A CRITICAL REVIEW OF AFRICA AND THE UNITED NATIONS MILLENNIUM REFORMS

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

United  Nations (UN) is  an  international  organization  of  countries  created  to promote world peace and cooperation. The UN was founded after World War II ended in 1945. Its mission is to maintain world peace, develop good relations between countries, promote cooperation in solving the world’s problems, and encourage respect for human rights. UN membership is open to any country willing to further the UN mission and abide by its rules. Each country, no matter how large or small, has an equal voice and vote. Each country is also expected to pay dues to support the UN. There are currently 192 UN members, including nearly every country in the world.

The UN is the result of a long history of efforts to promote international cooperation. As noted by Howard (2008:17): in the late 18th century, German philosopher Immanuel Kant proposed a federation or “league” of the world’s nations. Kant believed that such a federation would allow countries to unite and punish any nation that committed an act of aggression. This type of union by nations to protect each other against an aggressor is sometimes referred to as collective security. Kant also felt that the federation would protect the rights of small nations that often become pawns in power struggles between larger countries.

Kant’s idea came to life after World War I (1914-1918). Horrified by the devastation of the war, countries were inspired to come together and work toward peace. They formed a new organization, the League of Nations, to achieve that goal. The League would last from 1920 to 1946 and have a total of 63 member nations through its history,including some of the world’s greatest powers: France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, Germany, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). But the League had two major flaws.

First, several of the world’s most powerful countries were not members, most notably, the United States. Second, the League required consensus among its members to oppose aggression. Dissent by any one member could prevent consensus and render the League impotent. When Japan, Italy, and Germany undertook military aggression in the 1930s, they would not agree to censure themselves, thus preventing the consensus necessary for League action. This aggression ultimately led to World War II (1939-1945). In the end, the League failed in its most basic mission, to prevent another world war.

Despite this failure, the idea of a league did not die. The first commitment to create a new organization came in 1941, when U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced the Atlantic Charter, in which they pledged to work toward a more effective system to keep world peace and promote cooperation. In 1942 representatives of the Allies—the World War II coalition of 26 nations fighting against Germany and Japan—signed a Declaration by United Nations accepting the principles of the Atlantic Charter. The declaration included the first formal use of the term United Nations, a name coined by President Roosevelt. A year later, four of the Allies—the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China— agreed to establish a general international organization. The four countries met in 1944 at the Dumbarton Oaks estate in Washington, D.C., and drafted a charter for the new organization. They called the new league the United Nations. But they still could not agree to certain details, such as membership and voting rights.

The four countries met again in early 1945 at a summit in Yalta, Ukraine. There, they settled their differences and called for a conference of nations to complete their work. On April 25, 1945, the United Nations Conference on International Organization convened in San Francisco, with delegates from 50 countries attending. The delegates worked for two months to complete a charter for the UN that included its purpose, principles, and organizational structure. The charter contained a formal agreement committing all the world’s nations to a common set of basic rules governing their relations. The UN officially came into existence on October 24, 1945, with 51 member countries-the 50 represented at the conference and Poland, which had not been able to send a delegate.

Like the League of Nations, the UN was founded to promote peace and prevent another world war. The UN recognized it would not be successful unless it had the ongoing support of the world’s most powerful countries. The organization took several steps to ensure that support. To encourage continued U.S. involvement, the UN placed its headquarters in New York City. To reassure the world’s most powerful countries that it would not threaten their sovereignty, the UN gave them veto authority over its most important actions. Five countries received this veto power: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union, and China.(Russia inherited the Soviet Union’s veto after the breakup of Soviet Union in 1991).

Another major strength of the UN, unlike the earlier League of Nations, is that virtually every territory in the world is a member, or a province, or a colony of a member. Some nonmember political entities, such as the Vatican City and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), also have permanent observer mission status at the UN. Most African States that are members of the UN joined after their independence and were compelled to play second fiddle facing the challenge of operating in an already established system. It should be noted, however that the UN gave boost to decolonization in Africa and other regions of the world.

Nevertheless, due to the structural and systemic imbalances apparent in the operations and dynamics of the UN system being intentionally moderated by the United States and her cohorts which include other advanced economies and Trans-National Corporations in the UN system, the interactions there-in have always subjected Africa to play un-assertive role. Therefore, the call for holistic reform of the UN system that will among other things accord Africa, the unique chance of having permanent membership status in the Security Council of the UN.

More importantly, much has changed since the United Nations was established in 1945. New challenges confront the organization including global warming, global diseases and global terrorism. Responding to these challenges requires continual change, adaptation and learning. Little wonder, on March 7, 2006, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan proposed a package of major reforms to the United Nations (United Nations, 2006). Such reform proposals have become commonplace.

