John Fitzgerald Kennedy was a twenty-seven year old reporter at the 1945 San Francisco Conference. Scion of the Irish Brahmin stock of Boston, Massachusetts, he had returned from the navy as a war hero. He expressed disillusionment with the conference, observing that it was little better than what had transpired at Versailles in 1919. Before the war, he had accompanied his father, who was Ambassador to the Court of Saint James, on various diplomatic missions across Europe. He went on to write a rather precocious undergraduate dissertation in Harvard’s revered Department of Government on the theme of British appeasement policy and how it contributed to inflaming Hitler’s expansionist ambitions. Jack Kennedy became President of the United States in 1960. Before his tragic assassination in November 1963, his life and career would deeply be implicated with the United Nations.
After the act of creation, men looked upon their handiwork and saw that it was good. But they did not rest on their oars. Instead, they went ahead to promulgate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Universal Declaration 1948 aims to promote respect for fundamental human rights – to safeguard those liberties that civilized humanity has considered most sacred since time immemorial. The Charter, together with the Declaration, are the two foundational treaties embodying the principles and institutions of the new post-war international order.
Our world is too quick to forget those thinkers who were not in the limelight but whose ideas were to make a profound impact on the planning of the post-war international system. Sir Alfred Zimmern, Montague Burton Professor of International Relations at Oxford, endured the scorn of his contemporaries as a “utopian idealist” when he wrote so compendiously on the role of ethics and the pacific approach to international affairs. If there was any single thinker whose ideas exerted a profound influence in the planning of the new international architecture, that man was Alfred Eckard Zimmern. There was also another Englishman, Gilbert Murray, Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford, whose work with the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation helped in pushing the momentum for the new thinking. Albert Einstein, the 20th century’s most towering intellect, was instrumental in mobilizing scientists and thinkers such as Bertrand Russell, Niels Bohr and Albert Schweitzer in the cause of peace in the emerging world order.
The French philosopher and political thinker Jacques Maritain had a great influence in shaping the letter and spirit of the Universal Declaration. I would be remiss not to mention the Lebanese philosopher, Charles Habib Malik, who was credited as being the principal draftsman of the Universal Declaration. Eleanor Roosevelt, the American First Lady, played an influential role in ensuring that the Universal Declaration was an ultimate success. The UN as we know it today owes as much to her as to anyone else.
Four economists were quite influential in the formative years of the United Nations. The first was the Dutch physicist turned economist, Jan Tinbergen. He did work of original importance on the application of econometrics to national planning. He also thought deeply about international organization and the problems of global economic cooperation. He was to share the 1967 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences with the Norwegian economist Ragnar Frisch.
The second was the Swedish Nobel laureate Gunnar Myrdal. Myrdal was not only a great economist, he was also an influential statesman and international civil servant. He was the pioneer head of the UN Economic Commission for Europe.
The third was Raul Prebisch of Argentina. Prebisch pioneered the application of structuralist analysis to the problems of Latin America and other developing countries. The Prebisch-Singer Thesis’ that was associated with his name was to influence an entire generation of economists and social scientists. He was also the pioneer head of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC).
Last but not the least, was the Caribbean economist Sir William Arthur Lewis. A native of St. Lucia, Sir Arthur did work of original importance on the process of economic development under “unlimited supplies of labour”. He was to share the 1979 Nobel Prize in Economics with the American economist Theodore Schultz. Arthur Lewis served as UN adviser to the government of Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana during the early post-independence period. His thoughts and ideas had a profound influence on UN development thinking during the first three decades of its existence.
The United Nations was born in an age of crisis. Following the Israel Declaration of Independence in May 1948, the new Jewish state was plunged into war with its Arab neighbours. The UN not only had to deal with that crisis but also with the ensuing humanitarian catastrophe. Swedish nobleman Count Bernadotte, who served as UN mediator, was assassinated in Jerusalem in September 1948 by Zionist extremists.
