Taking Turns:  Promoting Elder Rights and Enhancing Inter-Generational Connection, Dr. Robert Zuber

18 Jul

ageing-working-group10 (4)

While much of the UN community this past week was riveted on discussions on development financing taking place in Ethiopia, some highly suggestive events were taking place in New York.  Among the most significant of these was the Open Ended Working Group on Ageing, kindly and capably chaired by Argentina’s Mateo Estrémé.

Having been raised largely by elders (Aunts and grandparents) and having served in church communities thankfully punctuated by elders’ helpful presence, it is always heartwarming to see the UN place elder care near the core of their policy interests, whether it is this working group, the permanent forum on indigenous peoples, or in other venues.  In all of these settings there is much to lament regarding how too many elders are faring in this world, but also much to celebrate – so many lives with collected wisdom and skills, lives that remain more vital to community well-being than its younger residents often recognize.

As many readers are already aware, the world is currently grappling with ironic demographic twists – the dramatic “greying” of cultures such as Japan and many parts of Europe coupled with an explosion of young people in the “developing” world, allegedly the largest generation of youth in human history.  Added to this are elders whose life (and work) spans are on the rise as more and more youth worldwide grapple with uncertain economic options and uneven messaging from older leadership.  Apparently, youth participation in social and political life is essential to solving a range of global crises, and yet we elders (or soon to be) refuse to ease our grip on the levers of political and economic control or create viable spaces where the participation of others has real meaning.

That these inconsistencies create distance and even tensions between generations on a regular basis is not surprising.  That we are moving in a direction to create more inter-generational understanding and harmony is an assumption requiring some deeper reflection.

The Open Ended Working Group rarely engaged these inter-generational issues directly.  While rightly calling attention to some serious problems affecting older persons – increasing incidences of “elder abuse,” discrimination in housing and employment, a crumbling of social safety networks – the key issue impacting the Working Group was a debate on the necessity of creating a stand-alone convention to fully address the rights of older persons.

As anyone who follows UN affairs knows, this desire for a convention is hardly precedent setting.  To help focus policy concern on many themes and constituencies, and to establish a framework of binding attention and mandated response, the UN has adopted many “conventions” or “treaties.”

Do we need such a framework with respect to the elderly?   The Working Group chair, supported by Brazil, other states and most of the participating NGOs, maintained that a convention was needed to address a litany of legitimate “rights gaps.”  Others, especially states of the European Union (perhaps out of fear that they would be asked to pay for convention-related costs) preferred to modify existing human rights arrangements to more adequately accommodate the needs and interests of elders.

We eventually came down on the side of those favoring a convention, but not without caveats.

Certainly we recognize the following: that conventions do focus policy attention, existing human rights instruments have not been adequately modified, and instances of elder abuse and other violations occur with alarming frequency. But there remains some unease about all of this.  A rights based approach is rightfully core to the mission of the UN, but such an approach sometimes comes with a cost – the danger of isolation of rights holders from one another’s legitimate interests, as well as the increased competition for attention that is often felt in its wake.

The specter of elders becoming a rights-based “interest group” alongside other competing rights-based interests is not a place where most elders I have known from many cultures would wish to stand.  Perhaps I have unusual experiences with elderly persons. Perhaps some of my assumptions here are simply unreasonable, though they seem quite consistent with many elders I have known – those whose primary interest is in maintaining value and connection with younger persons from which the caregiving that so many of them have lavishly bestowed could be returned in kind.  Mostly, the elders I know want dignified lives to the end while urging dignity for others.  There is no desire to engage in any contest yielding winners and losers.

From this standpoint, it is legitimate to wonder to what degree a convention of the sort broadly advocated during the Working Group can adequately address what the Holy See and others referred to as our “throw away” culture with its tendency to denigrate the value of its “unproductive” members. Will a convention address the grave loss to our societies once our elderly become truly “invisible,” locked away in apartments or nursing homes, isolated from meaningful social contact, exploited or ignored by all but the rapidly diminishing number of persons worldwide who see elder care as part of their familial and community responsibility?

At the same time, this calls into question what younger generations seek most from their elders?  Surely not another set of economic competitors!   Surely more than bank accounts filled to overflow with their inheritance.   Surely not relationships predicated on keeping youth dependent or forcing them to accept self-interested interpretations of elders’ lives rather than setting them loose to grow and to heal accompanied by all the honesty – about ourselves and the world we have been privileged to manage – that we can share.

In the absence of such sharing and connection-building, I don’t see how this ends well for elders, convention or no.   More elderly claiming rights but not necessarily promoting the rights of others; more elderly pushing aside the responsibility to mentor next generations; more young people unfairly tuning out elders while accusing them of hoarding too much and sharing too little; more older persons scolding youth to take risks that these same persons weren’t willing to take themselves when they were younger. These are thorny issues of trust and connection facing too many of our cultures that the structure of a rights-based convention might help us locate the motivation to address, but is unlikely to resolve.

Thankfully, there were several examples that came across our office this week attesting to the enduring value of older persons who are comfortable in their skin and are able with kindness and attentiveness to help us all chart the best way forward. For instance, two colleagues of ours have launched a website, http://doinggoodsayswho.com  devoted to stories of persons (mostly indigenous in Guatemala) who have been on the receiving end of what is often well-intended but inattentive caregiving.  Connie Newton and Fran Early conducted hundreds of interviews with Guatemalans, NGOs and others on the often ignored cultural implications of humanitarian response, but it is their modest reflections on their own lifetimes of advocacy and service that are of the most enduring value.  They understand and communicate that what we “know” is less important to others than what we have learned, including about how to co-create contexts of dignified assistance to others.

Back at the UN this past week, Guatemala’s Amb. Rosenthal presided over discussions regarding a Secretary-General mandated review of peacebuilding that was noteworthy for its honest and even courageous assessments.  Rosenthal used the report as backdrop to help “shake up” the peacebuilding establishment, urging more focus on conflict prevention than on rebuilding after conflict has run its course, closer connections to the development community and the Security Council, peace processes that are “enabling rather than imposed.” It was in some ways the epitome of what younger persons should expect from elder statesmen and women – institutional memory deployed in the service of institutional reform, couched in an invitation to the assembled group to make peacebuilding into something more robust, reliable and attentive to what is to come rather than what has been.

Of course, we elders should confess the truth about ourselves as well as our institutions, including the truth that we have not always been the best of global stewards.   Our actions have at times belied our articulated values.  Our need to maintain control has sometimes undermined the sincerity of our invitations to youth participation.   We have tabled too many hopeful suggestions for healing our planet and then walked away from some of them when their degrees of difficulty became apparent.  We have largely forgotten, as Deputy Secretary General Eliasson noted at a recent “global governance” event, that being a “catalyst” for others to lead is a most valuable contribution once our own ‘turn’ at leadership begins to draw to a close.

At the closing session of the Open Ended Working Group on Ageing, Argentina’s Estrémé underscored “the heart and the will” of many to support elder rights. But to truly promote reliable, enduring contexts for elder care, we also need “heart and will” for a significant reboot in cultures that are slowly losing their inter-generational connectivity.  The legitimate rights of older persons can only be enhanced through elderly expressions of kindness, perspective and courage, as well as by a demonstrated commitment to serve as guide and catalyst for youthful aspiration as we enlarge spaces for their participation and eventual leadership.

