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United Nations

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howells, for initiating this debate and reminding us of the UN’s glorious birth and the hopes which were vested in it at that time. When world leaders met in 1945 to lay down the charter of the United Nations, they did so on behalf of: ""We the peoples of the United Nations"." Those were ambitious words for their time, when few of the peoples probably knew what was being done in their name, and they certainly could not foresee the changes that lay ahead of them and the role that the United Nations would play for better and sometimes for worse. It is a measure of a historical story that I never tire of telling that those hardened battle-weary world leaders who gathered in San Francisco to confirm and sign the charter considered it such a precious document that when it was flown from San Francisco to the east coast, they attached a parachute to it in case it needed to be ejected from the plane, if there had been any risk of an accident. The fact that the most world-weary group of statesmen, and sometimes women, that the 20th century saw, the Allies who had prevailed in that most brutal and extended of wars, the Second World War, could have come together to form the United Nations and write that charter should give us pause, because the case is made frequently that somehow it was a naïve undertaking. We forget that these were men who had not just seen the horrors of the Holocaust and the brutality of a global war, but remembered very acutely and recently the failure of the League of Nations. They drew up this charter, not in a spirit of naïve hope that somehow humankind was to reform its character and that good would prevail over evil for ever after, but much more in a spirit of realism. This global world that we were embarking on was one where no country alone could exercise an imperial-like control over forces of law and order, or provide security or leadership to the world. For President Roosevelt, and for President Truman who followed him, the United Nations was an exercise in collective security, where the burden of being the world’s policeman would be shared by the United States, the great victor of the Second World War, both with its allies in that war and more broadly with the rest of the world. This was, if you like, global order on the cheap. The United States did not expect that it would step up to the plate to replace the old colonial powers in some system of direct rule over large parts of the world. Rather, through the charter of the United Nations and the institutions created under it, it hoped that collective security would prevent another world war, that the promotion of economic and social development would liberate hundreds of millions—and, later, billions—from the condition of poverty to which they had been assigned, and that the promotion of the values for which the war was fought—the values of democracy and human rights—would be secured. Many years later, when working for Kofi Annan, the previous Secretary-General, we thought of how we might renew this organisation. The Secretary-General commissioned vital reports, including that on the reform of the UN security arrangements, in which the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, participated. It seemed to the Secretary-General that he could do no better than reconfirm the three basic, original principles of the organisation; that it is should have three pillars. One was a peace and security pillar. The second was a development and humanitarian pillar. The third was a human rights and democracy pillar. We saw it as a three-legged stool. You could not have security without democracy and human rights, just as you could not have development without security, nor security without development and human rights. In other words, each of these goals and objectives was dependent not only on its own achievement but on the achievement of the other two as well. I believe that this is an enormously important point about the UN. People tend to select the goal they prefer, be it human rights, development or security. Each, in a sense, calls forth an apparently very different vision of the world. The security one is about collective security. It is about how we defend our countries as the nature of warfare changes, as terrorism and asymmetrical conflict, with the targeting of civilians, breaks down the traditions of war between states and introduces new and often more deadly forms of conflict. It is about how we mutually deploy armed force to address these threats and how we protect the sovereignty of nations from overbearing neighbours or from attack from within. The second goal, the goal of development, is one which calls forth, if you like, a more apparently liberal doctrine of how we emancipate and liberate people from poverty, inequality and from the marginalisation that comes from being born into a certain class, caste or race. This third goal, of human rights and democracy, often seems the most elusive, the most naïve, of all. Yet over the years we have seen that on many occasions in the modern world security is provided by focusing on human rights and democracy. Let us look at the UN’s role in achieving each of those goals. I say to my noble friend who introduced this Question that in some ways perhaps the UN has done a better job at living up to these original ambitions than she may fear. We have seen a sharp decrease in the number of people dying from violent conflict. The best analysis of that—carried out, for various reasons, in several institutions in Canada—suggests that UN peacekeeping has made a significant contribution to the decline in conflict both between and within countries. Similarly, with regard to development, we have seen hundreds of millions of people lifted out of poverty. In many cases, that is due to the bold actions of Governments and countries, but the contributing role of UN technical assistance has been critical. I refer to the role of organisations such as UNICEF or my old organisation, UNDP, in contributing advice and resources to help economic and social development. The UN has also played a role on the humanitarian side, where, for example, the World Food Programme and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees have made astonishing differences to the lives of millions of people. I turn to the area of human rights and democracy. In some ways, the UN has been critical in promoting democracy. However, turning from the historic record to look to the future, and in response to those who have raised the issue of the Human Rights Council, I have to acknowledge that there is, as many speakers have said, a lot of unfinished business. In the case of the Human Rights Council, there has been reform but it has not been effective. I think that its membership became over-expanded. The reform did not create a chamber which was objective and which could rise above the national interests of those in it to provide a truly nation-blind, colour-blind and values-blind view of human rights. Instead, as we saw as recently as last week in the review of the Durban conference, a lot of terrible things have been said in that council. Nevertheless, we have introduced some reforms which, in some ways, have started to improve the quality of the UN’s work in human rights. We have introduced a mechanism called the universal periodic review, under which every member country must present and then defend its human rights record. Moving on from human rights, there has been an attempt to introduce new doctrines. My noble friend Lady Amos spoke about the doctrine of the responsibility to protect. That is a very important innovation; nevertheless, it is still fragile and, although acknowledged, it is not yet resolutely established. She properly raised the example of Sri Lanka, where the responsibility to protect is very much on display in that an awful lot of civilians’ lives have been put in danger by the violent internal conflict. However, to say that the UN has been inactive on this is unfair. It has not, if you like, waved at the doctrine because it is still a provocative one. Many countries see it as amounting to a foot in the door and they do not accept such interference in the internal affairs of member states. Therefore, the doctrine has to be pursued by other means, and the UN has been active in trying to secure humanitarian access. The Secretary-General, like our own Prime Minister, has repeatedly called for a ceasefire in Sri Lanka and for the protection of civilians. I turn to the reform that has, perhaps, attracted most attention from noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and my noble friends Lord Judd and Lady Howells. I refer to the reform of the Security Council. In that regard, Britain is very clear indeed. We want to see the council enlarged, made more relevant to today’s world, made more representative and more authoritative as a result. We have pressed hard, most recently in partnership with France, to try to move this forward. The first round of a General Assembly-based debate on UN Security Council reform has just concluded and there will be discussions to follow. We feel strongly, as guardians, if you like, of the charter, which in some ways comes with our P5 membership, that rather than protecting and conserving that as just a privilege locked in history, we must renew this chamber by expanding its membership, by drawing in precisely those countries mentioned in the debate—Japan and the others whose names have been mentioned in this context—as members on some basis or other. Whether or not the membership will agree to an immediate expansion of permanent membership, or some intermediate solution, is a matter for the membership as a whole to conclude. In finishing, let me just say to noble Lords that this Government are very committed to this. The question was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, as to whether we should be doing more to press for the so-called "One" UN reforms. Let me say that a member of the panel that led to those recommendations was a certain G Brown Esquire, now Prime Minister of this country, so I do not think she need doubt the commitment of this Front Bench and of my colleagues in Government to achieving those reforms. In fact, a new administrator of UNDP took office this week and already she has had our Secretary of State for International Development in her office arguing the case for "One" UN reforms. The noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, need not be concerned. We are committed, because my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has recognised that, for a country such as Britain, our ability to exert influence in this modern world depends enormously on effective multilateralism and at the heart of that effective multilateralism lies that indispensable institution—to borrow at least half of the phrase of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay—the United Nations.