In the summer of 1956, the Middle East found itself once again in the maelstrom of crisis. This time it had to do with the unilateral nationalization of the Suez Canal by Gamal Abdel Nassir of Egypt. Britain and France, with help from Israel, had invaded Egypt, drawing the ire of the international community. America and the UN forced the invaders to withdraw. The lot fell on the African-American political scientist and Under Secretary-General Ralph Bunche to design the UN’s first international peacekeeping operation to deal with the crisis.
The year 1960 had been proclaimed “The Year of Africa”. The First UN Development Decade was launched in the same year under the inspiration of Lester Pearson of Canada.
Decolonisation in Africa was not without its birth pangs. The Belgians had done little or nothing to prepare the Congolese for genuine independence. The country was soon plunged into chaos. Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was captured, tortured and killed in January 1961 while the United Nations watched and did nothing. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld perished in a plane crash in Ndola, northern Zambia, on his way to broker a settlement over the Congolese crisis. The Congo, sadly, has never quite recovered since those benighted days.
In 1962 the Cuban Missile Crisis broke out between the Soviet Union and the United States. Secretary-General U Thant of Burma used his good offices to broker a settlement that saved the world from nuclear catastrophe. A calm Buddhist with an unflappable mien, U Thant was an effective administrator who saw the UN through some of the most difficult years of the Cold War. In 1965 UNICEF was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its work on the welfare of refugee children. In 1966 the Security Council was expanded to a membership of 15, with the 5 permanent members still exercising their veto powers, with 10 new members each elected to a two-year term without veto powers. In 1968, the Treaty on Nuclear Non-Proliferation came into force. It has been influential in preventing rogue states from acquiring nuclear weapons that could make the world more unsafe for future generations.
From the 1970s onwards, several important new issues grabbed the world’s attention: the so-called “global commons” such as environment and sustainable development, outer space, the seabed and communicable diseases; terrorism; famine; and stillborn dialogue for a New International Economic Order (NIEO), population control, migration, economic development, external debts, urbanization, election monitoring and supervision of failed states. The second Secretary-General, Remarkably, the UNHCR was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace twice, in 1954 and in 1981, for its work on refugees across the world.
Today’s UN has changed profoundly from what it was in 1948. The membership has expanded from 51 to 193 nations, with a staff of 85,000 serving over 7 billion people. Its operational budget currently stands at an annual US$40 billion, a far cry from the US$19 million of the early fifties. There are more than 14,000 UN “blue berets” serving in 9 peacekeeping operations.
The UN has registered several successes as well as failures in its decades of evolution. In terms of the successes, we would note the fact that the organization oversaw the decolonization of Africa and other former colonial dependencies. The UN championed decolonization in Southern Africa, paving the way to Namibia’s independence in 1990 and the release of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners in South Africa in 1990, leading to democratic elections in 1994. The UN also played the crucial role of midwife in ensuring independence for East Timor in May 2002.In 2005 the UN helped in brokering the Comprehensive Agreement that was to lead to peaceful separation between Sudan and the long-suffering Southern Sudanese people. South Sudan became an independent nation in July 2011.
Throughout the decades, the UN has been a strong advocate for human rights, for a law-based approach to international relations. Through its work in the area of peace and conflict resolution, nuclear catastrophe has been avoided. The establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) despite criticism by many sections of the African intelligentsia, has had a moderating influence in tempering the excesses of African political strongmen and tyrants elsewhere across the world. The successful trial and imprisonment of former Sierra Leone despot Charles Taylor has been a big plus for the UN as is the successful trial of Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia who died before his conviction in March 2006. The work of organisations such as the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) has been crucial to tackling the global challenges of hunger and famine in Ethiopia, Somalia, the Sahel and elsewhere.
Specialized agencies such as UNDP and others have continued to do important work in international development. Through the reforms carried out by former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the doctrine of “Acting as One” has been implemented to good effect. At country level, UN development efforts are coordinated by the UNDP. This makes for better coordinated action and for leveraging on its convening power to harmonise ODA resources for maximum impact. Agencies such as UNESCO and the UN University (UNU) have played important roles in promoting intellectual and scientific cooperation between nations while preserving world heritage sites from as far afield as the Galapos Islands in Ecuador to Iraq, Palestine and Timbuktu.