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Bringing Home the Groceries:  The UN Seeks Practical Ways to Honor Mass Atrocity’s Victims, Dr. Robert Zuber

11 Jul

Srebrenica

Waking up early on this Saturday morning in New York, twitter was overwhelmed with images such as this one from the BBC – a woman overcome with grief for relatives and neighbors likely killed without much of anyone knowing the specifics of who or how. Perhaps she is also uttering an urgent prayer that conditions that led to the last round of genocidal violence will not recur, such that a woman as herself will not have to sit amidst the dead and wonder about the stories never told, the impunities never ended.

It’s uncertain whether or not such a prayer will be answered.   From news reports, the Srebrenica anniversary has generated ugliness as well as grief, including the ugliness of Serbia’s restrictions on citizens seeking to call attention to the genocide and the still-unfilled promise of reconciliation that the end of the Balkans war once suggested.   Untreated wounds are always the ones that fester.

Of the many positive events at this UN this week on Ebola response and sustainable development commitments, the Security Council’s efforts to agree on a resolution honoring the victims of the Srebrenica massacre was especially discouraging.  As is widely known, the resolution was vetoed by Russia and abstained by four other states.   Russia’s rationale was tied to its belief that the resolution implied unilateral Serbian culpability for the massacre and diminished the suffering that Serbs also experienced during that protracted conflict.

US Ambassador Samantha Power also made one of the more powerful statements of the session, noting that Bosnians had expected to be protected by the UN flag, but were failed by all of us.  In that same vein, DSG Eliasson rightly reflected that atrocity crime prevention and response represents an indispensable,core mandate of the UN which we have “with humility and regret” largely failed to deliver.

Indeed, the Bosnians are not the only victims of contemporary mass violence, not the only ones failed by neighboring states and the international community alike.   Not by a large measure.   One of the twitter commentators from my morning search implored us to please spare her the “never again” mantra.  Indeed, we all need to be spared the endless hand-wringing emanating from policies that have largely failed victims and have not been sufficiently adjusted in order to ensure that hopeful outcomes are that much more likely.

At times, it seem as though we humans are hell-bent on destroying ourselves at the tips of so many guns before our damaged climate threatens our extinction and our environment can no longer support our rapacious lifestyles.  We have proven to be a clever species, the cleverest we know of to date, but wisdom remains painfully elusive.

I do wish that the Russians had not vetoed this resolution, especially after it appears that the UK had at least made an attempt to author a balanced resolution. But the Russians were not the only resolution skeptics, nor did any of that skepticism prevent members from standing together in solidarity in chambers with the victims.  And let us also be clear:  the woman in the graveyard above and countless more like her are unlikely to be healed, let alone placated, by ceremonies and moments of silence and resolutions emanating from the UN.  Anyone who thinks otherwise has never been close enough to genuine, gut-wrenching personal tragedy, the kind that eats away at your soul and drags you back to the dark places you haven’t the energy to escape.

A Lesbian friend (once badly abused and now successfully married) lives by the following wisdom: don’t tell me you love me, just bring home the groceries.  In this instance, the ‘groceries’ represent a system-wide commitment to prevent the violence that we clearly don’t have the tools to address after the fact, at least not without ourselves becoming complicit in patterns of abuse that both diminish our institutional stature and violate key provisions of the UN charter. As the Deputy Secretary-General noted in his Security Council remarks, we need accountability measures in UN system that can honor Srebrenica victims and prevent new crimes.  More likely, until we can demonstrate our consistent ability to prevent such crimes from occurring in the first instance, all our honoring is as straw in the wind.

Mass atrocity violence demonstrates clear potential to undermine other core UN activities designed to promote human rights and good governance, ensure sustainable development, even to reverse the climate crisis that threatens our very existence.   Thus, preventing such violence should be as important to all facets of the UN system as our rhetoric (and our moments of silence) suggest.

Simply put, we need to stop playing politics with prevention.   We need to end once and for all what DSG Eliasson referred to as the “polarizing divisions” in peacekeeping operations and other core UN functions.  We need to move beyond policy gimmicks to dependable preventive architecture. Once the graveyards are filled and the children have lost hope, we have all failed no matter how clever or seemingly robust our too-late-in-the-game protective measures turn out to be.

For governments, delegations and NGOs, this is our watershed moment.  There are so many threats now, all inter-related and many still gathering momentum.   If there ever was a moment to share less rhetoric and bring home more groceries, this is it.

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A Climate Conducive to Peace:  The UN Confronts its Exterior and Interior Spaces, Dr. Robert Zuber

5 Jul

The unofficial theme of this past week at the UN was ‘climate week,’ from the High Level Political Forum in ECOSOC and a General Assembly High Level event, to numerous side events ranging from Oceans to Migrants and an Arria Formula discussion in the Security Council, led by Malaysia and Spain, focused on climate as a ‘threat multiplier.”

Among the features of this week’s events, in addition to momentum-gathering efforts to counter what the Secretary-General referred to as a “snail’s pace” of urgent UN action on climate health, was the high-level presence of policy leaders from the Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

SIDS political and civil society leadership have long called for urgent measures to stem the tide of an eroding climate, a “tide” that is causing mass flooding, the destruction of fish stocks, the pollution of ocean habitats, even what Kiribati activist Alofa cited in the Security Council as the “great sadness” occasioned by the very real possibility of eventually having to abandon her family home.  As Seychelles noted, the SIDS must be considered as a “special development case,” but many states are coming to realize the degree to which SIDS crises have both been ignored and are increasingly being mirrored in other global regions.  As an Italian Minster warned, climate threats “know no borders, require no visas.”

Despite this growing awareness, progress on firm, remedial measures remains stilted. In the General Assembly, Kiribati’s President Tong cited a “loss of hope” from telling the same story over and over and wondering if anyone is listening.   As noted by Palau Minister Beck in the “One Ocean” event, whether we are prepared or not, the dire predictions of last generations’ climate scientists appear to be coming true.  And as Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Debrum prodded the Council (which had last taken up climate 2 years ago), “what has really changed” in our collective response? The answer echoing through all the week’s events was, clearly not enough.  As DSG Eliasson lamented with a good deal of off-the-cuff passion, “we are not at peace with nature.”  We have not, as Sweden shared in the Arria meeting, done our part to “supplant national red lines with nature’s red lines” nor have we fully grasped, as noted by Poland, the full relationship between the health of oceans and other ecosystems and the success of our development efforts to eradicate poverty once and for all.

And while some states wondered if the Council should be heavily invested in climate issues apart from interactions with ECOSOC and other relevant UN agencies and programs, the peace and security implications of climate were also laid bare.  Lithuania was one of several states which highlighted the degree to which a damaged climate can be a “driver of insecurity.”  And Chile provided its own thoughtful statement that underscored climate’s role in bringing otherwise latent conflicts, especially over water access, into the open.  In this context, Chile wisely reinforced the human rights and gender dimensions to any Security Council or other UN actions designed to counter or even reverse climate-related security threats.

All of this discussion – in the Council, in ECOSOC and the General Assembly, in some extraordinary side events – was welcome if perhaps a bit late in the game.  But all of it also pointed to another ‘climate’ dimension, the climate we have created within our diplomatic and UN walls, a climate that equally needs attention and even healing if we expect the global public – and especially younger generations – to trust our ‘strategic sincerity’ to manage this planet-threatening  crisis.

