High-level Panel named by Kofi Annan proposes far-reaching changes to bolster United Nations by UN News / Times Online / Reuters Alertnet 8:11am 2nd Dec, 2004   1 December 2004 (UN News)    A panel of eminent persons has recommended far-reaching changes to boost the ability of the United Nations to deal effectively with future threats caused by poverty and environmental degradation, terrorism, civil war, conflict between states, weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and organized crime.    The recommendations, contained in the report of the 16-member High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, were produced after a year of deliberations following its appointment in November 2003 by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who will formally receive the document tomorrow at UN Headquarters in New York. The Secretary-General will then transmit the report, along with a cover letter, to the General Assembly for review.    The report affirms the right of States to defend themselves, including pre-emptively when an attack is truly imminent, and says that, in cases involving terrorists and WMDs, the Security Council may have to act earlier, more pro-actively and more decisively than in the past.    The Panel also endorses the idea of a collective responsibility to protect civilians from genocide, ethnic cleansing and comparable atrocities, saying that the wider international community should intervene - acting preventively where possible - when countries are unwilling or unable to fulfil their responsibility to their citizens.    The Panel says, however, that if force is needed, it should be used as a last resort and authorized by the Security Council. Experts identify five criteria to guide the Council in its decisions over whether to authorize force: the seriousness of the threat, proper purpose, whether it is a last resort, whether proportional means are used, and whether military action is likely to have better or worse results than inaction.    It also urges the creation of a Peacebuilding Commission under the Security Council to identify countries at risk of violent conflicts, organize prevention efforts and sustain international peacebuilding efforts.    The report notes that major changes are needed in UN bodies to make them more effective, efficient and equitable, including universal membership for the Geneva-based Commission on Human Rights. Such a move would underscore the commitment of all members to the promotion of human rights, and might help focus attention back on the substantive issues rather than the politicking currently engulfing the Commission.    Another way to improve the United Nations, the Panel says, is to carry out a one-time review and replacement of personnel, including through early retirement, to ensure that the UN Secretariat is staffed with the right people to undertake the tasks at hand.    Also included in the report's 101 recommendations are proposals to strengthen development efforts, public health capacity and the current nuclear non-proliferation regime, which the Panel says is not as effective a constraint as it was previously because of the lack of compliance, threats to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a changing security environment and the diffusion of technology.    The Panel's Chair, former Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun of Thailand, says the 95-page report "puts forward a new vision of collective security, one that addresses all of the major threats to international peace and security felt around the world."    December 1, 2004    "UN Delivers Rebuke to White House", by James Bone. (Times Online/UK)    A United Nations panel of wise men yesterday challenged Washington's right to take preventive military action, but acknowledged that the UN should do more to deal with terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.    In a tacit rebuke to the Bush Administration, the panel said that states should take military action only when faced with an actual or imminent attack. Any preventive military action should require approval by the UN Security Council.    In a world full of perceived potential threats, the risk to the global order and the norm of non-intervention on which it continues to be based, is too great for the legality of unilateral preventive action, as distinct from collectively endorsed action, to be accepted, it said.    The 16-member panel, set up last year to try to mend rifts over Iraq although it deliberately makes no direct reference to that conflict outlines a new vision for collective security in an era of globe-trotting terrorist groups who can lay their hands on nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. But the limits on the use of preventive military action could prove unacceptable to Bush's Administration, which has rejected any global test before acting to defend itself.    A senior UN official said that the panel hoped to convince America that it could better achieve security through global co-operation and a rejuvenated UN than by acting alone. While reserving the right to take preventive military action to the Security Council, the panel said that council members should be more ready to exercise that power.    The international community has to be concerned about terrorists, weapons of mass destruction and irresponsible states, which may conceivably justify the use of force, not just reactively but preventively and before a latent threat becomes imminent, it said.    The question is not whether such action can be taken: it can, by the Security Council as the international community's collective security voice. . . . The council may need to be more proactive on these issues, taking more decisive action earlier.    The panel lays down guidelines for the Security Council to decide on preventive action: it says that it should take into account the seriousness of the threat, whether the force used is proportional, whether it comes as a last resort, if it is intended to address the threat rather than some other purpose and that it has a reasonable chance of success.    It calls for the five criteria to be adopted in non-binding resolutions by the Security Council and the General Assembly of all 191 UN member states. The proposals will form part of a report by Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, for a summit of world leaders in New York in September. (Copyright 2004 Times Newspapers Ltd).    30 Nov 2004    "UN releases major report on reform, global threats", by Evelyn Leopold. (Reuters)    A blue ribbon panel released on Tuesday a landmark report on global threats that insisted the U.N. Security Council approve any "preventive" war, which was not the case when the U.S. invaded Iraq.    U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan had asked the panel of 16 veteran foreign ministers and diplomats from around the world, including former U.S. national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, to spell out how the world body should reform itself and identify the main dangers to mankind in the 21st century. The 95-page report gave 101 proposals to combat poverty, AIDS, social upheavals, the threat of nuclear proliferation, terrorism and organized crime. It criticized U.N. bodies, from the Security Council to the Human Rights Commission and proposed the world body offer buy-outs to its aging staff.    The U.N. Charter allows a nation to respond immediately in self-defense to an actual or imminent attack. But the report, spurred by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq last year that divided world leaders, said "preventive action" when a threat was not imminent needed Security Council consent. This was denied to the Bush administration before the war.    "If there are good arguments for preventive military action, with good evidence to support them, they should be put to the Security Council, which can authorize such action," the report said. "For those impatient with such a response the answer must be that in a world full of perceived potential threats, the risk to the global order...is simply too great for the legality of unilateral preventive action," it added.    But the report also widens the definition of threats that could be a cause for military action by endorsing the concept of protecting civilians from atrocities by their government.    And it recommends that the Security Council stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear proliferation, by taking "collective action" against any state that even threatens a nuclear attack.    The panel of wise men and women recommended nations stop building highly enriched uranium facilities, which have no civilian purpose. "We are approaching a point at which the erosion of the nuclear regime could become irreversible, and result in a cascade of proliferation," said the panel, chaired by former Thai foreign minister, Anand Panyarachun.    The panel also took a big step in defining terrorism as "any action that is intended to cause death or seriously bodily harm to civilian or noncombatants," something that has eluded the U.N. General Assembly for years in devising a treaty.    Arab nations argue for exemptions in the case of "foreign occupation," which could exclude Palestinian suicide bombers. But the panel, which included Amr Moussa, head of the Arab League, said "there is nothing in the fact of occupation that justifies the targeting and killing of civilians."    Annan wants to use the report as a basis for one he will present to the General Assembly of world leaders in September that will mainly focus on sharply reducing abject poverty.    The report also gives two previously released proposals for increasing from 15 to 24 members the Security Council, created nearly 60 years ago and heavily weighted toward the industrial northern hemisphere. Any change has to be approved by a two-thirds vote in the 191-member General Assembly and no veto from the five permanent members: the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China.    While Britain, France and Russia have supported a quest by Germany, Japan, Brazil and India for permanent seats, the United States has been silent, an indication that any major change may fail. U.S. Ambassador John Danforth said Washington wanted to evaluate whether expansion "would make the council be more effective or less, than it is now."
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