budget require approval by two-thirds majority of the General Assembly. 

So those are the two critical numbers - 97 members, as Terry mentioned and 128 members, which is the two-thirds number.  Looking at the numbers, it’s easy to see how these groups can dominate the agenda in the General Assembly.  This is the G77 and the numbers are slightly different from what Terry mentioned.  I am going by the numbers on the G77 website, which had 130 members.  You see 129 here and you also see one number off from each of the other two slides and that is because Palestine is a member of the G77 and the other groups, but is not a member of the UN. 

Now this is 129 members, it represents over 67 percent of the General Assembly.  It is enough – it is over two-thirds of the membership of the General Assembly.  So it theoretically can pass any resolution it wishes should the G77 vote as a block.  The NAM is a clear majority, 61 percent of the General Assembly, and the OIC has 56 members.  It’s a very significant block in the General Assembly.  And as mentioned, if they vote as a block, these groups can be very, very influential in the debates and the resolutions coming before the General Assembly. 

Now that is admittedly becoming more difficult, as Terry mentioned, as the group membership themselves differ on key issues before it.  China and India no longer have the same concerns as other developing countries.  They are different politically, different militarily, different economically.  They have different interests.  And so having those countries as part of the overall block in voting in lock step is obviously more challenging in the current context.

The OIC, I think, is an interesting case.  It lacks the numbers of the G77 and the NAM and so it can’t force votes in the General Assembly.  However, because the OIC are members of the G77 and NAM, in most cases, you do see the leveraging their membership in these groups to try and drive resolutions and decisions in the body.

Importantly, members of the OIC also represent a majority of the African regional group and also just under half of the Asian group, so the two biggest regional group blocks in the United Nations.  In the organization, the regional groups tend to vote in consensus ways in a lot of different matters in the body.  So having a majority position or a significant block within these groups is very useful for the OIC to get support for its resolutions.

Now I talked about these different groups as separate individual identities, but that is not really quite the case.  If you take a look at the different groups, they all do, in fact, overlap in terms of membership.  So you see quite significantly here, that they do include similar members.  And unsurprisingly, they also overlap in terms of agendas.  For instance, all three groups are very hostile to Israel and the United Nations.  They oppose unilateral economic sanctions.  They demand increased economic transfers from developing countries or developed countries, as mentioned by Terry, Ambassador Miller.

And they resist, in important ways, critical UN reforms to increase accountability, transparency, oversight and efficiency within the United Nations system.  Let me get right to that last point, which is the UN reform agenda, how these groups are affecting that process.  I will give you a couple of different examples.  The first example is the UN Human Rights Council.  After years of disappointment, Secretary General Kofi Annan characterized the UN Commission on Human Rights as, quote, “A shadow on the reputation of the United Nations.”  He specifically called for it to be replaced.

The General Assembly opposed efforts by the United States to establish membership criteria to keep the worst abusers out of the United Nations Human Rights Council.  But critically, the new council also shifted the proportional representation of these various regional groups from the old commission to the new council.  This significantly increased the influence of the NAM and the OIC in this body.

In its first year, the Council voted to end scrutiny of human rights practices in Belarus, Cuba, Iran and Uzbekistan.  Not coincidentally, all four of these countries are members of the NAM.  I want to point that out because it was mentioned earlier that the third committee actually passed resolutions criticizing human rights practices in most of these countries.  And so we are in the curious situation where the United Nations General Assembly is a more effective advocate for human rights than the Human Rights Council.  It is a very peculiar situation and certainly not something that most people would have hoped for.

The OIC held 17 seats on the Council in 2006, the very first year that the Council was in effect.  That is more than the one-third of the membership required to call a special session of the Council to address emergency situations on human rights issues.  The Council, led by the OIC, has repeatedly censured Israel.  This is hardly a surprise and really unfortunate, because it has simultaneously ignored most, and in fact far worse, human rights situations around the world. 