Why indeed, many wonder, is it taking so long for the international community to respond to what is such an obvious external threat, risking an overheated and contaminated bequest to future generations of which we should be at least alarmed and probably also ashamed?  We have our own analysis, but many of the answers lie in the words of the diplomats whom themselves are authors and products of an interior version of our ‘climate’ challenge.

Part of this struggle of internal climate is related to the habits, some helpful some destructive, that we dutifully cultivate but rarely interrogate.  In ECOSOC it was Romania’s MP Borbely who noted how the most “beautiful” sustainability plans are undermined by our “stubborn mindsets.”    South Africa chimed in at the same event, noting our collective consumer culture that has gotten “out of hand,” a habit that is difficult to break but which must somehow be tamed if we are to convince skeptical publics that UN climate policy can truly inspire altered behaviors on the scale needed.

Then there are the other messages we send, often incidentally, that undermine public confidence in our internal climate and the decisions that proceed from it.  For instance, in a discussion in the Security Council this week on Darfur and the International Criminal Court, as is protocol in such matters, the Sudanese Ambassador was given the final word, attacking the professionalism of Prosecutor Bensouda and allowing those who were witness to the statement to come away thinking that the Sudan government was a victim of a witch hunt rather than a perpetrator of abuse on a mass scale.  As is their habit, the Council members had already spoken.  None came to the defense of Bensouda’s mandate amidst the Sudanese assault, and protocol granted no permission for her to come to her own.

The next day in the Council’s monthly ‘wrap up” session the UK’s Ambassador Rycroft called attention to another sometimes dispiriting aspect of our institutional habit – the endless reading by officials of policy statements, largely in impersonal and dispassionate tones. His concern seemed to be in part with presentations that are repetitive, abstract, do not respond directly to other state positions and are, as New Zealand noted during the same meeting, a means of “scoring points” rather than solving problems in places like Yemen, Syria or Palestine. Such failures of political resolve, as Malaysia noted, undermine confidence in a fundamental responsibility of the UN system, and this confidence is eroded further as states address in monotone while onlookers seek some passion.  As someone new around the Council table Amb. Rycroft’s statement suggested, perhaps against hope, that Council members can communicate a more personal, caring and even urgent engagement in their dealings with each other and with respect to the billions of people living at the edge of our policy decisions.

The sometimes tired, habitual  and even mean-spirited messages that can be experienced in many UN meeting rooms may seem unrelated to climate policy, but such messages can collectively undermine public confidence in our ability to adjust institutional habits in constructive ways to fit the world’s urgent circumstances. If we at the UN — people of education and privilege — cannot (will not) shift the energy of the structures and protocols of our institutions and their (in this instance) climate-related decisionmaking, there is little reason to believe that the more modestly situated will be able and willing to do so.  Especially on climate, it is discouraging at best to see stakeholders fussing over ice cream that is seconds away from melting on the floor.

Back at the General Assembly event, the Secretary-General virtually begged delegations to “quicken your pace and raise your ambitions.”   That an existential threat such as climate change would require such a plea is perhaps more telling than the plea itself.   We understand full well that science-generated data sets alone do not drive policy, let alone its consensus.   But the circumstances to which this data points will require all of us one day to answer for any and all vestiges of our stubborn neglect.   By not changing our messaging and (more importantly) our policy content on climate, we risk being roundly scorned in our absence by another generation that will be forced to cope with a crisis that may no longer be able to be resolved.

In that same General Assembly event, President Tong of Kiribati expressed his longing, one day soon, to be able to say to the world’s children “you don’t need to worry anymore” about climate health.  Getting to this ‘peace of mind’ (not to mention ‘peace with nature’) will take more compassion from all of us, as Elder HE Mary Robinson explained during a recent side event; but also an institutional commitment to “prioritize the most vulnerable and least responsible.”  In other words, we must commit more to encouraging that hopeful combination of less change in our external climate, and more change in our internal one.

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Promise Keepers:  The Septuagenarian UN Sharpens its Policy Resolve, Dr. Robert Zuber

28 Jun

There are times at UN Headquarters when the winds (head and tail) of policy development and assessment are blowing so hard that you literally have to “hold on to your hat.”  This period in late June, as we have been trying desperately to capture on twitter (@globalactionpw), has been one such time.

Needless to say, not all of the events of relevance to UN policies this past week happened in New York. Terror attacks in Tunisia, Kuwait and France (not to mention the fallout from Charleston) along with the welcome news that marriage in the US is no longer subject to state prohibition provided the backdrop for a season of promises we have kept and have yet to keep. In these instances, the messaging seemed clear — that we still have much more to do to understand and address terror threats, and that social inclusion can be every bit as important to the quality of our lives as its political and economic counterparts.

And then there were the ceremonies held in New York and San Francisco to honor the 70th anniversary of the signing of the UN charter.  The San Francisco ceremony was much more dramatic, but comments in New York by Amb. Samantha Power and DSG Eliasson also set a “promising” tone. Power took note of the US Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage and affirmed the UN’s ongoing, challenging search for common ground based on what she cited as respect for international law and adherence to various versions of the “golden rule.”

The Deputy Secretary General was equally reflective. Echoing the current negotiations on sustainable development goals (and as someone who claims to carry a copy of the Charter in his pocket), DSG Eliasson affirmed the Charter as a “grand attempt to bring the world we have closer to the world we want.” It should be noted that Eliasson has highlighted in many UN conference rooms the need for diplomats to be more attentive to the many gaps separating our common aspirations and the “road” to implementation along which the UN sometimes wanders without clear direction; aspirations representing promises that we enthusiastically “table” but which are then too often allowed to sit more or less right where we left them.

In the days preceding and following the Charter signing anniversary, the UN has taken up peacebuilding funding and the last, difficult vestiges of colonization; peacekeeping mandate renewals and counter-terrorism strategies; a high-level assessment of climate health; and what promises to be a challenging discussion between the Security Council and ICC Chief Prosecutor Bensouda regarding the discouraging situation in Darfur. In ECOSOC, its High-level political forum is seeking to build broad, robust and reliable stakeholder engagement on sustainable development goals and priorities.  Last Friday in another conference room, the UN Security Council received a scolding of sorts from Syrian activists and rescue workers regarding the Council’s inability to achieve actionable consensus on policies to end barrel bombing, humanitarian blockades and displacement affecting millions.

In these and other contexts, the “table” at the UN is remarkably full now with many occasions and options for policy development representing a mixture of promises made, promises pending and promises deferred – thankfully with mostly high levels of sincere, energetic engagement.  Apparently, for the UN at least, “70” really is the new “50.”

As the UN considers its fidelity and flexibility with respect to all core Charter obligations in this anniversary year, three major programmatic assessments authorized by the Secretary General seek to revise and reaffirm some of the most important of UN promises. Two of these, on peacebuilding architecture and Women, Peace and Security, are forthcoming.  The third report from the peace operations review was recently submitted to the Secretary General by co-facilitators Mr. Jose Ramos-Horta and Ms. Ameerah Haq. We have seen the report as have a wide array of other interested persons, and we commend many of its insights and recommended actions.

We were fortunate to be able to contribute in some small way to the peace operations review via policy that we wrote for discussion and eventual submission by some African partners.   We also were pleased to help lead a project on the future of peace operations resulting in an edited volume from Springer publishers. The volume includes diverse cultural lenses on peacekeeping’s many challenges and offers recommendations that we hope will influence future agendas for both the policy and academic communities.

