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Dr. Moses Leo Gitelson Seminars

Fall 1996 Seminar Series

The Ralph Bunche Institute on the United Nations

Participants

 

1. October 2		"The Sanctity of Borders" Karel Kovanda Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to the UN
2. October 9		"EIiminahon of Nuclear Weapons: Report on the Canberra Commission" Ann Hallan Lakhdir Vice President, Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies
3. October 16		"NGO's and the Security Council" James A. Paul Executive Director, Global Policy Forum
4. October 23		"Peacekeeping and Peacemaking in the Balkans and in Africa" B.G. Ramcharan UN Secretariat, Department of Political Affairs, Africa Division
5. October 30		"Human Development" Nadia Huab Senior Human Development Advisor, UNDP
6. November 6		"Roundtable Discussion: Elechon Aftermath" Barbara Crosseite The New York Times Victor Gotbaum Center for Urban Research, CUNY
7. November 13		"Uncertainties and Certainties in the Area of UN Reform" Ingo Winkleman Pennanent Mission of the Federal Republic of Germany to the UN
8. November 20		"The UN Program for the Advancement of Women" Dorota Gierycz United Nations, DPCSD/Division for the Advancement of Women
9. December 4		"The UN in its 5Ist Year: An Indan Perspective" Prakash Shah Ambassador & Permanent Representative of India to the UN

(Summaries prepared by the Ralph Bunche Institute do not constitute transcripts of proceedings).

Conceptually, one can look at how borders have been formed in four different ways: 1 ) through war and conquest; 2) through colonial conquest; 3) through expansion; and 4) through the collapse of multinational states. Borders among established European states were a result of war and conquest. Over the course of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries, Europe commanded most of the territory of the rest of the world which resulted in the second type of border formation, by conquest of territory where previously well established societies and polities existed. The British conquest of India is a classic example of this type of expansion in which alien cultures override indigenous societies and recreate previously existing borders. The third type of border formation, somewhat similar to the second, is the expansion of European influence into sparsely populated territories, such as the jungles of Brazil, the deserts of the Sahara and other parts of Africa, and large portions of the United States. This was also the case of Russian expansion into Siberia and central Asia.

Today, there isn't a single inch of territory in the world that is unknown or in need or further exploration or "filling-out" except for the Antarctic, which is subject to a special regime. Nevertheless, even today we have the occasional conflict based on the residue of territory which does not belong to any major power and where there are disputes over who will control it. The last such instance was the clash in 1995 between Ecuador and Peru over a poorly mapped piece of land in the Andes.

The fourth type of border formation results from the collapse of multinational states. Thisis a phenomenon of the twentieth century, exemplified by the collapse of several multinational European powers after World War l: the collapse and total dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a dramatic reduction of the Russian Empire, and the collapse of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. On the rubble of these empires a collection of new countries were created or recreated, among them Poland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. From the vast expanse of Russia and Germany, a collection of about twenty new or greatly changed states were created, stretching from Finland in the north to Albania in the south. The principle on which these countries were created was a newone in international politics: the principle of national self-determination.

National self-determination is a suspect principle because the very concept of nation is unclear. Even in places like Europe it is not clear where one nation ends and another begins. Does national self-defemination apply to ethnic groups? In fractile geometry forexample, the more detail one looks at--a larger rather than smaller map of the same area--the more a measurement changes. The nature of ethnicity is also fractile. It is difficult in this world to draw a line anywhere and find that on one side there are exclusively red people and on the other exclusively blue people. There may be vast majorities of redpeople but there will be pockets of blue people within which there may be villages of red people. The closer you look the more difficult it is to draw a clean line, because along the borderline most people are actually purple.

Nations have fuzzy borders, and so translating the concept of national self-determination into a geographical concept of states with unambiguous borders is impossible. This principle, frequently upheld today in international politics, does not work, least of all in Africa, where borders were dictated by anything except the principle of ethnicity or nationhood. Of the forty odd countries of continental Africa, only Somalia is inhabited by just one ethnic group. Elsewhere, there are a number of ethnic groups which straddle any number of borders. If the principle of self-determination were applied to Africa, there would be a wholesale collapse of the African state system. The complexity of the border issue in Africa led the Organization of African Unity to recognize that however horribly African borders had been drawn by the colonial overlords, they had to be left alone.

