COMMENTARY ON THE UNITED NATIONS’ HIGH-LEVEL PANEL ON THREATS,
CHALLENGES AND CHANGE
Marco Odello*
ABSTRACT Threats to international security have shifted from interstate conflict to more complexissues. States perceive new threats to security and try to respond to them either unilat-erally or through international institutions. The process of defining new threats hasemerged after the end of the Cold War, and several international organisations havetried to adapt their institutional mechanisms to face those challenges. The UnitedNations, as the main universal organisation dealing with peace and security, has alsostarted this process. In December 2004, the Secretary General of the organisationdelivered the Report entitled A more secure world: our shared responsibility. Thisarticle provides some reflections on relevant issues addressed in the Report.
1 INTRODUCTION
On 2 December 2004, the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN)presented to the General Assembly a new document, under Agenda item 55,entitled Follow-up to the outcome of the Millennium Summit. The document isthe report of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change entitled Amore secure world: our shared responsibility (hereinafter High-level PanelReport, or Report).1 Its purpose is to provide a new framework for the work andaction of the UN in the area of security. In several respects, which are addressedin this analysis, the High-level Panel Report provides a general approach toissues that deserve urgent consideration. It also reflects the need for newapproaches by the UN to the concept of security and therefore to the relatedconcept of collective security. Apart from the analysis of traditional and newthreats, the High-level Panel Report also provides some proposals concerningamendments and reforms to the UN system and some suggestions to non-UNorganisations. But the Report does not deal with any specific case or conflict, asthis was clearly established in the Secretary General’s mandate to the High-levelPanel. The Secretary General, in submitting the High-level Panel Report, fullyendorsed ‘its core arguments for a broader, more comprehensive concept of col-lective security: one that tackles new and old threats and addresses the security
* Researcher, Centre for Conflict and Security Law, University of Nottingham. E-mail:[email protected]
1 UN, High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, A more secure world: ourshared responsibility, UN doc. A/59/565, 2 December 2004, available at <http://www.un.org/secureworld/report.pdf>.
concerns of all States – rich and poor, weak and strong’.2 Furthermore, hestressed that ‘[i]t is a report of considerable range and depth. It adopts a broadperspective on security. It not only seeks to address specific threats, but identi-fies new ways of understanding the connections between them and the implica-tions for the policies and institutions we must have in place’.3
This commentary presents the main topics discussed within the Report, and itpoints out some criticisms concerning relevant issues that can be the basis forfuture and more detailed analysis. The aim is not to provide a thorough evalua-tion of the Report, but some preliminary reflections on some of the issues thathave been addressed. The summary of recommendations adopted by the High-level Panel follows this note as an annex.
2 THE FRAMEWORK OF THE REPORT
There is a general trend, not only in the UN, to deal with a wider concept ofsecurity and threats to security.4 This trend took more relevance during the Sum-mits of Heads of State and Government organised by the UN Security Council(SC) in 1992 and in 2000.
The first meeting recognised that ‘[t]he non-military sources of instability inthe economic, social, humanitarian and ecological fields have become threats topeace and security’.5 But it then focused on traditional collective security, onpeacemaking and peacekeeping and on disarmament, arms control and weaponsof mass destruction. The second meeting adopted a resolution ‘on ensuring aneffective role for the SC in the maintenance of international peace and security,particularly in Africa’, but mainly addressed peacekeeping operations and didnot deal with wider concepts of security and root causes of conflict.6 The Millen-nium Declaration7 adopted in 2000 by the Heads of State and Government dur-ing the UN General Assembly puts more emphasis on different issues that areconsidered relevant for the maintenance of international peace, but it does notdeal with the definition of threats. During the 2003 UN General Assembly regu-lar session,8 the Secretary General expressed its will to establish a High-levelPanel to which to assign four tasks: to examine the current challenges to peaceand security; to consider the contribution which collective action can make inaddressing these challenges; to review the functioning of the major organs of the
2 Ibid., note by the Secretary General, para. 5 (original italics). 3 Ibid. 4 See generally, Barry Buzan, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (1998). 5 UN SC, ‘The responsibility of the Security Council in the maintenance of international
peace and security’, UN doc. S/23500, 3046th meeting, 31 January 1992. 6 SC Res. 1328, 7 September 2000. 7 UN, Millennium Declaration, New York, 6–8 September 2000, UN doc. A/res./55/2,
8 September 2000, available at <http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration/ares552e.htm>. 8 UN Secretary General, Address to the General Assembly, 23 September 2003, available
at <http://www.un.org/webcast/ga/58/statements/sg2eng030923.htm>.
UN High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change 233
UN and the relationship between them; and, finally, to recommend ways ofstrengthening the UN, through reform of its institutions and processes.
These areas try to identify and explore new threats to international peaceand security and the interconnected lines of those threats. The Secretary Gen-eral also mentioned the dangers of unilateral use of force that might undermineboth the role of international law and the primary responsibility of the SC whenfacing new threats to peace and security worldwide. In particular, he mentionedthe risks for blurring article 51 of the UN Charter in justifying the use of forceunder the cause of self-defence and reaffirmed the need for authorisation andlegitimacy that the SC must provide for any collective measure implying the useof force.9
The issues under consideration by the Secretary General are not new ones.At least we can mention a couple of other related and parallel phenomena thatput the Report into the present context. One trend can be envisaged within theUN, and the other is outside the organisation. The SC, even if slowly and in verylimited cases, has adopted a more open definition of threats to peace and secur-ity. After the Cold War, they have included, for instance, human rights violationsand hiding of terrorists. The SC authorised the use of force to re-establish ademocratic regime in the case of Haiti,10 and to ensure security in internal situa-tions, the SC authorised the intervention in East Timor to prevent degenerationof the internal instability.11 The SC adopted Resolutions 748 (1992) and 883(1993) against Libya, considering that the country’s lack of cooperation in handingover for trial abroad two Libyan citizens considered responsible for the terroristaction related to the Lockerbie case constituted ‘a threat to international peaceand security’.
Outside the UN, some regional organisations have developed a wider con-cept of security. A pioneer is the Organization for Security and Co-operation(OSCE), which since 1975, with the adoption of the Helsinki Final Act,included the ‘human dimension’ (meaning, human rights) and, in particular,national minorities within the wide area of international security. But also otherinternational organisations have recently adopted new documents addressingthe concept of or threats to security. In particular, we should mention here theSolana Report,12 in the context of the European Union, the widening NorthAtlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) security policy and action13 and the 2003
9 Ibid. 10 SC Res. 940 (1994). 11 SC Res. 1264 (1999). 12 Javier Solana, A Secure Europe in a Better World: European Security Strategy, The
European Union Institute for Security Studies, Paris, 2003. The document was adoptedby the Heads of State and Government during the European Council in Brussels on12 December 2003, available at <http://ue.eu.int/uedocs/cmsUpload/78367.pdf>.
13 The documents include ‘The London Declaration’ (6 July 1990), available at <http://www.nato.int/docu/comm/49-95/c900706a.htm>, ‘The Rome Declaration’ (8 November1991), available at <http://www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/b911108b.htm>, ‘The Madrid Dec-laration’ (8 July 1997), available at <http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/1997/p97-081e.htm>,
Mexico City Declaration on Security in the Americas,14 within the inter-Ameri-can system.
These evolutions show that there is a general tendency to identify new threatsto the security of states that have an international dimension. It is therefore atimely decision to address the issue within the universal organisation whose maintask is the maintenance of peace and security in the world. It should also be notedthat the Report, apart from dealing with the definition of threats to security,includes some issues related to the possible reform of the UN. This last topic isaddressed in a limited form within the Report, dealing mainly with the possibilityof extended membership in the SC. The problems of UN reforms are old ones,and more recently the UN has tried to address the issue. Since 1993, the GeneralAssembly has set up five working groups to deal with different issues of UNreform. The working groups were structured on the concerns raised by SecretaryGeneral Boutros Boutros-Ghali in his reform proposals defined in the Agenda forPeace and the Agenda for Development. The working groups were established todeal with areas of finance, SC reform,15 peace and security, and development, andthe overall strengthening of the UN. Four working groups completed their activi-ties between 1996 and 1997. But the SC reform working group continued to func-tion. All member states agreed on the need for SC reform, but positions of statesand the opposition of the five permanent members blocked all possible reform.