Attempting to sum up such recommendations in light of the SG’s report is (too) risky business.  GAPW would however seek to reinforce the following as integral to keeping the lofty and essential promises of peace operations:

  • First, we appreciate the report’s emphasis on prevention and mediation capabilities, recognizing that peace operations that arrive too late or are mis-utilized as a substitute for robust diplomatic engagement are more likely to endanger peacekeepers, risk mandate failures, and gravely disappoint civilians in need of protection. The best way to honor UN Charter promises to constituents in conflict zones is to prevent conflict from flaring/expanding in the first instance. This requires more than the Security Council, more than DPKO; it requires full-spectrum response from a wide variety of UN and regional stakeholders who understand that conflict prevention is a system-wide responsibility requiring high-end, system-wide expertise.
  • We also appreciate the report’s willingness to highlight the “widening gap” between what is expected of peacekeepers and their capacity and skill to deliver. We would however note the tendency in both SC mandates and in contributions such as those by the C-34 Special Committee, to overload peacekeepers with tasks that only seem to grow in number and complexity. Narrowing this gap “from the middle” will require both additional training and mandate restraint.  Peace operations cannot be expected to do difficult work often under the most challenging physical and logistical conditions while asked to undertake tasks – from training local law enforcement to restoring good governance – that would challenge the competency of the most accomplished professionals in those fields. This expanding menu of responsibilities also threatens energy and ability for civilian protection, a non-negotiable mandate for many of us.
  • We appreciate the report’s endorsement of a rapid response mechanism for peace operations based in part on the recognition that the “United Nations is often too slow to engage with emerging crises.” Such a mechanism, such as the UNEPS proposal with which we have worked for years, could be a cost effective means of getting needed capacity in the field at the earliest stages of a conflict to both help stabilize dangerous situations and buy time for diplomacy and other complementary measures– much like the outcomes expected of an emergency vehicle attached to a competent hospital.  The value of such a capacity, in our view, is less about “reinforcement and new mission start-up” and more about skillfully obviating the need for expensive, large-scale peace operations in the first instance.  The more attention and protection are available from the start of a potential conflict, the better any country’s longer-term prognosis is likely to be.
  • Finally, as we have written previously, the shocks to the reputation of the UN’s peace and security architecture from unaddressed violations of abuse by UN personnel must not be allowed to fester.  The failure to address abuses forthrightly invites further abuses, but also undermines faith in the UN system and places peacekeepers and other members of UN country teams in danger.  As was clear during an emotional honoring ceremony for fallen peacekeepers at UN Headquarters in May, threats to the physical safety of peacekeepers are numerous. The addition of scandal to vast operational challenges and (founded or unfounded) accusations of abandoned impartiality is simply more than peace operations should have to bear.

In peace operations as in other areas of UN practice, this 70th anniversary is indeed a time to bring the world we have closer to the world we want: a world that has achieved climate health and full social inclusion; a world that practices fairness and ensures equality of participation; a world with fewer countries to rebuild thanks to a more robust diplomatic, preventive and protective architecture; a world where rogue plastics no longer choke ocean species now threatened with extinction; a world in which the entitlements of elites give way to a more nuanced, compassion-based social responsibility; a world where children can be children without having to assume excessive burdens of responsibility that should still be ours for a world far too often in “shock” from one crisis or another.

Peace operations are an essential part of that larger promise, key to the UN’s core mission that people still want to believe in and that we still need to improve as part of honoring that confidence. We recall important recommendations from the Year 2000 “Brahimi Report” that have yet to be implemented fifteen years later.  We urge that the best of this new crop of recommendations can find operational pathways much sooner.

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Fatherhood, Care-giving and its Caveats, Dr. Robert Zuber

20 Jun

For those of you who have endured years of my Father’s Day commentary, this might seem like an outlier message.  Bear with me, if you can stand to do so, as I attempt to blend a tribute to fathers with a bit of what I hope at least will seem like relevant policy analysis.  You can let me know if you approve of the results – with caveats of course.

Like many of words we use, misuse and overuse, “caveat” has a range of meanings, but mostly related to declarations or even warnings of stipulations or conditions that might impact our commitments; or alternatively it refers to “limitations,” as in ways in which what is presented to us as sufficient ‘truth’ is more accurately a restrictive (sometimes dramatically so) viewpoint on a situation or incident that begs for a more comprehensive and thoughtful lens.

“Caveats” in both senses have long been a part of the UN’s nomenclature, used by states to contextualize their investments of funding and personnel, and by NGOs and policy experts to assess the “missing elements” in what might otherwise be helpful analysis of security, development or social issues.

The conditions/stipulations aspect of “caveats” was on display Wednesday in the UN Security Council where members were given candid and thoughtful briefings by Force Commanders on the state-of-play in peacekeeping operations.   In our view, these briefings are not held frequently enough to accomplish what Nigeria noted were more flexible adjustments to what at times could be seen as peacekeeping mandates with eroding relevance.  Briefings are also not held often enough to allow some of the women who were in uniform in Council chambers to share assessments and experiences through their own, still-too-often-ignored perspectives.

One notable feature of this briefing was the practice by some troop contributing countries to issue “caveats” to full and unconditional participation in peacekeeping operations. These contributors, in essence, maintain the right to identify “conditions” based on judgments of operations that needlessly jeopardize the well-being of seconded troops; conditions which would therefore exempt such troops from obeying to the letter relevant orders of Force Commanders.

The need for such caveats, as noted by New Zealand (which has recently revoked its own), relates in part to the perception of some states that UN peacekeeping operations are burdened by mandates the complexity of which overwhelms training and capacity in the field, thus exacerbating relevant security threats.   But as other states and commanders noted, if caveats are warranted, there is a proper time and place for them.  Such stipulations should be stated as early in the process as possible.  Moreover, caveats must remain flexible enough to accommodate shifting circumstances, including successful UN efforts to address field concerns.  In other words, reasonable caveats should not be posed as last-minute, categorical demands but as timely and flexible responses to conditions that are not yet sufficient to warrant unconditional assent.

The UN will continue to grapple with the challenges of caveats in peacekeeping operations. Like that or not, we can all at least acknowledge that, in some form or other, we have our own caveats; we all have “conditions” for things, even important things like marriage and family.  Some of those conditions even apply to our erstwhile caregivers, specifically regarding the ways in which we want to be cared for — and ways we don’t — that are independent of others’ need to “care” for us.   Many of us have overwhelmed others, and been overwhelmed ourselves, in caregiving scenarios that were much more about the one setting the terms of care than about the one receiving the caring attention.  Not all “caring” feels like caring and such feelings are not always unwarranted: a bit like the security assessments of UN member states, the conditions for and benefits of caregiving are to a significant extent in the eyes (and hearts) of its recipients.

Beyond conditions, there is the scenario of “caveats” as limitations. Last Tuesday at the UN, Chelsea Clinton headlined an event co-sponsored by MenCare Advocacy and @UNFPA at which a report was released entitled “State of the World’s Fathers.”  The full report can be accessed at www.sowf.men-care.org.

