“Oh Happy Day:” The UN Serves Up a Smile, Dr. Robert Zuber

22 Mar

This week, the UN served up a menu that reminded us why we still care so deeply about the work of the organization as well as why happiness within this system is often so elusive.

From human rights abuses in Crimea and ‘spoilers’ in the Eastern DRC to photo exhibits of Syria torture and the CSW’s relentless narrative of gender-based violence and discrimination, there was much taking place to furrow brows and sour dispositions.   The world we have and the world we want are not often in synchrony, and the weight of this disparity can make even the sunniest personality feel like it is being held captive by some longstanding solar eclipse.

And yet amidst the gloomy policy discussions and lingering winter chill, there were happy places around the UN – fond CSW farewells, singing in the GA lobby, renewals of pledges to end racial discrimination and preserve our forests, even the snow sticking to bushes and trees in a short-lived burst of beauty.

And then there was an event, originally suggested by an Iraq resolution and now sponsored by São Tomé and Príncipe, to commemorate the International Day of Happiness.  For those who missed the event (or who have simply given up on being happy), the day is designed to “promote happiness as a universal goal and aspiration in the lives of human beings around the world.”

Though the UN is currently (and mostly correctly) obsessed with goals and measurements, it is likely more fruitful for the UN to honor and promote happiness as a universal aspiration than rather attempting to over-determine its pursuit or even to try and track its attainment.   Happiness probably has more in common with fingerprints than with standard deviations.  It is directly affected by individual context and expectation, tethered both to circumstance and fortune.   How we assess our lives has much to do with what we expect from life, and happiness often requires that we adjust our expectations (and presumed entitlements) to our circumstances rather than endlessly scheming in the hope of getting the world to cooperate more with our personal ambitions.

As happiness now seems just beyond reach for so many people, there is a flood of literature trying to ‘mine’ its secrets.   Here are a few of my favorites, tied as much as possible to UN contexts:

  1. Happiness has an uneven relationship to material prosperity. Given our expanding roster of “more is better” cultures, it is a short leap to conclude that “more of what we have” is inevitably best for others.   Indeed, there are baselines of material security we can and should do more to promote, keeping in mind historic levels of horror endured by equally historic numbers of refugees, internally displaced and victims of armed violence worldwide.   Despite expressions of concern for addressing inequalities by citizens within the wealthier countries, in the aggregate we still prefer to spend our money on items such as new and improved weapons systems– and on the fulfillment of largely short-term consumer ‘needs’ and interests – rather than on helping to ensure baselines for others where conversations about the ‘pursuit of happiness’ start to have real meaning.
  2. Happiness has an even more uneven relationship to personal ambition. Ambition is largely a ‘conversation’ that people have with themselves.   It is mostly about contexts for personal competitions, about the achievement of social status, sometimes to the grave detriment of social utility. It is also too often about a facile conflating of personal (or organizational) interest with the general interest.   And it opens doors to a world of social and career predation that generally creates many more victims than victors.  (Among those victims, we should recall, will almost inevitably be each of us.)  Happiness, of course, does not at all preclude the pursuit of excellence, nor a purposeful and reliable engagement with social problems.   Indeed, it probably doesn’t flourish as well in communities prone to fickle compromises and flimsy commitments.
  3. Given this, happiness seems to be largely about investing reliably in the quality of the lives of the people around us. Despite all the time and energy some of us spend keeping track of emotional and career ‘exit signs,’ dodging intimacy that could make our lives richer, and avoiding conflict it is our place to resolve, philosophers, psychologists and even neuro-biologists are mostly united in the assertion that our species is “hot-wired for connection.”   If this assertion has merit, then there would be limited value to happiness in the things that too often occupy our energies, including creating personal ‘brands’ that attempt to convince people of things that are only partially true, or keeping tight control of emotional and material assets that we would do better to invest, even in the turnover-plagued policy environment of the UN.  On the other hand, happiness might be enhanced by taking a few more personal risks, being kinder at the UN to the people with whom we work daily,  expressing more gratitude, making appropriate apologies, paying closer attention, sharing more of our aspirations and fewer of our desires.
  4. Happiness requires a healthy balancing of short and long-term vantage points. Some of the most important things in life, after all, require time and perspective to come to fruition fully and assess properly.   The point of raising children is to produce caring, competent adults, not to ‘freeze’ children in pre-adolescent psychic configurations.  The point of producing sound policy is to provide spaces and resources for people and societies to pursue sustainable social and economic outcomes, not to encourage short-term, politically motivated, unrepresentative predations of limited human and natural resources.   This essential “longer” view is compromised by narrow political considerations and the many distractions of modern life, but sometimes also by our urge to ‘do something’ to alleviate our own anxiety about global conditions, an urge that sometimes motivates us to authorize the release of ‘genies’ into the world without a clue as to how to get them back in the bottle.  As my doctoral advisor used to say, “happiness is the result of a life lived well.”  By this he meant being able to look back on life and know that we tried our best, avoiding the ‘genies’ of policy shortcuts and personal deceptions, taking responsibility for negative policy consequences that could have been foreseen (and even those more hidden), and displaying the courage (to paraphrase the singer Lee Ann Womack) to dance when others would choose to sit it out.

Given the threats São Tomé and Príncipe faces from climate change, and given all the misery Iraq has endured in its recent history, mostly not of its own making, if these states can see fit to promote happiness in the international community, then the rest of us can find some way to sweeten our sometimes ‘sour’ dispositions, and more gleefully join this pursuit.   The quality of our lives (and of our policy) would surely benefit from more pleasant, hopeful, grateful dispositions.

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Masters of Disaster:  The UN Gives Hope a Chance, Dr. Robert Zuber

17 Mar

Far from the inspiring stories, crowded hallways and rhetorical flourishes of the Commission on the Status of Women, the UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) is now taking place in Sendai, Japan (http://www.wcdrr.org/conference/programme/documentation).

We don’t normally comment on events where we aren’t physically present, but this United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) event is highlighting issues germane to virtually all UN policy priorities.   Moreover, several of the disasters featured at the conference are related to dangerous shifts in climate health which has become, rightly if belatedly, a major focus of UN concern.

The backdrop for the WCDRR event is a high-profile natural disaster which, as reported by Al Jazeera and others, is well underway after Cyclone Pam tore through Vanuatu early Saturday, “packing winds of 168 miles per hour, and leaving a trail of destruction and unconfirmed reports of dozens of deaths.” In quite an irony, the President of Vanuatu, Baldwin Lonsdale, found himself stranded at WCDRR along with some of the country’s top disaster management officials while a state of emergency had  been declared back home.

