The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East
For all its imperfections, the UNGA has at times shown more common sense and prudence than some of the sophisticated Western democracies. Any recourse to the UN General Assembly will result in more time taken to secure a decision or agreement. It cannot be surprising that the messiness of decision making in domestic democracies is amplified in decision making in the global arena. It takes time to persuade all people to march in the same direction, but this is precisely what gives legitimacy to the result. It is supposed to ultimately reflect the wishes of the people. Most countries in the world respect and abide by UN decisions because they believe in the legitimacy of the UN. The legitimacy the UN enjoys in the eyes of the majority of the world’s population is a huge asset. If well used, it can provide a powerful vehicle to secure critical decisions on global governance.
There would be a revolt in America if anyone proposed that the US Senate should be ignored and instead be replaced by a selective council comprised of the representatives from only the five most populous states in America: California, Texas, New York, Florida, and Illinois (4). Such an undemocratic suggestion would be rejected out of hand because it would be both unjust and unviable. The population of the other forty-five states would deem any such proposal as absurd. Yet such a proposal accurately describes how the world is run today: instead of turning to the UNGA (where there is universal representation of the 192 nation-states), America and Europe prefer to turn to the UNSC, which is effectively run by the 5 permanent member states.
Having served as an ambassador to the UN for over ten years, I have had many opportunities to study in depth American policies toward the UN. I have been struck by the almost total lack of awareness in the West of the fundamental contradiction in American policies toward the UN. A medical analogy may explain this contradiction best. No surgeon would try to rescue a limb of any human body while simultaneously weakening the heart. The heart is central; if it stops, all limbs die. Ironically, this is exactly what America is trying to do with the UN: it is constantly trying to weaken the effectiveness and legitimacy of the UNGA while trying hard to control and strengthen the decisions of the UNSC. But the UNGA is the heart of the UN, while the UNSC is only a limb. If the UNGA dies, the UNSC will die too.
Where does the UNSC get its legitimacy? What causes the world to accept and comply with its decisions? The simple legal answer is that all UN member states agreed to abide by the decisions of the UN Security Council when they joined the UN and ratified the UN Charter. However, there is also a big difference between “legality” and “legitimacy”. Legal decisions can be illegitimate. Before the United States came into being, Americans lived under the rule of King George III, who had the legal right to pass laws that were binding on the inhabitants of the colonies. It was the perceived lack of legitimacy of King George’s edicts that led eventually to the declaration of independence.
The decisions of the current UN Security Council have begun feel like the edicts of King George III. They will remain legal for a while, but their legitimacy will gradually erode over time. It is an obvious but unpleasant truth that the five permanent members of the UNSC serve as dictators of the world. They make decisions that are binding and mandatory on 6.5 billion people without allowing them to have any say in choosing the permanent members. Only monarchies and dictators enjoy perpetual rule, without seeking reelection and without being held accountable. Most modern societies abhor permanent unelected rule. This explains why some leading European voices recognize that the UNSC is facing a crisis of legitimacy. In a brave essay entitled “Towards World Democracy,” Pascal Lamy, a leading European intellectual, writes, “The real power of the UN lies in the Security Council, and more, specifically, in the right of veto. That is the exclusive privilege of its five members, whose legitimacy (based on who won the last World War) is, to say the least, 50 years out of date.” (5)
The UNSC’s refusal to bend to the American will in March 2 on the Iraq War was a rare exception. Most of the time, the UNSC simply agrees with the American agenda. There are two simple structural reasons why the council normally bends in favor of American agenda. First, most of UNSC decisions are effectively a result of negotiations among the five permanent members. The fundamental principle that guides their negotiations is very simple: “You scratch my back, and I scratch your back; you claw my back, and I claw your back.” America’s overwhelming power enables it to reach bilateral deals with the other permanent members-bilateral deals that sacrifice global interests.
The second reason why the Security Council bows to the American agenda is that the nonpermanent members, who serve on the council for rotating two-year terms, rarely find it in their interest to stand up to America, even if it is pushing in the wrong direction. In 1999, when Brazil was serving on the UNSC, it had an unusually able and effective ambassador to the UN, Celso Amorim. He noticed that the UNSC discussions on Iraq were not going anywhere. After intense negotiations, he proposed that three panels should be set up to investigate different dimensions of the Iraq problem. Most Security Council members agreed with his approach. When Brazil held the presidency of the Security Council in January 1999, a UNSC resolution was adopted to establish these three panels.
