Collective Security and the United Nations: The Work of the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change KEVIN OZGERCIN Collective Security and the United Nations FES Briefing Paper September 2004 Page 2 national security in 2003, evidenced not least by “...the object of the exercise [Panel] is to find a Security Council paralysis around Iraq. The attack credible and convincing collective answer to the on the UN mission in Baghdad on 19 August challenges of our time. We must show that the 2003 equally traumatized the world organization. United Nations is capable of fulfilling that purpo- In the months preceding the formation of the se, not just for the most privileged Member Sta- HLP, there was a growing tendency of one tes but also those that are concerned with the group of states, led by the US, to pronounce its threats posed by poverty, hunger and disease. right of unilateral, pre-emptive military strike, We must understand that a threat to some is a irrespective of established international norms threat to all, and needs to be addressed accord- and considerable opposition from the Security ingly.” — UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, 18 Council and other authoritative agencies. Mean- February 2004 while, another group of states highlighted the 1 Mandate of the High-Level Panel on dangers such unilateralism and indiscriminate Threats, Challenges, and Change use of force may pose to international order and the collective security of humans as well as When United Nations Secretary-General Kofi states. The UN and the international system Annan announced the High-Level Panel on more broadly were suffering from a severe crisis Threats, Challenges and Change (HLP) to the of multilateralism, and although there was gen- General Assembly on 23 September 2003, he eral agreement in the UN on the need for collec- called on it “to recommend clear and practical tive responses to a variety of threats, there was measures for ensuring effective collective action, also profound division over the exact nature of based upon a rigorous analysis of future threats those threats and what shape collective re- to peace and security, an appraisal of the contri- sponses should take. bution that collective action can make, and a thorough assessment of existing approaches, In addition, the capacity of the UN to respond independently to new threats, and to serve as a instruments and mechanisms, including the prin- focal point for collective responses, was thrown cipal organs of the United Nations.“ 1 Instead of being asked to formulate policies on specific into question. Throughout the Cold War the UN had been dominated by the two-power rivalry issues or on the role of the UN in specific places, that characterized it. The end of the Cold War the HLP was to advise the organization on re- forms necessary to cope with emerging chal- marshaled a major change: unthinkable goals had become both thinkable and doable in the lenges. Security Council — for example, the first Gulf The international context in which the HLP has War. However, there had been no sustained operated has been anything but pacific. The US attempt to think through the UN’s institutional government-led march to war in Iraq and the architecture. Member states often opted for ad attendant war on terrorism shook the very foun- hoc procedures in responding to crises. This dations of collective security and further under- situation had consequences for the UN: fewer mined confidence in the multilateral system. successes than there might have been, and more These developments bore full witness to the failures (e.g., Rwanda, Bosnia and Somalia). The dearth of international consensus and common- UN needed to change if it were to avoid being ality of purpose that existed in the area of inter- marginalized. The creation of the HLP promised a fresh analysis 1 The panel consists of 16 eminent international figu- and appraisal of emerging threats, challenges res, and is chaired by Thailand's former Prime Mi- and change. Yet, despite receiving a clear man- nister, Anand Panyarachun. The members of the date, a considerable amount of confusion and panel are: discord has surrounded the panel. Much confu- Anand Panyarachun (Thailand), Robert Badinter sion stemmed from uncertainty over how much (France), João Clemente Baena Soares (Brazil), Gro Harlem Brundtland (Norway), Mary Chinery-Hesse emphasis the HLP would (and should) place on (Ghana), Gareth Evans (Australia), David Hannay reforming the principal organs of the UN. On the (United Kingdom), Enrique Iglesias (Uruguay), Amre other hand, discord arose over the HLP’s compo- Moussa (Egypt), Satish Nambiar (India), Sadako sition and the role that social and economic fac- Ogata (Japan), Yevgeny Primakov (Russian Federa- tors would (and should) play in its calculus of tion), Qian Qichen (China), Nafis Sadik (Pakistan), Salim Ahmed Salim (Tanzania), and Brent Scowcroft principal threats to human and state security. (United States). Collective Security and the United Nations FES Briefing Paper