Tag Archives: Peace and Security

An Updated Agenda for Rights and Security, Dr Robert Zuber

17 Sep

Editor’s Note: Over the summer, I was asked by NGO colleagues to pen a contribution on this 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, one which links two of the UN’s three pillars – that of peace and security and that of human rights. The project seems to have, for now at least, gone “radio silent,” so I decided to post it here so it could be read and scrutinized as desired. Thanks to Jess Gilbert this is now more readable than the initial version. It is also considerably longer than usual . If you decide to give it a read you have my steadfast admiration.

While the UN’s human rights pillar remains in some ways the most unstable of the three – with challenges related to a rapidly expanding mandate with rapporteurs to match, limited enforcement options and sometimes severe push-back on women’s and other erstwhile “indivisible” rights, all referenced in more detail below – tenets of a  still- uneasy security-rights policy relationship which is my task to examine are “not news” to most of the diplomats and NGOs populating UN conference rooms.

Indeed, most all recognize the immense value of the (non-binding) Universal Declaration over many years in promoting the economic, social and cultural rights “indispensable” for dignity and the “free development of personality.” Moreover, the Universal Declaration also explicitly recognizes the importance of maintaining “a social and international order” in which the rights and freedoms it sets forth can be fully realized. And, perhaps most germane to my assignment, the Declaration Preamble makes plain that to ignore the protection of these rights is in essence to invite “rebellion against tyranny and oppression,” a clear sign that even 75 years ago, the human rights – security nexus had direct policy relevance.   

Thankfully, my “not news” task” was energized  a bit by the release of “A New Agenda for Peace” (https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/our-common-agenda-policy-brief-new-agenda-for-peace-en.pdf), the ninth policy brief shared by SG Antonio Guterres under the broader rubric of “Our Common Agenda,” an agenda which in several key respects is a worthy successor to the Universal Declaration.

Many in our sector at least to some extent have already scrutinized this New Agenda and I won’t diminish their contributions through my own replication. I do agree with a former-diplomat friend that the Agenda is a “polite” offering, highlighting the dire straits we now find ourselves in (a strength of this SG) while outlining policy priorities which the UN for the most part is already addressing, albeit with uneven energy and success.

This SG has been increasingly vocal about the threats which many constituents still refuse to fully acknowledge. His is not quite a “chicken-little” approach to global threats, but such threats certainly loom large and have been growing in impact for some time. Still the body over which he presides has long been characterized by issuing clarion calls on a range of issues and concerns while diplomatic responses extend too-infrequently  beyond convening opportunities for performative statement making. For instance, this past July’s High Level Political Forum, ably presided over by Bulgarian Ambassador Stoeva, was a beehive of events and reflections on our current, common plight, and on our insufficient responses to sustainable development promises made in 2015 which span the UN’s agenda across its three policy pillars. But still a familiar pattern persisted of shedding more light than heat on our current malaise, more in the way of highlighting our seemingly declining options across these three policy pillars than concrete measures to help honor promises made 8 years ago to resolutely and tangibly deliver the SDG goods. 

For those of you who have not yet had time or interest in doing so, the New Agenda for Peace is worth a read. Some of the proposals have clear and urgent merit including on the need both to ban autonomous weapons (p.27) and to negotiate and adopt tenets of responsible governance over potentially “weaponized” AI and related ICT before those often-“lawless” horses (p.26) finally and forever flee the barn. Thankfully, the New Agenda does not skirt the issue of our grotesque military spending (p.4) which sucks trillions of US dollars out of the global system on an annual basis leaving the UN’s human rights mechanisms overly dependent on what is in essence volunteer labor and, over and over, leaving conflict-affected populations begging for the assistance we have given them reason to believe would be forthcoming.

Also welcome, the New Agenda urges states, yet again, to “look beyond narrow security interests” and embrace multilateral solutions to challenges associated with our “more fragmented geopolitical landscape.” (p.3) Indeed, as this Agenda makes clear, we may well have reached the limits of our capacity to heal the deep scars of war and armed conflict without putting an end to armed conflict altogether. We may have also approached the limits of our ability as currently organized to rebuild damaged infrastructure, revitalize economies and the agriculture damaged by bombs and warming temperatures, restore public trust or ensure that the discrimination, arbitrary detention, child recruitment, online harassment, sexual violence and other abuses now virtually synonymous with conflict in both cause and effect do not thereby lay the foundation for a return to the violence which virtually none on this planet can any longer endure. 

