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ToddHowland@MaximsNews.com

 MaximsNews Columnist

Todd Howland

 

         Todd Howland is the Director of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights. The Center supports the human rights work of 34 RFK Human Rights Award Laureates and Social Justice Fellows working in 20 countries.  www.rfkmemorial.org

Howland has also worked on numerous human rights missions with the United Nations, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Commission of the European Communities, the Carter Center Human Rights Program and many other programs. Please see his full bio. 

Todd Howland is a Minnesota native.

 ToddHowland@MaximsNews.com  

         UNITED NATIONS - 20 July 2005  / www.MaximsNews.com / Sociologists have attributed witch-hunts to our need to blame little-understood phenomena on someone else.  

This aptly describes Senator Norm Coleman’s "righteous" crusade against the UN and its Minnesota-educated Secretary-General.
 
Surveys have shown Minnesotans like most in the US support the UN, but would like to see it be more effective at realizing its goals of a sustainable world peace based on respect for human rights.  

Senator Coleman should work toward that goal, as opposed to his present self-promoting agenda.
 
Having worked for the UN for six years in post-genocide Rwanda and war-torn Angola, I was frustrated by the lack of action and effectiveness.  

Contrary to the Bush Administration’s spin that deaths in the line of duty ipso facto make our strategies effective, the fact that colleagues of mine were killed in Rwanda and Angola in the name of promoting the UN’s principles forced me to reflect deeply about how to achieve them.  

The UN's many internal problems were overshadowed by the substantive, procedural, and administrative dysfunctions created by the unchecked power of the Five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, or P-5. 
 
When the investigations of the Oil-for-Food Program close, we will undoubtedly discover that the P-5 utilized the UN to promote their perceived interests, not the principles found in the UN Charter.  

Little or nothing stands in the way of the P-5 doing what it wishes to do.  

While this by no means exonerates the UN Secretariat and its plethora of problems, it should inform us of how the UN could be reformed to better achieve its goals.
 
By way of disclaimer, I am not an avid supporter of Kofi Annan.  

He is a decent politician, but the head of the UN should more fearlessly defend the organization's principles.  

Too often he has failed to use the UN Charter and international law (especially human rights law) to strongly advocate for what is right, instead accepting the power politics of the P-5 as a map to chart his course.  

Of course, speaking truth to power can earn you the respect of some and a witch-hunt by others, as occurred when he made his now-famous statement regarding the illegality of the US invasion of Iraq.
 
Thus, it is not unexpected that his proposed reforms do not speak to the essence of the problems at the UN.  

In most government structures, there are checks on the exercise of power.  For example, in the American system, there is the veto, the veto override, and the courts.    

While the UN is not a government and the proposed reforms do not change this fact, it could benefit greatly by allowing effective challenges when the principles of the organization have been violated.  To that end, two reforms should be adopted:
 
     1.     The UN General Assembly, by a 2/3 majority, can override a decision taken by the Security Council when the General Assembly believes that the Security Council has not acted in accordance with the UN's underlying principles.
 
     2.     Any entity of the UN, or an NGO with consultative status with the UN, can seek an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, when a UN entity has not acted in accordance with the underlying principles of the organization.

Will these changes happen?                                                                  

The fact that the P-5 will not permit the types of reforms reinforces the fact that they are exactly the reforms needed to enable the UN in its entirety to maximize its contribution to sustainable world peace based on the respect for human rights.   

But even worse, as long as Senator Coleman represents Minnesota in the US Senate and he and his cohort continue to dumb-down the discourse of what is needed to make the UN effective any true UN reform is in trouble.  

For example, Senator Coleman’s present bill will give John Bolton the leverage to withhold US dues if Bolton doesn’t get the reforms Bolton wants.  

Not only is this a recipe for undermining the chances of achieving the modest reforms proposed by the Secretary General, but will lead to increasing international animosity toward the US and further undermine the UN’s ability to realize its underlying principles. 
 
What Senator Coleman does not or is unwilling to understand is that rules and laws exist to prevent abuses by the evil and powerful.  

The US is very powerful.  

Simply because the US does something, does not make it legal or good.  

The US Founding Fathers knew the value of checks and balances to help our nation prosper.  

It is that lesson that Senator Coleman should be bringing to the UN, not some thinly veiled retaliation for actually standing up for the rule of law. 

      ToddHowland@MaximsNews.com  

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