This latest iteration of our “state of the world,” which I must say I was a bit reluctant at first to pick up, painted a generally positive (if limited) assessment of the status (and potential benefits) of fathers as caregivers, a role important for childless men (such as myself) to assume as well.  My reluctance was related in part to the increasing tendency within UN (and other) circles to assume generic caregiving deficits on the part of men (based on restrictive definitions as much as on male sloth) along with the notion that the value of fathers lies primarily in their willingness to be engaged, as the report puts it, “in ways that women want.”  Given that the report fails to highlight let alone enumerate the manifold outcomes and contexts of “caregiving,” the report seems to “patronize” male caring capacity more than explore, encourage and even celebrate its diverse manifestations.

The report utilizes as its one, relevant lens for caregiving, father interactions with young children and domestic chores, citing (quite rightly) that worldwide such men spend less time at these responsibilities than women do.  This is a gap that most fathers I know (across many cultures) both fully acknowledge and have done something to address, in some limited instances a lot to address.

It is useful for this report to identify caring gaps and to suggest remedial options in the (still too many) situations where remediation is warranted. But it is surely a bit disingenuous to create some essentialist equivalence between “caregiving” and time spent with young children and ironing boards.  Caregiving is of course very much about those things, including for fathers; but it is also about vocational and life mentoring, about getting up at 2AM during a thunderstorm to patch an elderly neighbor’s leaky roof, about inspiring people through classrooms and religious institutions, about offering assistance to a lonely traveler, about making personal sacrifices to enhance the educational prospects of family members, about holding the hands of people suffering from grief or tragedy, about being reliable to others and faithful to our word, about adjusting ourselves to the new conditions (caveats, if you will) of evolving young lives rather than forcing youth to become imperfect replicas of our imperfect selves.

There is so much more that could be listed here.   Caregiving by fathers and others is incredibly multi-faceted.   It requires a flexibility and fairness of spirit.  It involves an ability to process kindly and attentively the (sometimes maddening) demands and limitations of others, including of course, partners and children.

Many of the fathers I know do these and any number of related things.   They might wish to have more time with their children – or to assist the children of others – but they are often doing things that bring value and benefit to the home, and also to the world, our world, the world that any children they have sired are soon destined to inherit.  If preparing and guiding people, young and old, to face and cope with challenges in these messy times cannot be fully acknowledged as “caregiving,” I’m at a loss to understand its meaning. If providing materially (and hopefully emotionally) secure contexts for growth and challenge is not “caregiving,” regardless of whether it corresponds neatly to what some others might “want,” then we need urgently to find new terms to honor this service.

As most of us can attest from our own life experiences, father doesn’t always know best.   But just as clearly, many fathers and their male surrogates do much to help children and others prepare for hopeful, thoughtful, independent participation in a complex, rapidly shifting and too-often unsettling world.  The specifics of this caring might at times seem out of context and rather “old-school,” and those specifics might well include too many baseball practices and too few dirty diapers. Still the reliability of this caregiving and the willingness to work through the many stages and caveats of others’ lives are essential to positive growth and development.  I am personally and extraordinarily grateful to the many fathers in my own contexts and around the world who, through their actions and values, stay this challenging course.

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Profit and Loss: States Parties Rethink Contributions to Civil Society, Dr. Robert Zuber

14 Jun

Global Action is privileged to be part of several online ‘communities’ linking diverse NGOs, UN policymakers and place-based civil society organizations serving constituents around the world.   Such involvements on our part help us to keep track of developments impacting diverse communities, but also to remind us of responsibilities we have to help build local capacity and link that capacity to relevant policy discussions taking place in the international community.

Thus we were quickly made aware of shockwaves this past week when it was announced that Finland would significantly cut back on assistance to civil society organizations within its own borders as well as in areas of the world where it had previously made significant and helpful investment.  This decision was a blow to those who feel – rightly I might add – that Finland’s national identity is bound up with its capacity to share its abundance beyond its pay grade.   At the UN, Finland was an early supporter of UN peacekeeping and has consistently provided leadership disproportionate to its size in areas such as international law, the global arms trade and, perhaps somewhat ironically given recent policy shifts, international development cooperation.

Finland’s decision was not, however, a stand-alone incident involving a single country but is part of a larger trend within and beyond Europe.   Across the board, even as diplomats and NGOs seek to develop and endorse funding guidelines for post-2015 sustainable development goals, the donor terrain is shifting dramatically.   For a variety of reasons, commitments to end inequalities and promote peaceful, inclusive societies are being crowded out by institutional branding of one form or another.  Corporations are shifting their “giving” programs to serve the interests of advertising.   Private foundations are simply turning over funds to well-branded, existing grantees rather than keeping their funding commitments on the cutting edges of social change.  States at the UN are reassessing commitments to “general operating” funding in favor of direct grants to support programs and capacity within the UN that align more closely with the “national interest.”  And in the US (and likely elsewhere), what can be a toxic “noblesse oblige” has given way to an even-more-toxic narcissistic competition to see who can most effectively ‘game’ the system, reap its vast rewards, and brand the results.

A few of these shifts are somewhat understandable, inasmuch as donors have often wondered (even aloud) why they should continue to support organizations and structures that fail to produce even minimal results (UN Disarmament sometimes comes to mind). And funding commitments in whatever form are not “matrimonial” in nature but come with timelines and most often expectations of transition.  Here in New York, we have been blessed with enough supporters (none of them governments) to stay just barely above the line of basic solvency, but there are few guarantees going forward.  The only true guarantees are related to how badly we want to do this work and how creatively we can forge global partnerships to preserve some small and hopefully effective spaces at the policy table.

On the other hand, one of the things we have witnessed (and at times assisted) in various communities around the “developing” world is the enormous energies that local civil society organizations have invested in ‘getting up to code’ with their largely northern donors.   Despite sometimes horrific infrastructure limitations, as well as the many local needs which continually beg to be addressed, we know of many civil society organizations that have painstakingly adopted technology and procedures to meet the increasingly burdensome expectations of these donors.   To have made those infrastructure commitments and then to have the funding to sustain those commitments unilaterally dismantled is a particularly discouraging irony that should seriously grieve those of us working in more comfortable circumstances.

One of the responsibilities now for NGOs in the north is to find ways to respond to this creeping disregard for the non-governmental, non-corporate side of civic life. Indeed, one of the groups with which we regularly conspire is drafting a letter to the Finnish government, citing the “political” dimensions of its funding decision and asking for reconsideration.  It is important to remind governments and other donors that their sometimes cavalier and self-referential relationship to funding can have a traumatic impact on human lives.

But this is about more than money, and those of us facing threats to our budgets will also need do a bit more of our own discernment. We must think about our ongoing responsibilities to promote equity for the planet’s marginalized, but also more deeply discern our own relationship to money and to the institutions that provide it (and increasingly it appears skeptical of providing it).

The Finnish government has not suddenly become our adversary. Other states that have decided to reposition their global contributions have not necessarily become so either.  From Financing for Development (SDGs) and obligations under the Arms Trade Treaty to Ocean ecology restoration and the prosecutorial work of the International Criminal Court, we are rarely in UN conference rooms where requests for funding are not being made by one state (or NGO) or another.  Politics notwithstanding, states are under pressure to preserve multi-lateral space and fulfill ambitious commitments such as the SDGs, all while ensuring constituents back home that funds expended on international development and other key concerns also serve a national interest.  This is not an easy soup to bring to table under the best of economic conditions – and these are surely not that for most.

As civil society, our task is also multiple.   We must remind governments of what they are doing – and losing – as they “recalibrate” their funding commitments.  We must find ways to strengthen our commitments to diverse communities of social practice while rethinking our own relationship to money and its sources.   And finally, as funds are available, we need to make sure that we take no more than our share and accomplish as much with what we take as humanly possible.