Also lingering in the background are the still-unresolved effects of the ‘triple whammy’ that affected Japan’s Fukushima, not far from Sendai – earthquake followed by tsunami, followed by radiation leakage.   Such multiple disasters seem hard to fathom but are actually becoming more and more plausible as levels of human damage to the planet rise.

On Sunday (Japan time) a WCDRR session was held to introduce the 2015 Global Assessment of Disaster Risks Report. The report provides “an update on global risk trends and patterns based on results from the first ever probabilistic risk assessment covering the world.” Participants were informed about current and emerging risks and projected economic losses associated with exposure and vulnerability to hazards, including cyclones, earthquakes, floods, landslides, tsunamis and volcanic ash.

This is quite a list which doesn’t even specify concerns like drought and the forced social mobility this causes.  These are all concerns we would do well to avoid but, failing that, to prepare for with sufficient urgency and thoughtfulness.

When I was younger, I lived in a part of the US that frequently ‘welcomed’ tornadoes.  While most failed to hit the ground, many uprooted trees, tore off the roofs of barns and houses, and greatly damaged homes and property, often in working-class neighborhoods that could ill afford the losses.

A feature of those times was that the most effective response was often in the aftermath of disasters – insurance agents processing claims, the Red Cross serving soup and assisting with health emergencies, crews helping to restore communications and navigable roads, police providing a reassuring presence.

But we soon realized that rebuilding capacity was not sufficient, that we needed more time and resources to prepare better for what, in some years, was literally a ‘parade’ of funnel clouds.   And, indeed, the focus slowly shifted, not away from disaster response but to more balanced approach that brought science and civics to bear on local preparedness.  Weather-related technology was able to warn us in time of impending crises so that authorities could be mobilized and valuables and loved ones protected.

But this doesn’t happen, can’t happen everywhere. As noted in the Al Jazeera story on Vanuatu, “People are really upset and it’s really hard, just because for the last couple of years, we haven’t received a really big cyclone like this one,” said Isso Nihmei, Vanuatu coordinator for the environmental and crisis response group 350.  Most people right now, they are really homeless.”

In such circumstances, many of us would want to know: Where were the weather forecasters?  Where were the warnings?   Where were the preparations that could have provided more resilient options to ‘weather’ the coming storm?

If we know anything with certainty, it is that the ‘holiday’ from disaster that Vanuatu apparently experienced is unlikely to be repeated soon.  Between increases in tropical depressions, widening areas of drought, flooding from land whose forests have been denuded, the erosion of shorelines, and other hazards – and this on top of the more obvious human-made disasters from armed violence, trafficking and other calamities – trouble is brewing in far-flung corners of the globe.

People facing such the prospect of such disaster need reassurances at two levels.   First, that there are competent professionals able and willing to respond when disaster strikes; and second that all possible efforts have been made to warn residents and promote resilience before trouble strikes.

Forecasting that ‘trouble’ can be tricky business.  But we have suffered greatly in the security sector from assistance – in the form of peacekeepers or military response to mass violence – that arrives too late to stem the violence in its earliest stages.   Disaster relief that arrives too late can also jeopardize lives needlessly.   As noted in the literature of the HOPEFOR initiative (Qatar, Dominican Republic, Turkey and others) to which GAPW has been attentive, when crisis response is needed, timing is always of the essence (http://hopeforinitiativedr.org).  Given extraordinary improvements in disaster technology, improved forecasting must be an integral part of any disaster response.

Not all disasters can be averted.  There are some tornadoes in the south of the US so massive that resilience is almost futile.  Earthquakes and tsunamis can devastate communities and landscapes in what seems like an instant.  And, as noted by several experts in Sendai, technical warnings can fail to reach the right people, or reach them in a way that is confusing in terms of preferred responses.   Or people can choose to ignore warnings (as we in the US sometimes do with hurricanes and floods) or simply have no viable response options to looming threats.

But for many natural disasters, there are warning signs that are far less expensive to heed than the price tag resulting from disasters’ aftermath. This is especially true given the disasters that will likely intensify as our climate continues to deteriorate.  In response to the tragedy of Vanuatu, the president of Seychelles was quoted as saying “Today it is the South Pacific, tomorrow it could be us.”

Indeed it could well be.

Disaster response is in part about running several races against time almost in tandem. We need better forecasting and more quickly.  We need funding to support greater resiliency and more viable options for communities in the face of disaster.  We need more civilian-based response services on high alert to get to the scenes of crises rapidly and even before any crises unfold.  But most of all, we need dramatic diplomatic movement on climate health and other human interventions to give hope to communities suffering from disasters of a magnitude that they simply could never manage alone.

The UN is well positioned to help states meet the challenges, changes and resource needs for highly competent, trustworthy Disaster Management.   Such management is no substitute for a political agreement to reverse climate damage.   But at least until such an agreement is forthcoming — hopefully soon in Paris — and made fully functional, disaster management must maintain this high priority for states and the international system.

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Animal Planet: The UN seeks more Effective Governance of a Natural World in Crisis, Dr. Robert Zuber

8 Mar

This space is normally taken up with grave matters like Security Council disagreements over Ukraine and the shape to come of peacekeeping operations.   But this week, another dimension of global gravity took center stage, one with security implications that go significantly beyond the urgent needs of Small Island (SIDS) and Lesser Developed States.

On March 4, the General Assembly held an informal plenary to commemorate World Wildlife Day.   Much of the content of this event was welcome, including Germany’s efforts on behalf of a ‘group of friends’ to remind other states, to quote the UK, “that we overlook wildlife trafficking at our peril.” There was also an admission by the US that ‘we have been part of the problem and wish to be part of the solution’ and a warning by Kenya that unchecked wildlife poaching could threaten fulfillment of the SDGs in many countries.

The next day, a group of states sponsored a ‘One Ocean’ event that was ostensibly focused on the value of ‘ocean sanctuaries’ but which also issued a deeper call for a more profound biological sensitivity than we are currently practicing.

One current theme in the “One Ocean” event was the important role of science in alerting us to environmental threats and helping to provide data sets to guide sound remedial policy.   As Ambassador Thomson of Fiji science can provide evidence of negative human impacts on climate and help us mediate the space separating “prophecies of doom” and living with our “heads in the sand.”

