Suchergebnisse

This article explores how the report of the High Level Panel (HLP) answers to challenges faced by the UN as a result of Iraq's invasion & expectations regarding the UN reform. The initial argument is that the condition of the UN reflects conflicts of interests & values that are currently triggering antagonisms & divisions among its members. In contrast to HLP's opinion, the author claims that the institutional reform of both the UN & the Security Council are dispensable, while the redefinition of its responsibilities & reaction capacity for peacekeeping & international security are urgent. The analysis agrees with the HLP on the great relevance of sovereignty & non-intervention as the main courses of action for international order, but it also acknowledges the bearing of normative changes in the field of human rights. They both are skeptic on the legality of preventive unilateral actions, & believe that these days threats cannot be envisaged in an isolated manner. The work concludes with a positive assessment of the practical pending tasks that the HLP has identified. Adapted from the source document.

'a useful conceptual distinction in understanding the motivation for civil war is that between greed and grievance'. thus wrote paul collier in 1999. drawing on statistical data of civil wars since the mid-sixties, his conclusion at the time was stark and unequivocal: 'grievance-based explanations of civil war' were 'seriously wrong'. in seemingly uncompromising terms, he argued instead that the key to understanding why such wars erupt lay in greed and the quest for loot by rebel actors. it most certainly was not to be found in self-serving 'narratives of grievance' or in any claim on the part of insurgents to be fighting for justice. the likelihood of greed-driven wars breaking out was particularly high, collier suggested further, in countries that relied heavily on primary commodity exports, had a surfeit of young, unemployed and poorly educated men, and were experiencing a period of rapid economic decline. this, in short, was the 'greed thesis' of contemporary civil wars.

As heads of state and government prepare to mark the 6oth anniversary of the UN with a grand meeting in New York in September 2005, the sense of crisis and uncertainty that has surrounded the world body since the start of the war in Iraq is still very much present. The enduring nature of the crisis has contributed to the widely held impression - both mistaken and profoundly unhelpful - that a truly critical moment in the history of the organisation has been reached and that 'make or break' decisions must be made this year. This impression has been powerfully encouraged by Secretary-General Kofi Annan's own insistence that member states are faced with nothing less than 'a new San Francisco moment', requiring far-reaching institutional change, including of the Security Council. To present the challenge facing the UN in such stark terms has been a major strategic error and one of its more predicable consequences has been an unseemly and ugly fight among key members about Security Council enlargement. This has diverted attention away from real and more pressing issues. lt has also done much to diminish the prospects for a successful summit meeting in September. (Survival / SWP)

Enthält Rezensionen u.a. von: Dallaire, Roméo: Shake hands with the devil: the failure of humanity in Rwanda - Toronto: Random House Canada, 2003 - 584 S

The argument, widely made in the run-up to the war in Iraq, that the UN was on the verge of permanent marginalisation in the field of peace and security has turned out to be misplaced. The clearest sign of revitalisation has come not from its role in post-war Iraq but from the dramatic growth of UN peace Operations in Africa since May 2003. While prophecies of doom may have been confounded, there is, within the Secretariat and among member states, still a deep sense that the war in Iraq 'brought to the fore a host of questions of principle and practice', whose implications have yet to be addressed. To do this, the Secretary General has set up a High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, and indicated that 'far-reaching institutional' reform should be on the Panel's agenda. While references to institutional issues are politically unavoidable, the long-term value of the Panel's work will lie, more subtly, in its contribution to the quality of the discussion among member states about the threats and challenges facing them, not in proposals for radical Charter reform. (Survival / SWP)