One of the most frustrating priorities of the G77 has been to block UN reform measures.  In the wake of numerous UN scandals, the US and other major donors worked with former Secretary General Kofi Annan to devise a UN reform agenda.  The General Assembly approved a broad reform agenda in the 2005 outcome document and they asked the Secretary General Annan to devise and submit a detailed proposal for implementing those reforms that were adopted by the General Assembly.

Most of the reforms proposed by NAM have been blocked by the G77.  Most of the reforms have yet to be adopted two years later, including key reforms like reviewing all UN mandates, strengthening the UN oversight bodies and reviewing UN practices to increase efficiency and effectiveness.  Another example which was mentioned by Ambassador Bolton is Singapore’s effort to eliminate the UN Procurement Task Force, which was set up in 2006 in response to rampant problems of fraud and corruption in UN procurement.

In its first 18 months, the task force has identified multiple instances of fraud, corruption, waste and mismanagement in the UN headquarters and also in the peacekeeping missions that it has been asked to investigate with cases in aggregate of over $600 million.  The task force says that it is directly responsible for corruption involving $25 million.  So this is a very effective way of trying to clamp down on corruption, waste, fraud and abuse within the UN system. 

The task force has proven its merit, yet despite the success of the task force, you have an effort led by Singapore backed by the G77 to try to defund the task force.  Primarily because one of the objects of its investigation is a former assistant secretary general who happens to be from Singapore.  This leads to the peculiar situation which was mentioned by both ambassadors, that the membership of the G77, the NAM and the OIC are actually in a curious position of blocking efforts to make the UN more effective.

It is curious because they, by and large, are the biggest recipients of UN activities and focus.  So why would, you ask, with these organizations made up of member states who are beneficiaries of the UN program resist efforts to try and make it more effective and more efficient in delivering those types of services and benefits?  Terry mentioned it -- it is the free rider issue.

The one country/one vote structure in the General Assembly creates a free rider problem in which countries that pay little to the UN drive the financial decisions.  And, as mentioned before, under UN rules, budgetary decisions are passed by a two-thirds majority of the General Assembly.  Let me just go ahead and draw up some numbers here and illustrate the profound disparities in terms of numbers and the contributions to the organization. 

The combined assessment of the 128 countries that have been assessed the least amount by the UN in 2007 contribute less than one percent, .919 percent of the UN regular budgets.  They contribute 0.232 percent to the peacekeeping budget.  The members of the G77 combined are assessed 8.8 percent of the regular budget and 5.2 percent of the peacekeeping budget.  The members of the NAM are assessed a combined 4.9 percent of the regular budget and 1.8 percent of the peacekeeping budget. 

The members of the OIC are assessed a combined 3 percent of the regular budget and 1.2 percent of the peacekeeping budget.  By contrast, the top eight contributors to the UN, eight countries, are assessed 71 percent of the regular budget and 77.6 percent of the peacekeeping budget.  The US alone, as mentioned by the Ambassador, is assessed 22 percent and 26 percent of the peacekeeping budget.

It is hard to really convey the real disparities by just looking at percentages.  Let me just put forward that the US paid $439 million to the UN regular budget in 2006.  In the UN most recent peacekeeping fiscal year, the US contributed over $1.3 billion to the UN peacekeeping budget.  The 54 countries assessed the lowest rate of the UN, 0.001 percent of the regular budget, each pay less than $21,000 a year - $439 million.

Of the 35 countries that are assessed the lowest rate of the peacekeeping budget, 0.0001 percent of the budget pay just over $5,000.  $1.3 billion.  Nearly all of these countries are members of the G77 and the NAM, which are able to greatly influence the decisions of those institutions, those blocks, on voting matters in terms of reform, in terms of the budgetary issues and it undermines greatly the incentives that they have to pass reforms on these areas. 

Take a look at Singapore.  Singapore is obviously very upset about the Procurement Task Force.  Why would these countries ruffle a lot of feathers trying to pursue reforms when it doesn’t mean anything to them financially?  There is no harm, there is no cost and if something isn’t working correctly, it is far easier just to pass a resolution increasing the budget assigned to these matters rather than try and make the resources be used more efficiently within the system. 