The two events were complementary in some measure, primarily in their insistence on more effective governance of eco-threats. The tenor of the “Wildlife” event was less about appreciation of the complex web of life we are still privileged to enjoy and more about the economic and security implications of insufficiently protected animals such as Tigers.   Needless to say those implications are considerable especially for states for which wildlife-related tourism is a major source of income as well as states fighting the insurgencies for which trafficked wildlife parts constitutes a major source of potential revenue.

But as the BBC reminded us recently in the context of a program on China’s elephants, the greatest threat to their existence (if not our own) is no longer poaching but habitat destruction.   In other words, while there are still threats from criminal elements and terror groups seeking to pad their accounts through the sale of Rhino horns and such, the larger threat of habitat loss is one that is our common legacy. And it is a quite dangerous matter, as we are now by many accounts in the beginning of what some describe as an epic species extinction, the repercussions of which elude firm scientific forecasting.

‘Habitat’ seems like a fairly simple matter, like putting up an A-frame house and turning on the heat and water. But in the natural world, life forms struggle to adapt to and synchronize with other life forms on which their very existence depends.   This linkage was especially highlighted at the “One Ocean” event. We have undermined functional synchronicity with an appalling lack of sensitivity, threatening to extinguish ourselves as much (if not as quickly) as the many other essential contributors to our web of life. In that context, the Netherlands’ insistence seeing oceans through a biodiversity lens as much as an economic or development lens was most welcome.

In addition, the words of Palau’s president Remeingesau rang particularly true when he insisted that the SIDS “are already living what science is telling us.” Science can, indeed, tell us much about the climate impacts of what Ambassador Thomson referred to as our “blind exploitation of resources,’ the status of our dwindling fish stocks and ice caps, the sources of pollutants that are affecting migrating ocean wildlife, and much more. And we need to listen carefully, as one senior diplomat after another insisted. But science can’t always forecast implications, it does not have the power by itself to “regenerate” entire oceans, and it certainly cannot provide actionable incentives to large scale behavior change. Science can (and thankfully does) provide ample evidence of our folly, but it can offer no clear remedial pathway. Such a pathway must come from another place, a place open to inspiration towards meaningful change. As Israel noted, we simply must do more at many levels to better help us resist “spoiling a world that none can fix.”

Human beings have become, sometimes even with glee, reckless predators that not only crowd out other life, but compromise our own existence.   With all due respect to the need for more global governance on oceans and biodiversity, we now seek to govern the movement of horses in a barn whose door has long been ajar.   We migrate to cities in record numbers, in part for economic opportunity but perhaps also in the mistaken belief that cities represent a fortress against an influx of degraded biodiversity that has our fingerprints all over it. Our policymaking is now very much a product of our increasingly urban mindset – ignoring the needs of farmers, consuming with little recognition or remorse, mistaking the predictability of our urban parks for genuine attempts to reacquaint ourselves with natural processes. This pattern is clearly not the pathway we seek.

When I was a child, I discovered that the only way to get out of a swamp when you’ve lost your way is to back out the way you came.   Trying to outsmart the swamp only gets you in deeper with even less control of potentially unsavory outcomes.   It may be time for us collectively to back out the way we came, to abandon the current obsession with using technology to ‘battle’ our way through global challenges rather than retreat to firmer ground on which we can reflect and assess. If we continue to defy and disrespect this ‘swamp’ of our own making, we might one day find that we and our closest, domestic animal companions are all that remains of a planet once teeming with life.

During the “One Ocean” event, Ambassador Sareer from Maldives reminded the audience that there are cultural and “national identity” implications of climate health. Ambassador Cardi of Italy insisted that the health of future generations was much more likely to be guaranteed with healthier oceans.   All of this is true and none of it is sufficient.   We need better eco-governance and more scientific input at every stage.   We also need more compelling norms to stimulate more urgent climate-healthy behavior. As a principle, norm-making, global institution, and as the origin of much of the international community’s current climate change interest, the UN’s role and responsibility in species and biodiversity protection should remain in the spotlight going forward.

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The UN Engages (and Learns From) a New Generation of Youth Leaders

7 Mar

Editor’s Note:  This piece from our Human Rights Fellow, Karin Perro, continues a GAPW commitment to the engagement of youth from diverse social and cultural contexts on matters of global policy. Participation is a core concern towards the full promotion of human rights and good governance, and Karin does well to lay out of the case for more serious engagement with an ambitious, energetic, technologically savvy, and growing segment of our global population. 

Both the first and last weeks of February found the UN inundated with exuberant youth representatives, here to engage (and be engaged) with the UN system and lend voice to the upcoming SDGs and their implementation. Braving the arctic blast of February, Youth Forum and NGO Youth Event attendees convened to share their vision of the future and demand a participatory seat at the post-2015 table. And rightly so – if any group has proprietary rights to shaping the future it is global youth who will be directly impacted by and even be tasked with meeting projected SDG targets by 2030.

Engaging youth in development policy becomes all the more imperative if we consider that more then half the current global population is under the age of 25.  In a post-2015 world, a burgeoning youth population might well be confronted by unprecedented climatic and environmental crises, human security risks, rights violations and rampant unemployment. They will also have to contend with a rise in ‘greying’ populations that will create additional burdens on national ‘safety net’ programs, with estimates indicating a tripling of the over 65 demographic in the next 50 years. Africa will be especially hard hit by rapidly shifting demographics at another edge of the age spectrum, due mostly to anticipate spikes in adolescent pregnancies and generally growing fertility rates, causing worries of unwelcome declines in educational participation by women and girls.

Two inextricably linked, youth-centric development cornerstones were recurrently addressed at the UN Youth Forum: a lack of educational resources and a paucity of employment opportunities. Young attendees expressed frustration at what seem to be their ‘empty’ school diplomas given the lack of available job opportunities, noting that their presumably marketable skill sets did not appear to be in sync with the rapidly changing and expanding needs of current labor market. Perhaps even more than generations past, youth face the conundrum of how to obtain practical experience as a precondition for employment when on-the-job training opportunities are often predicated on prior work experience. But unlike past generations, almost all youth attendees cited a dearth of available internship, apprenticeship and mentorship opportunities at all educational levels.  This cycle of inopportunity requires a systemic revamping of attitudes and best practices, not only within the private sector, but as addressed through national and regional government initiatives.