The drawing of borders after WWI based on the principle of national self-determination was important but not sufficient. There was also the question of economic or strategicviability for these newly created countries vis-a-vis their former overlords - Austria,Hungary, and Germany. Important concessions were made and as a result the southeastern part of Czechoslovakia ended up with a substantive number of Hungarians, and Rumania with an important minority of Hungarians. The mother countries of theseminorities frequently harbored intentions of reconquest and these aspirations were realized during WWII. Not until the 1975 Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe heldin Helsinki was it decided to freeze borders in Europe which may no longer be subjected to change through forcible means.

In the wake of the end of the Cold War another major wave of border formations occurred from the collapse of multinational countries - particularly the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia - from which twenty new countries were created. While the creation of countries during the post WWI period involved detailed studies of how new borders should be drawn and plebiscites were held for people to decide who they wanted to belong to, the creation of new states in the post Cold War period was not subject to any discussion. In many cases, such as Bosnia and Ukraine, previous administrative intemal borders became international borders. As a consequence, there are countries where a vast chunk of the population is not of the majority ethnic group (in Kazastan 40% of the population is Russian for example). The Yugoslav wars are one result of this.

All borders are petrified today, and we live with the desperate hope that we can keep at bay those historical forces which at one time or another have prevailed.

(Summaries prepared by the Ralph Bunche Institute do not constitute transcripts of proceedings)

In spite of the end of the end of the Cold War and the pressures of non-nuclearcountries on countries like the United States, France and the United Kingdom to move ahead in the direction of nuclear disarmament, there has been very little interest or discussion in the United States on the feasibility or advantageousness of eliminating nuclear weapons. One problem is that few people are aware of The Canberra Commission or its results.

Before the development of nuclear weapons there was little worry in the United States about foreign military threat. There are two oceans separating the United States from the rest of the world, and Mexico and Canada are not concerns in this regard. Since more recent times, it would seem to be in the interest of the United States to eliminate nuclear weapons; one only needs imagine a nuclear bombing ofthe World Trade Center. Moreover, United States' world leadership towards abolition is essential if it is to succeed.

Why has there been so little discussion of the elimination of nuclear weapons in the United States? Nobody is thinking of elimination in the same way as they did in the early 80's when Reagan spoke of the Soviet Union in terms of an evil empire andwe were engaged in a large build-up. The issue is not on people's minds except for the worry about small quantities of nuclear material that might be picked up by terrorist groups.

The Canberra Commission - attended by Robert McNamara and General Lee Butler along with representatives speaking as individuals from Sweden, Russia, Japan, France and other nations--is a good beginning for a broader United States discussionon the elimination of nuclear weapons. The 17 member panel, through consensual agreement, is recommending the elimination of nuclear weapons. They are recommending a "no first use" pledge by all the nuclear weapon countries along with other actions such as the removal of warheads. Discussions also examined what can be done about the quantity of fission able material around the world. Russia still has a great many nuclear weapons. There is the sense that being anuclear weapon power confers status and this is a worry for other governments. For any country that feels disadvantaged by its neighbors, a nuclear weapon does seem to be an equalizer. For this reason Libya, North Korea and any number of other countries who feel threatened want to develop a nuclear capability as aprotective measure.

The report states that it is impossible to have 100% verification of elimination, anddetection is possible only where a large capability is being developed. However the Commission notes that it is better to develop a regime with powers to inspect anyone, anywhere and on short notice. Such a regime would not appear discriminatory and would apply to all.

The Commission has left some of the final decisions for the future, preferring a more realistic step-by-step approach rather than negotiating a convention now (in contrast to the groups who support the Abolition 2000 campaign). So far, the nuclear weapons countries have prevented the convening of an ad hoc committee in the Conference on Disarmament.

