What Canada has done
and should be doing
at the United Nations
edited by John E. Trent
2014 Edition
2014 Edition
The United Nations and Canada:
What Canada has done and should be doing at the United Nations
John E. Trent, editor
Dedication: This 2014 volume is dedicated to Claude Campbell, Invermere B.C., whose exemplary commitment to the rule of law,
human progress and rights, through the United Nations system, has been persistent and longstanding.
This volume has been compiled and published as a project of the World Federalist Movement – Canada - worldfederalistscanada.org
The views and opinions expressed in each of the articles are the sole responsibility of the authors.
The online publication can be viewed at: UnitedNationsandCanada.org
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
To view a copy of this license, visit creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
ISBN: 978-0-9939268-0-8
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Preface
The United Nations and Canada:
What Canada has done and should be
doing at the United Nations
Carolyn McAskie
Our objective in this publication is to demonstrate
that the United Nations, as a universal member-based
institution, or set of institutions, is an essential
element in the task of ensuring a sustainable global
future. We argue that in this context it is not possible
for any one country, particularly a world player like
Canada, to ‘opt out’ of its obligations as a member
state. Engagement is the sine qua non of membership.
If one of a government’s primary responsibilities is to
protect its own interests in the world, the current
snubbing of the United Nations by Canada is difficult
to understand. In a world of globalized economic
risk, political and security crises, interlinked
environmental and health effects, along with ongoing
humanitarian crises and pressing development needs,
it has become virtually impossible for any one
government to stand alone if it wishes to influence
global events and decisions. Working together is not
‘going along to get along’.
Prior to the time of the current government, Canada
played a leading role at the United Nations. A
Canadian, John Humphrey, was one of the principal
architects of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights in 1948. Canadian diplomacy supported the
broadening of membership, decolonization, NorthSouth Dialogue, the Rio Summit on Environment and
Development, negotiations to halt ozone layer
depletion and acid rain, and efforts to end apartheid in
South Africa. More recent Canadian initiatives include
campaigns to ban land mines and curtail the trade in
blood diamonds, the establishment of the
International Criminal Court, and orchestrating
awareness of the plight of child soldiers.
Canadians have worked with others over the years to
improve and reform the UN in response to changing
needs. Former Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson won
the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in introducing
peacekeeping to the UN. We have worked to improve
openness in the Security Council. More recently,
Canada funded the Commission that created the
concept of ‘Responsibility to Protect,’ putting human
rights over outmoded views of national sovereignty.
Canada has been an active and generally successful
player at the UN.
Carolyn McAskie has had a career in the
Canadian International Development
Agency, as Assistant Deputy Minister
(ADM) for Multilateral Affairs, and ADM
for African Programs, followed by almost
a decade in the United Nations, as
Assistant Secretary General
Humanitarian Affairs, as SRSG of the UN
Mission in Burundi and ASG
Peacebuilding (launching the UN’s new
Peacebuilding Commission).
1
e United Nations is a multi-faceted, hydra-headed
entity which performs a variety of functions through its
various organs: regulatory, humanitarian,
developmental, human rights and the most high-profile
political and security functions. ere are uncountable
daily events, affecting us all, regulated and supervised
through a wide range of UN bodies, from aviation safety
(the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation
Organization), postal systems, telecommunications,
labour laws, health standards and international
agriculture. Global systems of human rights,
humanitarian assistance, development cooperation,
international law and international peace and security all
operate through UN member bodies and activities.
In all aspects of the UN’s work and decision making,
whether in the Security Council, the UN Development
Program, or any of the UN’s member bodies or
programs, it is member states that run the show and
pay the piper. The UN is not an entity unto itself,
engaging in unilateral action. When ‘the UN’ cannot
agree on a course of action, it is because member states
cannot or will not agree. The outdated Security Council
veto compounds the problem but it is member states
that have been unable to amend the voting formula. If
there are problems and dysfunctionalities, it is up to
member states to fix them. Walking away is not a 21st
century option.