For its part, GAPW (with Women in International Security) has long advocated policy mentoring of young people to help prepare the UN system to handle a new generation of global issues in a thoughtful and responsible manner. The young scholars and advocates who have taken temporary residence in our office often return to national capitols and regional NGOs where their acquired skill sets enhance development of local capacity for meaningful change.  As we have perceived often and as several youth delegates at the UN also noted, girls in particular are likely to benefit from mentoring as their active engagement with trustworthy older persons builds confidence and strengthens decision-making and leadership skills.

Beyond mentoring, UN youth delegates clamored for greater, “full-partner” policy participation, not only in setting the post-2015 development agenda, but in tracking and accelerating progress, and holding governments accountable. Youth expressed interest in politics but also shared disillusionment with political processes that ignore younger stakeholders. As a corrective, Kenya’s Ambassador Kamau implored the Youth Forum to ‘embrace your transformative power as youth’ in determining whether ‘you will be part of the problem or part of the solution’ over the next fifteen years. Youth delegates were captivated, appearing galvanized by Ambassador Kamau’s inspirational ‘call to arms’.

When youth representatives at the Feb 26 UNDPINGO event were asked what they could do to help promote the post-2015 development agenda, they responded without hesitation: Youth can provide counter narratives to extremist recruitment strategies through social media campaigns and digital diplomacy, becoming ‘boots’ deployed in the battle for cyberspace. They can employ their entrepreneurial spirit and innovation skills to emerging development initiatives benefiting triangular and south-south cooperation. They can offer a new generational ‘plurality of thought’ and a ready adaptability to shifting scenarios in the rapidly changing world in which they’ve been raised. Youth indeed appear ready to accept responsibility for what appears to be a stubborn legacy of global insecurity. But ‘ownership’ will not come without a significant relinquishment of the policy reins wielded by the current, older incumbents of the current global governance structure.  Young people need more ‘space’ to operate as well as guidance while operating.

The February gatherings of youth delegates were undeniably impressive: as a group they demonstrated a confident resolve to tackle a deluge of post-2015 global development obstacles.  And no doubt they represent ‘the best and brightest’ talent of their host countries, already being groomed for leadership roles as the next generation of diplomats and policy makers. But if we are to truly ‘leave no one behind’ we will need to insure that a wide range of young people irrespective of class, gender, culture, religion or ethnicity are included at the table of engagement.  We will need to do more to cull and cultivate the untapped potential of youth residing on the margins of urban developments, on rural farms and remote villages, in refugee camps and tented settlements. Elitism and other barriers to inclusion can only be eradicated through universally accessible and needs-specific education as a pathway to full employment, economic empowerment and social leadership.

As March brings new Commissions and crises into focus, we should avoid allowing the welcome upsurge in youth participation to be obscured.  Maintaining youth momentum is indispensable to successful post-2015 sustainable development. As UN Youth Envoy Ahmad Alhendawi exhorted, it’s time to reach cross the generational divide to ‘unleash the power of 1.8 billion young people ready to lift the heavy agenda of the SDGs’.

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Renewing Vows: The Security Council’s Marriage of Convenience, Dr. Robert Zuber

28 Feb

Last Monday, under China’s presidency, the UN Security Council held a most welcome general debate inviting states to “reflect on history and reaffirm the strong commitment to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.” Representation in the room was quite robust with a number of Foreign Ministers having made the trip to New York to reflect on their national responsibilities to the UN’s multi-lateral framework.

The debate itself was a mixed bag as one might expect.  Some states used the occasion to recommit to what they understood to be the core principles of the UN Charter.  Others took advantage of the opportunity to remind the Council that, in the eyes of some states, the current system of maintaining peace and security is still uneven, unrepresentative, even politically biased. Still others used the occasion to point fingers at states (mostly at Russia on Ukraine) that they believed were gravely undermining the most important of Charter principles.

A few states were even in the mood to talk a bit of reform. One of the ideas raised by several delegations, including some Council members, was in support of the French proposal for ‘voluntary restraint’ on the use of the veto in cases where mass atrocities have been determined. This idea has been growing in popularity, especially among certain NGOs focusing on atrocity crime response.

We have written about this idea previously and mostly cautiously.   In our view, there are conditions for such voluntary restraint that should be honored if the proposed change is to solve more problems than it creates.   The primary conditions for restraint are a more horizontal Council power structure that is less inclined to ‘politicize’ findings from UN officials tasked with monitoring the potential for mass violence. There is also need for greater Council willingness to “work and play” better with other UN agencies responsible for diverse aspects of violence prevention.

While listening to the Charter debate, another wrinkle on “conditionalities” came to mind.  This ‘condition’ was courtesy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of New Zealand, a delegation that we greatly respect but where, in this instance, there seemed to be an attempt to ‘pair off’ two principles that probably need a bit more time to sort out their individual business.

For New Zealand (as for Spain and others) priorities were joined that really don’t seem ready to ‘marry’ each other, despite pressure from the relatives.  The most welcome priority is to get the Council more involved in supporting other UN efforts focused on the preventive side of conflict – heeding early warning and working more closely with other UN capacities devoted to mediation and other preventive tools.  The other is related to veto restraint, which is touted as a solution to difficult, “gridlock” situations like Syria and comes from an urgent desire both to save lives and to protect the reputation of the UN and its partner institutions.

Unfortunately, the discussion on restraint comes attached neither to carefully verbalized conditions nor to a helpful overview of the Council’s coercive measures now underway despite the presence of the veto in a manner, perhaps unfortunately if not inconveniently, consistent with the Charter.

For instance, the current “lack” of veto restraint has not impeded what a number of states see as the Council’s over-reliance on coercive peacekeeping operations to solve international problems. It did not prevent the ongoing carnage in Libya traceable in part to implementation of SCR 1973.  It has not prevented the (mostly ineffective to date) bombing raids against ISIS targets in Syria and Iraq, nor the imposition of US/EU sanctions against Russia.  It has not impeded French military exercises in support of threatened governments in Mali or CAR.  It has not prevented Council endorsement of the still-somewhat-dubious Force Intervention Brigade in the DRC.

Indeed, if there are lessons to be learned here, it is that the veto is used relatively sparingly (though it is threatened more often), and that it is generally used (or threatened) in the most coercive contexts – sanctions and militarized responses.   Spain’s important messaging on mediation capacity might be insufficiently heeded, but it is not vetoed.  Early warnings from the Joint Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect might be tossed into a metaphorical drawer until a full-blown crisis erupts, but neither are these findings candidates for veto.