It doesn’t matter to them financially.  It is such a miniscule effect financially, but it does matter quite a bit to the United States and other major contributors. 

Danielle Pletka:  Thank you very much.  You know, the only thing I wish I could have seen in your really great slides was an overlay of who was democratic and who wasn’t.  Because I think as Ambassador Nhlapo led off, what he talked about was this fundamental amnesia about the underlying purpose, which is not, in fact, to serve the leaders of each state, no matter who they may be or how they may have arrived in that particular seat, but in fact to serve the people of those states.

This seems to be something that has been completely forgotten and that is absolutely right.  The reforms that are envisioned are not reforms that are, in fact, particularly advantageous to the United States.  To the contrary, frankly whether we have $50 million more or $50 million less at the end of the budgetary year is probably not going to make or break us in terms of our forward ambitions, but it will make a big difference in terms of the ability to deliver aid or in terms of the reforms in peacekeeping to deliver the kinds of effective and safe peacekeeping that would stop the abuses that we’ve seen, for example, in so many African countries that haven’t been investigated.

I only want to make one last note, and that is a point of fairness, that when we talked about the importance of a democracy as being part of the new Human Rights Council, I would remind you Brett, who was there, that we were not able to achieve agreement in our commission on the importance of having democracies inside the Human Rights Council.  And that was all Americans, as best I could tell, although I didn’t see everybody’s papers.

I promised you at the outset that you would be speaking and that was a complete and boldfaced lie.  But now it is your turn, please wait for a microphone and do identify yourself.  This gentleman here, yes?

Richard Shifter:  I am Richard Shifter, I served as the US Representative, Deputy Representative on the UN Security Council and on the Human Rights Commission.  I believe that Ambassador Nhlapo was absolutely correct when he talked about his suggestion that the United Nations today still is affected by the problems of the Cold War.

What I would like to say in this connection is the following.  The Soviet Union in the late 1960s decided to take control of the General Assembly and they did this very effectively with the help of the personal involvement of Fidel Castro through the Non-Aligned Movement. And then the Non-Aligned Movement became nothing other at the UN than a subsidiary of the Soviet block.

As a matter of fact, let me just illustrate with one story.  When I was in New York, I remember having lunch with an African ambassador who, in the course of the conversation as we talked about the NAM, asked me, “Do you know how the NAM consensus was formed?”  I said, “No, you can surely tell me.”  So he said, “Well, you know, we used to be on the other side, so I can tell you.”

And then he said that on the day before, the Non-Aligned Movement caucus took place, the friends of the Soviet Union, about 17 or 18, were invited to the Indian Nation and that was where instructions were given out, very often by the Cubans.  “You introduce tomorrow, you introduce this motion, you speak for it and you are the second speaker and then you introduce that motion.”  And then he said that on the following day, at the NAM caucus, the scenario was played out as previously designed and then I still remember that expression that he used, he said, “And there sits the silent majority that just goes along.”

Now with regard to that silent majority, keep one other thing in mind.  There are quite a number of representatives at the UN that are not instructed or if they are instructed, they are very much on their own.  And again, if I may quote a Latin American representative who once said to me, “You know, after being at the UN for a few weeks, you play the UN game and you forget about your country.”  Therefore, they don’t even think in terms of anyone really representing the country – there is no interest in that.  Okay, thank you.

Danielle Pletka:  Okay, another question – does anybody have a comment?  I am hoping that is not the way that the Non-Alignment Movement continues to operate.  Ambassador, do you have more insight into this?

Welile Nhlapo:  Just two comments.  I have been on both sides of the divide, both as part of my country’s delegation and also having participated in the field as a peacekeeper and having worked in the secretariat and been exposed to what is happening.  I think I have a fair understanding of the intricacies of what is called the UN game.

