CAIRO: Introducing non-state actors as members of the United Nations is what former Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali suggests to reform the ailing organization.
The Egyptian diplomat, who served as UN Sec-Gen from 1992 to 1997, is currently the Director of the National Council for Human Rights, a post he has served since 2003.
Daily News Egypt sat down with Ghali to discuss his views on the situation of human rights in Egypt today as well as his view for the future of the UN or the international organization that might replace it.
In this first part, Ghali talks about the need to either drastically reform the UN or replace it with a new international body that will include non-state actors on equal footing to member states.
Daily News Egypt: During your tenure as UN Secretary General, you came under fire from the US because of the report on Israeli atrocities in the Qana UN base in Lebanon. So you are more aware than anyone how centers of power can commit and then attempt to repress word of atrocities. What did this experience add to you that you can use in your incumbent position as head of the council?
Boutros Boutros-Ghali: When I was elected it was the end of the Cold War.At the end of the Napoleonic war we had the conference of Vienna which tried to regulate relations between European countries, after World War I we had the conference of Versailles which created the League of Nations. At the end of the Second World War we had the United Nations in San Francisco. So at the end of the Cold War, I was under the impression we’d have to create a new organization, the third generation of the international organization or a drastic reform of the United Nations.
In a meeting of the Security Council on Jan. 31, 1992, at the level of heads of state, they asked the new Secretary General to present a paper concerning a new vision of the UN. I was under the impression that the role of the new Secretary General is to play a new role, to reform the UN. This was not the point of view of certain powers, and above that of the United States. So after the election of Bill Clinton, there was a kind of misunderstanding between the American administration and the Secretary General or there was a different point of view.
And the reaction was ok, let us change it, you prefer to have somebody else. And there were 14 countries which were in favor of my second term and there was the American veto. Certainly what happened in Qana was one of the elements that contributed to the reinforcement of the American position against a second mandate for the Secretary General.
You stood by the Qana report and you supported its emergence and publication, you did this in the face of a major power, so you’re very much aware of coming up against a hegemonic power on something you might not necessarily agree with. How does the experience of dealing with major opposition help you?
Yes, defending certain principles. The problem was that American argumentation was that “you are interested in your interests, that the [Israeli] Labor leader “Shimon Peres be reelected, so if you publish your report, this will be an additional obstacle to the reelection. I don’t believe that the report was the reason for the failure of the Labor party and the success of Likud, but it was perceived like this. So the fact that I maintained my position was one of the elements for the refusal of my second mandate.
It was also the first time in 20 years that the election of the Secretary General happened at the same time as the election for the president of the United States. This complicated [matters] because the Republicans took action which by definition was anti-UN and [Bob] Dole was saying “I’ll never accept Mr Bou-tros. You have the Democrats who were unhappy with the report and the Republicans who were against this Secretary General.
You have to understand what the American dialectic is: They believe that they are the only power that can promote peace, and to promote peace they have to promote democracy amongst the different countries of the world, which is [what] the German philosopher Emmanual Kant [wrote] 200 years ago. And they call it the democratic peace, that a democracy will not fight another democracy. All the countries of the world will be democratic then we will achieve peace.
Again peace is related to protection of human rights. Protection of human rights needs a democratic system. The democratic system will have to promote international peace and this is because they are the only super power, because there was a defeat of the Soviet Union, because this defeat was not due to a coalition of powers, but due to only one super power.
In the case of the League of Nations, again it was an American victory but the perception was that France and Britain and everybody else participated. The same in San Francisco with the UN, proof [of this] is they gave the veto to the five permanent members. China participated in the defeat of Germany; Russia participated in the defeat of Germany. So in the case of the Cold War, there was only one country that won, so the perception was that because they won the Cold War, they have a mission to promote peace. [Woodrow] Wilson and [Franklin D.] Roosevelt were under the impression that they would promote peace through multilateralism, through cooperation with the different countries of the world. The new administration today believes that this will be done only through, as a first step, the promotion of democracy and human rights and then as a second step, when all the countries are democratic, [there will be peace].
I published a paper [called] the “Agenda for Democratization where I say you don’t need to have all countries [as democracies] to have the democratization of globalization, because the fact that you have many participants, already this is a democracy. The American position is “No, how do you want to have an international democracy when you have countries which are not democratic? So the prerequisite is to encourage national democracy. And when all the countries are democratic then we will be able to promote international democracy.
I don’t believe in this because I can give you many examples of a democracy fighting another democracy. I’m giving this background just to show that their policy is not a purely opportunist policy. They believe they are altruists, that they are helping the international community; that they’re on a special mission.
But when they came to the war in Iraq, they somehow subjugated the role of the UN by taking a unilateral decision to go in. This was a blow to the role of the UN.