(Summaries prepared by the Ralph Bunche Institute do not constitute transcripts of proceedings)

The UN Security Council has always been a very powerful body and one that has cometo play an increasingly important role in international affairs and international security matters. NGOs began to look at the Council more closely because of the results of whatit was doing. The humanitarian NGOs, for example, became concerned at the conditionof innocent civilians in countries that were objects of sanctions, as these often diminishedthe availability of food, medicines and other kinds of vital supplies. Going from peace-keeping to peace-making meant that the council had an active military presence that attimes led to violence, and this also concerned NGOs. In addition, the global policy related NGOs were concerned about this newly active council's consultation process, as much occurred behind closed doors. This was felt to be particularly objectionable given the growing importance of these matters in international security affairs, and it drew another set of NGOs towards the council.

At the same time, this newly active council, which was increasingly drawing the ire of the member states, set off a process of council reform. Eventually, an open ended working group on the Security Council was set up in December, 1993. Again, NGOs felt the needto be involved in this process which was reflecting the same exclusive, behind closed doors power relations visible in the activities of the council.

The UNCED (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development) meeting in Rio and the subsequent burgeoning of NGO groupings marked a change in the power relationships between nation states, on the one hand, and NGOs on the other. The powerand legitimacy of nation states in general has been on the decline, in certain respects dueto the globalization of the world economy among other reasons. NGOs have come to bea more important voice in the concerns that are held by people all over the world.

After UNCED there was a sense at the UN that NGOs had to be more directly involvedin the work of the organization in order that it gain more legitimacy. This started the NGOreview process at ECOSOC (United Nations Economic and Social Council) which resultedlast July in a negotiated agreement. The agreement included a fairly substantial changein NGO relations with ECOSOC. ECOSOC issued a path-breaking statement wherein it"decides to recommend that the General Assembly examine, at its 51st session, thequestion of the participation of non-governmental organizations in all areas of the workof the United Nations.;.". In spite of initial opposition, the involvement of NGOs in thebroader UN reform process is now on the table of the General Assembly.

Another point in this process of change between NGOs and the Security Council resultedfrom a new type of partnership that emerged in this period between NGOs and a numberof (especially southern) member states active in aspects of the Council (either asmembers or engaged in delegations dealing with Council reform). These member stateswere searching for allies, and turned to like-minded NGOs who could give voice toopinions in the North.

Finally, one main NGO concern has been the kind of world that is emerging, and NGOs think about this in the long term. The Security Council seems to symbolize great power politics and a complete lack of the rule of law. NGOs want to work towards a more democratic world order, and given those aims they should take on the Security Counciland its role in the world. With reference to the structure of the Security Council, for example, NGOs are convinced that the greatest arms exporters are not necessarily thebest supporters of disarmament in the world.

What actually has been done by NGOs? Amnesty International, for example, speaks to individual Council member states about its concerns, and in this way places issues into the discussion of the Council. But this is very rare; for most of us in other NGOs, the Council has been something that was never dealt with. In December of 1993, a group of NGOs sent a letter to the General Assembly president asking that the newly created NGO working group be opened up to NGO input, along with other like initiatives. Regretfully, the General Assembly President felt unable to be responsive to NGO requests, and NGOs were not included in the working group.

In May of 1994, NGOs organized a conference at which the General Assembly president spoke together with other diplomats. They expressed anger about their disgraceful situation of not knowing what was occurring in the council reform process. In January, NGOs decided to set up an NGO working group on the Security Council in which major NGOs from virtually every sector of the NGO community participated. Since then, wehave met with the presidents of the General Assembly and other UN officials and have held public meetings of the NGO working group itself. We have been encouraged to become more involved, and we have taken a multi-track approach to this involvement which sets the following goals: 1 ) Council reform; 2) the specific issue of Council reformin the context of the role of NGOs; 3) a consultation process to bring NGO issues to theCouncil 4) monitoring the Council.

As we think further about the issue of NGOs in the Council, we need to answer thequestion: What are NGOs, and what is their claim to legitimacy?

