You hide to protect yourself. Charlotte Eriksson
She hadn’t chosen the brave life. She’d chosen the small, fearful one. Ann Brashares
It started small, as such fates often do. Nancy Springer,
With a great passion, you can do so much with your little talent. Utibe Samuel Mbom
Welcome to our tribe of misfits and outcasts and rebels and dreamers. We are the story-weavers. And we’re all on this ride through the galaxy together. L.R. Knost
At an earlier point in the lifecycle of Global Action, we were described by a former UN official who shall remain unnamed as “small but mighty.” The small part has persevered through staff and office changes and a pandemic that forced us to rethink all that we had been doing. As we resume some vestige of our place of scrutiny inside the UN, on social media, and as an honest broker between communities of policy and practice, the term “mighty” no longer applies, if it ever did. Our concern now is to do as much as we are able with our “little talent,” our modest capacity and almost non-existent budget. We weren’t prepared for the changes and choices that the pandemic would prompt. We weren’t prepared either for that time when the doors of multilateralism would reopen, confronting diplomats and even groups like ours with challenges and outright crises with existential implications for the UN if not for the entire human race. No longer mighty in any real or imagined sense of that term, there is still work for us to do, a role to play, a fate to help transform for many beyond our modest blog and twitter audiences.
As you surely recognize, the global community at present is absorbed by a needless war waged by a permanent member of the Security Council against a neighbor previously part of its larger “Union.” While there are places on earth which suffer even more from armed violence and attendant deprivation, the aggression against Ukraine has hit a raw nerve. Without digression into the specifics of that impact, it is clear that this conflict has implications beyond Ukraine’s borders, including food insecurity for states within and beyond Africa dependent on Ukrainian wheat, national budgets already strained from a global pandemic dipping frantically into the global weapons market, and states close to the conflict zone scrambling to find reassuring security ties which may or may not ultimately reassure.
In addition to the norm-busting atrocity crimes associated with the Ukraine aggression, it is the UN system itself which seems to be teetering on the brink of yet another stern blow to its credibility. Despite all of the activity around UN Headquarters (especially in the General Assembly) since the first inklings of invasion – from ocean health and international justice to peacebuilding financing and the strengthening of global prohibitions on torture, slavery and violations against children — there have been few moments devoid of an undercurrent of dread about the future of an organization (especially given its Security Council) which can muster up brave and competent humanitarian response to conflicts which it, time and again, can neither prevent nor resolve in a timely manner. One or more of the larger powers, once more and with unprecedented bravado, has demonstrated that the rules only apply, if they apply at all, to the smaller states, the ones that can be pushed around, the ones who must “hold their noses” in diplomatic terms due to their security and economic ties with the larger states, ties which UN diplomats are rarely authorized to threaten.
I’m sure this is true for others as well, but in my own case the volume of “suggestions” from friends and colleagues that this might be the time to get out of the UN rather than double down on at least a couple of core UN-related commitments has grown dramatically. After all, if small states can be maneuvered into relative submission by the security interests of the major global powers, how much easier is it to push our little NGO into a corner where we are free to fight imaginary windmills of global policy without the slightest chance of altering their movements?
For over 20 years through some very lean and uncertain times, we and others have never accepted banishment to that corner, have never accepted the notion that our size automatically guarantees policy impotence. And to its credit, the UN system and many of its smaller member states are pushing back as well, are both insisting and demonstrating that a system which guarantees sovereign equality at its core does not have to fold in the face of this latest (and in some ways most severe) challenge to UN Charter values by one of the states once accorded a special responsibility to uphold those values.
You can see evidence of this small state trend all over the UN system. Barbados through its extraordinary Prime Minister Mia Mottley has helped keep the UN focus on the particular economic and ecological vulnerabilities of small island states. Liechtenstein has been a consistent force on international justice and recently shepherded a resolution through the General Assembly triggering a GA meeting every time a permanent Security Council member issues a veto in that chamber. Costa Rica has been a consistent supporter and enabler on issues from gender justice to disarmament. Kenya has been a strong and principled voice in a UN Security Council desperate for its policy clarity. Fiji and other Pacific states have sounded the alarm on ocean health including existential threats from warming seas and declining fish stocks. And the current President of the General Assembly, Abdulla Shahid from the Maldives, has taken care to ensure that the GA is involved in all relevant issues — from development finance to pandemic vaccine access and Security Council reform; and that that the voices of a wide range of small states – beyond regional statements and those by groups such as the Non-aligned Movement and The Group of 77 and China – are encouraged, heard and respected.
And the GA president is not isolated in this effort. Last week, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Singapore convened an event entitled “Small States, Multilateralism and International Law” which highlighted reasons and resources relevant to why multilateralism and international law mean so much to small states and what such states can do to preserve a flawed but indispensable system from the too-frequent ravages of larger states and their leadership. As Chair of the Forum of Small States (FOSS), the MFA underscored a range of ways that small states can positively impact multilateral forums, including their insistence on both promise keeping and in promoting stability in matters of economy, ecology and economy upon which such promises can indeed be met.
During this session, some wise and passionate contributions emerged from small states across the globe, including from Jamaica’s Minister of Foreign Affairs who urged all to “push back against isolationism and unilateralism” and to reaffirm International law as our “guard-rail.” Denmark affirmed the role of small states as “true guardians” of the international order and a corrective to a still impactful “might makes right” mentality. Even China took the floor both to acknowledge that “large states are not particularly popular at present,” and to insist that all must push harder to eliminate the “unfairness and injustice” in the international system.
But it was the GA president Shahid who provided the main takeaways, for me at least, reminding the audience of his role in upholding the legitimacy of the Assembly in part through assurances that the voices of small and large members in the Hall over which he presides “have the same status,” while insisting that “states can be both small and significant,” empowered and empowering. Indeed it may turn out that unlocking the full bravery and wisdom of small states will be key to preserving the credibility of a UN which continues to groan under the weight of threats from large states using UN mechanisms in part as a backhanded way to achieve national interests, including those at firm and resolute odds with the values and priorities embedded in the UN Charter.
We know from our own work that the world is filled with “story weavers,” rebels and dreamers who wonder aloud if the structures of global governance we have inherited and done too little to change can be trusted with the immense crises chipping away at our fields and shores, our courts and communities. Theirs are the stories which we patronize routinely and heed infrequently. Theirs are the stories emanating from obscure communities and small states, those places which have more to offer to help us restore legitimacy to the institutions which we know we need and which are being undermined, day after day, by one or more of their erstwhile state guarantors.
We also know from our own experience how easy it is to hide from the responsibility which is ours to discharge, how easy it is to choose the “small and fearful,” thereby burying rather than sharing our assets. We know as well that small is not always beautiful, nor is it always effective. But in a world dominated by billionaires, predatory economics and weapons merchants – in some instances the very same people – it is the small and determined, the attentive and passionate, who can create conditions for a reset of a global system now teetering in too many instances on the brink of its own invalidity.
During the “Small States” event, several states concluded their remarks with a Star Wars spinoff: “May the FOSS be with you.” Indeed, may the FOSS be with all of us, states and peoples willing to share and risk to preserve the full promise of multilateralism from those who seem determined to destroy it.
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