And it is not at all clear to us, in a situation characterized by voluntary veto restraint, how the Council’s actions on Syria (the poster child for such restraint) would be so very different.   What would the Council be advocating now on Syria that is distinguishable from its current practice?  How much of that ‘difference’ would be military in nature?  And why do we think that military activity directed at Syria would produce peace and security outcomes less like Libya and more like Sierra Leone?  If these questions have answers, they would help make the case for veto restraint.  If they cannot be answered then we should be careful advocating a step that might well satisfy our need to ‘do something’ more than it clarifies what needs to be done, when action is needed, and how we should respond.

During Monday’s Charter debate, the US made what might have been a ‘slip’ during its statement, though it was a telling one – citing the Council’s ‘restoration’ responsibility alongside its maintenance function.   ‘Restoration’ of course is not specifically a Charter-mandated activity of the Council, though the term accurately describes much of current Council practice – fighting raging fires while accusing other states of ‘arson,’ rather than responding in a timely manner to smoke warnings.   We recognize that much about any Council assessment is related to our own expectations; how we judge is in large measure a function of our assessment of capability and culpability.   But we feel that the amount of institutional energy put into ‘restoration’ of conflict settings that the UN system could surely have done more to prevent in the first instance is a most sobering thought, one that, in our view, does not yet recommend veto restraint.

Our fear is that, without addressing the larger concerns related to Council working methods, veto restraint represents permission for downstream “business as usual” to continue or even grow.   Indeed, there is reason to believe that the preventive architecture that the New Zealand Foreign Minister rightly advocated would become even less likely in situations where the international community, and specifically its permanent members, didn’t have to make their full (and hopefully even non-political) case for recourse to coercive measures.

Despite some welcome changes in transparency, in large part motivated through more vigorous involvement by non-permanent members, an ‘unrestrained’ Council still acts too often (and too coercively) without sufficient discernment regarding longer-term security implications or the need for engaged consultations with its many UN partners.  We aren’t anxious to have those temptations magnified.

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A Health Regimen for Peacekeeping Operations:   Becoming “Fit” for Purpose, Dr. Robert Zuber

22 Feb

One of the exxiting things about working with GAPW is having access to so many persons, some still  a bit too far off the UN’s radar, who are thinking and sharing ideas that can help ‘get into shape’ our guiding norms and strategies of implementation.

Recently, we received reflections from Paul Okumu of Africa Platform (www.africaplatform.org) which he recently shared at an African event intended to contribute to the UN’s peacekeeping review initiated by the UN Secretary General.  In his “We the Peoples: Will Civilians Triumph in Latest Review of UN Peacekeeping Operations,” Okumu wonders if this review will “deliver anything new” or end up as one of the “many reports that drown every year?” Many others are inclined to wonder the same, including those of us who highly honor peacekeepers and greatly respect the work of DPKO.

Okumu registers other noteworthy assessments of existing peacekeeping operations at the same time that he affirms the central role that PKOs should be (and sometimes are) playing with regard to the protection of civilians. Perhaps the best of these refer to the “elite bargains and quick elections” that constitute the UN’s “beaten path” to address threats of violence, a path that too easily compromises both conflict prevention and civilian protection which Okumu (and many others) consider to be core objectives of UN practice.  As we have noted often ourselves, peacekeeping is in danger of being discredited (and even of placing other UN staff in danger) the moment it is seen as a militarily ‘partisan’ substitute for robust diplomatic engagement to prevent violent conflict, a ‘substitute’ now tasked with managing the complex carnage left in the wake of our diplomatic inadequacies.

Okumu also points out the extent to which peacemaking and peacebuilding are being taken up, each and every day, by community residents, leaders of civil society, and other stakeholders.  We act, he notes, as though civilians are only the beneficiaries of our peacekeeping largesse but are not also and increasingly the drivers of sustainable peace.  Why, Okumu wonders, do PKOs so often ignore “the power of citizen-led mediation, the power of citizen mobilization?”  As peacekeeping mandates become more and more complex, and as we default too quickly to militarized responses to problems that should have been addressed at earlier stages, ignoring relevant local capacities is questionable practice. We have allowed ourselves to become too much in the business of ‘restoring’ the peace rather than maintaining it in the first place, and then attempting this restoration with far too many skills neglected on the sidelines.

Of course, the view of PKOs from UN headquarters, especially at this moment as the GA’s Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations (C-34) deliberates on its own contributions to peacekeeping doctrine and practice, is a bit different from Paul’s in Nairobi.  He asked GAPW to reflect on some of the gaps in his paper.  There are no gaps to speak of, but perhaps some different points of emphasis.

First of all, we have to be careful insisting on more robust civilian protection measures without also insisting that the best ‘protection’ lies in prevention.   Once the house is fully in flames, options for more carefully crafted, humane response become more limited.   As Paul knows well and as some inside the UN articulate often, attention to the ‘drivers’ of conflict, including poverty, discrimination and environmental decay, are far less expensive in energy, money and lives than our seemingly endless efforts to restore destroyed infrastructure, broken lives and failed states from armed violence that probably didn’t need to occur in the first place.

Secondly, at the same time that many acknowledge stubborn limitations (albeit fixable) in peacekeeping training, in timely deployment, in logistical support, and in ready availability of highly skilled peacekeepers, we continue to heap more and more responsibility on peacekeeping operations.   This policy is a bit like asking nurses in an overstretched urban hospital to perform emergency surgery, counsel distraught families, clean messy hospital rooms and cook ‘special’ meals for sick patients.   It’s hard enough just being a nurse.   It’s hard enough being peacekeepers encountering deadly violence from actors in a culture not their own, while also being asked to monitor elections, counter terrorism, restore legal institutions and rebuild infrastructure – and all this while attempting to protect both civilians and the physical integrity of related UN operations.   Peacekeepers should never become the ‘secretaries’ on whom bosses can dump piles of confusing paperwork and other responsibilities for which they are still largely unprepared.  And real-life secretaries rarely, if ever, have entire human communities that they are obligated by mandate to protect.

Finally, it is essential to re-attach the business of “keeping the peace” to other UN business – eliminating poverty and other inequalities, ending impunity for gender based violence and human rights abuse, and many other responsibilities consistent with the three “pillars” of UN policy.  As there are assets “in the field” that could more fully be incorporated into a spectrum of peacekeeping activities, there are also assets at UN headquarters that should be energized and encouraged to contribute to a world where peacekeepers are not needed so very often.  The pillars, after all, are intended to identify with a full-fledged system of global governance, not with a series of discrete (and often distracted) policy offices.