September 2004 Page 3 That the HLP was principally concerned with 2 Areas of Inquiry of the HLP collective security and not UN reform soon be- Whereas there is much agreement in the UN on came clear. Under the clear guidance of Secre- the need for collective, multilateral responses to tary-General Annan the HLP chose not to begin security threats worldwide, much less consensus by reviewing existing mechanisms of collective exists on the precise nature of those threats. security, seeing this as inhibiting progress to- Consequently, the HLP could not take a narrow wards the identification and assessment of new, view of threats, focusing exclusively on “hard” principal security threats. It chose instead to security threats like interstate war, intrastate conduct a threat-by-threat analysis. By ap- conflict, weapons of mass destruction and ter- proaching collective security from this angle, the rorism. 2 So-called “soft” threats like poverty, HLP concluded, the range of viable institutional environmental hazards and infectious disease choices for effective collective action would in- had to be treated as equally problematic. Indeed, evitably be narrowed. UN reform was thus a security threats as understood during the Cold secondary consideration of the panel. War had largely disappeared. Some old threats Furthermore, after the HLP’s formation, there remained, for example, the Palestine question was a widespread belief, particularly among and Kashmir, but there were many new, often smaller countries from the South, that its com- intractable, problems. Consequently, the HLP position and analytic focus were regrettably lim- ited in scope. Its composition was criticized on 2 This approach contrasts with the approach of the the grounds that it did not reflect the full-range International Commission on Intervention and State of state and non-state actors that have come to Sovereignty and its report, The Responsibility to be recognized by states as well as broader pub- Protect (Ottawa: IDRC Publishers, 2001), which es- sentially focused on hard security issues. Though lics as legitimate stakeholders in international the primary impetus and core mandates of the policy-making structures. For instance, critics ICISS Commission and the HLP differ, there is signi- argued that as international terrorism largely is a ficant overlap between the issues the two studied non-state phenomenon, the HLP ought to in- (e.g., the principle and process involved in the so- called “right of humanitarian intervention” (i.e., clude individuals that have long-standing experi- when should military intervention occur, under ence outside government. Such persons would whose authority, and how); how to prevent and re- allow for a more equitable balance inside the build after intervention; collective (state) versus panel between traditional, inter-state collective human (individual) security; the question of security considerations and the more contempo- whether the UN is organized to respond effectively to international crises and thus ought to be refor- rary societal- and human-centered perspective. med; how the emergence of new international Moreover, given the inter-relationship between actors should be approached; the role of weapons security and development, many wanted the of mass destruction and whether a policy of prolife- ration or disarmament should be pursued; the role HLP’s report to explicitly reflect this reality. As of sovereignty in international relations; and so on). discussed in greater detail below, the HLP re- Also, like the ICISS Commission, the HLP is under- sponded to this criticism by broadening its view taking twelve months of intensive research, world- of what constitutes a threat to one’s security to wide consultations and deliberation, which will include various economic and social factors. culminate in a final report to be presented to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Unlike the 30,000 The mandate of the HLP is thus a direct reflec- words that were allotted to the ICISS Commission for its final report, the HLP has only 15,000. This tion of the international context out of which it places a limitation on how many issues the HLP can grew — a context in which the achievement of cover at considerable length. Another important effective, multilateral responses to common difference between the two panels or commissions problems depends on a shared understanding of lies in the international political context in which each has operated. While US domestic politics existing threats and challenges, and a firm placed major constraints on the ICISS Commission, commitment by governments to uphold estab- present-day US domestic politics, and in particular lished institutions, rules and norms of the multi- the 2004 Presidential elections, place even greater lateral system. constraints on the ability of the HLP to propose re- forms that enjoy international support. Thus, the HLP’s final report will not be finalized until after the outcome of the November 2nd Presidential elec- tions has been made official.