But there have been challenges. The UN is sometimes perceived as a sprawling behemoth that moves with the speed of an oil tanker. The Rwanda tragedy will remain a blot on the pages of the UN’s otherwise illustrious history. Under the very eyes of the UN Assistance Mission, nearly a million Tutsi and their moderate Hutu supporters were butchered in an orgy of bloodletting and mayhem between April and July 1994. Kofi Annan, who had just been appointed Under Secretary-General for Peacekeeping, has confessed: “I could and should have done more to sound the alarm and rally support”. That he and the UN failed to do is a severe moral indictment of the organization and the people that led it.
The UN also failed the people of Srebrenica in Kosovo when more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were butchered in cold blood by Serbian forces in 1995. This massacre took place precisely at that moment when Srebrenica was declared a “safe haven” by the UN. As it turns out, the Dutch commander of the mission was later photographed toasting a drink with Serb commander General Ratko Mladic. It was a spectacle that left a bitter taste for all those who expected better from the United Nations.
Embarrassingly, international peacekeepers were accused of rape and child sex abuse in the Congo. The Oil-for-Food Programme in Iraq, involving transactions worth over US$53 billion, was allegedly subject to widespread corrupt practices by UN officials. Following the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti, some 700,000 Haitians contracted cholera, of which 800 souls were lost. It is widely reported that cholera was allegedly knowingly spread by UN peacekeepers who avoided prosecution by hiding under the cover of diplomatic immunity.
There have been 8 Secretaries-General since 1948. The current incumbent, Ban Ki-Moon of South Korea, is into his second mandate which ends in 2017. He has served with courage and tenacity, drawing little or no controversy to his person. But a verdict on his role would be premature.
Among the first seven, I would rate Dag Hammarskjöld who served during 1953-1961, as first in class. It is a judgement shared by many, no less than the eminent British historian Paul Kennedy. I am persuaded that without a personality as strong as his, the UN might not have survived beyond its first decade of operational existence. Dag Agne Carl Hammarskjöld hailed from a long line of illustrious Swedish statesmen, thinkers and poets. His father had been prime minister of Sweden during the inter-war years. Born in the provincial town of Jonkoping on 25 July 1905, he grew up in the university town of Uppsala, where he studied philosophy, law, economics and political science. He completed a doctorate in economics at Stockholm University. He was also a gifted linguist, at ease in his native Swedish as he was in French, English, German and Spanish. He was Governor of the Bank of Sweden between 1941 and 1948 before becoming a government minister during 1951-1953. A friend of poets and philosophers such as W. H. Auden and Martin Buber, he was a statesman of high culture and deep spiritual sensitivity. He was totally devoted to his life’s vocation. He never married.
Dissatisfied with his handling of the Congo crisis, the Soviet Union had demanded that he either resign or the Secretary-General role be replaced by a so-called “troika” representing, East, West and the Non-Aligned blocs. Hammarskjöld staunchly defended the office of Secretary-General while insisting on an expansive application of the Charter. At a famous lecture at Oxford University in May 1961, titled, “The International Civil Servant in Law and in Fact”, Hammarskjöld a made a robust case for an impartial international civil service as an essential vehicle for securing the common peace and promoting collective welfare in our cruel and divided world. The concept of the “good offices” role of the Secretary-General is his direct invention as is the concept of an emergency force to handle crisis situations.
On September 18 1961, Dag Hammarskjöld perished in a mysterious plane crash in Ndola, northern Zambia. The entire world mourned the passing of a great international civil servant and world statesman. He was given a state burial in the beloved Uppsala of his childhood and youth. He was also awarded a posthumous Nobel Prize for Peace, the first and only time it has been awarded in such a manner. President Kennedy, who had had some brushes with him, was to famously declare: “I realise now that in comparison to him, I am a small man. He was the greatest statesman of our century.”