Whatever “Health Regimen’ for PKOs arises from ongoing C-34 discussions and the SG-mandated review, it must insist on open and expansive access while affirming that ‘health’ is a fully systemic endeavor not given to restrictive obsessions over one or another part of the ‘body.’  If conflict prevention and civilian protection are to fully emerge as cardinal principles of UN response, that response deserves comprehensive, careful policy attention system-wide.   Such response must leave no relevant stakeholder behind, either as agents of conflict prevention or as recovering victims of operations that have become too complex and too militarized to protect the peace long-term. We must do more, consistently and respectfully, to encourage Council members and other policy leaders to interpret robust, militarized ‘protection’ mandates, not so much as a triumph of multilateral consensus but as more of a collective failure of preventive discipline.

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Values Clarification:  Fixing Terror, Facing Ourselves. Dr. Robert Zuber

15 Feb

On February 10, under Lithuania’s leadership, the Security Council held an important discussion, “The Importance of the Rule of Law in Countering the Current Terrorist Threat,” pursuant to SC Resolution 1373. The event featured the presence of France’s Minister of Justice, HE Christiane Taubira and Deputy Secretary General Eliasson.

The event also highlighted some fundamental truths, one of which was in the form of a welcome reminder from Minister Taubira not to allow threats of terror to motivate us to ‘abandon our values’ and ‘restrict our freedoms.’

Of course, a review of our recent history suggests that this is easier said than done. It was DSG Eliasson who urged that we not accept the prospect of societies living in fear.  He surely understands the degree to which fear paralyzes thoughtful action; but also the degree to which it impedes the implementation of a sound, balanced security policy. Fear tends to remain riveted on its source – imagined or real – leaving little inclination to self-reflection. It tends to produce morality plays with good guys and evil doers, not comprehensive analyses of threats, causes and consequences.

For her part, Minister Taubira rightly reminded the audience that ‘decent institutions humiliate no one.’ However, especially in the current psychological climate, it would be a considerable, if inconvenient stretch to suggest that the institutions committed to addressing threats of terror in the world have themselves achieved this high benchmark.

While countering their values of ‘brutality,’ as the UK and others frequently ascribe to ISIS and Boko Haram, we need to do more than identify and address the ‘loneliness,’ ‘social isolation,’ and other factors that we seem to have concluded are the primary pathways to extremist ideology. Other, less comforting pathways are tethered to our own, long, collective history of inflicting humiliation and economic subjugation on one another, a history that we are thankfully doing much to address, but not yet in full measure.  We still make (and sell) too many weapons, pollute large swaths of our oceans and waterways, ignore the rights of the disabled and other marginalized persons, and persist in economic policies that, as Romania’s Amb. Miculescu, Chair of the recently concluded Commission on Social Development noted, are addicted to ‘growth models’ that compromise efforts to address poverty, climate health, inequality, discrimination and other persistent social ills.  Few of these global threats, if any, can be neatly packaged and then dropped off at the doors of the terrorists.

Nothing justifies the brutalities of Boko Haram and other groups.  Nothing.  We don’t have to change much in ourselves to fully acknowledge that reality.  We might, however, need to change a bit further in order to find a sustainable solution to the fear and carnage that such brutalities engender.

In the end, it might not be too much more complicated than adopting a somewhat sophisticated application of two the west’s most enduring value formulations—“doing unto others as we would have them do unto us,” and “to whom much is given, much is expected.” The focus here, of course, is on the doing, not on the branding.   It’s about specific commitments to build the kind of world that terror cannot easily undermine, a world in which there are more winners, less hypocrisy, less bitterness. During the Feb. 10 discussion, Malaysia suggested that terrorism, like climate change, affects us all.  We might add that much like climate change, the roots of terror are inclusive of many factors and agents, certainly more inclusive than a collection of bad guys with black hoods, sharp knives and stolen mortar canons.

On Feb. 12, the Security Council passed resolution 2199 that increases pressure needed to dry up terrorist sources of funds.  This is a welcome step, but as the Council itself recognizes, it is well short of that elusive, final resolution of the terror challenge. Indeed, DSG Eliasson reminded us that there likely is no “universal solution” to terror threats. He urged diplomats working on such threats to commit to practice both cooperation and attention to context. Indeed, Lithuania’s Amb. Murmokaité and colleagues recently embarked on what was hopefully a context-refreshing trip to Niger and Mali. Such visits can only help craft policies that effectively address both threats of terror and the vast and growing social voids left in their wake.

But part of honoring ‘context’ involves fidelity to the‘doing unto others’ values that we need to practice more than espouse, values that become harder for insurgents to ‘dismiss’ as their potency in the world becomes more apparent. Such values include refraining from activities that might well be deemed humiliating by others; upholding ‘rule of law’ standards ourselves that we insist on for the rest of the world; addressing inequalities across borders and not simply within our own; and rooting out the corruption and institutionalized self-interest that undermines trust in government, thereby needlessly blurring the lines separating legitimate authority and illegitimate insurgency.

These are large and complex matters that continue to challenge the policies and values of global governance.  It is unlikely that we can effectively ‘bomb’ our way out of our terror dilemma, nor should we deceive ourselves that the ‘problem’ of terrorist brutality is only about the behavior of evildoers in the lightly governed spaces on the margins of overly ‘shocked’ African and Middle Eastern states. It seems more likely that any short-sidedness regarding the motivations and objectives of terrorists – or of ourselves — will serve to prolong the agony of terrorized populations and reinforce the paralyzing fearfulness of media consumers.

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Money Ball:  The UN Navigates Investor Expectations and Urgency for Policy Innovation, Dr. Robert Zuber

8 Feb

This past week at the UN, in the shadow of the Commission on Social Development, a modestly attended but most suggestive event highlighted what is an increasingly perplexing conundrum for policymakers and their donors:  finding the proper balance between fiscal accountability and program innovation.

The event was actually a joint meeting of Executive Boards of diverse UN agencies including UNICEF, UNDP and UN Women. All agency heads and participating diplomats wrestled with, as the Secretary General put it, the task of remaining ‘fit for purpose;’ learning as much as we can from our failures but doing so without neglecting established patterns that have already yielded positive results.   While flexibility is to be praised, the SG noted, innovation must never be seen as an end in itself.

