February 3, 2005

Diplomats talk U.N. reform

By Pat Vaughan Tremmel

Diplomats don’t like to make apocalyptic predictions, “but we really are at a fork in the road,” said Sir David Hannay during his keynote speech at a law school conference about  “Reforming the United Nations: The Use of Force to Safeguard International Security and Human Rights.”

The U.N. charter prohibits individual nations from using preventive force against potential future threats, Hannay said in his address, but empowers the Security Council to authorize force in such cases. 

“The risk to global order is too great,” according to a major new report that Lord Hannay focused on in his address.

Hannay is one of 16 members of a high-level panel that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan convened following fierce debates over Rwanda and Iraq. In December 2004, the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change released its ambitious report, “A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility.”

To make sure the report doesn’t simply collect dust and to combat misinterpretation of its contents, Hannay, a former permanent U.N. representative of the United Kingdom, urged worldwide debate before serious discussions begin in a few months in the U.N.

Use of force must be a last resort, Hannay said. Many threats can be compounded by use of force, and the report, he said, stresses that causes, often mischaracterized as “soft” threats, as well as symptoms of terrorism, must be addressed. 

But the U.N. charter does not preclude collective action over a threat, when the use of force can’t be avoided. Even so, Hannay said, “every use of force still needs to be debated” and could have serious deterrent effects. 

He pointed to the report’s guidelines for considering the use of force, which include seriousness of the threat, proportional means of combating the threat and consequences of using or not using force. The panel recommends that the Security Council authorize military intervention when necessary to stop mass atrocities.

The conference was the fourth annual Transatlantic Dialogue organized by law professor Douglass Cassel, with the Catholic University of Leuven.