HAPPY BIRTHDAY United Nations, 61 today. The best present that could be given to your Secretary-General elect, Ban Ki Moon, is a copy of your charter, so that he can focus on returning the UN to its founding humanitarian principles. These, after all, are why the UN was set up and why it still exists.
The charter, ratified on October 24, 1945, aims to save “succeeding generations from the scourge of war . . . 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 nations large and small”. The charter, the accompanying Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide are the most advanced formulation of human rights in history. They have for decades been comprehensively flouted by UN member states.
Mr Ban takes over Kofi Annan’s desk next January. He inherits a battered and demoralised organisation. Many among the secretariat, the permanent officials, are gloomy about the South Korean Foreign Minister’s ability to lead the UN out of the doldrums. At first glance the not very charismatic Mr Ban seems to have neither sufficient moral authority nor political clout. But perhaps it’s too early to judge: Dag Hammarskjöld, the Swedish Secretary-General from 1953 to 1961, had a similar background as a professional diplomat but brought great moral force to the fledgling organisation.
A good place for Mr Ban to prove his mettle would be Darfur, where the Sudanese Government has unleashed a campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide, with more than 400,000 dead and more than two million homeless since the conflict began in 2003. The abuses committed by the Sudanese military and its proxy militia, the Janjawid, have been comprehensively documented by the UN’s International Commission of Inquiry (ICI). Its 176-page report last year established “that the Government of the Sudan and the Janjawid are responsible for serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law amounting to crimes under international law. In particular the commission found that government forces and militias conducted indiscriminate attacks, including killing of civilians, torture, enforced disappearances, destruction of villages, rape and other forms of sexual violence, pillaging and forced displacement throughout Darfur.”
Every UN member state agrees to abide by the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But the ICI’s findings triggered little more than a yawn in Khartoum. Sudan remains a member state of the United Nations in good standing. And here is the crux of the matter: as long as there is no linkage between UN membership and human rights Sudan has no need to stop the carnage in Darfur. Especially while the Security Council remains divided, with China and Russia watering down the sporadic attempts by the West to put in place sanctions against Khartoum.
Oil, as ever, remains the most potent weapon of all. When a UN humanitarian delegation visited Sudan to discuss Darfur it was treated with near contempt, recalls one official. “The Sudanese were in denial to a level that was almost insulting. Government ministers lied, or claimed they had published a report that did not exist, or quoted documents that don’t exist. They do not care. The only thing they care about is sanctions because then the Government would collapse. But they know that they will not be touched because they have oil contracts.”
Some UN officials argue that universal membership, even for human rights abusers, at least gives a basis for discussions. Member states can be reminded of their humanitarian obligations. “You can follow this discussion in universities but you have to be practical,” scoffs one official close to Kofi Annan. “A UN where every country or state is a member is more useful than one with different tiers of membership . . . If you exclude someone from the club then you cannot expect them to follow the club rule or discuss them with you. One should not oversimplify that issue.”
In fact the issue is very simple. UN member states that fail to live up to the requirements of the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights should be sanctioned, suspended and, in extreme cases, expelled. Article 6 of the charter already provides for expulsion: “A member . . . which has persistently violated the principles contained in the present charter may be expelled by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.”
UN membership is important, especially to prickly post-colonial states uncertain of their place in the world. It confers legitimacy and prestige. It provides them with psychological and political succour and the plentiful company of kindred spirits. Once inside the UN complex in New York tyrants morph into worthy interlocutors, their opinions sought by superpowers, their egos massaged, their meetings with world leaders broadcast on their state-controlled television.
Nor should personal factors be neglected. For all their decrying of American economic hegemony, the dictators of the developing world seem ever ready to visit New York, spending their impoverished citizens’ money on suites in five-star hotels and designer goods for their wives. The threat of losing these privileges could also prove a useful weapon for human rights.
More than this, the UN summit in 2005 agreed the principle of “responsibility to protect”: that the UN is mandated to protect civilians, despite nations’ sovereignty. This may, ultimately, include military action under Chapter VII of the Charter. This principle may well be Kofi Annan’s most important legacy to the UN. But only if it is enforced. Sudan still treats the UN with contempt. It refuses to allow its peacekeepers to be deployed inside the country. It has just expelled Jan Pronk, the UN special envoy.
It may be unrealistic to demand that every member state observes every paragraph of international human rights law. But it is realistic to demand that the United Nations takes action against member states that commit genocide, the most egregious crime against humanity.
What seems complex and difficult on the 38th floor of the UN building appears simple in the killing fields of Darfur. If the United Nations cannot, or will not, stop genocide, then what is the point of its existence?
Adam LeBor is author of Complicity with Evil: The United Nations in the Age of Modern Genocide