The Report under consideration is divided into four parts, organised under thefollowing titles: Towards a new security consensus, Collective security and the chal-lenge of prevention, Collective security and the use of force and A more effectiveUnited Nations for the twenty-first century. Owing to the limitations of this note,and the specific interests of this journal’s readership, special attention will be givento issues concerning the definition of collective security and the use of force.
3 REDEFINING COLLECTIVE SECURITY
The Report starts with the concept of collective security. The central idea is thatsecurity is based on the survival of states. This was the purpose in 1945 when the
13 (continued) The Alliance’s Strategic Concept’ (24 April 1999), available at <http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/1999/p99-065e.htm>, and the ‘Prague Summit Declaration’ (21–22November 2002), available at <http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/2002/p02-127e.htm>. Seealso Lionel Ponsard, ‘The dawning of a new security era?’, NATO Review (Autumn2004), available at <http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2004/issue3/english/art3.html>,and Lord Robertson, ‘Change and continuity’, NATO Review (Winter 2003), 2–6,available at <http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2003/issue4/english/art1.html>.
14 OAS, Declaration on Security in the Americas, OAS doc. OEA/Ser.K/XXXVIII, CES/DEC. 1/03 rev.1 (28 October 2003), available at <http://www.oas.org/documents/eng/DeclaracionSecurity_102803.asp>.
15 The last document is Report of the Open-ended Working Group on the Question ofEquitable Representation on and Increase in the Membership of the Security Council andOther Matters related to the Security Council, UN doc. A/57/47, 3 July 2003, available at<http://www.un.org/documents/ga/docs/55/a5547.pdf>.
UN High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change 235
UN was created, and this is still the aim. The Report’s main argument in favourof the broad idea of collective security is that the drafters of the UN Charteralready envisaged the complex array of security when in the Preamble theydeclared ‘to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights’ and ‘to promote socialprogress and better standards of life in larger freedom’.16
The concept of collective security in the twenty-first century is supposed toinclude all those factors and to involve a wider international cooperation amongstates, as individual states cannot stand alone to deal with most of the newthreats. This idea is captured in the statement that ‘[t]oday’s threats recognize nonational boundaries, are connected, and must be addressed at the global andregional as well as the national levels’.17 The Report also points out that the newconcept of collective security might face some negative reactions, as not all iden-tified threats might be considered as real threats by all states. The Panel pointsout the inherent relationship between state sovereignty and the responsibility toprotect the well-being of its citizens and the need for a shared responsibility18 ofall states to act in all possible cases affecting each other’s security.19
It is at this point that the High-level Panel expands the idea of ‘responsibilityto protect’ that was defined in the Report of the International Commission onIntervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS)20 with specific reference to humani-tarian action by states in cases of gross violations of human rights and its rela-tionship to state sovereignty. It is somewhat odd that the High-level Panel hasused many ideas presented in the ICISS Report but does not expressly cite it.
The Report goes on to provide a general definition of threat to security, under-stood as ‘[a]ny event or process that leads to large-scale death or lessening of lifechances and undermines States as the basic unit of the international system is athreat to international security’.21 Six areas are considered as affecting today’ssecurity of states, and they are economic and social threats, including poverty, infec-tious diseases and environmental degradation; interstate conflict; internal conflict,including civil war, genocide and other large-scale atrocities; nuclear, radiological,chemical and biological weapons; terrorism; and transnational organised crime.22
To build a credible system of collective security three elements are pointed out:effectiveness,23 efficiency24 and equity.25 Effectiveness is based on the need for sev-eral actors, including universal and regional institutions, states and civil societyorganisations to work more closely and to share responsibility in implementing
16 See Report, 11. 17 Ibid., 11. 18 Report, paras 29–30. 19 Report, paras 24–28. 20 ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect (2001), available at <http://www.iciss.ca/pdf/
Commission-Report.pdf>. 21 Report, 12. 22 Ibid., 12. 23 Ibid., paras 32–36. 24 Ibid., paras 37–39. 25 Ibid., paras 40–43.
international action. Efficiency relates to addressing scarcity of funding, ill co-ordination and the failure to promptly respond to urgent needs. Equity involvesnondiscrimination in dealing with security issues and to avoid leaving emergencycases in desperate straits for years or decades.
These new proposals made by the High-level Panel involve also importantlegal issues. The concept of collective security is considered a ‘term of art’ thathas acquired a well-defined scope.26 It was originally envisaged as a reaction tostates that violated international peace and security by providing an inter-national regulated mechanism involving the multilateral reaction by the inter-national community. This is the main function of the SC under chapter VII ofthe Charter. This mechanism has been usually applied to the interstate threatand use of force. The Report uses a wider concept of collective security. Thisexpansion has been already considered by some authors as misleading and dan-gerous for the mechanism of collective security, as it would not be advisable forall kinds of threats, particularly for those of an economic, social and environ-mental nature.27 The Report rightly considers that:
The central challenge for the twenty-first century is to fashion a new andbroader understanding, bringing together all these strands, of what collec-tive security means – and of all the responsibilities, commitments, strate-gies and institutions that come with it if a collective security system is tobe effective, efficient and equitable.28
But some problems should be pointed out. Issues of security are shifting frompurely interstate threats, to include other issues, from intrastate conflicts, tohuman rights, to environmental degradation. It should be clear that if securitydeals with the survival of states, there should be a wider consideration of pos-sible risks affecting its existence. But there is a problem when we use the termcollective security. Either there is a misleading use of the term to address anyinternational action related to international co-operation falling outside the lim-its of chapter VII of the UN Charter, or it may imply that measures under thischapter can be used to deal with a huge variety of international issues, not onlylimited to the illegal use of force by states. Herein lies the main issue of whether,and under which limitations, the SC and states accept that compelling rules,including the use of force, can be used to deal with all the issues included in theReport. It is true that the SC, under article 39, has wide discretionary powers todetermine a threat to the peace29 and to international security. Furthermore, the
26 See Inis L. Claude, Swords into Plowshares: The Problems and Progress of InternationalOrganization (1971), ch. 12; Oscar Schachter, International Law in Theory and Practice(1991), ch. XVII.
27 See Charles L. Glaser, ‘Future Security Arrangements for Europe: Why NATO is StillBest’, in George W. Downs (ed.), Collective Security beyond the Cold War (1994), 235.
28 Report, 11. 29 See generally Inger Österdahl, Threat to the Peace: The Interpretation by the Security
Council of Article 39 of the United Nations Charter (1998).
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UN Charter does not provide a list of threats. But it has been generally inter-preted that threats should represent some high risk for international peace. Thisgeneral interpretation does not exclude the possibility, as we have mentionedbefore, that new and different threats can be identified by the SC. These will bedefined by the practice of the SC and are not included in any document, so that athreat to international peace and security may be almost anything, as far as theSC reaches the required majority to pass a resolution.
4 PREVENTION
Part II of the Report deals with the six mentioned threats. They are included inthe general framework of prevention in the following way: ‘The primary chal-lenge for the United Nations and its members is to ensure that, of all the threatsin the categories listed, those that are distant do not become imminent and thosethat are imminent do not actually become destructive’.30
The Report goes on the analysis of economic, social, health, environmentalthreats, including poverty and infectious disease. We should stress that most ofthese issues have been discussed and addressed by many UN international con-ferences and summits during the 1990s. Declarations and plans of action havebeen adopted, but states have not taken most of those commitments seriously.
Preventive actions are addressed for all the six main threats, including inter-and intrastate conflicts. Some of the recommendations concerning developmentaction by the UN and member states are well known and have been constantlyrepeated at least for the last ten years. They include raising the Official Develop-ment Aid to 0.7 per cent of donor countries’ gross national product (GNP),reducing the external debt of poor countries and including development in theagenda of international institutions such as the World Trade Organization(WTO). The UN and international financial institutions are requested to worktogether to help states to face natural disasters. But no specific suggestions are madewith reference to policies and programmes of the World Bank and the InternationalMonetary Fund that are among the most relevant actors in the development ofstrategies and that may have devastating results in some countries.
