NOTICIAS LATIN AMERICAN PROGRAM NEWSLETTER FALL 2005 United Nations Reform and the Role of Latin America hatever one’s position during the about the oil-for-food scandal and the terrorist heated debate over intervention in bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad. In W Iraq, analysts and policymakers September 2003, Annan established a panel to generally agreed that the United Nations assess the changing landscape of threats facing emerged from the ordeal as a wounded institu- the international community and to recommend tion. Supporters of the invasion lamented the UN reforms aimed at effectively addressing Security Council’s impotence in enforcing its these new challenges. The High Level Panel on own resolutions, while opponents of the war Threats, Challenges, and Change released its fretted over the organization’s inability to tem- report in December 2004, laying out a broad per the actions of the world’s sole superpower. agenda for reform, including proposals to recon- Several traumatic events in 2003 led UN figure the Security Council to be more ‘repre- Secretary General Kofi Annan to conclude that sentative’ of the international community. the organization was at a “fork in the road.” On April 18, 2005, as part of its project on These included not only the bitter Security Creating Community in the Americas Council wrangling over Iraq, but also revelations Hemisphere, the Latin American Program con- vened several distinguished current and former permanent representatives to the UN to discuss UN reform and the implications for Latin America. Speakers agreed that a major restruc- turing was needed but recognized the many obstacles that still stand in the way of reaching a global consensus on how to effect change. Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who also served as permanent repre- (from left) Amb. Madeleine Albright, Amb. Emilio Cárdenas, and Amb. Heraldo Muñoz. sentative to the UN from 1993 to 1997, United Nations Reform and the Role of Latin America 1–2 Forums with Mexican Political Leaders 14 Seminar Series on Democracy in Mexico 2–4 Creating Community in the Hemisphere 14–15 The OAS: Chile’s Vision 4–5 Education and Social Development in in the Americas: The Case of Argentina 15–17 Debt and Default: The Future of the Argentine Economy 5–6 Challenges to Regional Integration in the Amazon 17–18 The Peace Process in Colombia and U.S. Policy 6–8 Crucial Needs, Week Incentives: Social Sector Reform, Democratic Innovations in Local Government 9–10 Democratization and Globalization in Latin America 18 INSIDE Affirmative Action in Brazil and the United States 10–11 Staff Notes 19–20 Latin American Prisons in Crisis 11–13 Recent Publications 21–22 Income, Inequality and Freedom in Brazil 13 NOTICIAS recounted attempts in the early 1990s to restruc- one needs a vibrant, dynamic, effective UN,” ture the Security Council to better reflect the including the United States, which has relied on global power structure. She noted that many of the the UN to provide assistance to the Iraqi interim factors responsible for scuttling previous attempts government in organizing elections and helping in at reform remain. A 1993 proposal, for example, the preparation of a new constitution. to include Germany and Japan as permanent Muñoz noted that the Security Council has members met strong resistance from Italy. Chinese become increasingly effective in the aftermath of opposition to Japan’s inclusion and potential the Cold War, which explains why so many coun- Mexican and Argentine opposition to Brazil are tries desire membership. He also acknowledged major challenges facing current reform efforts. In that a reform proposal calling for one new Council addition, Albright noted that shifting alliances and seat for a representative of “the Americas” poses a voting blocs—based, for example, on an EU disadvantage to Latin America. Does Brazil com- ‘common position’—add a convoluted dimension pete with Canada? The lack of specified criteria to Council decision-making. Albright cautioned for membership complicates the reform effort and that enlarging the Council threatened to further contributes to regional competition for limited complicate this dynamic. seats. Muñoz suggested that the criteria could Emilio Cárdenas, Argentina’s former UN ambas- include such factors as GNP, per capita GNP, sador, emphasized that the reforms recommended financial and other resource contributions to the by the High Level Panel go “way beyond the UN, or general diplomatic initiatives. Muñoz Security Council” and could potentially involve argued that a strategy for global UN reform could amending the UN Charter. Cárdenas traced the be based on a formula in which industrialized debate over UN reform to the “quick fix” propos- countries would