A long time ago, a friend reminded me that “money changes everything, and only occasionally for the better.”  With full respect for those around the world with a different relationship to the funding community than we have here in our little New York office, there is a lesson here that we would all do well to consider.   Resources are not self-authorizing but need our very best efforts to ensure their fair, transparent and effective application. Thankfully, where funding is concerned, we have what it takes to ensure the “better” change.

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A Field Worth Playing On:   The UN recalibrates its laws and its leadership, Dr. Robert Zuber

7 Jun

Last Friday at the UN, as the Security Council held another unsettling briefing on Ukraine and as a Meeting of Government Experts sought common ground on technical aspects related to the elimination of illicit flows of small arms and light weapons, a rule-of-law lecture took place that highlighted the increasing value and robustness of leadership emanating from smaller states.

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the UN membership of the Principality of Liechtenstein, HSH Hereditary Prince Alois made a presentation at UN headquarters that did what we would urge many states to do under similar circumstances – share why the decision to commit to multi-lateral engagement through the UN was a sound one.  The Prince cited difficulties in getting traction in the UN as a small state but also highlighted their national interest in the strong, accountable rule-of-law which the Prince rightly noted “is a prerequisite for a level playing field and the sovereign equality of all states.”

While the Prince did note some distinct national interests in matters such as the International Criminal Court and in reform of the UN Security Council, he avoided mention of other policy interests including in Women, Peace and Security activities at UN headquarters, areas where his government has displayed visible and welcome leadership.

Indeed, the key to any successful meeting or process at the UN is quality leadership – the kind that both takes risk and builds consensus, that highlights needs in the international community for which it is then willing to take some significant responsibility – convening and prodding rather than pointing figures and expecting solutions to come from elsewhere.

This kind of leadership has recently been in evidence in many UN forums – especially in the post-2015 sustainable development (SDG) negotiations where Kenya’s Kamau and Ireland’s Donoghue (and Hungary’s Kőrösi previously) navigated a challenging process that has produced an historic ‘zero draft.’  That draft has elicited some criticism but also represents a significant improvement over the prior MDGs and has a good chance of passing muster with Heads of State at the UN in September.  The draft also incorporates noteworthy interventions from many small states, including the Small Island Developing States, which will ensure among other things that climate health has a prominent place in SDG implementation.

Beyond the SDGs, this past couple of days alone has seen an important initiative by Lithuania and Malaysia pushing for Security Council responses to challenging cease fire violations in Ukraine, a site of dismay and sadness for the entire UN system.  At the same time, we note Moldova’s successful stewardship of the Meeting of Government Experts, a technical process related to ending the trafficking in small arms which took place amidst significant leadership changes in UN Disarmament Affairs and followed two frustrating and time consuming events related to armaments: the UN Disarmament Commission and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review.

What all of this leadership has in common is that it emanated from what at another time in the UN’s history might be considered ‘unlikely sources.’  Smaller states have always attempted to champion issues of global importance, but for most of the UN’s history these states have operated in the background as big power interests dominated the stage. Now these smaller states not only sit often in the chair’s seat, but do much inside and outside the Security Council to establish a fully functional global agenda in each of the UN’s core policy pillars.

Some of this agenda is related less to issues and more to structures and working methods.   Currently there are serious (and not so serious) proposals cascading through the halls and conference rooms of the UN to change the way the Security Council does its business, the UN system chooses its leadership, and more.  Part of what underlies these concerns is the quite sensible need to find ways to get permanent Council members to play by the same rules that they insist on for other states.  In these efforts, small and medium sized states are playing a growing, welcome role.

We believe completely that one path to UN reform is lies in the vigorous leadership of major UN processes by officials from smaller states.   This includes non-permanent Security Council members who are slowly eroding the assumptions and prerogatives of the veto-wielding states, not through their military or economic power but through their wise, vocal and even courage engagement with the opportunities provided by Council working methods and the UN charter.  The more good sense the non-permanent members communicate, the more resolve they show on policy, indeed even the more enthusiasm they show for the value and future expansion of multi-lateral contexts, the better our planet will be.  As we are seeing, commitment, wisdom and tenacity from smaller states can begin to wear down power imbalances in the UN system perhaps even more successfully in the long run than attempted charter revisions or the formation of new blocks of states at times as intransigent in their interests as the ‘privileged’ states they seek to counter.

This leveling is critical to the health of the UN system.  But it must be attained less by attempting to drag down the larger powers and more by smaller states stepping up and allowing their leadership and (to the extent they are available) commitment of resources to serve as their “balancing card. “  It also means promoting rule-of-law as the essential leveler, rules and standards that can coax more transparency and accountability from large states –including permanent Council members – than any single option currently available to us.

The “inequalities” that formed the basis for much discussion of post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals have their echo in other parts of the system as well.  Not only inequalities within states but also between states.   But it is never enough to lament the imbalances.   We all must — NGOs as well — be willing to pay our “dues” by increasing our practical interest in a UN system that is still desperately needed and still not fulfilling expectations.

Liechtenstein is one of the small states that have, individually and collectively, made positive contributions to multilateralism in large measure through its interest in rule-of-law.   If this system is ever going to truly balance — and it may not survive unless that happens – more states need to join efforts at rule-of-law based institutional reform.  Such states must also be willing to take leadership in areas of their greatest interests while affirming publicly the benefits to governments and peoples of UN-based multilateral arrangements.

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Dancing with the Stars:   The UN Engages Healers, Chroniclers and Keepers of the Peace, Dr. Robert Zuber

31 May

There is an apocryphal story that I have seen variations of in several places wherein children are asked to define a “hero.”  One child apparently responds something to the effect that a “hero is a celebrity who does something real.”

The fact that such a distinction rings as true for many of us as it does says a lot about our modern culture – one defined more by seductive branding than sacrificial substance.

We all need “heroes” in the sense of people willing to respond to crises and inspire our better selves.  What “celebrity” offers instead is distraction from the requirements of personal growth, giving us permission to evade the responsibility and willingness to become what this fractured world needs us all to be, skills and commitments that the UN recognizes it could use in greater measure as well.

Indeed, towards the middle and end of this past week, the UN lifted up three sets of ‘stars,’ people whose names few would recognize but without whose service what DSG Eliasson recently referred to as a “somber global landscape” would be that much more difficult to navigate.

Eliasson’s remarks were part of a Thursday ECOSOC event on “partnerships,” specifically health-related collaborations.  The focus of course was on the still-potent Ebola scare that ravaged three West African countries and produced extraordinary stories of courageous care.  Former US president Clinton also spoke and helped convey the need for a new health care model that incorporates sustained planning for both prevention and recovery.  As had been the case previously during various UN events from the Peacebuilding Commission to the Security Council, the ECOSOC panels looked to both the future and the past, forward to a world with fewer pandemic risks, and back to reflect on those inspiring medical workers who helped us survive the current crisis.

A day earlier, the Security Council under Lithuania’s presidency convened a debate on the protection of journalists in conflict zones.   Here again, the carnage in these zones is often debilitating but the willingness of professional journalists to risk personal safety to bring us images and narratives that can help us prevent further tragedy and ensure sound policy is quite a remarkable human achievement.  There were many welcome suggestions made in the Council as to how to better protect journalists in the field, and even concerns voiced by the Netherlands, South Africa and others that unchecked levels of violence might begin to sap the willingness of journalists to get the stories we so badly need to hear.  But all of this was within an honoring framework recognizing, as Pakistan put it, that media freedom is an “enabling right” on which our other freedoms are based.