This study has been designed to critically explore the ongoing UN millennium reforms and the place of Africa in it. More fundamentally, the study examines international perspectives on the UN reforms. It is also the task of this study to ascertain possible challenges that are likely to come with the reforms.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The assumption that maintaining the status-quo in the UN system is the best medium of achieving lasting peace, political, economic and Social development in the international system is fallacious and therefore an illusion that the Third World Countries (TWCs) have been led to imbibe to their own undoing.

It is unfortunate that despite the expansion in the number of independent sovereign states in the post 1945 world and their membership of the United Nations, the new states, predominantly from the Third World, Africa inclusive, remained largely marginalized in the conduct and management of global diplomacy for international peace, security and welfare (Obiozor 1998:6). Obiozor, went on to elucidate that for obvious and understandable but clearly unacceptable reasons, the design and operating rules of the economic  system of the post 1945 world order did not protect the national interests of a vast majority of the (new) members of the international political and economic system.

The above indicates that it is a strategic decision to keep Africa and other Less Developed Countries (LDCs) at the periphery where they will be perpetually subjugated by the developed world in the UN system and world affairs. It is for these reasons that there had been incessant call for total reformation of the United Nations to right the wrongs inherent in the system. In his address to the UN-General Assembly in September 2003, the then UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, coined a picture that has since set the tone of the debates on the reform processes within the UN: Excellencies, we have come to a fork in the road. This may be a moment no less decisive than 1945 itself, when the United Nations was Founded (Annan, 2003). The fact that Annan voiced such a clear assessment on the situation of the United Nations has to be seen against the setting of the differences regarding questions of collective security that has marked the global community since the attacks of 9/11.

In fall of 2003, as immediate reaction to the call for reforms that shook the foundations of the UN, Kofi Annan convened The High Level Panel of Eminent Persons on Threats, Challenges and Change (HLP) under the chairmanship of Anand Panyarachun, former Premier Minister of Thailand. The office of the Panel was headed by Stephen Stedman, Professor at the New York University and Stanford University. The goal of the High Level Panel was to assess current threats to international peace and security as well as to work out possible solution policies to address those threats.

The  HLP-Final  Report  with  the  title:  A  More  Secure  World:  Our  Shared Responsibility was presented after one year of intensive work at the beginning of December 2004. In this report, the HLP concludes that a functioning system of collective security is indispensable, as today’s threats do not respect any national boundaries. More importantly, the HLP-report recommended a comprehensive reform of the UN.

It is against this background that we raise the following research questions:

1. Does the role of the Permanent members of the UN impinge on African chances at benefiting from the current UN reforms?

2. Is there any relationship between the lack of consensus on what should be the goal of reform and the divergent views by members?

3. Does the UN reform have consequences for the UN Charter and the Security Council?

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The central objective of this work is to critically interrogate the ongoing United Nations millennium reforms and how it affects the African continent. Specifically, the study will be guided by the following objectives:

1. To ascertain the role of the Permanent members of the UN and how it impinges on African chances at benefiting from the current UN reforms.

2. To examine if there is any relationship between the lack of consensus on what should be the goal of reform and the divergent views by members.

3. To ascertain weather the UN reform have consequences for the UN Charter and the Security Council

1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

There have been heated debates on the issue of the relationship between Africa and the United Nations, especially as it concerns the reform agenda of the latter. Part of the significance of this study is that it is a contribution to an on-going intellectual debate on this issue. It is also of practical significance.

Academically, many scholars have made efforts on this research. They include Obiozor et al 1998, South Centre Analysts 2000, 2005 e.t.c. They opined that, although Africa and other developing regions have been very much part of this process of rapid global integration; the decision making processes and policy choices in the UN system have in the main been dominated by governments of the developed countries and Trans-National Corporations especially the United States and her allies. These actors have the international institution under their influence and absolute control (South Centre, 2000:7).

Precisely, these commentators stated that issues which are of priority interest to the North tend to predominate in the analyses and prescriptions that constitute the current international development agenda of the UN. They stressed the case of selective enforcement and implementation of the WTO agreements; seeking financial and monetary regimes and national structures friendly to North-based investors; national treatment for TNCs in developing countries; environmental and social clauses in the trade regime; and a new global intellectual property regime e.t.c. Importantly, domestic politics and even personalities, interest groups, powerful private corporations, and the media in some powerful countries of the North, are emerging not only as important factors shaping their own countries` policies at the international level, but also in their own right in the global arena, where they influence the priorities, policies, outputs and inner working of international organizations especially the United Nations. The major global corporations have also begun to provide financial contributions to international organizations, as sources of public funding diminish. In the absence of appropriate checks and balances, this will increase the already considerable asymmetry operating against the South in the global arena and within the United Nations. They also elucidated the negative effects of such arrangements which encompass the establishment of structures that place Africa in the periphery. The gap left by these academics in this intellectual exercise will be filled in the literature review column. That is to say that, they were not expository and educative as this work, as it analysis the contemporary dynamics of the subject matter.