America’s Interests
in the
United Nations
A U.S. Response to the
report of the un secretary-general’s
high-level panel on threats,
challenges and change
By Six Former U.S. Permanent Representatives
to the UN
Thomas Weston, Program Manager
Parag Khanna, Rapporteur
Institute for the Study of Diplomacy
Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
Peter Burleigh
James Cunningham
Jeanne J. Kirkpatrick
Donald F. McHenry
Edward Perkins
Thomas R. Pickering
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ment officials, are detailed to or affiliated with the Institute for a year
or more. The Institute seeks to build academic-practitioner collabora-
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mentor students.
In addition, ISD’s Pew Case Studies in International Affairs are used
in over 1,000 courses in the United States and abroad.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Thomas R. Pickering
Chairman of the Board
Max M. Kampelman
Chairman Emeritus
Peter F. Krogh L. Thomas Hiltz
Vice-chairmen
Dennis Blair
Thomas Boyatt
Kathy Bushkin
Chester A. Crocker
J. Michael Farrell
Joseph B. Gildenhorn
Brandon Grove, Jr.
Lee H. Hamilton
Brian C. Henderson
Frank J. Hogan
Arthur H. House
Andrew Jacovides
Omar M. Kader
Farooq Kathwari
Tommy Koh
Carol J. Lancaster
Samuel W. Lewis
Donald F. McHenry
Mark C. Medish
David C. Miller, Jr.
David D. Newsom
Phyllis E. Oakley
William E. Odom
Mark Palmer
Rinaldo Petrignani
Cokie B. Roberts
J. Stapleton Roy
Tara Sonenshine
Peter D. Sutherland
Nancy Bernkopf Tucker
James E. Walker III
Frank G. Wisner
Milton A. Wolf
America’s Interests
in the
United Nations
A U.S. Response to the
report of the un secretary-general’s
high-level panel on threats,
challenges and change
By Six Former U.S. Permanent Representatives
to the UN
Thomas Weston, Program Manager
Parag Khanna, Rapporteur
Peter Burleigh
James Cunningham
Jeanne J. Kirkpatrick
Donald F. McHenry
Edward Perkins
Thomas R. Pickering
Institute for the Study of Diplomacy
Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
Note: The views experssed in this report do not necessarily reflect the
views of any of the individuals or organizations, governmental or pri-
vate, with which the individual participants in the discussion group
are affiliated.
Institute for the Study of Diplomacy
Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service
Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. 20057–1025
© 2005 by the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.
All rights reserved by the publisher. No part of this Report may be
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ing from the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. Material contained
in this Report may be quoted with appropriate citation.
The Institute for the Study of Diplomacy appreciates the grant
provided by the UN Foundation, which made this project possible.
3
ISD’s Examination of
America’s Interests in the
United Nations
During the UN General Assembly meeting in September 2003,
Secretary-General Kofi Annan created a High-Level Panel on Threats,
Challenges and Change to provide him and the member states of the
United Nations with ideas about the policies and institutions required
for the United Nations to be effective in the twenty-first century. The
panel submitted to him in December 2004 a report entitled “A More
Secure World: Our Shared Responsibilities,” an analysis of how to
improve the collective institutionalized response to the most pressing
threats and challenges to global peace and security. The report also
presented more than one hundred specific recommendations to the
secretary-general and the member states.
With a view to informing the U.S. administration, the Congress,
and the public as they consider reactions and approaches to the
panel’s recommendations and the broader question of the U.S.’s
engagement with the United Nations, the Institute for the Study of
Diplomacy, with the support of the United Nations Foundation,
developed a program to examine the panel’s report from the perspec-
tive of U.S. interests in the United Nations in the years ahead.
The program brought together U.S. permanent representatives and
long-serving acting permanent representatives to the United Nations
from every U.S. administration of the last twenty-five years. They
included ambassadors Thomas R. Pickering, Jeanne J. Kirkpatrick,
Donald F. McHenry, Edward Perkins, James Cunningham, and Peter
Burleigh. The permanent representatives held a lengthy private discus-
sion followed by a public presentation on the campus of Georgetown
University on February 14, 2005, chaired by ISD Board Chairman
Pickering. There was no attempt to achieve a consensus of views on
the part of the permanent representatives, although on some issues a
near consensus was reached. Rather, the discussion elicited expression
of a variety of views on the report itself and discussion of some issues
not treated in the report, many of which point to recommendations
likely to elicit support from the United States and those that may not.
The participants did not try to address the more than one hundred
recommendations of the High-Level Panel but did take on a number
of the most noteworthy.
The report of the deliberations was prepared by former
Ambassador Thomas Weston, the project’s program manager, and
Parag Khanna, the program rapporteur.
Casimir A. Yost
Director
4 America’s Interests in the United Nations
America’s Interests
in the
United Nations
a u.s. response to the report of the
un secretary-general’s high-level panel
on threats, challenges and change
Thomas Weston and Parag Khanna
SUMMARY
The six former U.S. permanent representatives to the United Nations
who gathered on February 14, 2005, at Georgetown University to
deliberate on the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel report on
Threats, Challenges and Change did so at a time of some controversy
related to the accountability of UN bodies for recent misdeeds, real
and alleged, especially those related to the Oil-for-Food program.