In the area of disarmament, the Report provides a wide list of actions, includ-ing the restarting of disarmament negotiations by nuclear states, new strategiesin the area of chemical, radiological and biological weapons31 and several actionsthat should be endorsed to the International Atomic Agency to deal with controlof nuclear materials and inspections.32
Preventive actions are also analysed in dealing with interstate conflicts. Theuse of sanctions is considered still a useful tool, but the Report considers that itneeds some adjustments. In particular, sanctions need to be targeted and fully
30 Report, 25. 31 Ibid., paras 107–138. 32 Ibid., paras 129–134.
implemented. Otherwise, they fail to be effective because of states’ political,economic and ideological interests and unwillingness to apply them.33 Usefulsuggestions concerning the application and revision of sanctions are provided atthe end of Part II (Section VIII), taking into account humanitarian needs not toaffect the general population of the affected state. They include, for instance, thetargeting of specific persons and tools, such as financial, travel and aviationembargoes.34 Then, the SC would have a stronger role in verifying the effective-ness of sanctions, including the possibility of secondary sanctions against thosestates that violate the original sanction regime.35 Also foreseen is the need forregular control and assessment of applied sanctions through more efficient sanc-tions committees, rules for states to apply sanctions more efficiently, an auditingmechanism and regular evaluations to review humanitarian needs.36
These suggestions are not new. They are drawn from a very extensivedebate and critical appraisals on sanctions, both within and outside37 the UN.The main work on the effects of sanctions on human rights was developedwithin the UN Human Rights Commission. In its Resolution 1997/35,38 theSub-Commission on Human Rights expressed concerns about economic sanc-tions and their negative effects on human rights. In 2001, Marc Bossuytpresented a report on The Adverse Consequences of Economic Sanctions onthe Enjoyment of Human Rights.39 A Working Group on General Issues onSanctions was established in 2000 by the SC to develop general recommenda-tions on how to improve the effectiveness of UN sanctions.40 In October2004, a Sanctions Assessment Handbook was released by the Inter-AgencyStanding Committee ‘to provide guidance to humanitarian practitioners andpolicymakers on identifying and measuring possible humanitarian implica-tions of sanctions’.41 Sanction reformers have proposed a set of rules thatwould guide SC decisions, making them fairer and more respectful to thehuman rights of affected populations. After lengthy negotiations, the Councilappeared close to adopting the Bossuyt Report in late 2001. But objections byPermanent Members did not allow for an agreement. The High-level Panel’sproposals do not add any new tool to those proposed by the existing list ofstudies and documents.
33 Ibid., para. 79. 34 Ibid., para. 179. 35 Ibid., para. 180(e). 36 Ibid., paras 180–182. 37 Three important international initiatives – the Interlaken, the Bonn-Berlin and the
Stockholm Processes – took place between 1998 and 2002, with the objective of makingUN sanctions more effective.
38 UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights, ‘Adverse consequences of economic sanctionson the enjoyment of human rights’, Res. 1997/35, 28 August 1997.
39 UN ECOSOC, UN doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/2000/33, 21 June 2000. 40 UN SC, Establishment of the Working Group on Sanctions, UN doc. S/2000/319,
17 April 2000. 41 Manuel Besslerl, Richard Garfield & Gerard McHugh, Sanctions Assessment Hand-
UN High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change 239
Interstate conflicts are not the only case for the use of sanctions. In the fieldof counter-terrorism, the SC ‘should devise a schedule of predetermined sanc-tions for State non-compliance with the Council’s counter-terrorism resolu-tions’.42 In other cases, such as the protection of minorities and the restoration ofdemocratic governments, the Report simply refers to the importance of takinginto consideration the experience developed in some regional organisations,such as the OSCE, the Organization of American States (OAS) and the AfricanUnion.43 More relevant is the reference to the use of the International CriminalCourt as a preventive tool as the SC should address cases to the attention of thecourt,44 in particular when state’s organs are involved in crimes falling within thejurisdiction of the court.
5 COLLECTIVE SECURITY AND THE USE OF FORCE
Part III of the Report deals with collective security and the use of force. The tra-ditional concept of collective security is therefore addressed in this section. Inthe same section, the rules on the use of force, peace-enforcement, peacekeep-ing, post-conflict peacebuilding and the protection of civilians are addressed.The Report, after briefly recalling the rules on the use of force provided in theUN Charter, considers that:
three particularly difficult questions arise in practice: first, when a Stateclaims the right to strike preventively, in self-defence, in response to athreat which is not imminent; secondly, when a State appears to be posingan external threat, actual or potential, to other States or people outside itsborders, but there is disagreement in the Security Council as to what to doabout it; and thirdly, where the threat is primarily internal, to a State’sown people.45
Dealing with the first issue, the Report takes a literal interpretation of article51 of the UN Charter. In five short paragraphs, it concludes with the recommen-dation that the High-level Panel does ‘not favour the rewriting or reinterpreta-tion of Article 51’.46 The issues under discussion are quite complex and relevantin contemporary international law. The report is neither a legal treaty nor anInternational Court of Justice (ICJ) judgment. Nevertheless, its somewhat sim-plistic approach to the issue may be disarming. It is recognised that the extensiveinterpretation provided by some powers, on the basis of which they can act inanticipatory self-defence, that means preventively (against a non-imminent ornon-proximate one), is particularly dangerous for the international global order
and the rules of non-intervention. Mainly because ‘[a]llowing one to so act is toallow all’. But the issue is not fully analysed nor are suggestions made to face thisdangerous trend in international relations.
A concrete problem concerning the proper action of the SC is addressed inthe Report. It is understood that ‘[o]ne of the reasons why States may want tobypass the Security Council is a lack of confidence in the quality and objectivityof its decision-making’.47 But the discussion on the issue is quite limited. The SChas all the powers to address the different threats to international peace andsecurity. But no feasible solutions are envisaged when the SC does not act.Should states watch genocide or other atrocities waiting for a resolution thatmay never come? The Report candidly affirms that ‘[t]he task is not to find alter-natives to the Security Council as a source of authority but to make the Councilwork better than it has’.48 In fact, this seems a quite naive suggestion, but inpractice it may still not be workable. The High-level Panel could have exploredsome possible avenues for authorisation, for instance, by the General Assembly,when the SC is deadlocked. The High-level Panel, at the end of its work, makessome suggestions for the reform of the SC. But the main problems are still there.The veto power is not threatened.49 This has in fact been the key element thatblocked the SC and the UN action at least during its initial forty-five years. Theend of the cold war has not meant its fall into desuetude, as the recent case of theintervention in Iraq has clearly shown. The power of veto is one of the mainproblems with the working system of the UN, in the era of ‘democratic govern-ance’, quite ironically trumpeted by some of the powers comfortably sitting inthe Council. The issue has been discussed almost since the creation of the UN.How this should be done still remains an unanswered question, and the High-level Panel has not contributed to a proper solution to this central and long-lastingproblem.
The definition of the threats to international security is addressed whendealing with the possibility of states intervening in the territory of other states,facing the limitation of article 2(7) of the Charter. The High-level Panel consid-ers that it is not a matter of ‘right to intervene’ but a ‘duty to protect’. This is howit supplied the response on the basis of the primary ‘responsibility to protect’50
on individual states and then by the international community, through the actionof the SC.
The High-level Panel considers that:
the Council and the wider international community have come to acceptthat, under Chapter VII and in pursuit of the emerging norm of a collec-tive international responsibility to protect, it can always authorize milit-ary action to redress catastrophic internal wrongs if it is prepared to
47 Ibid., para. 197. 48 Ibid., para. 198. 49 See also the following section. 50 The expression is clearly taken from the ICISS document; see ICISS, loc. cit., fn. 20.
