Greetings Gambia-l,
I thought this article might be of interest to some of you.
regards,
Momodou Camara
__/ __/ __/ __/ __/ __/ __/
Title: POLITICS-UNITED NATIONS: NGOs Call for Radical
Changes in World
Body
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 18 (IPS) - A coalition of over 350 legislators
and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) has called for radical
political and structural changes within the United Nations.
These proposed changes - ranging from the creation of a People's
Assembly to the establishment of a high-level Environmental
Council - could pave the way for ''a more effective and
democratic'' world body, says EarthAction Network, comprising
NGOs and citizen's groups from over 150 countries.
''The United Nations, imperfect though it is, has done much
good,'' says the coalition. ''But the world at the dawn of the
21st century is very different from that of 1945 (when the UN was
established).''
''Our existing international system cannot protect us from the
threat of nuclear war or global environmental destruction. And it
has failed to meet the basic needs of more than a billion of the
world's citizens,'' the coalition warns.
In an appeal to over 125 world leaders, who are expected to
participate in what has been billed as the largest summit meeting
ever at the United Nations Sept. 6-8, the coalition calls for the
creation of a democratic chamber within the UN system.
The proposed People's Assembly could, together with the existing
General Assembly made up of national governments, play a major
role in decision-making on the global environment, sustainable
development, peace and human rights, according to EarthAction
Network.
Moreover, such an Assembly, it says, could also provide
democratic oversight of the expenditure of UN funds, including new
global revenues.
The need for a new Environmental Council has been prompted by
the fact that ''consensus'' decisions on the protection of the global
environment involve waiting until almost 200 national governments
are agreed before global action is taken.
''Imagine trying to make decisions in your country if all members
of the national legislature had to agree before anything got
done,'' the coalition complains.
On the issue of peacekeeping, the coalition has proposed the
creation of a UN Rapid Deployment Brigade ready to go to areas of
conflict to prevent killing and to protect innocent people.
''To be effective, such a force needs to be trained, armed and
authorised to arrest anyone engaged in aggression or murder,'' the
coalition says.
The signatories to the appeal range from the Lawyer's Committee
on Nuclear Policy and the War and Peace Foundation in the United
States to the Council for Human Ecology in Kenya and the Society
for Developmental Action in India.
William H. Luers, President and Chairman of the UN Association of
the USA (UNA-USA) - one of the most active US-based NGOs
promoting the cause of the United Nations - says the flaws in the
UN system are ''fixable,'' but the world body must honestly assess
its own strengths and weaknesses.
Writing in the current issue of ''Foreign Affairs'' - published by
the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations - Luers points out
that ''the most obvious shortcoming of the United Nations is its
lack of standby capacity - which (the US) Congress opposes - for
peacekeeping, policing, and administration in troubled regions.''
This has been underscored in the past year by UN experiences in
Kosovo, East Timor and Sierra Leone, where peacekeeping has run
into trouble.
Luers argues that limits on the UN's efficiency partly stem from
its multinational character. The 188 member states, he says,
reduce General Assembly activities to interminable speech-making
while their demands for a quota of UN jobs hamper the Secretary-
General and other UN agency heads in selecting staff according to
merit. But still, there are signs of genuine reform, Luers
concedes.
But he points out that the body's capacity to respond to new
challenges has been severely limited by a shortage of resources.
At US congressional insistence, the UN Secretariat's budget has
been frozen at about 1.3 billion dollars annually for the past
four years. ''After accounting for inflation and delayed or
defaulted payments by the US and other nations, this means that
the UN has far fewer funds to meet greatly expanded obligations,''
Luers says.
In its appeal to world leaders, EarthAction Network says the near-
bankruptcy of the United Nations, the shrinking funds for helping
the world's poorest citizens, and the lack of resources for
priorities such as renewable energy and forest protection, show
clearly that resources on the scale necessary to meet global needs
are unlikely to come from national budgets alone.
Some governments have urged that, to generate resources for
global priorities, fees should be levied for uses of the ''global
commons'' - namely the atmosphere, the oceans and outer space.
According to EarthAction Network, fees on global pollution, for
example, a global ''carbon tax'' on the carbon dioxide emissions
which contribute to global warming, would both raise funds and
help discourage damaging activities.
An additional revenue source would be a levy on international
transactions generating about 150 billion dollars a year. These
fees, says EarthAction Network, would be levied by national
governments but the proceeds would be devoted to global priorities
through the UN system.
The coalition has also proposed a more active role for the UN in
the process of demilitarisation. ''If nations are to have the
confidence to demilitarise, they must be sure that their
neighbours and adversaries are doing likewise. For any
disarmament agreement, the United Nations should verify and
ensure compliance.''
''We have begun a new millennium, yet all our hopes for the future
could be lost if we fail to solve our global problems of war,
poverty, environmental degradation and the abuse of human
rights,'' it says. (END/IPS/IP/td/da/00)
Origin: SJAAMEX/POLITICS-UNITED NATIONS/
----
[c] 2000, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)
All rights reserved
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