Instead of focusing on those controversies, the permanent representa-
tives deliberated on the implications of the panel’s report and recom-
mendations for U.S. interests in the UN organization, resulting in a
discussion that highlighted agreement on the need for UN reform and
on the elements of reform that could find favor with a broad spectrum
of U.S. opinion. Those findings included the following:
� Most, but not all, of the permanent representatives welcomed the
report, but most felt that it would have been strengthened by pri-
oritizing the recommendations.
� All of the permanent representatives supported an activist U.S.
government role in the United Nations and saw the necessity of
this if a serious reform agenda was to be carried out.
5
� All of the permanent representatives placed emphasis on the
necessity of fundamental reform of the UN Secretariat, arguing
that it is a barrier to progress. Several participants particularly
favored empowering the secretary-general and holding him
accountable.
� Most permanent representatives were skeptical that the panel’s
call for an expanded Security Council would enhance the power
and effectiveness of the Security Council.
The report was judged to be an excellent start on recommending
ways to improve the United Nations, especially in the elaboration of
a definition of terrorism, the emphasis on the importance of taking
steps on furthering nonproliferation, the advancement of thinking on
the use of force, and the need for reforming the institutions of the
United Nations, especially the Secretariat. Questions were raised
about whether the report would lead anywhere without sustained
support from the United States and other key members of the United
Nations. In fact, several permanent representatives called for enhan-
cing the authority of the secretary-general over the Secretariat as a
means of increasing accountability and effectiveness. There was no
dissent about the need for ensuring the accountability of the secretary
-general as the chief administrative officer of the organization for its
operations. There was, however, wide recognition that full accounta-
bility was not possible without substantial changes in the personnel
and management practices of the Secretariat to give the secretary-gen-
eral the necessary authority and responsibility. It was noted that such
changes would have to apply to the personnel of all member states,
including the United States.
On the elaboration of criteria for the use of force, the examination
of article 51 in the report, which appeared to increase its elasticity,
was a step forward, even though the permanent representatives
viewed as unrealistic in today’s world acceptance of article 51 and
chapter VII of the UN Charter as absolute constraints on member
states’ actions. The point was made that the expansion of acceptance
of criteria on the use of force (especially with regard to the “responsi-
bility to protect”) was increasingly being honored, in particular by
African states.
6 America’s Interests in the United Nations
In a long discussion of the report’s consideration of Security
Council reform, there was no dissent from the view that any Security
Council expansion could decrease the council’s effectiveness and
therefore had to be questioned in term of U.S. interests. Moreover,
realistically, the permanent representatives agreed with the report’s
analysis that no permanent member of the Security Council was like-
ly to give up either its seat or its veto. The change in Security Council
membership viewed as most likely would be the eventual establish-
ment of a European Union (EU) seat, though whether either of the
current EU permanent five (P-5 members of the Security Council—
that is, the United Kingdom and France) would be prepared to yield
to an EU seat seemed remote—and a matter for EU members to
resolve themselves. An evolutionary move toward more semiperma-
nent members through choices by regional groupings and the weight
of certain states within regions was noted. The other suggested poten-
tial evolutionary developments in the Security Council were moves to
increase restraint in the use of the veto by permanent members,
through adoption of the recommendation on “indicative voting” or
through agreements by the permanent five on conditions under which
use of the veto would be justified.
The call for reform of the UN Human Rights Commission in the
report found wide support, although not proposals for universal
membership. Several agreed that a depoliticization of human rights
issues in the UN system was necessary.
The recommendation for the establishment of a Peace Building
Commission was generally favored in terms of increasing the efficien-
cy of peace-building efforts in the United Nations and across the spe-
cialized agencies and for its possibilities in leveraging additional
resources for peace building efforts. Some concern was expressed
about the implications of establishing a commission as a means of
imposing restraints on unilateral U.S. peace-building efforts in this
area. Concerns were also expressed about potential increases in costs
to the United States should there be a move toward requiring assessed
contributions for operations under such a commission. The potential
for enhancing states’ capabilities through peace building, especially
since enhancing states’ capabilities by definition included advancing
of democracy, was noted.
Summary 7
THE REPORT OF THE
HIGH-LEVEL PANEL
The report itself was introduced in the public session by Bruce Jones,
the deputy research director of the UN High-Level Panel secretariat.
Elaborating on the impetus for Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s con-
vening of the panel in late 2003, he said that, after the diplomatic cri-
sis over the U.S. invasion of Iraq, it was essential to reconcile the
divergent priorities of the United States and the United Nations. The
United States had further delineated an array of new threats that the
United Nations lacked a comprehensive strategy to confront. Hence
the guiding question for the panel members was, “Could the UN
reform itself to deal with new threats to international peace and secu-
rity?”