Gratefully, the core of the New Agenda for Peace lies in a commitment to prevention (p.11), easier said than done to be sure, but perhaps our only remaining opportunity  as a species to reset our financial architecture, revise our dangerous habits of consumption and suspicion, and heal our social relations; to create enough breathing room in our societies and their governance structures to ensure that biodiversity can be restored, climate risks can be mitigated and solidarity and other indicators of personal and collective responsibility can be ratcheted up. These and other global obligations would help ensure that barriers to the “universal” rights compliance advocated by the SG (such as the elimination of patriarchal structures as explicitly noted on page 7) can be duly removed, thus helping to ensure that policy promises made are more likely to be kept. 

All who spend time in and around the UN recognize that such “breathing room” is in fact is a high aspiration given the low levels of trust which are manifest in many UN policy spaces and the core values attached therein to sovereign interests which keep the UN largely confined to norm-creation. This norm-creation mode, as important as it can be, generally comes attached to little stomach for holding states accountable to commitments which in too-many instances they have scant intent on fulfilling while pushing off accountability for failures away from themselves and on to other states and entities.  It is commonplace to note this, but worth doing so in this context – among the words you will almost never hear in UN conference rooms are apologies for policy misadventures nor clear acknowledgement of national deficiencies in implementing UN norms prior to engaging in the more common practice of trying to “pin the tail on other donkeys.” 

Indeed, the UN often finds itself hamstrung insofar as it must walk a series of lines which recognize that, at the end of the day, even Charter-offending states are going to have the UN they want. They pay the bills. They set the agendas. Their sovereign interests remain paramount no matter how much they might claim otherwise. In the name of preserving universal membership, states permit discouraging violations of core UN Charter principles often with functional impunity. They often tend to talk a better game than play one given how easy it is to “spin” national performance on the assumption that few if any of the major policy players want their UNHQ representatives to make diplomatic trouble or shut off options for dialogue by “exposing” flaws in their own or others’ national narratives.  The value of diplomats lies, in part, as a function of their considerable ability to keep the policy windows open but this skill is regularly discharged despite the stale air which is too often allowed to settle into deliberative and negotiation spaces.

From my own vantage point in regards to reports such as the New Agenda I often find myself hoping to see an examination of the structural impediments facing what is actually an intensely political UN policy space, from resolutions divorced from viable implementation to “consensus” which too often constitutes a de-facto veto and results in language which, again, is more adept at identifying problems than addressing them with the urgency that the times require. The “lip service” (p.11) which the New Agenda identifies has a wider UN application than merely on prevention, though prevention remains a relatively easy matter to “service” in UN spaces. Regrettably, the prevention agenda can easily become a vehicle by which officials are encouraged and enabled to paint more pleasing national portraits of human rights compliance, development assistance, good governance and arms transfer restraint than the available data could ever support.

What I continue to yearn for, virtually always in vain, is a formal accounting of the gaps and limitations of a state-centric, multilateral system wherein the states make pretty much all the rules, including on levels of engagement on key policy relationships which many in our own NGO sector believe must remain more actively seized, such as those linking the human rights and security pillars. The SG does note the “failure to deliver” (p.2) in his New Agenda, but also refers to the UN as “vital” for harmonizing the actions of states to “attain common goals” (p.30).  Unpacking these challenging-to-reconcile claims could well lead to a stronger, more effective system on both security and human rights. We need to remain seized of what the UN is doing with regard to its security-rights nexus, but also what more is needed to succeed, what skills and human capacities are still lacking, how amenable we are to filling gaps (including at local level) rather than allowing them to fester?