(Summaries prepared by the Ralph Bunche Institute do not constitute transcripts of proceedings)

In this almost informal, off the record talk, BG Ramcharan spoke about his personal experiences as a UN envoy in Africa and Yugoslavia.

He touched on the August 1992 mission to South Africa in response to an invitation by the government of South Africa to the Secretary General to observe mass action that the ANC was organizing. Extensive meetings were conducted with the regional groups and every decision taken was reached by consensus. The observer team consisted of BG Ramcharan, a member of the regional committee, a member of the South African police, a member of the ANC and the IFB. The UN entered this situation with no ground rules. It is safe to say that by being there in this critical week, and by helping to contain the violence, UN intervention and participation made its contributionto a successful experience.

In September of 1992 BG Ramcharan was called to the International Conference on the former Yugoslavia in Geneva, and arrived with Cyrus Vance, David Owen and Herbert Okun. Yugoslavia had been encountering political and economic difficulties in the aftermath of the death of Tito. The Carrington Conference attempted to have the Yugoslavia successor states agree on a convention that dealt with economic, political, legal, and human rights issues from which might emerge a loose confederation with functional cooperation among the constituent republics with high guarantees for the protection of human and minority rights. Conflict broke out in Slovenia, they got their independence and broke off from the Republic.

In the summer of 1991 conflict broke out in Croatia between Serbs and Croats, and UN envoy Cyrus Vance negotiated a cease-fire which also provided for the placement of UN ground troops to allow negotiations to take place with a view to political solutionin Yugoslavia. By the following spring, Croatia and Slovenia and other successor republics were recognized by the UN on the basis of preexisting internal borders and the ground rules changed. In March 1992, a framework agreement for Bosnia was negotiated in which it was to recognize three constituent peoples each of whom would have territory allocated within a loose confederation with high standards of human rights. This plan was over turned in April 1992 by the Bosnian president on the basis of the violence that had broken out.In August 1992, the Secretary-General and John Major convened the London conference on the former Yugoslavia to provide for a continuous negotiating frameworkwhich included the following: the principle of negotiated solutions among the parties;the principle of non-recognition of territorial gain through the use of force; and theprinciple of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.

By September 3, 1992 Vance and Owen had to deal with four major situations: Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia. It was suggested to send an exploratory mission to Macedonia. This led to one of the success stories of the UN in the former Yugoslavia:the preventive deployment of UN forces on the borders of Macedonia with Albania and Serbia. This first ever preventive deployment of UN peacekeeping forces has kept theconcerned parties talking to date.

The Croatian government ultimately would not allow, despite negotiations, the Serbs of Croatia to be described as a constituent people of Croatia, but as a minority. The Croatian army moved against the four sectors in Croatia controlled by Serbs which the Serbs vacated. The Croatian situation was solved militarily. In Bosnia the peace process went through many phases of starts, setbacks and lost opportunities for resolution.

Ultimately the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia contributed to conflict prevention, peacemaking, peacekeeping, peace building, humanitarian andhuman rights efforts in the former Yugoslavia for a period of three and a half years.

What are the lessons to be learned? 1 ) The UN can only assist those who wish to be assisted; 2) The situation has to be ripe for solution; 3)The support of all the great powers or at least not their opposition is needed; 4) The mediators must be persistent because a break in mediation can occur at any moment.

(Summaries prepared by the Ralph Bunche Institute do not constitute transcripts of proceedings)

During the 1980's, development organizations, both national and international, began to set up special units on women in development, on non-governmental organizations, on the environment, and in other areas. This reflected the international understanding that key dimensions of development were being neglected, particularly as they related to people and their environment. By the 1990s, two new terms came into use: human development and sustainable development.

In 1990, the first annual Human Development Report sponsored by UNDP built a comprehensive case that reflected the need to change the development debate from one concerned almost exclusively with economic growth, to one concerned with the impact of economic development on people, and with people's role in the development process. It developed a methodology, the Human Development Index, to identify which groups were excluded from development and why. Each subsequent report has highlighted the national or international actions necessary to achieve human development.