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declare that the situation is a ‘threat to international peace and security’,not especially difficult when breaches of international law are involved.51
This ‘emerging rule’ concerning the responsibility to protect seems to beapplicable in cases of genocide, ethnic cleansing and gross violations of humanrights, but there are no clear answers when we have to deal with pandemic dis-ease, famine, floods, etc. Can they be considered as threats to the peace andsecurity? Is it possible to intervene in those cases? Owing to the fact that theReport deals with a wide range of new ‘threats’, it could be considered that theresponsibility to protect involves those situations as well.
To solve this complex problem, the Report suggests that ‘the Council shouldadopt and systematically address a set of agreed guidelines, going directly not towhether force can legally be used but whether, as a matter of good conscienceand good sense, it should be’.52
This proposal raises some doubts, and it seems a quite dangerous sugges-tion. In fact, the SC, as with any other international organisation and individ-ual states, are bound by legal rules. International organisations are furtherlimited in their action by their various constitutive documents, which definetheir areas of activity, their aims and the powers of their organs. By saying thatthe use of force – such a delicate issue in international law – should be usedutilising criteria of conscience and good sense seems a real danger, as con-science and good sense are not easy to identify when we deal with govern-ments. Examples are quite abundant in history. To avoid this danger and tofacilitate the decision-making process of the SC, the High-level Panel suggestssome guidelines which could provide some basic criteria of legitimacy for theUN action. The five basic criteria are the seriousness of the threat, a properpurpose, as a last resort, using proportional means and considering the bal-ance of consequences.53
The seriousness of the threat tries to identify when the SC should use itspowers and, in particular, the authorisation to use force. They include cases ofinternal threats, genocide and other large-scale killing, ethnic cleansing orserious violations of international humanitarian law. The primary purposeshould be to halt or avert the threat, despite other purposes being involved.The use of force should be considered as the last resort, after due considera-tion of all possible alternative means. The use of force should be measuredunder the criterion of proportionality, so that the duration and intensity ofmilitary action would be kept to a minimum to face the threat. Moreover,there should be an evaluation of the possible consequences of the use of forceand an effort to ensure that the outcome of the use of force does not produceworse results than inaction.
51 Report, para. 202. 52 Ibid., para. 205 (original italics). 53 Ibid., para. 207. It should be noted that those criteria were already identified by the
The final part of the Report includes some reflections and proposals concerningpossible reform of UN organs. This issue has been addressed several times in thehistory of the UN and in particular during the 1990s, but no relevant measureshave been taken to amend the Charter.54 The High-level Panel in addressingreform issues tries to answer the following test: ‘does a proposed change helpmeet the challenge posed by a virulent threat?.55 But the Report also underlinesthat any reform would be useless while member states do not comply with theirduties and do not actively cooperate for the implementation of the UN activities.
The Report deals with the main UN organs – the General Assembly, the SC,the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and the Secretariat. The GeneralAssembly, being the central deliberative organ, suffers from several organisa-tional and procedural issues that are identified in the Report. To implement thework of the Assembly, a shorter agenda and several specialised committees areconsidered a way to improve its practical work. Suggestions are made to involvecivil society organisations in the work of the Assembly, taking into accountrecent documents such as the Panel of Eminent Persons on UN-Civil SocietyRelations.56
Concerning the SC, the Report correctly points out that article 23 of the UNCharter links its membership not only to equitable geographical distribution, but‘in the first instance to the contribution of Members of the UN to the mainten-ance of international peace and security and to the other purposes of the Organ-ization’.57 The contributions of some permanent members are considered‘modest compared to their special status’, and non-permanent members havenot always been able to make the required contribution to the purposes of theorganisation. The fact that the SC has been more active after the end of the ColdWar does not mean that it has properly acted in all situations deserving its atten-tion. This lack of active involvement has consequently undermined the credibil-ity of the UN and its major organ in the area of peace and security.
To face this problem, the Report provides several proposals, including areform of the SC membership. Two alternative proposals, called models A andB, are made to raise the total number of SC members to twenty-four states. Fourmajor regional areas, identified as Africa, Asia and Pacific, Europe and Americas,should be taken into consideration to provide new seats in the SC. This regionalgrouping is proposed only for application to the SC, and it is not intended tochange the existing five regional groupings applied in all UN elected bodies.
54 On problems of UN reform, see Paul Kennedy, ‘UN Reform Is Stuck in a Catch-22’,Financial Times, 26 October 2004. See also Louis B. Sohn, ‘Important Improvements inthe Functioning of the Principal Organs of the United Nations that can be Made With-out Charter Revision’ (1997) 91 AJIL 663.
55 Report, 64. 56 UN doc. A/58/817, available at <http://www.un.org/reform/Washington%20DC%20
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Model A provides for six new permanent seats with no veto power, and threenew two-year term non-permanent seats, divided among the major regionalareas. Model B provides for no new permanent seats but creates a new categoryof eight four-year renewable-term seats and one new two-year non-permanent(non-renewable) seat.
Addressing the reform of the SC is considered an urgent issue, and theReport provides several principles. Major contributing states to generalexpenses, participation in mandated peace operations, contributions to volun-tary activities of the UN in the areas of security and development, and diplo-matic activities in support of UN objectives and mandates should be used ascriteria to improve membership of the organ.
Concerning the complex issue of veto power, both mentioned models do notforesee an extension of veto powers to new members. The same veto power isdefined by the Report as an ‘anachronistic’ institution, at odds with the increas-ing democratic rule, but it is also recognised that present permanent memberswould not agree to lose this power, endangering the adoption of any reform con-cerning their power in the SC. Solutions to bypass this inconvenience include theuse of veto being ‘limited to matters where vital interests are genuinely atstake’58 and refraining from the use of veto in cases concerning genocide andlarge-scale human rights abuses. To increase the accountability for the use of theveto, it is also proposed to have ‘indicative voting’ so that members of the SCwould publicly provide an indication of their positions on a proposed action.This indicative vote would not impair the final official voting under the Charterrules but could help in defining a better strategy and clearer accountability forusing the veto. Despite this suggestion, it is usually known which positions differ-ent delegations will take. States already conduct closed meetings and consulta-tions before going to the public voting. Furthermore, states might change theirfinal voting decision, without any possible sanction. It should be asked how ineffect this double mechanism would improve the capacity of the SC to respondpromptly in urgent situations, instead of being used to delay decisions and createill-founded expectations, while urgent threats to security get worse.
The High-level Panel has identified a ‘key institutional gap’ in the peace-building capacity of the UN. This gap should be filled by a Peacebuilding Com-mission. The commission should be created under article 29 of the Charter as asubsidiary organ by the SC, after consultation with ECOSOC. The main tasks ofthe commission should be the following: to identify countries which are understress and risk sliding towards state collapse; to organise, in partnership with thenational Government, proactive assistance in preventing that process fromdeveloping further; to assist in the planning for transitions between conflict andpost-conflict peacebuilding; and, in particular, to marshal and sustain the effortsof the international community in post-conflict peacebuilding over whateverperiod may be necessary.59
The structure and functioning of the commission is not clearly defined, but itshould be noted that there is no reference at all to the representatives of the civilsociety. Owing to the key role that non-state actors can play in situations wherestate structures are under distress or under reconstruction, this seems a quite rel-evant missing point.
Other proposals follow, concerning in particular ECOSOC, the HumanRights Commission and the Secretariat. Proposals for some reform to the text ofthe Charter include amendment of article 23, revision of references to ‘enemystate’ contained in articles 53 and 107, abolition of chapter XIII concerning theTrusteeship Council and deletion of provisions concerning the Military StaffCommittee (article 47) as well as all references to the body in articles 26, 45and 46.