It is in the field of peace and security where the greatest
confusion arises, both in the minds of the public and in
2
the claims of the current Canadian government. We are
living in a time of troubling political crises. Syria, Ukraine
and the Middle-East are the most prominent, but others,
less noticeable in the headlines but equally serious,
continue: Central African Republic (CAR), Mali, the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). If solutions are
hard to find, it is not the fault of a disembodied ‘UN’; the
blame lies with intractable players and paralyzed external
actors. ese crises can only be solved through careful and
consistent engagement.
e same is true of longer-term challenges. For example,
the complex tinderbox of poverty, famine, drought,
environmental degradation, poor governance and
terrorism must be tackled in a comprehensive manner, by
governments engaging in and across the spectrum of UN
agencies that deal with political, security, human rights,
environmental, development, and humanitarian issues.
In peacekeeping, Canada – still living with twenty year
old memories of UN failures in Bosnia and Rwanda –
refuses to recognize the massive UN reforms which have
supported the creation of successful multi-dimensional
UN peace operations in Timor Leste, Kosovo, Liberia,
Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire, Burundi and Somalia. We
disparage the lack of UN success in ongoing conflicts in
Sudan and the DRC, forgetting that the DRC operation
has never had more than 20,000 UN troops. In
comparison, Afghanistan had more than 140,000 US and
NATO troops and can hardly be called a success. Canada
has 118 UN peacekeepers out of 98,800, a statistical
anomaly rather than a contribution. e message here is
either engage and support or stop criticizing.
Canada, have simply not made their promised
contributions.
Our ability to influence debates and outcomes is further
reduced by our behaviour in many UN bodies: not
signing the treaty to regulate the arms trade; walking
away from the Kyoto Protocol; cutting our aid program,
including UN voluntary contributions; slashing our
diplomatic capabilities; tightening restrictions on
refugees. Our ‘principled stand’ is meaningless if we are
not a serious player.
Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in 1835 about ‘self-interest
properly understood’. e Canadian government has
fallen into the trap of preaching self-interest in a narrow
‘what’s good for Canada’ sense, but self-interest ‘properly
understood’ means appreciating that the self-interest of
others – the global good – is in fact a precondition for
one’s own ultimate well-being.
e point of these discussion papers is not to claim
perfection on the part of the UN. It remains an
organization in need of reform, something it undertakes
regularly. e capacity of the UN to adapt itself to
changing conditions is based on its legitimacy as an allinclusive universal organization and its founding
principles of peaceful settlement of disputes, supported
by economic and social development and respect for
human rights. In the UN, reform is a constant.
Much of what observers castigate as weaknesses are, in
fact, the UN’s strengths. Human rights abusers sit on the
Human Rights Council where they can be confronted.
Enemies, old and new, sit across from each other on the
Security Council, and their representatives talk to each
other in the corridors. True, the new Peacebuilding
Commission has not done nearly enough to rebuild the
states on its agenda that are recovering from conflict, but
the truth is that members of the Commission, including
This is not an idealistic view; it is a mark of
pragmatism. It is in Canada’s interest, dependent as we
are on trade and international mobility, to help create a
peaceful, democratic, more equitable and sustainable
world. The current concept of a ‘principled foreign
policy’ focuses narrowly on short-term and mainly
commercial or domestic political issues, and often
works against Canada’s longer-term self-interest.
Canada cannot absolve itself of its wider responsibilities as
a member of the United Nations., We would abandon our
allies, leaving them to carry the burden, and we would
lose the opportunity to influence world events in a way
that will advance our own long-term interests.
We hope that readers will find the contributions of our
authors – all of whom are writing in a personal capacity –
enlightening and informative. If we can help readers to
understand more about how the world of the United
Nations functions, we will have achieved our objective.
3
Table of
Contents
4
Warren Allmand
One world, one human race, universal human rights
6
Lloyd Axworthy
When will Canada rejoin the UN?