It is a reality and it can be quite a nightmare for everybody.  We can wish whatever we wish in many cases.  The last time that I was at the UN, I was talking to people and asked about how the situation is now.  And they said – worse.  Now at the time of the departure of Kofi Annan, there was a revolt against the staff.  They didn’t want to hear a thing from you because of these management reforms and the way they were packaged.  They feared for their future, particularly because in the UN, the majority of people are on temporary posts.  There is no job guarantee, so you deal with the staff that always fears that they can lose their jobs at any time.  It is a reality.  I have experienced that to protect and defend a lot of my staff.  I had nothing to lose because I was seconded, so I could speak out. 

But there are lots of problems in the UN which need to be solved.  There is no doubt about that.  The question of management reform in all aspects of the UN is something that has to be dealt with, but it has to be dealt with in such a way that it does create an impression that at the end of the day you want to download people from the developing countries because they are paying nothing.  Their contribution is almost zero.

That is why, for some reason, when the NAM took the position or the G77 took the position to frustrate the effort of management reform and challenge Kofi Annan in the fifth committee, they dismissed his positions and his proposals even before it went.  The perception was that the targets of the reforms were employees from developing countries because of the certain categories in terms of detail of where certain changes and the staff reduction might take place.  How you manage these things becomes an important factor.  I just wanted to make that point. 

My second point is that countries do, indeed, vote as individuals.  There’s a lot of breaking rank within the Africa group, NAM and G77 because when people press the button, the consensus does not come to mind, you echo the instructions from the headquarters, which are influenced by a number of considerations. 

There is no button that is written NAM or OIC or G77.  So if we have to deal with the reality of what happens and in terms of the assessment, I agree.  You can break it down and say this is a contribution in peacekeeping or otherwise of the NAM.  There is no assessment of NAM.  There is no assessment of OIC, there is no assessment of nothing.

So whatever the assessment would be, we will have a problem because we feel highly assessed and are paying.  If we are going to be bundled up with everybody on the basis of our association, then we will have a difficulty.  You can’t have an aliance because we will be moving and dealing with issues for the wrong reason.  The reality is that there are problems and all of us must look at where the solutions lie. 

I can quite appreciate a country like the US and the frustrations that you have with all of this.  It is quite understandable and appreciated.  But unfortunately, most of the countries who are members of the UN today were not there in 1945 when all of these principles were being enshrined in the charter.  Even when the question of equal votes for every member and not taking into consideration the criteria that they are developing was raised, they were not there.

Danielle Pletka:  This gentleman back here has been very patient.  Please identify yourself and do make it a brief question.

Male Speaker:  I am [indiscernible] from India.  I would like to take a little micro-view.  My question is that we have been looking at this whole thing from the point of view of contributions.  Let us think of something alternative.  I have three suggestions to make.  One suggestion is could it be in the way that if somebody pays less than .5 percent, he is a non-working member?  That could be one.  The other could be that the contributions are proportional to the amount of carbon dioxide a country introduces into the global system.  The third could be proportionate to their defense budgets.  I think what we have to think is that if contribution is all that is important, than let us think of a few alternatives, that is all. 

Danielle Pletka:  I don’t think that you should feel constrained by A, B and C, panelists.  Any comment here?

Terry Miller:  I have just a brief response to that.  The problem is not the amount we pay.  The United States is a rich country and I don’t think we mind paying the amount that we contribute to the United Nations, as long as it goes for causes in which we believe.  So the problem is not the amount, the problem is the distortion between the amount we pay and the influence we have in the organization.  The small amount of influence we have in the organization means that a lot of times we are being asked to pay for things in which we actually don’t believe.  And it’s that that causes the problem.

Brett Schaefer:  I would just add one point to that.  And that is that if the United States had confidence that the money that was going into the organization was being used efficiently, effectively and was not subject to fraud, waste, corruption or whatever, which is evidently the case as we are seeing for the oil for food, as we are seeing for the OIOS reports, as we are seeing from the Procurement Task Force, that there is a significant amount of this going on, you would meet much less resistance.