In 1992, the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) articulated a holistic approach to development in Agenda 21, the inter-governmental agreement in which all nations agreed to work together for sustainable development. The term "sustainable development" had its roots in the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment of 1972, which promoted a greater understanding of the need for environmental protection in order to sustain livelihoods in both the North and the South. By the Earth Summit in 1992, sustainable development was understood to be about the inter-dependence of environmental, economic, social, cultural and political issues.

By the mid-1990s, the development community had moved from highlighting neglected dimensions of development -especially women, the environment, and NGOs- to promoting a new development paradigm that placed people at the center and sought to ensure the sustainability of development activities. This paradigm is referred to at UNDP as sustainable human development.

As defined in the annual human development report, human development focuses on three interrelated issues: 1) The development of people involves investment in human capabilities - in education, health, housing, water and sanitation, employment creation, access to credit and technology and other areas. Such investment should have regard for the natural environment, culture, national and local institutions and other factors which are crucial to sustainability; 2) Development by people means giving everyone the opportunity to participate in the decisions affecting their lives, in economic opportunities, in government, in people's organizations and in other civil and political structures which facilitate participation and promote human dignity; 3) Development for people means international equity, so that the economic returns generated are widely and fairly distributed to the people on the planet, and intergenerational equity, so that today's development does not harm the opportunities of future generations.

The Human Development Index (HDI) measures the impact of development on people's lives. It argues that it is more important to judge how a country uses it wealth to improve people's lives than to judge the country by wealth alone. The HDI measures people's ability to live long and healthy lives, to build knowledge and skills, and to have the resources for a decent standard of living. It combines three indices: life expectancy; literacy and combined school and university enrollment; and real GDP per capita in purchasing power parity dollars. The HDI gives a much better picture of how people are faring than GDP. The Netherlands, for example, is ranked 20th if judged by GDP alone, but on the HDI it ranks 4th. The HDI proves that a country does not have to be rich to invest in its people, but it does need political will.

The 1995 Human Development Report broke new ground in the century-old struggle for women's human rights. It gave us a way to measure how far every country around the world still had to go in order to achieve equal opportunity of women and men, to ensure women's empowerment and to estimate the unvalued work of women and men. While women have made tremendous advances in education and health over the last twenty years, in all countries women's participation in the public sphere is still constrained. Women still constitute 70% of the world's poor and two-thirds of the world's illiterates. In almost every country, women contribute as much total labor as men but they receive a much smaller share of the goods and services produced by total labor.

The concept of human development as well as tools for analysis have been picked up at the national level in more than half of the countries UNDP serves. In Egypt, a Think Tankon Human Development was convened by the UNDP office. In 1994, the Egypt Human Development Report was published from which recommendations for sustainable human development were adopted by governors. In Central America, UNDP was instrumental in making human development the theme of its 1991 11th Summit of Central American Presidents using data available in the global Human Development Report. As a consequence, funds were reallocated for priority social sector initiatives. Two subsequent Central America summits on sustainable development and human development reaffirmed the goals.

(Summaries prepared by the Ralph Bunche Institute do not constitute transcripts of proceedings)

There were a number of points made during the round table discussion on the elections, the Clinton Administration and the UN.

It was noted that there was little interest in the United Nations during the 1996 election campaign. No one seems to know what will happen in the second Clinton Administration. As a lame-duck president, he doesn't have to be concerned about reelection but there are some limitations on Clinton's second term. One limitation is Vice-President Gore, who will be positioning himself for a run on the presidency. He has been an excellent vice-president for Clinton and the country and one who has the president's loyalty. There is a real concern that Gore's prestige not be diminished.

Congress and its implications for the UN remains a problem. Congress is almost certainly going to doom any Boutros-Ghali candidacy if the Clinton Administration continues to buckle under Congressional pressure on international issues. One outcome of the election is that both the executive and legislative branches do not want Boutros-Ghali reelected. The viable candidates for the Secretary General ship change all the time. Kofi Annan, the Under-Secretary General of Peace-keeping Operations, is widely considered to be the US favorite.