Then something surprising happened. Out of the blue, in the very middle of Brazil’s term on the council, Ambassador Amorim was transferred to Geneva. It was an obvious demotion. Everyone was puzzled since he had been an effective ambassador. President Chirac asked the president of Brazil what happened. He was told that Washington had called Brazil and said, in effect: “If you want America to support you in areas that matter to you (like the IMF), then you should support America in areas that are important to America (like Iraq).” Brazil would have to pay a price in its bilateral relations if it ignored the wishes and interests of America. The call came not from the Bush administration but the Clinton administration. Regardless of which American administration is in power, American behavior is consistent: it will make countries pay a heavy price if they go against American interests on the council. If this behavior continues, it is only a matter of time before the UNSC is generally perceived to be an instrument of American foreign policy.
America abused the Security Council again after the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The mandate of the council is clear: it has the primary responsibility to respond to threats to international peace and security. It has no mandate to pass judgment on legal issues. When in 2002 the ICC came into existence, the US decided not to join it. However, even though the US did not ratify the ICC statutes, its citizens were not exempt from its provisions. American soldiers who committed war crimes could, for example, be hauled before the ICC (even though this was very unlikely, as the ICC provisions made it clear that primary jurisdiction rested with national authorities). However, America wanted to obtain absolute immunity for its soldiers. Taking advantage of the mandatory nature of UNSC resolutions, America proposed a draft resolution stating that the Security Council authorized immunity for American peacekeepers from ICC provisions.
Virtually, all international lawyers agreed that the Security Council would be exceeding as well as abusing its authority to pass judgment on the legal scope of the ICC. Nothing in the UN Charter allowed for this. That was also the reaction of most of the UNSC members when the American draft resolution was introduced. All the European members of the council had ratified the ICC treaty or convention. The British delegate made an eloquent statement stating that under British law, treaty obligations were mandatory. Hence, the UK could not vote for any resolution that was inconsistent with its treaty obligations. Despite these fine words and the clear understanding by international law experts that the UNSC had no authority to pass judgment in such areas, the council did eventually adopt a resolution providing American soldiers with immunity from ICC provisions. In the end, American power trumped international law.
Within a year or two, America recognized the folly of using Security Council to circumscribe the ICC; in 2004 America withdrew the resolutions. But this episode brought out a very important lesson: the standing and legitimacy of the UN Security Council cannot be taken for granted. For the council to remain an effective institution; must be perceived to have legitimacy.
The UNSC clearly faces the loss of its legitimacy in the eyes of the world. The time has come to make some radical changes in its structure and working methods. A former Pakistani foreign secretary said:
The Security Council is left with no role in preventing conflicts or resolving disputes. Its deliberations are conducted in a theatrical manner through stage-managed debates and choreographed scenarios. There is no transparency in its proceedings. The open meetings of the Security Council are merely a talk-show in which member states are heard not listened to. Its decisions on critical issues are made either in Washington or reached behind closed doors among the Big Five in the ante-rooms of the Council’s chamber. (6)
A Turkish columnist wrote, “The United Nations served a very important purpose by bringing together nations to heal the wounds of two world wars. However, the structure of the organization was formed bi the winners of the war, providing privileged veto status in the UN Security Council. Since the establishment of the UN up until the present the privileged members did not see any harm in using the UN to legitimize their own policy priorities.” (7) Gyorgy Fodor was even more blunt in the liberal Hungarian newspaper Magyar Hirlap, writing, “What kind of institution is one of which the reorganization and the reorientation to the new world is hindered by built-in brakes? The Security Council cannot be reformed, expanded, narrowed, terminated since the present members of the Security Council do not want this and would veto it. Is this clear? It is 21st century surrealism…This UN cannot be reformed: it should be destroyed and a new one should be built.”(8)
There are at least three changes we will have to introduce to preserve the legitimacy of the UNSC. The first is to end perpetual rule. Applying this commonsensical principle to the Security is not easy. If the privileged positions of the great powers in the UN system were abolished, there is a clear danger that the UN could go the way of the League of Nations. If America were to walk away from the UN, both America and the UN would suffer. Hence, some way must be found to anchor the great powers of the day in the UN. The best way would be to retain the veto. This would ensure that the UN would not commit an act of folly by making a decision against the express wishes of any great power. Conferring veto powers on some countries and denying them to others would create inequality. But these inequalities would reflect the inequality of power in the world.