The US I think would be much happier if it could, at least on these budgetary issues, have a lot more influence over some of these decisions to try and improve the process within the UN system of officially allocating resource, of oversight and improving transparency and accountability within the organization.  And so it’s not as if it necessarily has to apply across the board politically.  But on these key areas, I think that the US feels significantly under-represented. 

And let me address the Ambassador’s thing about the charter principles and about the membership and the fact that many members came in after 1945.  Well, the charter has certain principles in it and you have to admit a member to the organization at least according to the charter, the letter of their commitment and ability to international peace and security, and their commitment to fundamental human rights and so forth.

The charter has a provision in there to kick members out.  I don’t see a whole lot of people rushing to the door to do that.  So there seems to be a fundamental lack of seriousness on the part of many of the member states, including the United States, to holding members accountable for the principles of the organization and holding the organization to a higher standard that has been put forth in the charter.  I think that that is unfortunate.

We can talk about the instructions and the lack of instructions, but let me just address that last point about the seriousness with which the United States views it.  I am not sure that the US all together takes it seriously.  I mean, if the US cared about what these nations were doing in the General Assembly, it could significantly improve their adherence to the US position simply by taking the performance in the UN General Assembly and other UN bodies to them bilaterally and having that be determined in the bilateral relationship.  But The US does not do that at all.  So at least the conclusion is that the US does not regard this as a high priority, unfortunately.

Danielle Pletka:  By the way, I think we should contribute based on population.  What do you think about that?  This gentleman here?

Austin Ruse:  Hi, I’m Austin Ruse from C-FAM.  I would answer that question and Terry probably knows what I’m going to say.  That who leads the United Nations, at least in the area that I work on, is not the OIC and it’s not the G77, it’s the European Union and a hard left ideology that is deeply embedded in the UN Secretariat and the UN agencies like UNICEF and UNFPA.

In my experience, the G77 always caves in, always splinters and rarely has a single vote in social policy negotiations.  And the EU always holds firm and brings in a lot of people with them, like the Rio group which also stands firm.  So I would answer the question in a little bit different way.  Terry, you’ve been negotiating on these things for a long time. I would like to hear what you have to say.

Terry Miller:  Thanks Austin, it’s good to see you.  I have just a brief comment about that.  I think part of the reason that the developing countries often are willing to go along with the left agenda of the European Union is that they don’t really regard the decisions of the General Assembly in this area as binding on them.  The decisions don’t actually change the behavior, either in the governments or the societies in the developing countries.

We in the United States tend to look at these in a much more legalistic way and do take it very seriously indeed.  But there is an element of hypocrisy in the UN on all sides and a lot of times people actually agree to things in the General Assembly or even in the Security Council that they have absolutely no intention of implementing.

Brett Schaefer:  On the EU, I actually meant to mention the EU as one of the blocks that was not mentioned in the blurb for the meeting.  It is a significant block.  And I’ve heard people tell me stories that you can fracture the G77, you can fracture the NAM, you can fracture these other groups And get some countries to break away, but not the EU.  Once the EU position is solidified, it is almost impossible to break them away from their set position.  And so it is actually, in some ways, a much more formidable block as far as the voting and positions within the UN.

Danielle Pletka:  Of course it is a freebie for them, because they have a large group of countries, plus they have the two votes on the Security Council.  They can afford to behave responsibly on the Security Council while essentially acting as a block that is a throw away for them in the General Assembly.  They can maintain positions that curry favor on one side and behave in other ways on the Security Council.  That is very advantageous for them and less so for the United States, perhaps. 

Brett Schaefer:  Before I forget, on the contributions issue, I wrote a paper not too long ago talking about this issue and how to address contributions and I would be happy to talk to you about it a little bit later.  I don’t want to take up too much more time on this issue.

Danielle Pletka:  I am going to make this the last question and encourage people to come up afterwards, because we have been here a long time.