Thankfully, in large measure due to the relentless scrutiny and mandate expansion of the Human Rights Council and its Human Rights Committee our understanding of the human rights/peace and security “nexus” is clearly finding expression in multiple diplomatic settings.  No longer is it necessary to explain how discrimination under law and in access to services, prison conditions which enable the practice of torture or other coercive means of extracting “confessions” (a focus of our good partner FIACAT), arbitrary arrests and disappearances and much more contribute to instability within and between states and thereby foment conflict.  And it certainly no unique insight to point to the numerous instances where armed conflict – from Ukraine to Yemen and from Myanmar to Burkina Faso – creates veritable engines of abuse, complicating peace processes and opening doors to conflict recidivism with xenophobia, hate speech and sexual violence to match, abuses which were likely among the causes of the conflict in its first instance.

However, those of us who still choose to hang out in multilateral conference rooms know the gaps that continue to separate acknowledgment of right violations and threats to peace and security across the human spectrum. Indeed, not every agent and agency of global policy is on board with the notion that human rights should be a central theme both informing and defining peace and security deliberations.

The Security Council (our primary UN cover) is one place where consensus on this relationship has been elusive given recent claims bu at least a couple of members (permanent and elected) that a focus on human rights disturbs what is maintained to be a traditional “division of labor” in the UN; that because the UN has a human rights mechanism – albeit overworked and improperly funded – such matters should essentially be left to their devices. Moreover, there is also a concern among a few members past and present that too much human rights scrutiny can easily become a sovereignty-threatening club that some states use to batter the actions and reputations of other states.

These concerns are not entirely without merit; however, they tend to overlook what we know about the place of human rights abuse in triggering conflict as well as the rights-related consequences of violence unresolved. This view also fails to acknowledge the differing levels of authority with which these diverse entities operate. The Security Council’s permanent members are well aware of the privileges of their membership – not only the vetoes which they occasionally threaten and cast, but the additional  ways in which they can manipulate policy outcomes, protect their allies and overstate with impunity the significance of resolutions which are claimed to be “binding” in the main but which were often negotiated and tabled with a clear (if cynical)  understanding of the client state interests to be protected. Without question and for good or ill, the Council’s vested authority is unmatched across the UN system (including by the International Court of Justice), a system which provides Charter-based options for coercive responses to many (not all) threats to the peace which are simply not options for other agencies and pillars.

Of course, anyone who is still engaged with this piece will likely know all this already.  But perhaps the following implications of this authority imbalance will pique interest. Those in the Council (often from among the 10 elected members) who wish to see the Council’s Programme of Work expanded to more regularly embrace contemporary themes and conflict triggers (such as climate change or as it is now known around the UN, “global boiling”) and areas of overlap (such as human rights enablers and consequences of armed conflict) thankfully have various means to do so including hosting Arria Formula meetings and taking advantage of modest presidential prerogatives when their month to occupy that seat comes around.

But these options remain insufficient to a full vetting of the rights-security nexus.  We have long advocated for a Security Council that is more representative, but also which is more in sync with the goals and expectations of the UN system on the whole.  A case can be made, and we would wish to make it, that the Council should embrace more of an enabling (in the positive sense) role relative to the system of which it is a part. Yes, there is a Human Rights Council. Yes, there are talented rapporteurs galore and human rights review procedures applicable to member states. But human rights performance seems a bit too optional and subject to sovereign interests, especially given that such performance is, if the New Agenda is to be believed, central to any sustainable peace.  At the very least, the Security Council could use its authority to encourage greater political and financial attention to a human rights system which strives for universal application across a “full spectrum” of rights obligations now ranging from ending torture to ensuring the right to a healthy environment.  The Council does not necessarily need to add direct discussions about these rights obligations to its already complex and often-frustrated agenda, but it can and should do more to indicate that the successful work of human rights and other UN mechanisms has a direct bearing on the success of its own peace and security agenda. 

It seems obvious perhaps, but bears repeating: none of us engaged at any level in international policy, neither the Security Council nor any of the rest of us, should ever divert our gaze from the painful reminders of just how many people remain under threat in this world and how much further we need to travel in order to make a world that is more equal, more inclusive, more respectful of each other and our surroundings, certainly even more mindful of our own, privileged lifestyle  “contributions” to a world we say, over and over, is actually not the world we want.  As difficult as it might be to contemplate, we in policy spaces are not always the “good ones.” Indeed, when states and other stakeholders refuse to own up to their own foibles and limitations, especially in areas of rights and security, their/our critiques of others, regardless of their conceptual legitimacy, are more likely to ring hollow.