8
Michael Byers
The UN and the law of the sea: from the Arctic to the South China Sea
10
Ferry de Kerckhove
Canada: Absent and invisible
12
Walter Dorn
Unprepared for peace: A decade of decline in Canadian peacekeeping
14
Robert Fowler
Why Canada was not elected to the Security Council two years ago,
and why we will never be elected unless and until there is a fundamental change in our foreign policy
16
Louise Frechette
Reforming the UN, one step at a time
18
Christian Holz
Canada as pariah in international climate politics
20
Naomi Kikoler
R2P – Getting back in the game, easier than some might think
22
Shannon Kindornay
The UN’s post-2015 sustainable development goals and Canada
24
Peter Langille
Revitalizing an agenda for peace
26
Peggy Mason
Why UN peacekeeping is indispensable
28
Alex Neve
Canada, human rights and the UN: It starts at home
30
Diana Rivington
Gender equality and the United Nations: Can Canada get back in front?
32
Douglas Roche
Canada and the humanitarian movement to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
34
Allan Rock
Selecting the Secretary-General: How to improve the process
.36
Ian Smillie
The UN and humanitarian assistance: A little respect, please
38
John Trent
Re-thinking the United Nations
40
Kathryn White
Canadian perceptions of the United Nations
42
5
One world, one human race, universal human rights
Warren Allmand
ABSTRACT
When the United Nations was
established in 1945, there was a strong
belief that the new international order
should be built on a foundation of
human rights. The Charter included
several significant provisions to this end.
Soon a number of important human
rights instruments were adopted,
notably the 1948 Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, with Canada’s John
Humphrey playing a leading role.
The UN’s human rights machinery has
evolved and improved over the years,
although it is still far from perfect. But
the solution is not to weaken or dissolve
the UN. Our goal must be to strengthen
the implementation procedures and
oversight mechanisms.
Canada in the past has shown great
leadership in supporting the UN’s
peacekeeping, development and human
rights programs. This is a proud tradition,
which should be enhanced and
continued.
6
e principle tenet of human rights doctrine is that
human rights are universal. ey apply equally to all
human beings no matter what their race, their
language, their religion, their gender, or age. ey
apply to minorities and majorities, to our allies and to
our enemies, to Arabs, the Roma, the disabled, the
poor, indigenous peoples, and the least developed.
In 1945 the United Nations recognized that you could
not have world peace without respect for universal
human rights. As a result the UN Charter included
several significant provisions to this end: the principle
of non-discrimination, the self-determination of
peoples, and the commitment to international
cooperation for the promotion of human rights for all
peoples. e UN Charter called for the establishment
of a Commission on Human Rights, which was set up
in 1946 and its first task was the draing of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
It must be remembered that these initiatives took
place in the aermath of World War II where horrible
abuses had taken place – the Holocaust, the
indiscriminate bombing of innocent civilians, ethnic
cleansing, murder, rape and torture. All of these were
still fresh in the minds of those who pressed forward
the UN Charter and the International Bill of Human
Rights. ere was also a recognition that the other
goals of the UN (international peace and security,
plus economic and social development) were closely
interdependent with a respect for human rights and
all had to be pursued together.
Driven by the contributions of Eleanor Roosevelt,
Rene Cassin and Canadian John Humphrey, the
Commission on Human Rights completed the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and it
was adopted in the General Assembly by a vote of 48
to 0 with 8 abstentions. is was an outstanding
achievement, an important landmark in human
history. Eleanor Roosevelt described the Universal
Declaration as the Magna Carta for all mankind. It is
hard to believe that such a high set of standards was
adopted by so many states of different cultures,
religions, languages, races and political systems but
there was the political will at the time to make it
happen.
is was supplemented by the Convention against
Genocide passed by the UN the same week. en, in
turn, the UN adopted the four Geneva Conventions,
establishing specific war crimes (1949), the Refugee
Convention (1951), the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights – and the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
(1967), plus conventions against Racial
Discrimination (1969), against Apartheid (1971) and
against Torture (1984). ere were also conventions
establishing the Rights of Women (1981) and the
Rights of Children (1989). All of this to say that the
United Nations has been extremely successful in
adopting human rights standards applicable to the
whole world, to all peoples, to all continents and to all
races and cultures. ere has been, however, a serious
problem with implementation.