To serve as a true reflection of the world, the veto-bearing members of the UNSC should preferably reflect the great powers of 2045, not of 1945. This is in many ways the nub of the problem with the UNSC. The current permanent members have taken advantage of the veto to preserve great power status in the UN and to entrench themselves in perpetuity in the Security Council. For the UNSC to remain alive and relevant, it must create a system to allow new great powers to obtain the veto and for old great powers to cede their position graciously. New Asian powers like Japan and India should be given veto rights to reflect their new weight in the international system.
The biggest obstacle to change comes from Europe. There is a strong developing consensus that with the development of a Common European Foreign Policy by the European Union, it would be more logical to have Europe represented with a single European seat, in place of the UK and France. Any other formula, including the proposed addition of Germany, would only lead to Europe being overrepresented it the Security Council. Since Europe has less than 10 percent of the world’s population, it is hard to justify three European vetoes on the Council. Hence, the only logical and viable solution is to have a single European seat, together with newly emerging powers. Implementing this in practice will not be easy. However, it is vital for the UN to reach a clear consensus that the veto-bearing members must be composed of the great powers of our time, not the great powers of the past.
The second change that needs to be introduced into the Security Council is the principle of accountability. It has now become a fundamental principle that all modern organizations should be held accountable for their actions. The Security Council is probably last major organization in the world that still refuses to be held accountable in any way. When I was on the UN Security Council, I said - as strongly as I could - that if Bill Clinton and Kofi Annan could apologize for their failures to prevent genocide in Rwanda, the Security Council should also do the same. In some ways, the UNSC should be held even more accountable for the genocide in Rwanda: it has a constitutional mandate to prevent genocides, and it knew advance that genocide was being planned and was on the verge of being executed. The Security Council, especially the five permanent members, could not plead ignorance; they knew it was coming. But they absolutely refused to accept the principle of accountability, and no apology was ever offered. As the world continues its March to Modernity, the Security Council faces the real danger of becoming relic of history, representing a premodern culture of absolute rule rather than the culture of accountability of the modern age.
The world also needs to do more to strengthen the legitimacy of council by strengthening the legitimacy of the “mother body” from which it gains its authority: the United Nations. If the United Nations were to crash and burn and disappear (together with the UN Charter), just like the League of Nations, the Security Council would crash with it.
Since the UN has become a constant object of ridicule in Western discourse, especially in the American media, and since many strategic thinkers are also beginning to despair over the prospect of improving global governance, I have a small practical suggestion to clear the doom and gloom. Please pick up a copy of the UN Charter and read it. The UN produces a tiny pocket volume, and it can be read in an hour or two.
It is a beautifully written document. Indeed, it was written by some of the best minds in the Western world and is rooted firmly in the Western intellectual and political tradition. The language is uplifting because its ideas come from Western ideals of universality of representation. Indeed it begins with the words “We, the peoples of the United Nations…”
In short, even in facing the challenge of global governance, we do not have to reinvent the wheel. We can tap the wisdom of the (Western) founding fathers of the UN, who, having just survived the scourge of World War II, put together a remarkable document that carefully balances the need to engage all of humanity while creating various organs (like the UN Security Council and the International Court of justice) to handle specific issues. It is clear reading the UN Charter that all of its elements were meant to be a package deal. American efforts to use one part and ignore the rest could only kill the charter, one of the most valuable documents worked out in history. The legitimacy of the UN bodies flows from this charter. On its own, taken out of its context, the UNSC enjoys no legitimacy.
The UN Security Council is not the only global body that faces the danger of losing its legitimacy because of a deficiency of democratic legitimacy. The IMF and World Bank are in almost exactly the same situation. One of the strangest anomalies of our times is the practice that no Asian can lead either the IMF or the World Bank, the two leading global economic institutions. An unwritten but firm understanding since the founding of these institutions after World War II is that the head of the IMF should be a Western European and the head of the World Bank an American. Asians (as well as Africans and Latin Americans) are excluded. Any rule that disqualifies 88 percent of the world’s population from leadership of a global economic institution is inherently unsustainable, especially when economic power is steadily shifting toward Asia. Indeed, this rule is an embarrassment to both the IMF and the World Bank.
(4) US Census Bureau estimate (as of 1 July 2006). (5) Pascal Lamy, “Towards World Democracy” (London: Policy Network, 2005), 21-22. (6) Shamshad Ahmad, “No More of This Global Carnival,” Dawn, 2 December 2007. (7) Deniz Ulke Aribogan, “The Summit of Divided Nations,” Aksam, 15 September 2005. (8) Gyorgy Fodor, “Mirror Tell Me,” Magyar Hirlap, 19 September 2005.