One area of ownership in these times is related to elements of  the “human rights backlash” which we continue to experience in many countries, in many communities and their institutions, even in multilateral settings, as evidenced by an unwillingness to address the core funding needs of the human rights “pillar,” member state inattentiveness to legitimate requests for investigations by special rapporteurs and others, even attempts by a shocking number of state officials to link the activities of human rights advocates (and even of professional journalists) to those of the “terrorists.”

Clearly, the world we inhabit needs a full reset beyond truces, beyond grudging or even self-interested suspensions of hostilities. Such may well be helpful preconditions for the pursuit of security which simply cannot be obtained at the point of a gun. But the security that so many in this world seek remains too-often elusive despite these often-unstable agreements, including people whose farmlands have dried out or flooded, people forced into poverty, displacement and despair by armed violence and abusive forms of governance, people made vulnerable to the lies and allures of armed groups and traffickers, people who find that they can no longer trust their neighbors or inspire trust from them, people betrayed by officials whose hearts have long-since hardened to their pleas for help. These are just some of the people in our fragmented world whose rights deficits are tied in part to our weapons and power-related addictions but more to our failures as people to soften our hearts and raise our voices to the challenges it is still within our capacity to meet.

The Universal Declaration does not, as many readers know well, dwell on weapons or other security concerns.  But it does define the tenets of a sustainable human dignity, the rights that give people the best chance to pursue lives in keeping with their aspirations beyond their mere survival.  It reminds us, as does the New Agenda more explicitly (p.3) that “war is a choice;” indeed is a series of choices by states and communities to invest in the carnage of ever more sophisticated weaponry and the coercive humiliation which flows from the deployment of such weaponry rather than in ensuring a sustainable future for all our people. Those many rights activists and policy advocates who put their own lives on the line to protect the rights of others know how much of our current security policy and architecture threatens to lead us down paths of ruin.  If the New Agenda is truly to be “new,” it must inspire commitment to find the inner resources needed to pursue more sustainable outer actions that, as with the Universal Declaration, keep dignity at the very top of our conflict prevention and human rights menu.

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Herding Cats: The UNSG Leads Wary Constituents Towards Management Reform, Dr. Robert Zuber

12 Nov

Only in growth, reform, and change –paradoxically enough — is true security to be found. Anne Morrow Lindbergh

An institution or reform movement that is not selfish must originate in the recognition of some evil that is adding to the sum of human suffering, or diminishing the sum of happiness. Clara Barton

Reform, that we may preserve. Thomas Babington Macaulay

This was one of those intense weeks at the UN during which if I were smart enough to write them — and you were patient enough to read them — there could have been a policy-related post emanating from this office every single day.  It was a week for the Peacebuilding Commission to assess the difficult circumstances in Burundi, for the UN General Assembly Fourth Committee to review the UN’s commitment to Palestinian refugees, for the Security Council Counter-Terror Executive Directorate to discuss rights-based ways for military and police to respond to the challenges of returning Foreign Terror Fighters, and for the entire Security Council to listen to commanders and otherwise honor the role of UNPOL (UN Police)in stabilizing communities, building trust with local constituents, and paving the way for easier transitions from peace operations to UN country teams and local security forces.

The highlight of the week from a public-interest standpoint was probably the Security Council debate focused on the report of the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) on the use of chemical weapons in Syria.  This was actually the third recent discussion on the report and/or JIM mandate renewal – one previously in the Council that saw Russia veto a proposal to extend the JIM prior to the report’s release and another in the General Assembly’s First Committee that deals specifically with disarmament and weapons of mass destruction.   As the policy lines sharpened this week among Council members and with occasional professional insults hurled at JIM director Mulet, our twitter account literally exploded with commentary, much of it from persons angry or frustrated at what they saw as attempts by (mostly) Russia and Syria to undermine both the methodology and findings of the JIM report, calling its basic integrity and usefulness into question.