It was expected that the highest level of
implementation would be accomplished by the
passage of implementing legislation by the ratifying
states, with Human Rights Charters and Human
Rights Commissions in all states, all in accordance
with the Paris Principles adopted by the UN in 1993.
It should be noted that Canada has ratified all the
major human rights conventions mentioned above,
has legislated these human rights standards, set up
human rights commissions and adopted a Charter of
Rights and Freedoms. Many other countries have
done the same. Despite this, there are still too many
wars, too many conflicts, and too many human rights
violations - Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Ukraine, the
Roma in Europe, and Indigenous peoples in the
Americas.
In fact there is no state without fault. But the solution
is not to weaken or diminish the UN and
international institutions. Our goal must be to
strengthen the implementation procedures and the
oversight mechanisms. e adoption by the UN of
numerous human rights instruments since 1945
indicates a determination to make these rights a
living reality and an essential condition for peace. e
International Criminal Court was set up in 1998;
Universal Periodic Review of all UN members in
2006; and the Responsibility to Protect doctrine was
recognized by the UN in 2005, while efforts are now
being made to fine-tune its implementation
procedures. e task for Canadians and for all
mankind is to work together to advance the cause of
peace, justice and human rights. is cannot be done
by individual states or by a small coalition of states.
To be truly successful, it must be a universal effort
through a reformed, more effective United Nations.
Canada in the past has shown great leadership in
supporting United Nations peacekeeping,
development and human rights. is is a proud
tradition, which should be enhanced and continued.
The Hon. Warren Allmand P.C., O.C., Q.C.
is the current National President of the
World Federalist Movement – Canada.
He was president of Rights & Democracy
(the International Centre for Human
Rights and Democratic Development)
from 1997 to 2002. This followed a 33year career as a Member of Parliament,
during which he held several cabinet
posts, including Solicitor General,
Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs,
and Minister of Consumer and Corporate
Affairs.
7
When will Canada rejoin the UN?
Lloyd Axworthy
Abstract
The present government clearly doesn't
want to engage with the UN in any
meaningful way. Canadians who want
our country to be an active international
player can do more than simply prepare
for the 2015 election. Civil society
groups, think tanks, universities,
business associations and, in particular,
political parties need to re-think and reset Canadian policy, to determine where
and how Canada can add real value to a
rejuvenated UN. This doesn't mean reinventing the wheel. There are numerous
well-established areas of Canadian
involvement over the previous seven
decades. But new technologies can also
play important parts, strengthening
capacities for peacekeeping, preventive
diplomacy, civilian protection, responses
to humanitarian crises and climate
change, among other challenges that
will undoubtedly confront tomorrow’s UN.
8
It seems somewhat surreal to be composing thoughts
about Canada's contributions to the UN when aside
from paying its dues (reluctantly), and taking a role
on maternal mortality (constructive), there isn't much
to relate. And, while it is always tempting to adopt a
prescriptive mode, it’s clear that most ideas or
recommendations will never make the ministerial
briefing book. e reality is that the present
government openly and with forethought doesn't
want to engage with the UN in any meaningful way.
In fact, it's not particularly interested in any kind of
multilateral, collaborative, ‘internationalist’
engagement.
So, what should those Canadians who subscribe to
the need for our country to be an active international
player, other than as a warrior state, do until there is a
chance through the electoral process to make a
change? e question is not irrelevant. First, there
will be an election in 2015. Second, some pundits are
predicting that foreign affairs will be an important
issue. is would not be such a surprise; I recall
several elections when there was debate on our
international posture. ink of cruise missiles, free
trade, the Iraq war and the Ottawa land mines treaty.
