United Nations in crisis
We need dialogue, not dysfunction

Does the United Nations still matter?

Much of the ideological sparring that occurs on its stage seems only to produce more strife. The United Nations has for many decades been the forum of choice for assaults across the North-South divide. The South mostly complains of Western "neo-imperialism" and the North's role in perpetrating globalized capitalism. The North demands better governance and greater respect for human rights in the developing world. The intergovernmental debate at the UN poisons most substantive discussions, reducing many issues to questions of process and tactical advantage. Success is measured not by action in the field but by negotiating triumphs recorded in turgid communiques and declarations of interest to nobody in the real world. The result is that a forum that should be ideal, given its universality, for global problem-solving is instead largely devoted to finger-pointing and point-scoring.

Case in point: the Durban world conference on racism scheduled to run from Aug. 30 until Sept. 7. Preparatory discussions almost self-destructed because of the polemical trench warfare between North and South. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and UN Human Rights High Commissioner Mary Robinson both urged delegates to avoid divisive distractions from the main agenda, to no avail.

Two issues in particular have threatened to derail the conference before it even begins. The spectre of the conference equating Zionism with racism hovered over the preparatory talks in recent weeks, despite the General Assembly's 1991 repeal of an earlier resolution to the same effect. So did demands for reparations in some form to compensate for slavery and colonialism. The United States had threatened to boycott the meeting if these themes were pursued at Durban.

While language widely acceptable to delegates addressing the slavery issue has now been agreed, there was no consensus in the preparatory talks that ended on Aug. 11 over the Zionism question. Not only has a great deal of damage been done to the UN's reputation in the United States and elsewhere in the West due to extensive media coverage of divisions on this question, but the Zionism issue is now sure to affect perceptions of the Durban conference itself (even if a compromise is ultimately reached).

The problem has little to do with the the world organization as a concept, but rather with its negotiating framework, which ignores reality beyond the UN: There are many Souths and Norths. In the North, the United States and the EU disagree on many global issues and compete against each other for UN posts. In the South, increasingly confident Latin American countries are forging international positions based on shared interests and values (the latter often close to those of Europe). Asians insist that national sovereignty must be respected and non-intervention remain the international norm. Yet Africans rage against the unwillingness of the outside world to intervene in the conflicts of their region.

At UN headquarters, New York delegations make efforts to craft synthetic positions spanning the South, positions that often respond to the national interests of very few of the countries involved. The fear is that any division in their ranks will lead to defeat at the hands of a richer, more powerful North. How did we get into this mess?

In the 1960s and '70s, the heady days of the post-colonial period, international conditions favoured narratives of grievance and claims for redress and assistance. UN deliberations rapidly locked themselves into a pattern of demands from the South, more or less energetically resisted by the North. The culmination of this dynamic was the attempt during the 1970s to fashion a New International Economic Order, which met its nemesis at the Cancun Summit of 1981, colliding head-on with Reaganism and Thatcherism. In the UN General Assembly, however, business carried on much as before. Only, like Alice in Wonderland, delegates have to run harder and harder just to stay in the same place.

The damage to the UN's overall standing and reputation, deriving from its dated and sterile negotiating practices, has been profound. Delegates, however, blithely play the game they have mastered: tactical jousting over ideologically charged issues, generally without much hope or expectation of affecting the world at large. At best, their speeches demonstrate superb debating skill. More often, they are consigned, at huge expense in six official languages, to the dustbin of history.

Where does this leave the UN? Its activity in setting norms and standards for everything from human rights and disease control to world heritage sites continues to be vigorous and important. It continues to play a pivotal role in normative development and provides the umbrella under which important international treaties are developed. Emerging challenges requiring global action, such as climate change and AIDS, have frequently been addressed first within the UN system. The UN also serves as a weathervane of broad international trends, such as the greater adherence to human-rights standards and the imperative of humanitarian action.

The Security Council remains a pivotal forum for international action, although its credibility, too, has been strained by several disastrous decisions during the 1990s and new tensions among the Permanent Five over issues such as Iraq and the Balkans. And the much admired UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, is the custodian of world conscience -- engaged in preventive and other forms of diplomatic action.

However, the UN's main deliberative bodies, the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council, have sunk out of public view -- irrelevant to most governments, corporate actors and journalists. As long as UN discussions continue to lapse into belligerency along North-South lines, outcomes risk being meaningless or even counterproductive, and do not speak to national and regional interests. Yet the UN retains unmatched convening and mobilizing power. The Durban antiracism conference will focus on one cause that should unite industrialized and developing countries, not harden existing divisions.

One of the UN's great successes was the struggle against apartheid, which brought together most countries in the North with most in the South. The West provided the intellectual and political leadership in the historic abolition of slavery. Many Western countries today offer better models of inter-ethnic relations, group-blind immigration and public policies than some developing countries. Many in the developing countries recognize this -- as demonstrated by population movements and the quest for safe havens by those engulfed in racial, ethnic and other forms of violence.

The racism conference presents UN delegates with a serious test: Can they look ahead to the numerous challenges racism continues to mount to societies the world over or will they revert to traditional recriminations? Can all sides move away from the poisoned atmosphere, from the self-contained world of the UN in New York, and join forces to tackle humanity's real problems?

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