Our “for what it’s worth” recommendations in response to this twitter flurry were twofold: to reauthorize the JIM promptly but also to carefully scrutinize its working methods and possible methodological gaps, especially given fresh allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria that will also need to be investigated, hopefully this time with successful on-site inspections.  Given all of the interest in eliminating these weapons and ending blatant violations of the non-proliferation regime, it is essential that these investigations be as “above reproach” as we can get them.

Despite all this impact-filled drama, our preference for a Sunday highlight was a joint Thursday briefing by the president of the General Assembly and the Secretary-General on the SG’s proposals for reform of the UN’s peace and security pillar. The SG’s report on this subject is largely focused on management reform rather than on specific changes to the ways in that the UN conducts its security-related responsibilities.

Following the SG’s opening statement, a number of states came forward with support for reform efforts, specifically lauding the SG’s focus on UN management and his willingness to reorganize across pillars and sectors.  Others cautiously awaited more specifics on proposed changes to the peace and security architecture with some explicitly calling on the president of the General Assembly to exercise oversight of the reform process on behalf of member states.

Given the SG’s management focus, and perhaps due to constraints of time as well as a reticence to get into too many details on how a post-reform UN would conduct its business, there were several matters of critical importance to peace and security that were barely mentioned during the two-hour briefing:

  • The reform of the Security Council (this was noted in passing by Ambassador Kamau of Kenya but ignored by the remainder of speakers, which included several Council members)
  • The architecture and structure of UN Disarmament Affairs. Indeed, the word “disarmament” was not uttered, neither in a programmatic or management context
  • The potential (and actual) prevention-related functions managed by the UN’s genocide and atrocity prevention mechanisms
  • Full-spectrum motivations for this reform initiative, specifically including funding threats emanating from the US government and other member states; their preferences, more and more, leaning towards earmarked funding rather than pledges for core operations.

What was most welcome from the SG’s remarks is his commitment to enhancing the visibility and functionality of the UN’s peacebuilding architecture, something we have long advocated.  With Guatemala’s Amb. Rosenthal in the room (a primary architect of the UN’s landmark peacebuilding review), the SG made a strong case for why the Peacebuilding Commission and Peacebuilding Fund deserved a broader role in the UN system – beyond its current post-conflict confinements – to hopefully become a significant resource for states seeking guidance on conflict prevention and mediation before facing the prospect of turning up on the agenda of the Security Council.

At this point, I can “feel” many of those who chose to read this thinking, well, this is all well and good for the SG, but what are the takeaways?   I think there are several, but will summarize the following:

  • First, for a range of reasons, the “mood of the room” on Thursday was mostly supportive of the SG’s reform push. Uruguay and Japan, as examples, were two current Security Council members who reinforced the SG’s “mandate for change” and sought ways to support that change without seeking to “micro-manage” it.
  • Second, there is a clear and tangible concern among many member states that the UN is simply not delivering “on the ground” in accordance with expectations that we in this policy space have raised but often failed to meet. In an age of austerity for the UN system, the pressure to deliver “more with less” is being felt across the UN and certainly has “raised the bar” for the current leadership.
  • Third, Morocco’s Ambassador and other officials reminded colleagues that reform of one aspect of the UN system changes – at least in potential – all other aspects of the system. Changes in the management structure and architecture of the UN’s security apparatus – including peace operations — will change institutional dynamics and policy options on gender, counter-terrorism, human rights, children’s issues and other key dimensions of the UN’s multilateral contribution.
  • And fourth, there was some helpful recognition in the room that, to use our own analogy, there is quite a difference between planning a wedding and sustaining a marriage. As Algeria’s Ambassador Boukadoum noted near the end of the session, everyone seems to be in favor of reform until they figure out what they are likely to lose (or have to pay for, or change) as reform commences.   Pakistan picked up this theme urging the SG to initiate thoughtful reform “that does not replicate the ills that it seeks to fix.”  The recognition that a push for reform does not, in itself, guarantee successful (or happily embraced) institutional outcomes was a sobering reminder for delegations. This led to one of the more noteworthy comments of the day, a request by Singapore’s Ambassador for a “framework of assurances” to help member states track reform progress but also to help ensure, as noted by the Ambassador of the Solomon Islands, that we all do everything that we are able in order to “get this reform right.”