In the discussion the following points were made:

Many people want reform, but peoples' visions of a reformed UN are different. With regard to Security Council expansion, for example, many wonder why the five victorious powers in the Second World War should still run the world. But how can the Council be changed? The developing world wants to spread out the voices; the Clinton Administration's position is to add Germany and Japan, anathema to the developing world.

In many ways the UN was an outcome of the New Deal. In addition to Security Council concerns, economic and social institutions were created by its drafters. Today in this country, the New Deal is being disowned internally. What is, then, the US rationale for supporting an international New Deal involving organizations and bodies that deal with problems far removed from home? Other countries feel themselves distanced as well from what the UN is doing. As Barry Jones, a UN diplomat says: "It seems to me that demonization on either side doesn't contribute very much. Today's United Nations warrants neither the naive idolatry nor the casual dismissiveness withwhich it is conventionally treated." The UN's fundamental contradiction is that, on the one hand, it is an organization of sovereign states, and, on the other, it is anorganization that is designed to impinge upon the activities of sovereign states. This dilemma is being reflected in the United States' reaction towards the UN.

(Summaries prepared by the Ralph Bunche Institute do not constitute transcripts of proceedings)

There are four areas of uncertainty in the matter of UN reform. The first is the uncertainty of the mandates of the various working groups; the second is the uncertainty of results that have been achieved or might be achieved; the third is uncertainty regarding tactics and strategies; and the fourth is uncertainty about who might be players in making the process of UN reform go forward. On a more optimistic note, there are two areas of certainty regarding UN reform. First, there is the certainty that in the end there will be a package deal, and second, at this stage we have some solid indications on which a time-frame for UN reform may be based.

The five working groups on UN reform are 1) the high level open-ended working group on the financial situation of the UN; 2) the ad hoc open-ended working group on the Agenda for Development; 3) the open-ended working group on the question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the security of council and other matters related to the Security Council; 4) the open-ended high level working group of the United Nations system; and 5) the informal open-ended working group on an Agenda for Peace.

With regard to the uncertainty of mandates, the terms that are used to describe the objectives of these different working groups is extremely vague, as is the decision-making process within the groups. It is also vague as to how these working groups may overlap or duplicate the work of other groups. There are some member states who are against having overlapping mandates and who prefer to see the process of UN reform carried out slowly; there are other member states who prefer a quicker solution and who view these groups as interdependent or linked and, favor dealing with important aspects of reform--such as finances--simultaneously in different groups. Moreover, the working groups are progressing at different speeds, and there is a lack of cooperation among them.

Concerning present and future results, the basic question is, what is UN reform really aiming at? What are going to be the tasks of the UN in the next century? The topic of UN reform is not a new one; it has been under continuous discussion since 1945. With regard to tactics, most of those involved in the reform process do not give signs of a clear strategy. The UN Secretariat, for example, has had an observant attitude to the process. There is no schedule for the presentation of the working groups' formal reports. The cooperation of member states--each with their own priorities--with the groups is also uncertain.

Finally, reform does not come about on its own, the leadership of different players to achieve reform results is necessary. The Secretariat and the Secretary-General have been very active in the administrative sector of Secretariat reform. But institutional aspects have been left aside.

In the area of certainty, there is the need for a package deal that includes elements of finance, institutional reform (Security Council, General Assembly, Secretariat), and development. A UN package reform deal, as in other multilateral treaty negotiations, would take various national interests into account and would compensate people differently in different areas.

The Secretary-General recently said that it was feasible to undertake a reform within two years. Moreover, the working group on the financial situation of the UN has to agree with the Fifth Committee on a new scale of assessment for the contributions of all member states within this general assembly. In almost all working groups there are ideas, models and numbers on the table. The only thing missing now is political will or concrete political negotiations on a package. Past experience in the UN indicates that reform can be achieved within 3-5 years.

The UN is badly in need of a complete structural and institutional overhaul. In the words of Diego Freitas do Amaral, president of the General Assembly and chairman of the high-level working group, member states must now deliver, the world expects this, the issues cannot just be endlessly debated, there must be action and there must be action soon.