Yes the case of the intervention in Iraq was a unilateral intervention. Again they say what they are doing is for promoting democracy, and by promoting democracy in different parts of the world they will be able to achieve peace. After all what is the object of the UN?
It is peace, which was the mandate for hundreds of years by different philosophers, from Kant to [Alexis de] Tocqueville to Al-Faraby who mentioned “Al-Madina Al-Fadila (The Virtuous City), so the idea of having an international community which will be able to live in peace, is a dream that has been defended. After all, the condemnation of war is something new; it exists only since the end of World War I. Before, war was considered something very important.
In your experience and all your years in politics, how does one achieve world peace and what’s the best approach or method?
I will answer that I will not be able to give an answer. Why? Because we are confronted today with a new technological revolution … We have globalization of communication, of disease, of international trade, of climate. So what will be the impact [of this] on the next international organization or on the reform of the UN? What will be the impact on peace? What will be the impact on the relations between different countries? It is not clear. We are beginning a new era which will be completely different to what happened just 20 years ago.
This technological revolution will create new ideas, new concepts, new rule
s. It will take time until this will be admitted by the international community. The role of civil society is something new, the participation of the non-state actors in international affairs is something new. Non-Governmental Organizations intervening in the field of human rights is something new. Twenty years ago there was not one NGO, today there are almost 20,000 NGOs in Brazil [alone]. And certainly NGOs are more powerful than the UN, than the majority of the member states.
As a bloc together, or within their own countries?
At the world level. Multinational corporations are more powerful than the majority of the member states. Bill Gates created a foundation which corresponds to the budgets of 20 percent of the member states. And those NGOs are not interested only in working in only one country. These are the new actors in international affairs.
So how do you see the role of the UN in this new era?
I believe that you can make a third generation of the international organization where you will have the states as members, but you have at the same time the non-state actors as members also.
Equal members?
Exactly; equal members. It is not a revolution; just take the ILO (International Labor Organization). You have a tripartite representation; representative of the worker, representative of owner/factory and representative of the state. And they don’t vote the same way, the worker can take a position different from the governments.
So what I’m proposing is that the third generation of the international organization or the drastic reform of the UN will be by offering a role to the non-state actors. But the non-state actors, how will they be represented?
Then you have a technical problem. For example, you have 200,000 NGOs, who will it be? You could have a geographical distribution, [wherein] the NGOs of Africa will elect two representatives, the same for Latin America, Asia etc. or it will be a technical division, the NGO dealing with the protection of children, the NGO dealing with the protection of a tiger in Bengal, the NGO dealing with the problem of climate, according to their specialization.
So each group will have an international meeting among the different international organizations. Take the case of the international organization dealing with human rights. Here in Egypt you have 20 NGOs dealing with human rights. Then they will meet with the different NGOs of Africa and will elect two representatives for the NGOs dealing with human rights, who will be fully-fledged members of the General Assembly or whatever will be the new organization.
Then you take the participation of civil society, it is not only the state which participates. You will have the support of the public opinion.
Do you feel states will be willing to accept such a drastic change?
They will be compelled to accept, they are there already. You must not underestimate the power of a multinational corporation like Shell for example, that has a budget 10 times the size of the majority of the member states which is acting through pressure groups, so why don’t they participate more openly?
Concerning multinational corporations, would they not look for their own interests above anything else?
The member states look for their own interests too, and the problem through the democratic approach is to find a common denominator. Certainly, the delegate of Egypt will defend the interest of Egypt. So when you have Shell, [its delegate] will defend the interests of Shell.
How would that be beneficial to people?
At least a state is somehow responsible for its people, or has an obligation towards them. A corporation does not.
Shell is representing the interest of the thousands of people working for it, the interests of the protection of oil. If you accept that a non-state actor can play a role in international affairs, so why don’t they share the responsibility.
[Currently] the multinational corporations don’t share the responsibility to promote peace and they are just interested in making money. The day they will be compelled to participate in an international organization, they will have to take positions concerning peace and security, concerning development and the environment. So here again the new trend which appeared since the end of the Cold War is to obtain the participation of the non-state actors.
The concept of the sovereign state is a new concept; it was created only 300 years ago, so there is no reason why it would continue, due to the new technologies, due to the fact that you can reach New York in two seconds. There is a basic revolution.
What will be the impact of this revolution on different problems? What will be the impact of this revolution on the role of civil society?
You are confronted everyday through television, with the genocide in Darfur. Before, you were not involved; today, you are. Not all of you but some of you will be involved, will be interested and will act. So why not use this political will to be interested and to work? It will help the governments, [they will no longer] be alone in trying to find a solution. Civil society may support the governments or disagree with them and this is what I call international democracy.
Read Part II of Daily News Egypt’s interview with Boutros Boutros-Ghali on Wednesday August 13.