And on Friday, the UN organized another annual ceremony to honor fallen peacekeepers, this one even more moving and respectful than the last.   Men and women in full military dress representing all of the UN’s current peacekeeping operations joined with the Secretary General and many senior diplomats to lay a wreath and verbally honor the service of peacekeepers who have risked much and largely performed admirably amidst increasingly complex mandates and unpredictable security environments.

Despite the different contexts, these health workers, journalists and peacekeepers have all chosen paths of greater resistance.  For those of us for whom subway delays and cranky co-workers are among our worst daily setbacks, what do we owe people who willingly take risks that we desperately need them to take but that most of the rest of us would choose to sit out?

The answer varies.  For the health care professionals who risked (and in some cases sacrificed) their own lives to answer the Ebola challenge, the answer seems clear – what former President Clinton referred to as a more serious investment in robust and reliable health infrastructure, but also in ‘rapid response’ mechanisms for pandemic outbreaks and in more reliable resiliency capacity to vulnerable states fearing health-related shocks – in essence honoring the courage by preventing the reoccurrence.

For journalists, while ending impunity for violence against media professionals was rightly encouraged by virtually all Council speakers, it is clear that many journalists will continue to take professional risks so long as their findings are taken seriously by the policy community.   While both are essential, the journalists I have met who work in conflict zones would rather be heeded than protected. They are willing to take risks if the stories they uncover can help save communities from further abuse – asking the “next question” in the hope that policymakers responsible for violence prevention will do likewise.

As for the peacekeepers, there seemed to be an undercurrent suggesting that receiving honor is less important than maintaining integrity and effectiveness.   As the UN wrestles with what seems to be a widening sex abuse scandal in the CAR, I recall earlier conversations with my own military veteran family members who took completely seriously violations of the military code that created disrespect for the uniform and endangered lives.  As peacekeeping operations evolve in logistical complexity in situations where peacekeeper neutrality is giving way to more robust projections of protective force, the last thing UN peacekeepers in the field need – and the last thing the rest of us should tolerate — is festering scandal.

There are times when all of us need to step back and remember the many people whose sometimes life-threatening labors are indispensable to our own futures.   But more than remembrance, there are things we can do, roles we can play, even sacrifices we can make, to respect their service and dignify their craft.  Being in the presence of heroism should inspire more from each of us. Indeed, our admiring ‘dance’ around such heroism is rather suspect if we fail to accept a commensurate responsibility for the heroic – or at least the bold – as we move through the world. To rhetorically admire acts of bravery while ignoring their specific challenges is at best unwise. So too is any avoidance of a commensurate responsibility to balance personal courage in areas such as health, journalism and peacekeeping with bold and effective global policy – something real inspired by something real.

And of course we must all do more to avoid the many pitfalls of celebrity substitutes that always linger in our overly-branded world, substitutes which even our children recognize can reduce specific acts of genuine heroism to mere caricatures of themselves.

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Guns and Roses: The UN Delivers Uneven Messaging on Disarmament and Development, Dr. Robert Zuber

25 May

The week just ended did not always bode well for the United Nations in its efforts to find meaningful consensus on core issues affecting the health and sustainability of our planet.

On Thursday, the co-chairs of Intergovernmental Negotiations on the Post-2015 Development Agenda – Ambassadors Kamau and Donoghue — were subject to some serious blow-back on their efforts to prepare a document on Sustainable Development Goals that would be fit for inspection by Heads of State when they come to New York for the opening of the UN General Assembly in September.  The co-chairs attempt was to lightly edit the outcome document, eliminating un-clarities and even blank spaces where data should have been inserted, such that heads of state could concentrate on endorsing obligations rather than searching for missing text.

Nevertheless, one by one, the G-77 and China, the African Group, CARICOM, the Arab Group and others urged the co-chairs to accept and pass along to the President of the General Assembly the negotiated consensus document intact, even with its obvious flaws.   For this majority of states, reopening agreed text means also reopening opportunities for the large powers to manipulate outcomes and meanings.  The related discussion within Conference Room 4 on the use of “vulnerable groups” was valid at one level – it is important in our deliberations and the actions they set in motion to avoid the stigmas of group labeling  – but this concern was interpreted by many in the room as also an issue of trust more than content.

This (largely rhetorical) lack of trust, even in a process overseen by such highly respected diplomats, was evident in other areas of UN activity.  For instance, in the UN Security Council, the current president (Lithuania) struggled to gain support for a far-reaching resolution on small arms that incorporated some important dimensions (including robust gender perspectives) to help address the scourge of illicit weapons. Lithuania made the strongest possible case for why the UN system needs to place more emphasis on addressing illicit arms flows and the massive community-level violence that follows from any collective failures in this area.

The resolution that Lithuania championed certainly made progress in sharpening our understanding of the deep dysfunction caused by so many weapons in the ‘wrong hands,’ and in its suggestions for how to strengthen arms embargoes and work more effectively with other UN agencies. But this process was also bogged down in controversy – related to the unwillingness of the US and others to allow the resolution to explicitly reference “non-state actors” in its prohibitions – that caused an extraordinary number of Council members to abstain during the vote.  There was also, at least from our viewpoint, confusion among some Council members as to whether our remedial strategies are up to the global challenges posed by illicit small arms. This confusion was evidenced in part by excessive referencing to the Arms Trade Treaty, a limited process that is not yet ready for prime time and that, at its best, will restrict the intended destinations of manufactured arms without impacting either their quantity or their lethal potential.  Other referenced response options, including marking, tracing and stockpile management commonly associated with the UN Programme of Action on Small Arms, are equally valuable and equally works in progress.

The US, which in the minds of some shed its ‘shadow’ oversight of UN weapons-related architecture this week — preferring instead to point aggressive fingers at states that it felt tried to ‘sabotage’ progress – made clear that the small arms resolution is a significant, if tentative step forward. What the US did not mention, and caused others to wonder about, is that the P-3 role in the resolution controversy might be an effort to assert a “right” to arm non-state groups serving national interests based on distinctions between terrorists and “legitimate” opposition forces.  Trust issues perhaps emanating from such an alleged “right” motivated some Council members to question (unfairly) the legitimacy of the resolution itself, but certainly motivated a critique of Council working methods that left, once again, some members shaking their heads while the P-3 questioned the flexibility and good faith of all but themselves.

Finally it was not until late in the evening of May 22 when delegates completed the task of tossing flowers on the grave of the 2015 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Amidst various accusations from Canada, the UK and other states about which delegations ‘wrecked’ the conference, it had been clear for some days that the ‘wreck’ had already occurred.   The tentative hope for a Middle East WMD Free Zone, the avalanche of energy around the allegedly ‘new’ humanitarian initiative, the unprecedented Marshall Islands lawsuit, none of this had power to overcome legacies of bad faith that have long since blocked meaningful progress towards fulfillment of the NPT’s disarmament pillar.    Even if Egypt and the US had been able to suspend their spitting fight long enough to agree to some sort of deal that both shed light on Israel’s nuclear arsenal and preserved the US’s pride of place as facilitator of the Zone process, the lack of progress on disarmament would have placated few of the diplomats and even fewer NGO participants.  The absence of both urgency and flexibility by at least a few key states cast a dark shadow over the UN system that no amount of finger-pointing by Nuclear Weapons States or their NAM counterparts could hope to lift.

