 The United Nations unveiled a timid sweeping proposal to maintain the status quo overhaul the organisation, including the Security Council, in what would be the biggest UN reform since its founding in 1945. After bitter divisions over the war in Iraq, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan ordered a high-level panel last year to come up with the blueprint and help the United Nations adapt to the 21st century. The panel's report released Tuesday proposed more than 100 recommendations, including some -- an expansion of the Security Council and a definition of terrorism -- that have eluded UN diplomats for years. "What is needed is a comprehensive system of collective security, one that tackles both old and new threats, and addresses the security concerns of all states -- rich and poor, weak and strong," Annan said in an introduction to the report.
| "And we're going to do all that with this here little document," he added. |
He said the proposals, which must be approved by member nations, set out "a broad framework for collective security and indeed gives a broader meaning to that concept appropriate for the new millennium." In setting out a blueprint for collective security decisions, the report also takes implicit aim at the United States over the Iraqi war, which was strongly opposed by Annan and many Security Council member states. "There is little evident international acceptance of the idea of security being best preserved by a balance of power or by any single -- even benignly motivated -- superpower," the panel said.
| For darned sure, security isn't going to be preserved by the UN, reformed or not. |
 "The yearning for an international system governed by the rule of law has grown," it said. "No state, no matter how powerful, can by its own efforts alone make itself invulnerable to today's threats." Annan has repeatedly maintained that many people around the globe are concerned about disease and poverty rather than terrorism and weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and much of the report underlines his core argument.
| In that case I guess there's no danger from terrorism. |
The report identifies a wide variety of threats to international security today, citing organised crime, poverty and failed states along with war, terrorism and WMD. It outlines three principles for collective security -- that current threats go beyond national boundaries, that no nation is strong enough to defend itself alone, and that not every nation will be willing or able to protect its own people or refrain from harming its neighbours.
| Funny, not a word about thugs, dictators and kleptocrats. |
Annan, whose term ends in 2006, has indicated that he will devote much of his remaining time in office to pushing for the reforms, which would have to be approved by member states.
As long as it keeps him off the streets at night, but then again, a good dinner would do that and would be somewhat cheaper. |
Revamping the Security Council, the top UN decision-making body, is likely to be the most contentious issue, and the panel itself came up with two competing proposals for expanding the council's membership to 24 seats. One method would add six new permanent members to the council, which has had the same five permanent states -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- since the United Nations was founded in the wake of World War II. That proposal would also add three new non-permanent members to the 10 current non-permanent members, who hold rotating two-year seats. The six new permanent seats, without the veto power that the current five have, would be allotted to two nations from Asia, two from Africa, one from Europe and one from the Americas. The other proposal would create a third tier of council member nations, which would be given four-year, non-permanent seats, which could be renewed. Two-thirds of the 191 UN member nations would have to approve any change to the council membership, which would then take effect if none of the permanent members uses its veto power to block the move. The UN reform panel was headed by former Thai prime minister Anand Panyarachun. Among the other members are Brent Scowcroft, a shill for old-guard interests former US national security advisor, and former Chinese foreign minister Qian Qichen. |