(Summaries prepared by the Ralph Bunche Institute do not constitute transcripts of proceedings)

The Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in September 1995 reached a consensus, and there is a political commitment on the part of all participants to implement the resulting comprehensive and clear document within their respective mandates. The participating governments "determined to advance the goals of equality, development and peace for all women everywhere in the interest of all humanity". The main message of Beijing is that women are full citizens, that their rights in all spheres of society should be respected and addressed.

Beijing's twelve areas of critical concern provide for a balanced approach to women's human rights. Whenever these areas are discussed--be they matters of international decision making or household obligations--the perspectives of both men and women should be taken into consideration. A new argument that has emerged since Beijing is that in certain spheres of life, the male gender perspective itself is not sufficient. The essence of the issue is that women and men have traditionally played different social roles. Since women's roles have been restricted to certain areas, their attitudes have been based on their historical experience; they are not the result of purely biological functions. In order to live up to our commitments on equality, humans rights and the standards set forth in the UN Charter, it is necessary to incorporate these diverse perspectives. At the most practical level, gender perspectives means that since the culturally structured attitudes of one sex are excluded, the male gender perspective is extremely limited.

Mainstreaming gender perspectives at the UN level is an effort to see to what extent the work of the Beijing Conference can be integrated into other UN organs and bodies. The Division for the Advancement of Women organized a meeting on "Political Decision Making and Conflict Resolution: the Impact on Gender Differences" together with the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo. The resulting report sets new grounds for the discussion on how gender perspectives can bring new dimensions to the understanding of conflict resolution. Cease-fires, for example, often break down because negotiations are handled only between men or the military. There is no involvement of the broader civil society in the decision making or in the preservation of peace. This excludes women's traditional participation in grass roots and community organizing and the potential of its gender perspective. Humanity as a whole stands to loose. In the case of. Afghanistan, the main gender issue is the deprivation of human rights to women. There is a growing recognition that reconciliation and a lasting peace cannot be achieved if women are excluded from the process of national reconstruction.

The Division for the Advancement of Women also organized a sub regional conference of senior governmental experts in Bucharest to advise on implementing Beijing's Platform on Action in eastern and central Europe. For the first time a model national plan of implementation was worked out and was accepted by the participating countries.

What is significant since Beijing is that people who are interested in different issues are coming together on different platforms. They are trying to map out what NGOs or people in academia should do to press their governments into taking action. There is now a greater expectation that governments prepare plans in cooperation with civil society, rather than behind closed doors as was the practice.

The Commission on the Status of Women--a subsidiary body of ECOSOC--is the main inter-governmental body which sets policies for governments and gives mandate to the Division for the Advancement of Women in terms of translating the Conference in Beijing. In 1995, the Commission decided on its work program based on the 12 critical areas outlined in the Conference.. This year, empowerment and decision-making is on the agenda, along with education, decision-making in the economy, and the environment.

In some situations, the UN should take on the role of reminding member states of the principles contained in the Charter. The 1993 Conference on Human Rights in Vienna stated that no cultural tradition should be used to justify discrimination against women; there are similar provisions in the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. With all due respect for culture, there are certain principles to which all UN member nations have subscribed. Many of the conditions women face contradict all standards of human rights. If there is an attempt to achieve a permanent solution in this matter, all these issues must be put on the agenda in a non-selective way.

(Summaries prepared by the Ralph Bunche Institute do not constitute transcripts of proceedings)

Defining the role and objectives of the UN after fifty years of existence requires some introspection on how it has evolved and where it has failed. India--one of the founding nations of the UN, the world's largest democracy, and the founder of the non-aligned movement--has a perspective on the current reform exercise that is relevant. The birth of independent India almost coincided with the birth of the UN, and for a time both nourished similar hopes and dreams. Prime Minister Nehru was the guiding hand behind India's involvement in the UN and a great contributor to the idea of the non-aligned.