The dilemma of innovation is hardly unique to the UN:  Sports teams, entertainment corporations and many other businesses struggle with the dual demands of ‘staying fresh and relevant’ while satisfying the expectations of their investors.   But there is so much on the line at the UN, so many lives potentially impacted by policy decisions that can err on the sides of recklessness or caution. Given this, the willingness of senior UN officials to both interrogate their failures and offer new ideas to address stubborn development and security patterns with the potential to foment social unrest (as cited by the ILO’s Torres at a separate event) was most welcome.

The stakes in this discussion are higher than they might at first appear, and the SG’s remarks are one starting point.  The largest state contributors to UN operations are responsible to their own local constituents who are in some cases coping with economic crises at home.  But even those supportive of government assistance to UN programs seek assurances (as Japan has urged in several UN forums) that funds dispersed are used for the purposes intended.   Beyond this caution, Zambia urged more attention to ‘predicting’ failure caused in part by a lack of policy attentiveness to social and political context.

If states are not provided the assurances they seek, there is risk that donations will dry up further, or in the case of small states like Zambia that the trust issues lingering with respect to some UN agencies will grow larger.  In either case, the ability of the UN to deliver on its promises – from fulfilling SDGs to drying up sources of illicit arms – will be compromised.  Unlike the private sector, UN officials have hands that are tied a bit tightly by state interests, especially by the largest donor states.  But some of this ‘tying’ as Denmark noted has positive value – insisting that innovation in policy never be divorced from issues of cost effectiveness.  Clearly it is important to avoid throwing money at problems recklessly; but it is also important to think creatively beyond the matching of the most obvious short-term needs with the most immediately available resources.

It seems more and more apparent that currently funded policy and implementation strategies employed by the UN and its partners continue to lag behind both global challenges and response opportunities.  For all our good and reasonably well-funded efforts, we have not yet found the means to eliminate terror threats or gender-based violence, reduce weapons flows, stem chronic unemployment, or reverse the melting of the polar ice caps.  And it is equally clear that money, for all of its potential benefits, can have a negative impact on the innovation we still desperately need.   We see this in the NGO community all the time, where access to funding is as likely to breed caution as creative engagements with UN objectives and working methods. But even at senior Secretariat levels, funding impacts loom large, or at least larger than might be optimal for the development of more innovative approaches to longstanding planetary challenges.

As UNDP’s Helen Clark noted, it might not be funding per se, but rather the assessment of results that funders rightly require that leads to ‘risk phobia’ among some leaders, a sentiment echoed by UNICEF’s Anthony Lake.  While important, “results” can be like puzzle pieces essential to a fully completed puzzle but not to be equated with it.  There are formidable challenges afoot that require creative, if humble engagements beyond piecemeal measures.  And while there are certainly financial risks attached to creative innovation, we need to be reminded, as UNICEF’s Lake noted, that there are also staggering costs from NOT innovating.  It is widely recognized that we already throw too many of the world’s resources at problems that have already proven resistant to our standard working methods and operating procedures.   We would thus do well to share more openly the potential benefits and risks of our innovative policy options; not only with over-stretched donor states but especially with their increasingly anxious constituents.  And, as UNDP’s Clark noted, we should do more to create systemic ‘safe space’ for innovation, inviting the innovation-minded to leave the margins and find a place closer to the center of policy formulation.  Sports franchises and other corporations shrivel in the absence of such space.   International policy also suffers when innovation has no safe space to test assumptions and offer alternatives.

Some of this need can be addressed through greater institutional investment in creative policymaking that reassesses resources and their modes of application.  As one step in that investment, UN Women’s Lakshmi Puri floated an idea that we have also advocated previously – the need to promote the UN as more of a ‘learning community.’  This ‘community’ would not only take account of the SG’s urging that we learn more from our failures, but that we also take heed of opportunities to learn more from each other – including updates on current challenges, and how we might respond – and respond differently – if we are to one day fulfill the trust placed in us to bring ‘big’ matters such as climate change, atrocity crimes and weapons proliferation to successful resolutions.

Clearly we need to be more open to innovation in light of the evolving needs of constituents who, at the end of the day, constitute the core of our mandate.   UNOPS’s Grete Feremo noted with some irony that only small children seem immune from ‘change resistance.’   And UNICEF’s Lake noted that we who set the agendas for global policy must learn to ‘leave our egos and even our logos’ at the door.

This is wise, if elusive counsel.   Needless to say, the UN was not chartered to protect bureaucratic turf or provide employment opportunities for diplomats and NGOs.  It was chartered to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war (and, we might add, other threats to human security).  To ‘win’ at this ever-more critical responsibility, we must spend wisely but also learn sincerely and innovate constructively.  We cannot continue to stifle policy innovation while the global challenges we are tasked to address continue on their own, dangerous, evolutionary path.

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Working Assets: Development Infrastructure Worthy of Development Aspirations, Karin Perro and Robert Zuber

1 Feb

The UN’s final working day of January featured an odd mix of events, including a seminar dedicated to teaching about the UN, a full-day event promoting social media, and the Security Council’s debate on the Protection of Civilians with a special focus on women and girls.

The last of these is particularly germane to GAPW’s work and, as noted by the UK, represents perhaps the singular lens through which outsiders view the value of the United Nations. And there was much of value in the discussion which we attempted to capture through @globalactionpw. Not surprisingly, some of the presentations represented a mixture of now-familiar POC assumptions and a few needlessly repetitive political grievances.  And despite some passionate and convincing articulations on the common theme of Women, Peace and Security and its implications for protection, a number of delegations noted that 15 years after the WPS norm was consummated, it still ‘feels’ more ornate than embedded.

This lament is relevant to what could well have been the most far-reaching event of the day, held in Conference Room 2, a surprisingly small venue for a discussion as potentially significant as this one could turn out to be.  ECOSOC’s “Dialogue on the longer-term positioning of the United Nations development system” attracted a roster of high-level presenters including UNDP’s Helen Clark, Timor-Leste’s Amb. Sofia Mesquita Borges, and Colombia’s Amb. María Emma Mejía Vélez, vice president of ECOSOC.

GAPW’s Karin Perro spent the morning listening to UN officials and others discuss ways to make the full UN system more accountable to and engaged in the fulfillment of development goals, another one of those ‘core lenses’ for public assessment of UN effectiveness. Among the insights she gleaned were Helen Clark’s ‘delivering as one’ approach.’  Such an approach includes what Clark referred to as a ‘relevant and nimble’ institutional structure for SDG implementation. This warrants more sustained attention with caveats to ensure room for innovation (as the US suggested) and also to guarantee (as Albania noted) that UN development priorities avoid policy silos and fully embrace national contexts.