The ‘step by step’ approach advocated by the P-3 could be useful inasmuch as it creates the prospect of feedback loops to help assess progress, to ensure that we don’t stubbornly adhere to a policy that has been found to undermine the very goals it seeks to achieve. But in a UN context, step-by-step is more often a formula for institutional and diplomatic inertia, a systemic failure to match urgency with initiative.   We should avoid as much as we are able recklessness in our movements, but global events compel us to move.  Global citizens beg us to move. Apparently, Paper Smart misplaced that memo.

When we as a collective body cannot figure out how to push forward on urgent matters threatening the planet, the odds are that mixed motives are in play.   They were in play as the post-2015 negotiating sessions moved forward on a final text.  They were in play as Lithuania tried to ‘herd cats’ towards an agreement on small arms that generated some suspicion but avoided direct opposition.  They were certainly in play in the NPT as states – especially the P-5 — once again asserted the primacy of their own security interests over the increasingly clear and compelling disarmament interests of the global public.

The lessons for the week are as mixed as the outcomes.   Despite the fussing, the GA president will get a set of development goals and objectives to present to heads of state.  Moreover, the process will come attached to metrics and mechanisms for assessment and funding that can help us honor commitments made to end poverty, heal the planet, unleash the talents of women and indigenous people, and much more.

On small arms, Lithuania’s resolution adds good value, specifically in its gender referencing, more effective sanctions,and unusually warm and supportive regard for the parts of the UN system already tasked with many important activities related to small arms flows.   What role the heavily-referenced Arms Trade Treaty will play remains to be seen, though delegations are urged to revisit some of its intrinsic limitations – some significant– that will require a great deal of complementary work from other disarmament stakeholders if we are indeed serious about controlling arms flows.

On nuclear weapons, despite the contention of some states and NGOs of a “humanitarian tidal wave” that will overcome the objections of stiff-necked nuclear weapons powers, we are still in need of combined and multiple strategies that not only link legal, political, moral and humanitarian advocates but that create venues for discourse that are broad and kind, and that help widen circles of concern far beyond what the nuclear disarmament field has achieved to date.  We have our doubts about these possibilities, but also trust many of the diplomats and NGOs seeking to ensure security based on the least possible levels of armament.

What is probably not in doubt, however, is that a week of sometimes head-scratching objections, half-measures and outright disrespect has not raised levels of public endearment regarding the UN system.  We wasted vast quantities of time, energy and money of diplomats and NGOs; we insulted the honor and dignity of our political friends and opponents; we failed to match the urgency of our analysis with commensurate remedial measures.

We all need a bit of rest and then return to the UN ‘armed’ with more roses and fewer weapons, ready to do better than “mixed messaging” to persons facing security threats and development deficits who need more from us than we have so far been able to provide.

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Boat People:  The Security Council Considers Options for Safe Passage, Dr. Robert Zuber

17 May

On Monday May 11, the Security Council under the leadership of its current president Lithuania convened a briefing in chambers that managed to set a tone different from what some of us had feared prior to taking our seats.

Several Council members – including the UK and other members of both the SC and the European Union — had apparently been discussing a resolution under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, that would allow – in a manner still unspecified as of this writing – the boarding and/or destruction of vessels accused of smuggling migrants across the Mediterranean.

This resolution-in-waiting apparently has many measures still to be worked out, including the degree to which the ‘recognized’ government of Libya needs to be consulted, what protocols need to be established to guarantee that those boarding boats under whatever circumstances have their safety and security protected, etc.   It was also clear from conversations beyond the Council chamber that the European Union has been contemplating some type of ‘boarding policy’ with or without Council approval.

Certainly those working on security at UN headquarters understand both the challenge and responsibility of the large number of men, women and children who brave a long sea journey in substandard craft in an attempt to escape the grave humanitarian and security crises affecting Libya and at least some of its neighbors.  Italy has rightly won praise from the international community for its efforts to rescue damaged craft that have threatened even more mass casualties, but Italy is not the only destination for these overloaded boats. Moreover, concern has been expressed that ‘terror groups’ might well be profiting from what is deemed to be a lucrative trade focused on people who have some access to funds and feel that they have little choice if they are to protect their families from what seems to be endless violence in the post-Gaddafi era.  As more than one UN official has noted recently, no one would choose to subject their families to such a voyage if there were other, viable options to escape the misery and violence.

Behind this crisis is a robust, system-wide effort, led by the High Commissioners of Human Rights and Refugees, to highlight the plight of migrants and their humanitarian and human rights interests.   We have been to more UN events focused on migrants in the past two years than in the decade previously.  It is now widely recognized that migrants and internally displaced – on the move due to armed violence, water shortages, climate-related changes or other factors – represent a grave peace and security concern.  But more than that, such displaced persons – largely women and children – have humanitarian and human rights expectations that the international community is morally and legally bound to honor.  People don’t forfeit human rights protection simply because conditions force them on to boats to seek refuge elsewhere – this is true whether those boats are operated by smugglers in Libya or Carnival Cruise Lines.

Indeed, the Council briefing seemed to be an ample confirmation that the work of OHCHR and other key UN players to ‘institutionalize’ a growing concern for migrants has taken root.   The EU’s Frederica Mogherini, while soliciting support from the African Union and UN Security Council to “disrupt human trafficking networks,” took a careful and balanced tone in her remarks, noting the need to “do more to address root causes that push people to take dangerous risks.” She also called for a “unity government” in Libya, an aspiration which the Council has recently addressed on several occasions with full awareness of its high degree of difficulty.

Other briefers were a bit clearer than Ms. Mogherini in their articulation of the international community’s responsibility to protect the Libyan boat people.  For instance, SRSG Peter Sutherland –without citing the proposed resolution directly – called for “root solutions to root problems” that do not further isolate asylum seekers in poverty and violence.   He described trafficking allegations as largely a matter for law enforcement and urged the EU to work towards more “resettlement destinations,” “more visa options” for asylum seekers and, as noted, more law enforcement capacity in situations calling for such a response.

Mostly supporting this line of argument, the African Union’s Ambassador Tete António cited the many push factors – including armed violence, drug trafficking and chronic unemployment — that cause people to seek out the tiny spaces on these boats in the first place.  He also noted that much of the migration in North Africa is within region rather than outside of it, perhaps in part due to the high costs (as well as risks) of a sea voyage.  He urged the Council to embrace a larger picture of migrant needs and rights beyond the immediate and limited concern of boat trafficking in persons.

While none of the briefers took up the alleged value of a potential militarized operation in Libyan territorial waters nor the challenges and potential mis-steps of such operations in open waters, one came away from this briefing with a clear sense that numerous reservations existed both regarding militarized response and with regard to a single minded policy focus that cannot possibly, as Sutherland rightly noted, solve the migrant problem alone.

Perhaps this was the plan by current president Lithuania all along – create a briefing event that was much more about the rights and needs of previously neglected seafaring migrants than it was about stifling the economic benefits of their escape crafts’ recruiters and pilots. In either instance, the briefing seemed kinder and more humane than the controversial resolution that formed its backdrop.  Let us hope that the lives of often-desperate boat people are not put further at risk by ill-considered policy priorities designed principally to block income streams of alleged traffickers.

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