During the Cold War, India's foreign policy goals were similar to those of the UN: maintenance of international peace and security, self-determination for all colonial people, opposition to racism and peaceful settlement of disputes. In addition, it was hoped to secure for the newly independent nations of Africa, Asia and Latin America an independent voice and influence in the councils of the world, along with international economic assistance, to which India felt entitled. India's support for international organizations was therefore inevitable. Our involvement in the UN has been comprehensive in political, economic, social, financial and legal issues.

Initially we believed, perhaps naively, that the UN was a bold attempt to introduce principles, legality and morals in international relations. Not long after we became independent in 1947, we became the victim of aggression from the newly created stateof Pakistan. India decided to take its case, as a party aggrieved by foreign aggression, tothe United Nations. Unfortunately, big power politics and their political agendas damaged whatever hopes and aspirations we had in the morality principles and in the Charter itself. If the world is crying for UN reform, it is because the major powers failed to give the UN the credibility it so badly needed in its initial years. This was a grave national disappointment for India, but despite this, Indian leadership continues to support the Charter and principles of the UN. This lesson led us to remain outside block politics and military alliances and to create an independent voice within the UN. The policy of non-alignment in the context of the Cold War dominated the United Nations and gave countries emerging from colonialism a rallying point to bring back principles and justice into UN processes and a viable alternative for small countries between two large warring blocks.

The early fall-out between the US and the USSR made it clear that the big two would not combine for action. India was foremost in trying to prevent the UN from being paralyzed as a result. India's insistence that military power should not be considered the sole capability component of the UN assumes significance in this context. Even while its Charter was being finalized, India was involved in its conceptual endeavors in the areas of peace-keeping. India tried to point out the perennial importance of economic issues as being more fundamental than political issues as underlying causes of war and aggression, thus broadening the approach towards peace. India suggested an amendment to establish and maintain peace which outlined "recognition for fundamental human rights for all men and women irrespective of race, color or creed in all nations and in all international relations and associations of nations with one another."

India's contribution to the maintenance of international peace and security had four distinct aspects: a conceptual basis, our efforts towards peacekeeping, disarmament and decolonization. Conceptually, our voice was one of moderation and tolerance of different views and peaceful co-existence within the international Cold War context. India provided hope that militarily and economically weak countries could still command influence through excellence in ideas, initiatives and human resources in the UN and the world stage. With regard to peacekeeping during the Cold war era, India made notable contributions in Korea, Indochina, the Middle East, Congo and Cyprus. In Korea, for example, India made a persistent diplomatic endeavor to have the military campaign terminated, instinctively understanding the danger of relying on military strength in the Cold War climate. In this and other cases, India underlined the importance of negotiated compromises with a willingness to negotiate with either side. While the respective roles of the P5 and middle powers in peacekeeping were being worked out, the threat of weapons of mass destruction were growing at an alarming pace. India, along with other nations, condemned the dropping of the first two nuclear bombs on Japan, and since then India has taken up the cause of banning nuclear tests and prohibiting the production, use and ownership of nuclear weapons. Finally, our commitment to the cause of decolonization was fought to protect the rights of the newly independent states in the UN.

Since the end of the Cold War the Permanent Five, with the encouragement of some of their allies, have turned the UN into a global police force instructed by a select few to advance their national political agendas. They have forgotten the basic democratic principle of consulting the majority in the UN. The UN has been plunged into a serious financial crisis by unrepresentative and often hasty involvement in costly peacekeeping operations and unprincipled withholding of legitimate payments by major powers, particularly the US. India believes that the aggressive attempts by some counties to impose their not entirely pristine human rights philosophy on other more established and ancient civilizations and cultures vitiates the human rights role of the UN. And most unfortunate of all, the UN has been made a scapegoat for the failures of powerful nations. Our reform efforts then must be aimed at one basic premise: the UN is about multilateralism, the rule of law and consensus building. The UN should be seen as the main international organization through which all actions for peace, development and disarmament should be created.

(Summaries prepared by the Ralph Bunche Institute do not constitute transcripts of proceedings)