In his Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial Lecture delivered in Uppsala in September 2001, Kofi Annan summed up the role and importance of his predecessor’s contributions: “His life and his death, his words and his actions, have done more to shape public expectations of the office, and indeed of the Organization, than those of any other man or woman in its history. His wisdom and his modesty, his unimpeachable integrity and single-minded devotion to duty, have set a standard for all servants of the international community.”
I would rank U Thant and Kofi Annan as next in line in terms of success and effectiveness. U Thant of Burma, who served from 1961-1971,wasa calm Buddhist with an unflappable mien. He was instrumental in consolidating the Secretariat as an administrative machinery while expanding the role of the UN to cover broader issues of trade and development. He also brought an end to the war of secession in Katanga, Congo. He successfully intermediated between America and the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
Kofi Annan of Ghana, who served from 1997 to 2006, was not the first from the Africa region. That prize belongs to Boutros Boutros-Ghali. He was an urbane and charming cosmopolitan international civil servant who rose through the ranks system to the exalted position of Secretary-General, the first insider to do so. Kofi Annan had a way with people. He could condemn American intervention in Iraq as being “illegal” without incurring the wrath of Uncle Sam. He also survived the Oil-for-Food Scandal also involving Iraq. He failed to rise up to the occasion when the Rwandan people needed him. Despite these failings, he was an effective Secretary-General. During his time in office the UN successfully mobilized over US$6.7 billion in support of victims of the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004. The following year the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) won the Nobel Prize for Peace. In 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change also won the same prize for its work on sustainable development. In 2009, the Global Summit on Climate Change took place in Copenhagen, Denmark. In 2010, a new specialized agency, UN Women, was created to promote gender equity on a global scale.
Annan was probably the greatest reformer among the Secretaries-General. His comprehensive reforms resulted in significant cost-saving, leading to some 10% reduction of the administrative posts. He also improved the organisation’s performance at country-level, bringing in civil society organisations as well as the private sector into the development arena. The Global Compact and Millennium Summit in 2000 which he championed were a success. The MDGs covering the years 2005-2015 were his brainchild. He also reformed the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) while designing the concept of the “hybrid mission” that allows the UN to synergise with regional bodies in peacekeeping operations.
Perhaps his biggest contribution has been in terms of the doctrine of “The Responsibility to Protect”. This doctrine places the requirement to intervene in a humanitarian crisis, especially where the lives of millions of people are in danger, over and above the strictures of national sovereignty. It is a landmark contribution not only to international humanitarian law but also to the theory and practice of international organization. As he was to write in his autobiography: “Throughout my time as Secretary-General, I sought to match the unique authority of the United Nations as the sole, truly universal organization of states with the credibility of seeing that rights were defended, suffering alleviated, and lives saved. In an increasingly fragmented twenty-first century populated by a growing number of private and public actors, abstract claims to legitimacy simply would not be enough”.
Kofi Annan was the UN personified. He spoke with a calm and assured voice. In August 2003 the headquarters of the UN in Baghdad were bombed by extremists, leading to the death of Sergio de Mello, the head of the UN mission and 22 of his colleagues. Sergio Vieira de Mello was a brilliant Brazilian diplomat and veteran UN staffer. It had been rumoured that Kofi Annan was grooming him to be his successor. That tragedy led to a huge outpouring of grief and sympathy for the UN. When Kofi Annan and the UN were awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, no one begrudged them.
The United Nations is ultimately about “We, the people”. Its future and survival depends on us and the choices we make in the coming years. There are no guarantees. The configuration of world power is not the same today as it was in 1945. Emerging powers such as India, Brazil and Nigeria will need their rightful place at the high table. The organization would be bereft of legitimacy if it did not reflect the international hierarchy of states on the basis of equity and fairness. Reforms will have to be made on how the organization conducts its operations, in addition to greater coherence in structure and organization of the key agencies. Those who fear that the UN may one day be transmogrified into a new Leviathan that robs humanity of its hard-won liberties would need to be reassured. Whether the UN endures beyond our century largely depends on us.
Obadiah Mailafia
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