Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1prevdip061708.html
UNITED NATIONS, June 17 -- Are the UN's attempts at preventive diplomacy limited by the undue influence of the veto-wielding Permanent Five members of the Security Council, or by the Secretary-General's concern about winning a second term, which any of the P-5 could block? Inner City Press put the question Tuesday to Ban Ki-moon's seldom-seen Political Affairs Director, Nicholas Haysom. "You need powerful nations behind you in an initiative," Haysom replied, "whether in the P-5 or not. You have to take the powerful on board." He went on to say that there's a "danger in viewing everything through the prism of the P-5. There are Secretary-Generals who've done so and lost support among a broader range" of countries.
The academic tone of Haysom's answer was in keeping with the setting, a discussion of Bertrand Ramcharan's book "Preventive Diplomacy at the UN." Ramcharan also answered the P-5 question oblique, with a story about Richard Holbrooke at Dayton. "I was the only UN person at Dayton," Ramcharan said. "We had better deals" than Holbrooke's, but the UN "lacked power... to twist arms." Ramcharan described the Secretary-General as "in the midst of power, trying to play a role to the extent that power permits him."
Haysom tried to apply these abstract concepts to the actual docket on the UN's 38th floor this year. He rattled off the year's preventive diplomacy missions, to Myanmar and now Zimbabwe, Kofi Annan's work in Kenya, even Ban's no-comment approach to Kosovo. Haysom called this an attempt to "minimize conflict" from the declaration of independence. He said he had returned just two days about from Iraq, where he'd previously worked on the Constitution, this time considering the administration of Kirkuk issue.
To his credit, Haysom detailed some of the year's failures, characterizing of failures of, or push-back against, preventive diplomacy. He said there is a resistance to preventive diplomacy among member states, leading to the blocking of reform and regional offices of the Department of Political Affairs -- he ascribed the most strenuous opposition to Latin America -- and to resistance to the Responsibility to Protect doctrine and Ed Luck's appointment as special advisor on the topic. He said that the Security Council at times does not given clear guidance, for example this year on Ethiopia and Eritrea. He even offered constructive criticism of Ramcharan's book, saying he would have liked "more war stories." Those will be in the next book, Ramcharan said. We'll be on the lookout.
And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1prevdip061708.html