On Friday, in another reform-minded session with SG Guterres, ECOSOC President Marie Chatardová noted that where matters of reform are concerned, “the devil is in the details, but also the opportunity.” As Amb. Chatardová knows well, the UN does not control many of the variables that can threaten successful management reforms and those changes that could well add to “the sum of happiness” far beyond Turtle Bay.  And many of the variables the UN does control, it controls only in part – such as the actions of major powers in the Security Council or the rates at which states honor funding commitments to urgent matters such as core UN functions and emergency provisions of assistance.

What this reform push does recognize is that this is a time of trial for the entire UN community.  Can we fix the ills that hinder us without replicating them or creating new problems out of the ashes of the old?  Can we assure states – but more importantly constituents – that reform is more than a concession to budget threats but is actually capable of increasing the general threshold of human well-being and building back what has become significantly compromised confidence in multilateral structures?

Like any marriage, UN reforms will be won or lost in the trenches – in the challenges of day-to-day communication, confidence-building measures, systemic trust and steady reassurances.  The SG on Thursday noted that Algeria had once offered haven to political refugees from his home country of Portugal.  He then shared the hope – jokingly we trust — that the current push for UN reform won’t end up with him scurrying to Algeria seeking a safe haven for himself!

But beyond the humor lies a somber recognition: if this community fails to embrace and sustain the changes that can preserve and enhance our collective service to the global community, more than the SG will eventually find their own professional security “up for grabs. “

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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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Highlighting a Human Security Approach

9 May

Co-sponsored by the Human Security Network (Austria, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Greece, Ireland, Jordan, Mali, Norway, Slovenia, Switzerland and Thailand, with South Africa participating as an observer) and the Human Security Unit (HSU) of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), a high-level event was held yesterday at UN headquarters both underscoring the importance of a human security approach to multi-faceted challenges and celebrating the recent adoption of General Assembly resolution 66/290. This resolution adopted last September marks the first time the General Assembly (GA) was able to agree on a common understanding of the concept. The high-level event featured remarks from the Secretary-General as well as his Special Adviser on Human Security, Mr. Yukio Takasu, who was appointed in 2011.

Global Action is deeply invested in supporting a cross-cutting, broad-based approach to a robust human security agenda. As noted by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in his remarks to the event, it is imperative to identify comprehensive solutions to an inter-linked program of human security as it is impossible to end poverty without empowering women and girls, to ensure respect for human rights without addressing climate change, or to tackle security sector reform without guaranteeing equitable prosperity in communities. Global Action fully embraces this comprehensive approach and welcomes the inclusion of human security as a central factor, particularly with a view towards developing a robust post-2015 development agenda, which can help address a plethora of interlinked security challenges. The GA resolution provides a solid, basic framework for moving the concept forward and mainstreaming its characteristics across the range of UN activities to better address shifting peace and security concerns.

The human security concept provides a useful entry point for dealing with prevailing security issues. First introduced in 1994 through the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in the “UN Development Report: New Dimensions of Human Security,” the term has evolved over the last decade. The 1994 UNDP report highlighted four characteristics of human security—universal, people-centered, interdependent, and early prevention – as well as seven interconnected elements, namely economic, health, environmental, personal, community, and political. Subsequently, in 2001, an independent Commission on Human Security was established to elaborate on the understanding of the term and to develop it further as an operational concept. In 2004, the HSU was established under the auspices of UNOCHA to mainstream the human security concept in UN activities, which also manages the UN Trust for Human Security (UNTFHS) that finances activities carried by the UN and/or UN-mandated organizations to translate the human security approach into practical actions.