And third, it is time that serious thought be given to a
revised approach to where and how Canada can add
real value to a rejuvenated UN at a time when the
international consensus is fracturing, transnational
issues are multiplying and international institutions
are struggling.
is re-think doesn't need government involvement
or support. It can be a public exercise in pre-election
agenda-making – the work of civil society groups,
think tanks, universities, business associations and, in
particular, political parties. ere are two points to
make here. One is that these institutions must see
foreign policy focused on UN-centred security,
development and environmental issues as crucial to
their wellbeing and to the presence and power of the
country. Centering exclusively on trade, for example,
without consideration of how trade only prospers in a
rules-based, well ordered global system is myopic.
Second, there must be a concerted effort to have the
political parties, especially those in opposition, break
out of the policy straitjackets determined by
spinmeisters and think deeply about how they will
govern a world of conflict, environmental crisis, food
and water shortage, and now the competition from
Vladimir Putin and others who want to re-create a
world of empires.
Before the 1993 election, Jean Chretien asked me to
hold a series of forums on foreign policy that would
involve party people at the constituency level, experts
and stakeholders of various kinds, and invited guests
from international institutions. e session in
Vancouver on UN matters was the seedbed for the
human security strategy that informed our
government’s outlook for the next ten years. is kind
of policy entrepreneurship is imperative to our
political system.
is doesn't mean re-inventing the wheel. ere are
already well established areas of involvement that
have defined Canada internationally, beginning with
basic support for the UN that goes back seventy years,
with various interpretations relating to changes in the
global environment. We are at one of those moments
now where the principles of international cooperation
and engagement hold true but the ways and means of
articulating, expressing and implementing them need
revision and recalibration.
Begin with the fundamental purpose of protecting
innocent people from atrocities and other risks to
their existence. is was the thrust of Canadian
efforts when we were a member of the Security
Council, and in setting up the Commission that led to
the concept of the responsibility to protect (R2P).
2015 will be the tenth anniversary of the adoption of
R2P at the UN World Summit, an appropriate time to
review and reinvigorate the concept.
A 2014 report from the Secretary General highlights
the need to strengthen the capacity to enhance and
enforce preventative, non-military interventions
under R2P. e same is true for other functions of the
UN, including peacekeeping. And, I dare say, to
broaden the R2P concept beyond a narrow focus on
atrocities. Mass starvation, epidemics and climate
degradation affect hundreds of thousands of people
just as badly.
ere are interesting discussions around the use of
new technology such as drones to reduce direct
military involvement and risk. ese new tools can
also be used for peace making, early warning,
surveillance and monitoring. Digital technology can
be used to share information with and in states that
are threatened as much by starvation as by extremist
militias. ere is some fascinating work being done
by certain NGOs (e.g. e Enough Project in New
York) on using economic and financial forensics to
track down the illegal use of metals by warlords to
finance their operations. is information is then
supplied to corporate customers such as Apple and
Intel to cut off such supplies. e rise of non-violent
protests and resistance movements to topple
authoritarian and despotic governments has given
rise to research on the effectiveness of such tactics as
opposed to armed rebellion (see July/August 2014
Foreign Affairs).
All this points to the potential for a new toolkit to
apply to R2P initiatives, peacekeeping, refugee
protection, large scale drought and starvation.
ese are all areas that need discussion, dialogue,
research and partnering among Canadians who want
a constructive role as a member of the UN. And the
time le to make it happen is short.
Dr. Lloyd Axworthy served until July
2014 as President and Vice-Chancellor of
the University of Winnipeg. His political
career spanned 27 years, during six of
which he served in the Manitoba
Legislative Assembly and twenty-one in
the Federal Parliament. He held several
Cabinet positions, notably Minister of
Employment and Immigration, Minister
Responsible for the Status of Women,
Minister of Transport, Minister of Human
Resources Development, Minister of
Western Economic Diversification and
Minister of Foreign Affairs from 19962000. He graduated in 1961 with a BA
from United College (now The University
of Winnipeg), and received an MA and
PhD from Princeton University.