Perro also reported some echoes of skepticism in the room that went beyond caveats.  Amb. Borges wondered aloud about the ability of states with fiscal, security and governance limitations to successfully coordinate implementation of what will likely be wide ranging development goals.  And several African states bluntly questioned the UN system’s ability and effectiveness in coordinating with other development partners, including states.  Ghana was perhaps the boldest of these states, intimating that development ‘competition’ indulged by UN agencies can result in disrupted development flows, duplicated efforts, disempowered (or frustrated) non-UN development partners, and neglect of legitimate, country-specific needs.

As it turns out, space for this important and even innovative discussion was a non-factor as perhaps 2/3 of the seats in CR 2 were filled.  Apparently ensuring a robust and responsive development infrastructure isn’t as sexy for some in the UN system as formulating text outlining largely normative goals and objectives. Or perhaps state and NGO representatives were busy sharpening their twitter messaging in another conference room.

Regardless, the implications of this event for fulfilling the new goals of the UN’s development pillar were clear to all who participated.  All seemed to recognize that there is limited value to establishing development goals in the absence of viable development infrastructure. On this point, GAPW noted a general, if guarded optimism from delegations, including from those seeking more attention to national context, but also from those wondering if structures of governance in some states are sufficiently fair and robust to handle our new and expanded set of development commitments.

It was also clear that unless all relevant institutional and national assets can find complementary service in our development workplaces, our SDG efforts are likely to create the equivalent of lovely sprinkles on an ice cream cone that itself is not fit to be eaten. We are all the ‘responsible parties’ here, responsible to guide implementation of fair and transparent development priorities, but also responsible to prevent possible damage to the UN’s reputation from development goals and objectives that could regrettably turn out, once again, to be as ornate as substantive.

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Rights and Wrongs:  The UN Seeks Discernment for Itself and Lasting Relief for Others Dr. Robert Zuber

25 Jan

This past week at UNHQ witnessed a flurry of interest in the human rights dimensions of the other UN pillars, from post-2015 development to the practice of peace operations and the protection of civilians from armed violence. Much of this activity was informed by the SG’s “Rights up Front” initiative.

On Tuesday The Netherlands sponsored a special Women, Peace and Security event, entitled “Seeking Synergy with the Reviews on Peace Operations and Peacebuilding.”  While there wasn’t much discussion of the review processes themselves, the skilled panel reinforced the need for greater vigilance both in terms of the full participation of women and in terms of how UN operations in the field treat women within their protection and care zones.

On Wednesday at Poland’s “Why have we failed in preventing genocides” event, DSG Eliasson noted the need to transform lessons “we already should have learned” into concerted action, a call that was echoed by others including the US and UK Ambassadors.  For his part, USG Dieng wisely highlighted the current, “scarce institutional investments” in preventive capacity while urging us all to do more to counter prejudice and other ‘triggers’ of mass violence.

On Thursday Switzerland organized a discussion on “human rights at work in peace operations, featuring among others ASG Šimonović and UNSMIL’s Cardone. Panel recommendations were based in part on ample documentary evidence of high level, ‘joint’ discussions that have taken place (and continue) between UNOHCHR and the human rights leadership of diverse peace operations from the DRC to Haiti.

That same day the General Assembly’s Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations (C-34) met for briefings on the important matters of conduct and discipline, as well as ‘protection of civilians’ doctrine.

And on Friday, Lithuania convened an informal Security Council meeting to help solidify the human rights dimensions of Council-authorized peace operations.  It is presumed that this discussion helped to set the bar for the upcoming Security Council debate on the Protection of Civilians scheduled for next Tuesday, January 27.

These discussions and others taking place around the UN are most welcome.  Anyone who believes that the UN system is largely insincere in its attempts to chart a humane and rights-based course for peace operations and peacebuilding is simply not paying sufficient attention.

That said there are, of course, caveats here that need to be explored.  As peace operations become more complex in their mission objectives and robust in their protection mandates, the human rights implications of peace operations grow in complexity as well.  So too, we would argue, does the level of vigilance required to maintain a human rights focus under the most challenging of field circumstances.

One example of this vigilance relates to the ‘intervention brigade’ authorized for the Eastern DRC ostensibly without ‘setting a precedent,’ a capacity which has recently seen an expansion in its focus but with little in the way of a sustained vetting of its limitations and implications for other UN country teams and humanitarian operations. Having witnessed some (welcome) security progress in the Eastern DRC, the government of Mali at a recent Security Council meeting had little apparent compulsion in asking the Council for a ‘brigade’ of its own, a call which is likely to be mimicked further as states wrestle with diverse security, human rights and governance challenges, and as vigilance regarding unintended consequences of such capacities remains elusive.

We have long cautioned against an overly militarized and de-contextualized response to the challenges of insurgency.  Not all insurgent movements are the same; some like the pastoralists roaming the ‘ungoverned’ spaces in northern Mali and border states, are arguably not ‘insurgents’ at all.   There are times when military response might well be appropriate; but for the most part, such responses are too –often a result of a clumsy (at best) process of ‘upstream’ political discernment on the part of the Security Council, as well as of the unwillingness of states facing security challenges to make the changes needed to eliminate discrimination and corruption towards regaining the broadest possible public trust.

In a UN system with its carefully worded Charter mandate for peace and security maintenance, the burden of proof regarding the effectiveness of any military response must reside with its Council authorizers as well as with those states seeking such authorizations.  Such ‘proof’ to our mind is too-often unconvincing or even lacking altogether.

Thankfully, awakenings of political, ‘upstream’ discernment were clearly on display in all of the week’s events where we were present, including the UK’s forceful declaration of need for more ‘early warning’ capacity at the “preventing genocides” event.  More pointedly, it was outgoing USG Haq at the event on peace operations and peacebuilding who reminded the audience that the pursuit of human rights pertains not only to those whom we defend, but to how we behave while defending.

Indeed, if we are not scrupulous about ensuring that our resolutions, response capacities and field conduct uphold our prevention and protection principles, we risk undermining both our own credibility and the dignity of those whom we presume to protect. The admonition by Haq for the UN “to look at itself” and curb its own abuses implies that the UN and its member states can do more to restrict the implementation of response doctrines that inadvertently perpetuate human rights abuse under the guise of eliminating it. We can only urge the full and careful incarnation of such discernment.

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