A key element concerns the problems of coordination and cooperation withregional organisations under chapter VIII of the Charter. The indications pro-vided in the Report are not very innovative. They do not address the key ele-ment of how to avoid either conflicting initiatives or lack of action by the UNand regional organisations. The Report suggests that ‘[a]uthorization from theSecurity Council should in all cases be sought for regional peace operations, rec-ognizing that in some urgent situations that authorization may be sought aftersuch operations have commenced’. This is an issue that potentially puts at stakethe credibility and legitimacy of both the UN and regional organisations. TheReport seems to partly acknowledge the practice of unauthorised actions under-taken by regional organisation in recent years. The actions of the EconomicCommunity of West African States (ECOWAS) and NATO clearly show thistrend. This is not the best solution, as regional organisations might act for theirown aims without a clear reference to the UN purposes. On the other hand, itwould be difficult to prevent a regional organisation from acting when peace,security and stability in its area of concern are endangered by the inaction of theSC. Other forms should be explored to deal with this very critical issue, as theUN Charter, in article 53, is quite clear that an authorisation, intended to beprior to the action, should be given by the SC. Not to put the necessary emphasison this point might also lead to states taking actions involving the use of force,without previous UN authorisation. This practice would possibly end in bypass-ing the authority of the SC and endanger the prohibition of the use of force, asenshrined in article 2(4) of the Charter.
7 CONCLUSIONS
The Report’s main outcome can be considered by the fact that it positions theUN within the general debate on security and threats to security, already under-taken by several international regional organisations. It provides a wider pictureof the possible areas that could fit in the domain of international peace andsecurity, moving from the interstate approach to security to a more comprehensivevision of the possible threats to international peace.
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Apart from this result, and despite the different suggestions made, includingUN proposals for reform, the report does not provide new challenging solutions.The role of the civil society and, in general, of the international non-governmentalorganisation (NGO) movement is almost absent. This shortcoming puts theReport into a purely interstate vision, not adequate to deal with many contem-porary conflicts and internal states’ crises and to address the complex intercon-nections of contemporary threats.
Too little attention is devoted to the problems of the relationship between theUN and regional organisations. This is a point that needs further development, andthe Report does not provide clear guidelines to overcome the dispute between uni-versalism and regionalism that was at the very origin of the UN Charter at the SanFrancisco Conference. After almost sixty years from the adoption of the Charter,some possible forms of coordination and cooperation should be defined. The risk ofnot dealing with this issue properly and urgently might seriously undermine the abil-ity of the UN, its activities and legitimacy in dealing with most security issues. In fact,the emerging number of international organisations, and the expanding role they areassuming in the area of security, seems to bypass the prominent role of the UN,including the central issue regarding authorisation of the use of force.
Finally, the Report has not clearly defined the role of the UN and, in particu-lar, of the SC to deal with threats to international peace and security. Would theSC be allowed to use its powers, including the use of force, to deal with all newthreats? If the new concept of collective security has to be adapted to all newthreats, then this should be the logical legal conclusion. But this conclusionmight face resistance by member states and difficulties in expanding the role ofthe UN due to the financial crisis and lack of operational capability in the field.The Report provides interesting suggestions and issues for further thorough ana-lysis and comment. In particular, the relationship between collective action andstate sovereignty should be better analysed and international consensus shouldbe sought to allow the UN action under clearer mandate. The topic is under dis-cussion, and this Report will contribute in the general debate on the issue. Butstill the walls of state sovereignty would provide a fierce obstacle to invasiveactions by any international organisation, including the UN.
ANNEX
Summary of Recommendations60
Part Two
Collective security and the challenge of prevention Poverty, infectious disease and environmental degradation
60 Report, Annex I. The number in parentheses that appears after each summarised rec-ommendation refers to the paragraph in the main report.
(1) All States must recommit themselves to the goals of eradicatingpoverty, achieving sustained economic growth and promoting sus-tainable development. (59)
(2) The many donor countries which currently fall short of the UnitedNations 0.7 per cent of gross national product (GNP) for officialdevelopment assistance (ODA) should establish a timetable forreaching it. (60)
(3) World Trade Organization (WTO) members should strive to con-clude the Doha development round of multilateral trade negotia-tions at the latest in 2006. (62)
(4) Lender Governments and the international financial institutionsshould provide highly indebted poor countries with greater debt relief,longer rescheduling and improved access to global markets. (63)
(5) Although international resources devoted to meeting the challengeof HIV/AIDS have increased from about $250 million in 1996 toabout $2.8 billion in 2002, more than $10 billion annually is neededto stem the pandemic. (64)
(6) Leaders of countries affected by HIV/AIDS need to mobilizeresources, commit funds and engage civil society and the privatesector in disease-control efforts. (65)
(7) The Security Council, working closely with UNAIDS, should hosta second special session on HIV/AIDS as a threat to internationalpeace and security, to explore the future effects of HIV/AIDS onStates and societies, generate research on the problem and identifycritical steps towards a long-term strategy for diminishing thethreat. (67)
(8) International donors, in partnership with national authorities andlocal civil society organizations, should undertake a major new glo-bal initiative to rebuild local and national public health systemsthroughout the developing world. (68)
(9) Members of the World Health Assembly should provide greaterresources to the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Out-break Alert and Response Network to increase its capacity to copewith potential disease outbreaks. (69)
(10) States should provide incentives for the further development ofrenewable energy sources and begin to phase out environmentallyharmful subsidies, especially for fossil fuel use and development. (71)
(11) We urge Member States to reflect on the gap between the promiseof the Kyoto Protocol and its performance, re-engage on the problemof global warming and begin new negotiations to produce a new
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long-term strategy for reducing global warming beyond the periodcovered by the Protocol (2012). (72)
Conflict between and within States
(12) The Security Council should stand ready to use the authority ithas under the Rome Statute to refer cases of suspected warcrimes and crimes against humanity to the International CriminalCourt. (90)
(13) The United Nations should work with national authorities, interna-tional financial institutions, civil society organizations and the pri-vate sector to develop norms governing the management of naturalresources for countries emerging from or at risk of conflict. (92)
(14) The United Nations should build on the experience of regionalorganizations in developing frameworks for minority rights and theprotection of democratically elected Governments from unconsti-tutional overthrow. (94)
(15) Member States should expedite and conclude negotiations onlegally binding agreements on the marking and tracing, as well asthe brokering and transfer, of small arms and light weapons. (96)
(16) All Member States should report completely and accurately on allelements of the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms,and the Secretary-General should be asked to report annually tothe General Assembly and Security Council on any inadequacies inthe reporting. (97)
(17) A training and briefing facility should be established for new orpotential special representatives of the Secretary -General andother United Nations mediators. (101)
(18) The Department of Political Affairs should be given additionalresources and should be restructured to provide more consistentand professional mediation support. (102)
(19) While the details of such a restructuring should be left to the Secre-tary-General, it should take into account the need for the UnitedNations to have:
(a) A field-oriented, dedicated mediation support capacity,comprised of a small team of professionals with relevant dir-ect experience and expertise, available to all United Nationsmediators;
(b) Competence on thematic issues that recur in peace negotia-tions, such as the sequencing of implementation steps, the
design of monitoring arrangements, the sequencing of tran-sitional arrangements and the design of national reconciliationmechanisms;
(c) Greater interaction with national mediators, regional orga-nizations and non-governmental organizations involved inconflict resolution;
(d) Greater consultation with and involvement in peace proc-esses of important voices from civil society, especiallythose of women, who are often neglected during negotia-tions. (103)
(20) National leaders and parties to conflict should make constructiveuse of the option of preventive deployment of peacekeepers. (104)
Nuclear, radiological, chemical and biological weapons
(21) The nuclear-weapon States must take several steps to restart disar-mament:
(a) They must honour their commitments under Article VI ofthe Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons tomove towards disarmament and be ready to undertake spe-cific measures in fulfilment of those commitments;
(b) They should reaffirm their previous commitments not to usenuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon States. (120)
(22) The United States and the Russian Federation, other nuclear-weapon States and States not party to the Treaty on the Non-Pro-liferation of Nuclear Weapons should commit to practical mea-sures to reduce the risk of accidental nuclear war, including, whereappropriate, a progressive schedule for de-alerting their strategicnuclear weapons. (121)
(23) The Security Council should explicitly pledge to take collectiveaction in response to a nuclear attack or the threat of such attackon a non-nuclear weapon State. (122)
(24) Negotiations to resolve regional conflicts should include confid-ence-building measures and steps towards disarmament. (123)
(25) States not party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of NuclearWeapons should pledge a commitment to non-proliferation and dis-armament, demonstrating their commitment by ratifying the Com-prehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and supporting negotiationsfor a fissile material cut-off treaty, both of which are open to nuclear-weapon and non-nuclear-weapon States alike. We recommend that
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peace efforts in the Middle East and South Asia launch nucleardisarmament talks that could lead to the establishment of nuclear-weapon-free zones in those regions similar to those established forLatin America and the Caribbean, Africa, the South Pacific andSouth-East Asia. (124)
(26) All chemical-weapon States should expedite the scheduleddestruction of all existing chemical weapons stockpiles by theagreed target date of 2012. (125)