achieve changes they desire al in the early 1990s to add Germany and Japan as (modernizing the Secretariat, getting agreement permanent members of the Council. These two on a global definition of terrorism, and gaining countries, he noted, are still referred to as ‘the support for a global effort to stop the proliferation enemy’ in the UN Charter, but are now the sec- of weapons of mass destruction) in exchange for ond and third largest contributors of UN funds. supporting initiatives important to developing Cárdenas observed that most Latin American states (increased attention to development, disease, countries have not desired a position on the and poverty-reduction, as well as a more represen- Security Council, considering it an additional tative Security Council). By framing the reform complication in developing foreign policy. Brazil is package as a compromise where all countries gain the only Latin American country that has consis- support for the changes they desire in exchange for tently campaigned for permanent member status accepting other reforms which they do not favor and has been successful in garnering regional sup- as much, Muñoz suggested that a major overhaul port for its bid. While supporting the reform of the UN may indeed be possible. I efforts, Cárdenas cautioned that the Secretary- General’s call to develop a consensus on Security Seminar Series on Democracy Council reform before the next summit was unre- in Mexico alistic and unlikely to produce results. Heraldo Muñoz, Chile’s current ambassador to The Mexico Institute held a series of seminars the UN, described himself as a “moderate opti- looking at important aspects of Mexico’s evolving mist” on the prospects for reform, suggesting sev- democracy, including the strength of electoral eral factors that make it more likely to succeed institutions, advances and challenges in access to now than in the past. These include the impact of information laws, the construction of the rule of the Iraq war, the oil-for-food scandal, and a grow- law, and the role of race and ethnicity. ing recognition that the global power structure has A first seminar, held on April 14, 2005, and changed. Many countries have accepted that it will co-sponsored with the National Security Archive, be impossible to address terrorism and pandemic focused on “Building Transparency in Practice: diseases in a globalized world without strong mul- Mexico in Comparative Perspective.” Kate Doyle tilateral institutions like the UN. In short, “every- of the National Security Archive highlighted the 2 FALL 2005 importance of the country’s new transparency law citizens in ways that are and similar laws at the state level. Before, she said, usable, and hold public “information was bought, whispered, leaked, but officials accountable for not accessible.”Now information can be obtained their actions once informa- legally through clear institutional channels. tion has been revealed. A panel of Mexican officials involved in imple- A second seminar, on menting transparency laws at the federal and state May 11, 2005, focused on level discussed the challenges of implementing the the role of Mexicans of laws giving citizens access to information. Maria African descent in Mexican Pérez Cepeda of the Querétaro Commission on society. Co-sponsored with Government Information observed that 23 the Inter-American Mexican states have already passed access to infor- Foundation and the Inter- mation legislation and 17 states have institutions Agency Task Force on Race to oversee these laws. Luis Silva of the Ministry of in Latin America, the semi- Public Administration explained that despite the nar, “No Longer Invisible: María Pérez Cepeda continuing levels of corruption in Mexico, trans- African Descendants in parency issues are gaining importance within the Mexico,” discussed the history, conditions, and federal government. Hugo Martínez McNaught of political engagement of Afro-Mexicans on Mexico’s the Federal Institute for Access to Information Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Bobby Vaughn of Notre (IFAI) noted that there continues to be consider- Dame de Namur University in California argued able resistance within the bureaucracy to disclos- that Mexicans of African descent are almost invisi- ing information. ble in Mexican society. There are barriers to recog- In the same seminar, a panel of experts from nizing blacks as a cultural group, even in states such Washington-based institutions discussed Mexico’s as Guerrero, Veracruz, and Oaxaca that have large transparency laws in light of other international African populations. Unlike the way indigenous experiences. Daniel Kaufman of the World Bank peoples are recognized, blackness is seen as a physi- Institute observed that access to information laws