The process was motivated by both successes and failures. Despite
the either late or lacking peacekeeping missions in Rwanda, the for-
mer Yugoslavia, and other countries, Jones pointed out, more civil
wars have been settled by mediation in the past decade than in the
past several hundred years. The presence not only of peacekeepers,
but also of an array of international mechanisms such as diplomatic
observers, has contributed to this positive trend. There were, in short,
enough failures to demand reform but also enough successes to guide
it.
The panel adopted a framework focusing on six areas: wars
between states; wars within states; organized crime; terrorism; nuclear
proliferation; and social threats such as poverty, disease, and environ-
mental scarcity—all of which affect the ability of citizens and states to
participate in society. As the panel’s final report noted, “Collective
security built on weak states will fail.” Both concerns raised by the
United States as well as nontraditional threats were taken very seri-
ously. The report argued that in all areas investigated, threats can
cross borders and endanger state stability. Furthermore, consultations
with scientific experts shed light on how issues such as conflict, dis-
ease, and state failure are deeply interconnected. The panel members
therefore adopted the position that reciprocity in relations—or mutu-
al aid—is critical in moving toward taking collective action to solve
common problems.
8 America’s Interests in the United Nations
THE DELIBERATIONS OF THE
PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVES
The permanent representatives began with the key question for the
United States of whether the United Nations—as it is represented in
New York, specifically through the Security Council and the General
Assembly—is worth the effort to reform. There was wide agreement
that the answer is yes but some questioning about whether the United
States has the “political stamina” to do so, which would require a sus-
tained, multiyear commitment that engages the Congress in a biparti-
san fashion. Some were skeptical that such a consistent approach is
sustainable by any U.S. administration let alone whether it could be
continued over multiple presidencies. All agreed, however, that it was
difficult to imagine any of the High-Level Panel recommendations
coming to fruition without strong U.S. support. Indeed, the entire
dynamic within the United Nations without strong U.S. leadership
would be hard to predict. It was noted that the more the United States
leads in fostering reform, the more that reform will be in the U.S.’s
interest. With few exceptions, such interests among many states are
aligned with those of the United States.
One participant stated that, although the report was a useful effort,
many of its recommendations stand little if any chance of being adopt-
ed or implemented. Another supported the High-Level Panel’s pur-
pose, namely to adapt a 1945, interstate conflict era charter to the
twenty-first century, where the prevailing form of conflict is intra-
state. Though guidelines may be lacking to deal with civil wars, pro-
cedures have evolved over time through the very messy process of
dealing with them in succession. If lessons were applied to future sit-
uations as is done in the report, that would represent progress.
Another former permanent representative was hopeful that the
High-Level Panel would be a solid platform to generate greater under-
standing within the United States about what the United Nations is as
a foreign policy tool. He argued that if the United Nations did not
exist, the United States would have to sit down and try to invent
something like it.
One permanent representative noted that there is broad support in
the United States for the United Nations, but no clear consensus on its
The Deliberations of the Permanent Representatives 9
universal utility in promoting U.S. interests. Polls show high support
for the United Nations, but international issues related to the United
Nations rank low on the public’s priorities. Another permanent rep-
resentative cautioned that, though the general public in the United
States is very supportive of the United Nations, there is no agreed
policy among the Congress, the Executive and the other branches of
leadership about a framework for U.S. leadership. The United
Nations has strong support in the general public and in the Congress,
but many have specific reservations about particular provisions. A
comparison was made of universal support among the U.S. public for
the Declaration of Independence, but opposition on the part of many
to statements therein quoted in isolation. One permanent representa-
tive was strongly of the view that detractors of the United Nations
may not advocate for withdrawal, but they will continue to nag and
investigate and undermine it. Another suggested recasting the United
Nations in terms of the work of its specialized agencies to build sup-
port for practical efforts.
Several permanent representatives stated that many High-Level
Panel proposals would not be accepted by many member states of the
United Nations, nor by the Secretariat bureaucracy. For example,
many member states could oppose the distinction between inter- and
intrastate conflict. Overcoming such opposition will require diploma-
cy and leadership currently not present, according to one permanent
representative.
It was noted that there are political forces in the United States that
do not want to see the United Nations become more effective.
Another permanent representative believed that it was not enough for
the report to denounce unilateralism; rather, the High-Level Panel
should have come up with better mechanisms for collective security.
The panel did not resolve the tensions between unilateral versus col-
lective action, hard versus soft threats, and legal versus illegal actions.
Instead, it basically said that everything is important, thus nothing is
more important than anything else. Collective security priorities, how-
ever, must exist. They must be identified, and the United Nations must
be made to focus on them, overcoming its institutional paralysis.
Many have not come to terms with the qualitatively new threats and
the extraordinary will that needs to be brought to bear to confront
10 America’s Interests in the United Nations
them. The secretary-general’s letter of transmittal of the report to the
General Assembly identified AIDS, weapons of mass destruction
(WMD), and terrorism as key threats to focus on, which the perma-
nent representatives agreed was a good start.
Secretariat
The permanent representatives discussed at length the need for man-
agement reform at the United Nations in several areas. They paid
great attention to the dilemma of holding the secretary-general
accountable, as the chief administrative officer of the organization,
for the operations of the organization