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S. Sanbar: A United States and United Nations Partnership
Written by Samir Sanbar, United Nations Assistant Secretary General
Monday, August 25, 2008
Delivered at an International Symposium on the United States and the United Nations, “Exploring the Future of US-UN Relations,” January 23, 2002
Partnership is a very important keyword for the United Nations and for the international community. Clearly our swiftly changing world with its shifts in borders, social fabric and communication leaves no other option for the United Nations. This may require among other things a strengthened internal public information culture, internal culture within the United Nations, within the diplomatic community, capable of highlighting the United Nations’ relevance to everyday people in everyday language. The United Nations' partnership with the media is crucial. It also is crucial for the United Nations to widen its partnerships, include the private sector, and involve the business community. However, the great need is still to build and expand partnerships between the United Nations and the various governmental organizations.
The U.S./U.N. relationship
Considering the United States and the United Nations, a veteran like myself would feel that the United Nations needs the United States to survive, as it needs the rest of the world to succeed. The United States needs to survive with the rest of the world and it needs the United Nations to succeed.
To use a health term, the relationship is organic. The US influence on the United Nations is deeper than generally recognized or acknowledged. As a host country, whatever Americans think of the good city of New York, U.N. diplomats and U.N. staff, who are making decisions and proposing ideas, are actually living in American society. Their main media link is with the American media. Their families are educated in US schools and in an American atmosphere. While enjoying the highly developed hospitality, the United Nations spends more in the city of New York than the United States’ contribution to the United Nations. If figures are needed, we have them. In political matters the United Nations would seem to be a convenient scapegoat in case of failure.
The US representation at the United Nations has been mostly of the highest quality, from Adlai Stevenson, a presidential candidate, to George Herbert Walker Bush, who was actually elected president. They are always supported by a representative team of professionals, governing not only questions of peace and security but every aspect of human endeavor, from human rights to the environment to administration and management. Even in terms of speech, the United Nations and the United States are so close that even the most professional officials seem to confuse the names on various occasions. Reportedly, the name United Nations was given by President Roosevelt after discussing it with Prime Minister Winston Churchill. I recall that Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, when he was swearing his oath of office as the fifth UN Secretary-General, had an apparent slip of the tongue and pledged allegiance to the United States rather than the United Nations. Years later there was a slightly different outcome, but that is history.
The American public has greater knowledge of the United Nations than most other people. You notice the visits by school children. That is an area where we have worked very hard. While the United Nations remains a lofty organization in the opinion of a large number of American people, they also want it to work. They support the United Nations generally. They may criticize it, but they would like it to work. As an indication of how close the United Nations and the United States were in a previous period, one should be reminded that during the first 24 years of its existence, the United States did not use its Security Council veto power. The first time the veto was used was on March 17, 1970, when there was a Security Council resolution condemning Rhodesia. The United States later relented and supported the independence of Zimbabwe, the former Rhodesia. The veto was used sparingly in the beginning. Even now it is used judiciously.
Republican or Democrat, there is a consistent American position of supporting the United Nations but urging more reform. Even the language of US presidents is similar. President Nixon said in 1972, “We can easily undermine the United Nations by asking too much of it.” A quarter of a century later in 1997, President Clinton told the General Assembly, “In order for the United States always to say ‘yes’ to the United Nations, the United Nations sometimes has to say ‘no.’ “ It is a different spin but essentially the same thing. The UN Secretaries-General have had a consistent position of wanting reform. U Thant thought the United Nations had only 10 years to reform or perish. As Secretary-General, Perez de Cuellar formed a team that introduced basic changes into the United Nations. Dr. Boutros-Boutros Ghali cut the number of senior posts from 52 Under-Secretaries to 12, later restored to an increased number by others.
Disagreements that did occur were mainly political. Kofi Annan’s quiet revolution was clearly coordinated with the US administration as well as with the international community, which support him and still do. In time the United States recognized that the United Nations couldn’t solve fundamental disputes, especially when big powers were involved. One Secretary-General discreetly grumbled that when a big power fights with a small power, the small power risks disappearing. If a small power fights with a small power, the conflict usually disappears. When a big power fights with another big power, the Security Council disappears.
Enriched by diversity
Perhaps U.S. Delegate James Woodworth put it best years ago when he said, “It is not good enough that the United Nations is not good enough, but it is the best we have.” The United Nations is the latest stop along the road from caveman to the ideal state of affairs. A key answer was once given by great past Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold. He said, if I may again use a French expression, “Le courage de nos differences,” which translates as the courage of our differences and which means, without being irresponsible, to accept what divides us with humility and courage. A veteran internationalist like myself, he believed that far from being separated by our differences, we could be enriched by our diversity.The United Nations is the latest stop along the road from caveman to the ideal state of affairs. A key answer was once given by great past Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold. He said, if I may again use a French expression, “Le courage de nos differences,” which translates as the courage of our differences and which means, without being irresponsible, to accept what divides us with humility and courage.
The United States by its name reflects a nation of unified citizens who come from varied cultures and backgrounds. The human ties to Americans through relatives and nationalities represent an additional reason why the rest of the world responds with visible solidarity. Reports that victims from more than 62 countries perished in the World Trade Center reflect the fact that almost every one of the 189 UN members could find a compatriot in the United States and the speed with which the Security Council and the Secretary-General acted on the treaty-wide challenge to one country could become a multilateral cause.
Clearly the United Nations is the most inclusive universal body we have for collective concerted action. Whatever political steps are agreed to, it may be worthwhile to consolidate the international will and project it through a precise moral framework based on the UN Charter. A conceptual approach could highlight the twin objectives of peace and security and economic and social development. The 1947 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, created after the outrage and turmoil of a world war, needs no revision, only a fresh affirmation, however brief. It may be time for the member states to work together with the Secretary General to make a renewed commitment to the principles of the declaration in an affirmation of the value of life and human dignity.
If I may, I will conclude by quoting the UN Charter’s preamble which is very similar to the Constitution of the United States,
We the Peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, and for these ends to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbors, and to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples, have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims.
These are UN values. I would claim that they are very basic US values. They are as well values of the international community. This is why there exists a very close relationship and why we are able to act together to achieve a joint purpose.