Derrick Moyo:  Hi, my name is Derrick Moyo and I’m with the Embassy of South Africa.  I’d like to thank you for an excellent panel.  I think I was kind of preempted by that question.  I think it was spot on.  And I think that you answered it, that there is a lot of hypocrisy on both sides and so on.  So this is merely an amplification of the same point that has been made.

Let’s say you want to discuss human rights violations of China, the Security Council or by the US or by any of the P-5.  You know that that resolution is not going to be carried, not because of anything other than the fact that they will veto it.  I think we focused a lot and I learned a lot about the sway of NAM, G77 and OIC, but I think we didn’t dwell much, perhaps that’s an old debate, on some of the countries on the P-5.  We do have some human rights violators, either all of the time or on certain occasions some countries could have been called in for hiding.  I just wanted to make that point.

Terry Miller:  One thing I will say is that while we talked about how the NAM and G77 are not monolithic blocks, that you do have individual countries within there, one area where over the past year it has acted significantly monolithically is in the Human Rights Council.  If you look at the voting in that body, you essentially have about eleven or twelve Western countries that vote one way and the rest of the membership voting the opposite way and that includes democratic members of the G77 and the NAM as well in the African and Asian groups.

It is very unfortunate.  You are from the South African Embassy and therefore you know that South Africa has sided with the more abusive countries, unfortunately, in that body.  There was great expectation and hope that it would be a more forceful advocate for human rights in the Human Rights Council and unfortunately, it hasn’t worked that way.  I hope it changes in the future. 

Welile Nhlapo:  I think we have become a whipping boy for nothing on some of these issues.  Maybe the expectations are not realistic and there are some misunderstandings on South Africa’s positions on some of these issues.  I am sure you know that on the second of this month, there was a special session that was convened to discuss the situation in Myanmar.  And there was a unanimous vote that was taken by all of the countries in this Council to condemn on the latest human rights violations, even to the decision that the special reporter must be allowed to go there, and make the investigation and come to determination of what has happened.  Of course, there were countries that spoke after the vote as usual to clarify their own vote and express their own misgivings about certain language that was contained there.  It is understandable, because that day it was somebody else for them , tomorrow it might be them.

We know that precedents in the UN becomes a problem for many people.  On the basis of precedents or tradition, you might be a victim next so you do find those tactics being employed and some of the things happening on that basis.  But I think that we should be able to recognize where there are positive developments.  You can have these bodies functioning and responding, some of which are even, perhaps, in a worse position.  Myanmar also spoke and they were part of the vote.  Why, I think is the question you must ask.  Let us make the organs of the United Nations work.  I’m sure we can be able to achieve some results.  Let’s have faith in our own creation and our own organization and ensure that we can deliver, the organs can deliver on their mandate.

I think we need a greater momentum to engage on these issues.  Unfortunately, in 2005, we lost the opportunity because we were trapped in the past and not looking at the present in order to make things better for the future.

Danielle Pletka:  Last word, Ambassador Miller?

Terry Miller:  I just wanted to say in response to the question from our colleague from South Africa, that there was a human rights resolution put on the table against the United States in the last General Assembly.  We, as a delegation, did not try to block that resolution through any kind of parliamentary maneuver or other procedure.  We wanted the resolution to come to a vote.

We did argue that while the United States is not perfect and we would never claim that it is, that we do have the democratic mechanisms as a society, the human rights traditions, the rule of law, freedom of the press, etc. that enable our society to be self-correcting when abuses do happen.  And in the end, all but six of the members of the General Assembly agreed and that resolution was voted down overwhelmingly.  I think none of us consider ourselves immune from scrutiny by human rights mechanisms.  What we want is for all countries, particularly those where the abuses are most severe, to be scrutinized.

Danielle Pletka:  Nicely said and a very fair note to end on.  Let me thank all of our panelists, Ambassador Miller, Ambassador Nhlapo, and Brett Schaefer for an excellent and truly insightful presentations and our great audience for its patience, endurance and participation.  Thank you.

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