(27) States parties to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Conventionshould without delay return to negotiations for a credible verifica-tion protocol, inviting the active participation of the biotechnologyindustry. (126)
(28) The Board of Governors of the International Atomic EnergyAgency (IAEA) should recognize the Model Additional Proto-col as today’s standard for IAEA safeguards, and the SecurityCouncil should be prepared to act in cases of serious concernover non-compliance with non-proliferation and safeguardsstandards. (129)
(29) Negotiations should be engaged without delay and carried forwardto an early conclusion on an arrangement, based on the existingprovisions of Articles III and IX of the IAEA statute, which wouldenable IAEA to act as a guarantor for the supply of fissile materialto civilian nuclear users. (130)
(30) While that arrangement is being negotiated, States should, withoutsurrendering the right under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferationof Nuclear Weapons to construct uranium enrichment and reproc-essing facilities, voluntarily institute a time-limited moratorium onthe construction of any further such facilities, with a commitmentto the moratorium matched by a guarantee of the supply of fissilematerials by the current suppliers at market rates. (131)
(31) All States should be encouraged to join the voluntary ProliferationSecurity Initiative. (132)
(32) A State’s notice of withdrawal from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons should prompt immediate verifica-tion of its compliance with the Treaty, if necessary mandated by theSecurity Council. The IAEA Board of Governors should resolvethat, in the event of violations, all assistance provided by IAEAshould be withdrawn. (134)
(33) The proposed timeline for the Global Threat Reduction Initiativeto convert highly enriched uranium reactors and reduce HEUstockpiles should be halved from 10 to five years. (135)
(34) States parties to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Conventionshould negotiate a new bio-security protocol to classify dangerousbiological agents and establish binding international standards forthe export of such agents. (137)
(35) The Conference on Disarmament should move without furtherdelay to negotiate a verifiable fissile material cut-off treaty that, ona designated schedule, ends the production of highly enriched ura-nium for non-weapon as well as weapons purposes. (138)
(36) The Directors-General of IAEA and the Organization for the Pro-hibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) should be invited by theSecurity Council to report to it twice-yearly on the status of safe-guards and verification processes, as well as on any serious con-cerns they have which might fall short of an actual breach of theTreaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and theChemical Weapons Convention. (140)
(37) The Security Council should consult with the WHO Director-Generalto establish the necessary procedures for working together inthe event of a suspicious or overwhelming outbreak of infectiousdisease. (144)
Terrorism
(38) The United Nations, with the Secretary-General taking a leading role,should promote a comprehensive strategy against terrorism, including:
(a) Dissuasion, working to reverse the causes or facilitators ofterrorism, including through promoting social and politicalrights, the rule of law and democratic reform; working toend occupations and address major political grievances;combating organized crime; reducing poverty and unem-ployment; and stopping State collapse;
(b) Efforts to counter extremism and intolerance, includingthrough education and fostering public debate;
(c) Development of better instruments for global counter-terrorismcooperation, all within a legal framework that is respectfulof civil liberties and human rights, including in the areas oflaw enforcement; intelligence-sharing, where possible; denialand interdiction, when required; and financial controls;
(d) Building State capacity to prevent terrorist recruitment andoperations;
(e) Control of dangerous materials and public health defence.(148)
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(39) Member States that have not yet done so should actively considersigning and ratifying all 12 international conventions against ter-rorism, and should adopt the eight Special Recommendations onTerrorist Financing issued by the Organization for EconomicCooperation and Development (OECD)-supported FinancialAction Task Force on Money-Laundering and the measures rec-ommended in its various best practices papers. (150)
(40) The Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee should institute aprocess for reviewing the cases of individuals and institutions claim-ing to have been wrongly placed or retained on its watch lists. (152)
(41) The Security Council, after consultation with affected States,should extend the authority of the Counter-Terrorism ExecutiveDirectorate to act as a clearing house for State-to-State provisionof military, police and border control assistance for the develop-ment of domestic counter-terrorism capacities. (154)
(42) To help Member States comply with their counter-terrorism obliga-tions, the United Nations should establish a capacity-building trustfund under the Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate. (155)
(43) The Security Council should devise a schedule of predeterminedsanctions for State non-compliance with the Council’s counter-terrorism resolutions. (156)
(44) The General Assembly should rapidly complete negotiations on acomprehensive convention on terrorism, incorporating a definitionof terrorism with the following elements:
(a) Recognition, in the preamble, that State use of force againstcivilians is regulated by the Geneva Conventions and otherinstruments, and, if of sufficient scale, constitutes a war crimeby the persons concerned or a crime against humanity;
(b) Restatement that acts under the 12 preceding anti-terrorismconventions are terrorism, and a declaration that they are acrime under international law; and restatement that terror-ism in time of armed conflict is prohibited by the GenevaConventions and Protocols;
(c) Reference to the definitions contained in the 1999 Interna-tional Convention for the Suppression of the Financing ofTerrorism and Security Council resolution 1566 (2004);
(d) Description of terrorism as ‘any action, in addition toactions already specified by the existing conventions onaspects of terrorism, the Geneva Conventions and SecurityCouncil resolution 1566 (2004), that is intended to cause
death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants,when the purpose of such an act, by its nature or context, is tointimidate a population, or to compel a Government or aninternational organization to do or to abstain from doing anyact’. (163–164)
Transnational organized crime
(45) Member States that have not signed, ratified or resourced the 2000United Nations Convention against Transnational OrganizedCrime and its three Protocols, and the 2003 United Nations Con-vention against Corruption should do so, and all Member Statesshould support the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime inits work in this area. (172)
(46) Member States should establish a central authority to facilitate theexchange of evidence among national judicial authorities, mutuallegal assistance among prosecutorial authorities and the implemen-tation of extradition requests. (173)
(47) A comprehensive international convention on money-launderingthat addresses the issues of bank secrecy and the development offinancial havens needs to be negotiated, and endorsed by the Gen-eral Assembly. (174)
(48) Member States should sign and ratify the Protocol to Prevent, Sup-press and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women andChildren, and parties to the Protocol should take all necessarysteps to effectively implement it. (175)
(49) The United Nations should establish a robust capacity-buildingmechanism for rule-of-law assistance. (177)
The role of sanctions
(50) The Security Council must ensure that sanctions are effectivelyimplemented and enforced:
(a) When the Security Council imposes a sanctions regime –including arms embargoes – it should routinely establishmonitoring mechanisms and provide them with the neces-sary authority and capacity to carry out high-quality, in-depth investigations. Adequate budgetary provisions mustbe made to implement those mechanisms;
(b) Security Council sanctions committees should be mandatedto develop improved guidelines and reporting procedures toassist States in sanctions implementation, and to improve
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procedures for maintaining accurate lists of individuals andentities subject to targeted sanctions;
(c) The Secretary-General should appoint a senior official withsufficient supporting resources to enable the Secretary-General to supply the Security Council with analysis of thebest way to target sanctions and to assist in coordinatingtheir implementation. This official would also assist compli-ance efforts; identify technical assistance needs and coordinatesuch assistance; and make recommendations on any adjust-ments necessary to enhance the effectiveness of sanctions;
(d) Donors should devote more resources to strengthening thelegal, administrative, and policing and border-control capacityof Member States to implement sanctions. Capacity-buildingmeasures should include efforts to improve air-traffic inter-diction in zones of conflict;
(e) The Security Council should, in instances of verified, chronicviolations, impose secondary sanctions against thoseinvolved in sanctions-busting;
(f) The Secretary-General, in consultation with the SecurityCouncil, should ensure that an appropriate auditing mecha-nism is in place to oversee sanctions administration. (180)
(51) Sanctions committees should improve procedures for providinghumanitarian exemptions and routinely conduct assessments of thehumanitarian impact of sanctions. The Security Council shouldcontinue to strive to mitigate the humanitarian consequences ofsanctions. (181)
(52) Where sanctions involve lists of individuals or entities, sanctionscommittees should establish procedures to review the cases ofthose claiming to have been incorrectly placed or retained on suchlists. (182)
Part Three
Collective security and the use of force Using force: rules and guidelines
(53) Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations should be neitherrewritten nor reinterpreted, either to extend its long-established scope(so as to allow preventive measures to non-imminent threats) or torestrict it (so as to allow its application only to actual attacks). (192)
(54) The Security Council is fully empowered under Chapter VII of theCharter of the United Nations to address the full range of securitythreats with which States are concerned. The task is not to findalternatives to the Security Council as a source of authority but tomake the Council work better than it has. (198)
(55) The Panel endorses the emerging norm that there is a collectiveinternational responsibility to protect, exercisable by the Secu-rity Council authorizing military intervention as a last resort, inthe event of genocide and other large-scale killing, ethniccleansing or serious violations of humanitarian law which sover-eign Governments have proved powerless or unwilling to pre-vent. (203)
(56) In considering whether to authorize or endorse the use of militaryforce, the Security Council should always address – whatever otherconsiderations it may take into account – at least the following fivebasic criteria of legitimacy:
(a) Seriousness of threat. Is the threatened harm to State orhuman security of a kind, and sufficiently clear and serious,to justify prima facie the use of military force? In the caseof internal threats, does it involve genocide and otherlarge-scale killing, ethnic cleansing or serious violations ofinternational humanitarian law, actual or imminentlyapprehended?