9
The UN and the law of the sea:
From the Arctic to the South China Sea
Michael Byers
ABSTRACT
A US-flagged ice-strengthened supertanker, the SS Manhattan, sailed through
the Northwest Passage in 1969 without
seeking Canada’s permission. Canada’s
diplomats immediately set to work,
crafting a strategy to protect this
country’s interests in the event of further
challenges to our Northwest Passage
claim. Central to the strategy was a close
involvement in the negotiation and
drafting of the UN Convention on the
Law of the Sea. As a result of Canadian
leadership, Article 234 of the Convention
allows coastal states to enact laws
against maritime pollution out to 200
nautical miles from shore in the Arctic.
Canadian leadership also resulted in
provisions of the UN Convention that
provide coastal states with extensive
jurisdiction over seabed resources, a
matter of no small importance to Canada
which has the longest coastline of any
country. From the Arctic to the South
China Sea, countries around the world
accepted the validity of these rules
today. And when differences of opinion
arise, they do so within a legal
framework, which reduces the risk of
armed conflict.
10
A US-flagged ice-strengthened super-tanker, the SS
Manhattan, sailed through the Northwest Passage in
1969 without seeking Canada’s permission. Canada’s
diplomats immediately set to work, craing a strategy
to protect the country’s interests in the event of
further challenges to our Northwest Passage claim.
eir response was the Arctic Waters Pollution
Prevention Act, which Parliament adopted the next
year. e Act imposed strict safety and environmental
requirements on all shipping within 100 nautical
miles of Canada’s Arctic coast. In doing so, it
stretched the limits of international law, which at the
time did not recognize coastal state rights more than
12 nautical miles from shore.
e United States declared the Arctic Waters
Pollution Prevention Act illegal, but Canada’s
diplomats persisted. ey focused on a negotiating
process that was beginning at the United Nations with
the goal of producing a globally applicable UN
Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Canada’s Alan Beesley was elected as the chair of the
draing committee, positioning him at the centre of
Great Power diplomacy. At one closed-door session
with just the American and Soviet delegations,
Beesley secured Article 234 of the UN Convention,
the so-called “Arctic exception” which allows coastal
states to enact laws against maritime pollution out to
200 nautical miles from shore when almost yearround ice creates exceptional navigational hazards.
e Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act was
legitimized internationally, just 12 years aer its
adoption. Just as importantly, Article 234 sparked the
development of a parallel rule of “customary
international law” that is today regarded as binding
on all countries – including those, like the United
States, that have not yet ratified the UN Convention.
Indeed, the United States now recommends that USflagged merchant vessels abide by the Arctic Waters
Pollution Prevention Act when sailing in or near
Canada’s Arctic waters.
Beesley and his colleagues also succeeded in
advancing Canada’s interests with regards to ocean
resources. Under the UN Convention, each coastal
state is entitled to a 12 nautical mile territorial sea as
well as an “exclusive economic zone” from 12 to 200
nautical miles where, as the name suggests, it holds
exclusive rights over the resources of the water
column, ocean floor and seabed.
Canada’s diplomats also recognized that new
technologies and higher prices would eventually lead
to the exploitation of oil, gas and minerals more than
200 nautical miles from shore, including in the
relatively shallow waters near Canada’s Atlantic and
Arctic coasts. ey helped cra Article 76 of the UN
Convention, which accords coastal states rights over
an “extended continental shelf ” beyond 200 nautical
miles, if the depth and shape of the seabed and the
thickness of underlying sediments indicate a “natural
prolongation” of the shelf closer inshore. Article 76
specifies that the existence of a natural prolongation is
a question of science, not technological competence
or military might, and it lays out detailed rules
concerning the geographical and geological criteria
that must be fulfilled.
