U.N. Reform: Bolton The Spoiler

Fatema Abdul Rasul and Scott Paul

September 20, 2005

Fatema Abdul Rasul is an Scoville Peace Fellow and Scott Paul is a program coordinator at Citizens for Global Solutions.

Between the aftermath of Katrina and the Roberts hearings, few Americans paid much attention to the United Nations World Summit in New York last week. That’s disappointing, considering the optimism and hope surrounding the Summit—and the lack of progress that it ultimately produced. 

It didn’t have to be this way. President Bush’s agenda, which aims to revamp key U.N. institutions, define terrorism, update U.N. human rights bodies, and implement much-needed internal reforms for the U.N., has broad bipartisan and international support.  Toward the end of July, the U.S. was well on its way to achieving all of these and other groundbreaking proposals. U.S. negotiators were hammering out details, and the chief obstructionists—Cuba, Venezuela, Egypt and Pakistan—were increasingly isolated, and ready to fold on key U.S. priorities. We were winning.

So what happened? The final statement that heads of state signed at the Summit fell short on what the U.S. hoped to accomplish. In fact, the draft released six weeks ago would have advanced U.S. priorities for the U.N. much, much further.

We need look no further than our own Mission to New York to assign responsibility. Ambassador John Bolton—hailed by the administration during his confirmation hearings as a crusader of management reform at the U.N.—could not achieve even that, despite overwhelming momentum on his side.

Within weeks of his appointment and less than a month before the Summit, Ambassador Bolton proposed hundreds of amendments to the draft document, throwing negotiations into turmoil. He outraged developing nations by attempting to remove any mention of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and by conducting an all-out assault on a provision reaffirming rich countries’ commitment to allocate 0.7 percent of their national incomes to help poor countries lift themselves out of poverty.  In the past, the administration had supported both provisions—on numerous occasions, in fact.

In the larger scheme of things, the MDGs and 0.7 percent of GDP issues were neither inimical to U.S. interests nor contrary to existing policy.  By fighting relatively harmless—and largely aspirational—provisions that the administration had previously endorsed, Bolton helped bring to a screeching halt growing momentum for real changes at the United Nations. 

This is exactly why many in Washington feared a Bolton ambassadorship: his overly simplistic approach to diplomacy does not produce results.  In splitting hairs over development, among other things, Bolton took his eye off the ball—and the United States lost on the issues that mattered most.
   
The result was a toothless document that does nothing to advance U.S. interests. Thanks to Bolton’s blunder, we have no assurance that the U.N. will be able to exclude egregious human rights violators from its human rights institutions. We lost out on a definition of terrorism that would pull the moral rug out from under terrorists masquerading as “freedom fighters.” We even lost out on the basic management reforms so high on the U.S. agenda. And the maddening part is that all of these victories were easily within our grasp. 

We have every reason to believe the effort to renew the U.N. is not at an end, but without the spotlight of the World Summit to expose the obstructionists, it will be much, much harder to move forward on our terms. That is unfortunate, because the founding principles of the U.N.—greater freedom, deeper cooperation and respect—bear the distinctive mark of U.S. leadership. Sixty years after the U.N.’s founding, the institution needs our leadership again to be stronger and more effective. And to meet the interconnected threats and challenges of a new century, we will surely need a strong and effective U.N..

To achieve our priorities for the U.N., Ambassador Bolton would be wise to learn the Summit’s crucial lesson: Sticks don’t work without carrots. He must understand that the foundation for American power is international cooperation.

The historic opportunity to revitalize the United Nations at the World Summit has been squandered, but America can —and should—continue efforts to combat terrorism, protect human rights, end poverty and promote democracy. We deserve an approach to renewing the United Nations as comprehensive and forward-thinking as our agenda.