(b) Proper purpose. Is it clear that the primary purpose of theproposed military action is to halt or avert the threat inquestion, whatever other purposes or motives may beinvolved?
(c) Last resort. Has every non-military option for meeting thethreat in question been explored, with reasonable groundsfor believing that other measures will not succeed?
(d) Proportional means. Are the scale, duration and intensity ofthe proposed military action the minimum necessary to meetthe threat in question?
(e) Balance of consequences. Is there a reasonable chance of themilitary action being successful in meeting the threat inquestion, with the consequences of action not likely to beworse than the consequences of inaction? (207)
(57) The above guidelines for authorizing the use of force should beembodied in declaratory resolutions of the Security Council andGeneral Assembly. (208)
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Peace enforcement and peacekeeping capability
(58) The developed States should do more to transform their existingforce capacities into suitable contingents for peace operations.(216)
(59) Member States should strongly support the efforts of the Depart-ment of Peacekeeping Operations of the United Nations Secretar-iat, building on the important work of the Panel on United NationsPeace Operations (see A/55/305-S/2000/809), to improve its use ofstrategic deployment stockpiles, standby arrangements, trust fundsand other mechanisms in order to meet the tighter deadlines neces-sary for effective deployment. (218)
(60) States with advanced military capacities should establish standbyhigh readiness, self-sufficient battalions at up to brigade level thatcan reinforce United Nations missions, and should place them atthe disposal of the United Nations. (219)
(61) The Secretary-General should recommend and the Security Coun-cil should authorize troop strengths for peacekeeping missions thatare sufficient to deter and repel hostile factions. (222)
(62) The United Nations should have a small corps of senior policeofficers and managers (50–100 personnel) who could undertakemission assessments and organize the start-up of police compo-nents of peace operations, and the General Assembly shouldauthorize this capacity. (223)
Post-conflict peacebuilding
(63) Special representatives of the Secretary-General should have theauthority and guidance to work with relevant parties to establishrobust donor-coordinating mechanisms, as well as the resources toperform coordination functions effectively, including ensuring thatthe sequencing of United Nations assessments and activities is con-sistent with Government priorities. (226)
(64) The Security Council should mandate and the General Assemblyshould authorize funding for disarmament and demobilization pro-grammes from assessed budgets for United Nations peacekeepingoperations. (227)
(65) A standing fund for peacebuilding should be established at thelevel of at least $250 million that can be used to finance the recurrentexpenditures of a nascent Government, as well as critical agencyprogrammes in the areas of rehabilitation and reintegration. (228)
(66) All combatants must abide by the Geneva Conventions. All Mem-ber States should sign, ratify and act on all treaties relating to theprotection of civilians, such as the Genocide Convention, theGeneva Conventions, the Rome Statute of the International Crim-inal Court and all refugee conventions. (233)
(67) The Security Council should fully implement resolution 1265(1999) on the protection of civilians in armed conflict. (237)
(68) The Security Council, United Nations agencies and Member Statesshould fully implement resolution 1325 (2000) on women, peaceand security. (238)
(69) Member States should support and fully fund the proposed Directo-rate of Security and accord high priority to assisting the Secretary-General in implementing a new staff security system in 2005. (239)
Part Four
A more effective United Nations for the twenty-first century The General Assembly
(70) Members of the General Assembly should use the opportunityprovided by the Millennium Review Summit in 2005 to forge a newconsensus on broader and more effective collective security. (240)
(71) Member States should renew efforts to enable the GeneralAssembly to perform its function as the main deliberative organof the United Nations. This requires a better conceptualizationand shortening of the agenda, which should reflect the contem-porary challenges facing the international community. Smaller,more tightly focused committees could help to sharpen andimprove resolutions that are brought to the whole Assembly.(242)
(72) Following the recommendation of the report of the Panel onEminent Persons on United Nations-Civil Society Relations (seeA/58/817), the General Assembly should establish a better mech-anism to enable systematic engagement with civil society organi-zations. (243)
The Security Council
(73) Reforms of the Security Council should meet the following principles:
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(a) They should, in honouring Article 23 of the Charter of theUnited Nations, increase the involvement in decision-makingof those who contribute most to the United Nations finan-cially, militarily and diplomatically — specifically in terms ofcontributions to United Nations assessed budgets, participationin mandated peace operations, contributions to the voluntaryactivities of the United Nations in the areas of security anddevelopment, and diplomatic activities in support of UnitedNations objectives and mandates. Among developed coun-tries, achieving or making substantial progress towards theinternationally agreed level of 0.7 per cent of GNP for ODAshould be considered an important criterion of contribution;
(b) They should bring into the decision-making process coun-tries more representative of the broader membership, espe-cially of the developing world;
(c) They should not impair the effectiveness of the SecurityCouncil;
(d) They should increase the democratic and accountablenature of the body. (249)
(74) A decision on the enlargement of the Council, satisfying these cri-teria, is now a necessity. The presentation of two clearly definedalternatives, of the kind described below as models A and B,should help to clarify — and perhaps bring to resolution — adebate which has made little progress in the last 12 years. (250)
(75) Models A and B both involve a distribution of seats as betweenfour major regional areas, which we identify, respectively, as“Africa,” “Asia and Pacific,” “Europe” and “Americas.” We seethese descriptions as helpful in making and implementing judge-ments about the composition of the Security Council, but make norecommendation about changing the composition of the currentregional groups for general electoral and other United Nationspurposes. Some members of the Panel, in particular our LatinAmerican colleagues, expressed a preference for basing any distri-bution of seats on the current regional groups. (251)
(76) Model A provides for six new permanent seats, with no veto beingcreated, and three new two-year term non-permanent seats,divided among the major regional areas. Model B provides for nonew permanent seats, but creates a new category of eight four-yearrenewable-term seats and one new two-year non-permanent (andnon-renewable) seat, divided among the major regional areas.(252–253)
(77) In both models, having regard to Article 23 of the Charter, amethod of encouraging Member States to contribute more to inter-national peace and security would be for the General Assembly,taking into account established practices of regional consultation,to elect Security Council members by giving preference for per-manent or longer-term seats to those States that are among the topthree financial contributors in their relevant regional area to theregular budget, or the top three voluntary contributors from theirregional area, or the top three troop contributors from theirregional area to United Nations peacekeeping missions. (254)
(78) There should be a review of the composition of the Security Coun-cil in 2020, including, in this context, a review of the contribution(as defined in paragraph 249 of the main report) of permanent andnon-permanent members from the point of view of the Council’seffectiveness in taking collective action to prevent and remove newand old threats to international peace and security. (255)
(79) The Panel recommends that under any reform proposal, thereshould be no expansion of the veto. (256)
(80) A system of “indicative voting” should be introduced, wherebymembers of the Security Council could call for a public indicationof positions on a proposed action. (257)
(81) Processes to improve transparency and accountability in the Secu-rity Council should be incorporated and formalized in its rules ofprocedure. (258)
A Peacebuilding Commission
(82) The Security Council, acting under Article 29 of the Charter of theUnited Nations and after consultation with the Economic andSocial Council, should establish a Peacebuilding Commission.(263)