The importance of the consensus adoption of UNGA resolution 66/290, “Follow-up to paragraph 143 on human security of the 2005 World Summit Outcome,” rests in its inclusion of a common understanding of the notion of human security. The resolution also welcomes the “Secretary-General’s Report on Human Security” (A/66/273) from 2012 upon which a GA plenary meeting was held in June 2012 and around which consultations were held. The resolution outlines the following characteristics of human security—(a) freedom to live in dignity and free from poverty and despair; (b) a people-centered, contextual, comprehensive, and prevention-focused approach; (c) recognition of the inter-linkages between peace, development, and human rights; (d) clear distancing from the responsibility to protect norm and its implementation; (e) non-inclusion  of the use or threat of use of force and ; (f) national ownership and governmental responsibility. The resolution also calls on the Secretary-General to submit a report to the sixty-eighth session of the GA on the implementation of the resolution seeking first the views of member states.

A strong commitment to mainstreaming human security and a common understanding of the concept, while allowing some flexibility in its implementation, are welcome developments that will serve the international community well in addressing diverse, root causes of insecurity. The translation of a somewhat abstract concept, human security, into concrete action is also an important exercise that is often not seen in many others aspects of UN work. The UNTFHS has carried out over 200 activities in 80 countries increasingly applying this concept in field operations across all global regions under the primary ownership of local individuals. This conversion of the abstract into the concrete is a challenge for many working simultaneously on security and development issues.

Ultimately, a robust human security agenda cannot be pursued in silos, but rather must take into account cross-cutting contributors to insecurity. As the international community continues to embrace a more well-defined human security concept, the world will be better equipped to humanize the concept of security and help it evolve into one that is much more reflective of today’s transnational challenges.

 

–Katherine Prizeman

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ECOSOC Discusses the Women, Peace and Security Agenda

10 Aug

For those who followed the discussions of the 56th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) on the theme of “The Empowerment of Rural Women and their Role in Poverty and Hunger Eradication, Development and Current Challenges,”it was disappointing to see that there were no agreed recommendations. It was disappointing not only for the process, but also for what the lack of agreement says about the importance of the issues of rural women. CSW is part of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and is a global policy-making body focused on gender equality and the advancement of women. Annual meetings are held during which member states evaluate progress and establish global standards on these issues.

At the recent ECOSOC session, after a statement made by Ambassador Kamara of the Republic of Liberia who chaired the 56th session of CSW, member states discussed the progress that has been made with regard to mainstreaming a gender perspective into all policies and programs in the UN system. While many applauded the creation of UN Women and the work of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), states were nevertheless frustrated about missed opportunities and felt that much more work needed to be done to advance women’s rights. Mexico, El Salvador, the United States, Belarus, Israel, Australia, Indonesia, Argentina, and Japan all mentioned that the inability to reach consensus on rural women at the 56th session was disappointing. Some states indicated that working methods should be reevaluated. Many highlighted forms of gender-based violence and discrimination that they believed should be focus points moving forward.

Nonetheless, the discussion at the most recent ECOSOC session did not just focus on the CSW; a few draft resolutions were also passed but only one of these – Situation of and Assistance to Palestinian Women – was contested. The United States shared its commitment to support women in Palestine and improving the humanitarian situation, but also expressed concerns over how the situation in Gaza and the role of Hamas can be a barrier to women’s fundamental rights. Finally, the US was not satisfied with the status of the text and encouraged ECOSOC to look at mutual goals. Israel and Canada agreed that politicizing the situation of Palestinian women was not justified and reminded the Council of the many human rights violations attributed to Hamas. These states asserted that an ethical draft would have focused on supporting Palestinian women, and would have been written primarily to address the challenges they face. Palestine reiterated that Israeli occupation is a major difficulty for Palestinian women and girls. The draft passed with 30 votes in favor, 2 opposed, and 18 abstentions. By adopting the resolution, the Council encouraged the international community to take special note of the human rights of Palestinian women and girls and to increase measures to help these women and girls in the challenges they face.

Overall, while discussions on the advancement of women are always welcomed and there can never be too many, we hope that more issues will get on the ECOSOC agenda that are complementary to other issues in the UN system, especially as the 57th session of the CSW approaches with the theme of “Elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls.”

–Melina Lito and Henry Neuwirth

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