(83) The core functions of the Peacebuilding Commission should be toidentify countries that are under stress and risk sliding towards Statecollapse; to organize, in partnership with the national Government,proactive assistance in preventing that process from developing fur-ther; to assist in the planning for transitions between conflict andpost-conflict peacebuilding; and in particular to marshal and sustainthe efforts of the international community in post-conflict peace-building over whatever period may be necessary. (264)
(84) While the precise composition, procedures and reporting lines ofthe Peacebuilding Commission will need to be established, theyshould take account of the following guidelines:
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(a) The Peacebuilding Commission should be reasonably small;
(b) It should meet in different configurations, to consider bothgeneral policy issues and country-by-country strategies;
(c) It should be chaired for at least one year and perhaps longerby a member approved by the Security Council;
(d) In addition to representation from the Security Council, itshould include representation from the Economic and SocialCouncil;
(e) National representatives of the country under considerationshould be invited to attend;
(f) The Managing Director of the International MonetaryFund, the President of the World Bank and, when appropri-ate, heads of regional development banks should be repre-sented at its meetings by appropriate senior officials;
(g) Representatives of the principal donor countries and, whenappropriate, the principal troop contributors should beinvited to participate in its deliberations;
(h) Representatives of regional and subregional organizationsshould be invited to participate in its deliberations whensuch organizations are actively involved in the country inquestion. (265)
(85) A Peacebuilding Support Office should be established in the Secre-tariat to give the Peacebuilding Commission appropriate Secretar-iat support and to ensure that the Secretary-General is able tointegrate system-wide peacebuilding policies and strategies,develop best practices and provide cohesive support for field oper-ations. (266)
Regional organizations
(86) In relation to regional organizations:
(a) Authorization from the Security Council should in all casesbe sought for regional peace operations;
(b) Consultation and cooperation between the United Nationsand regional organizations should be expanded and could beformalized in an agreement, covering such issues as meetingsof the heads of the organizations, more frequent exchangeof information and early warning, co-training of civilian andmilitary personnel, and exchange of personnel within peaceoperations;
(c) In the case of African regional and subregional capacities,donor countries should commit to a 10-year process of sus-tained capacity-building support, within the African Unionstrategic framework;
(d) Regional organizations that have a capacity for conflict pre-vention or peacekeeping should place such capacities in theframework of the United Nations Standby ArrangementsSystem;
(e) Member States should agree to allow the United Nations toprovide equipment support from United Nations-ownedsources to regional operations, as needed;
(f) The rules for the United Nations peacekeeping budgetshould be amended to give the United Nations the option ona case-by-case basis to finance regional operations authorizedby the Security Council with assessed contributions. (272)
The Economic and Social Council
(87) The Economic and Social Council should provide normativeand analytical leadership in a time of much debate about thecauses of, and interconnections between, the many threats weface. To that end, the Economic and Social Council shouldestablish a Committee on the Social and Economic Aspects ofSecurity Threats. (276)
(88) The Economic and Social Council should provide an arena inwhich States measure their commitments to achieving key develop-ment objectives in an open and transparent manner. (277)
(89) The Economic and Social Council should provide a regular venuefor engaging the development community at the highest level, ineffect transforming itself into a ‘development cooperation forum’.To that end:
(a) A new approach should be adopted within the Economicand Social Council agenda, replacing its current focus onadministrative issues and programme coordination with amore focused agenda built around the major themes con-tained in the Millennium Declaration;
(b) A small executive committee, comprising members fromeach regional group, should be created in order to provideorientation and direction to the work of the Economic andSocial Council and its interaction with principal organs,agencies and programmes;
UN High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change 261
(c) The annual meetings between the Economic and SocialCouncil and the Bretton Woods institutions should be usedto encourage collective action in support of the MillenniumDevelopment Goals and the Monterrey Consensus;
(d) The Economic and Social Council, with inputs from its sec-retariat and the United Nations Development Group,should aim to provide guidance on development coopera-tion to the governing boards of the United Nations funds,programmes and agencies;
(e) The Economic and Social Council should provide strong sup-port to the efforts of the Secretary-General and the UnitedNations Development Group to strengthen the coherence ofUnited Nations action at the field level and its coordinationwith the Bretton Woods institutions and bilateral donors. (278)
The Commission on Human Rights
(90) Membership of the Commission on Human Rights should be madeuniversal. (285)
(91) All members of the Commission on Human Rights should desig-nate prominent and experienced human rights figures as the headsof their delegations. (286)
(92) The Commission on Human Rights should be supported in itswork by an advisory council or panel. (287)
(93) The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights shouldbe called upon to prepare an annual report on the situation ofhuman rights worldwide. (288)
(94) The Security Council and the Peacebuilding Commission shouldrequest the High Commissioner for Human Rights to report tothem regularly on the implementation of all human rights -relatedprovisions of Security Council resolutions, thus enabling focused,effective monitoring of those provisions. (289)
The Secretariat
(95) To assist the Secretary-General, an additional Deputy Secretary-General position should be created, responsible for peace andsecurity. (293)
(96) The Secretary-General should be provided with the resources herequires to do his job properly and the authority to manage hisstaff and other resources as he deems best. To meet the needs iden-tified in the present report, the Panel recommends that:
(a) Member States recommit themselves to Articles 100 and 101of the Charter of the United Nations;
(b) Member States review the relationship between the GeneralAssembly and the Secretariat with the aim of substantiallyincreasing the flexibility provided to the Secretary-Generalin the management of his staff, subject always to hisaccountability to the Assembly;
(c) The Secretary-General’s reform proposals of 1997 and 2002related to human resources should now, without furtherdelay, be fully implemented;
(d) There should be a one-time review and replacement of per-sonnel, including through early retirement, to ensure that theSecretariat is staffed with the right people to undertake thetasks at hand, including for mediation and peacebuildingsupport, and for the office of the Deputy Secretary-Generalfor peace and security. Member States should provide fundingfor this replacement as a cost-effective long-term investment;
(e) The Secretary-General should immediately be providedwith 60 posts – less than 1 per cent of the total Secretariatcapacity – for the purpose of establishing all the increasedSecretariat capacity proposed in the present report. (296)
The Charter of the United Nations
(97) In addition to any amendment of Article 23 of the Charter of theUnited Nations required by proposed reform of the SecurityCouncil, the Panel suggests the following modest changes to theCharter:
(98) Articles 53 and 107 (references to enemy States) are outdated andshould be revised. (298)
(99) Chapter XIII (The Trusteeship Council) should be deleted. (299)
(100) Article 47 (The Military Staff Committee) should be deleted, asshould all references to the Committee in Articles 26, 45 and 46.(300)
(101) All Member States should rededicate themselves to the purposesand principles of the Charter and to applying them in a purposefulway, matching political will with the necessary resources. Onlydedicated leadership within and between States will generateeffective collective security for the twenty-first century and forge afuture that is both sustainable and secure. (302)