Countries wishing to claim an extended continental
shelf must submit supporting scientific evidence to
the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental
Shelf, a body composed entirely of scientists. Norway
filed its submission in 2006, and Canada, Denmark
and Russia are preparing to file their submissions
soon. Even the United States, although it has not yet
ratified the UN Convention, has been cooperating
with Canada to collect scientific evidence from the
seabed north of Alaska to support an eventual claim.
because the rules apply globally. China, for instance,
is using Article 76 to support its seabed claims in the
East China Sea. It is using other provisions of the UN
Convention to support its quite different claims in the
South China Sea, and while those claims are
contentious, the fact that the dispute is framed in
legal terms reduces the possibility of armed conflict.
So the next time that someone says the Arctic is “up
for grabs”, that Canada needs to “use it or lose it”, or
that China is behaving in an unbridled manner in the
East and South China Seas, tell them about the UN
Convention on the Law of the Sea – and the central
role that Canada played in its negotiation.
Michael Byers holds the Canada Research
Chair in Global Politics and International
Law at the University of British Columbia.
He is the author of International Law and
the Arctic (Cambridge University Press),
which won the 2013 Donner Prize for the
best book on Canadian public policy.
Everyone benefits from these rules. e sheer size of
the Arctic Ocean and the lengths of uncontested
coastlines mean that Russia could legitimately claim
an expanse of seabed larger than Europe. Canada,
with the world’s longest coastline, could claim an area
larger than Alberta and Saskatchewan combined.
Most importantly, countries that do not border on the
Arctic Ocean accept the validity of this process,
11
Canada: Absent and invisible
Ferry de Kerckhove
e Harper government either ignores the world of
international organizations or uses them à la carte
while criticizing the menu. It has been vociferous in
its criticism of the UN’s positions on the Middle East
crisis. Foreign Minister Baird has rebutted Navi Pillay,
outgoing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,
accusing her of being deeply misinformed when she
alluded to potential Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
ABSTRACT
The Government of Canada continues to
have a difficult relationship with the
multilateral world. It is highly
disparaging towards the UN, particularly
with respect to the Middle East and the
security of Israel. The realization that
Canada is no longer considered to be
reasonable or reliable, even amongst
those who share our values, should be an
inducement for the government to open
up to the multilateral world. The Prime
Minister should announce at the UNGA
that Canada is “back in the game”, but he
will have to mean it.
12
is government does not care about Canada’s
reputation abroad. It is no wonder Canada is no
longer considered a reliable, even-handed partner in
multilateral forums. is evidently does not worry a
government whose unofficial foreign policy motto
seems to be “we don’t go along to get along.” Some
foreign representatives have said privately they will
no longer go along with Canada because they no
longer get along with it. Compassion is not a strong
suit of the Harper government. It has demonstrated
limited understanding and fairness with respect to
the crises in the Middle East, remaining mute on the
continued expansion of Israeli settlements. Its
campaign at the UN against the Palestinian call for an
observer status at the UNGA is not helping peace and
stability in the region.
e present government has a tendency to appear
systematically antagonistic on nearly every
international issue, bullying from the pulpit and even
ignoring the interests of its closest ally, as with its
failure to support the U.S. when it began tentative
negotiations with Iran. e government has a hard
time admitting that the pursuit of Canada’s national
interests on the international stage demands greater
attention to the interests of others. is may explain
why Canada matters so little today. When the
President of the United States listed the countries he
consulted with on Ukraine, Canada was hardly
mentioned. Multilateral cooperation no longer seems
to be our thing. Our Prime Minister goes it alone,
“strong and free,” with little regard for what others are
doing – even when, perchance, the objectives are the
same.
While the Canadian government takes a lot of pride
in what it thinks it has achieved in the field of
maternal and infant mortality – albeit with very
restrictive policies on reproductive rights – its
approach has been very Canada-centric. Canada does
work with the World Health Organization, the United
Nations Population Fund, UNICEF and the World
Bank on this initiative, but it looks at them strictly as
executing agencies, not as part of the global
commons. Even the language used to describe the
initiative doesn’t convey a sense of multilateral
partnership. For example, “With multilateral and
global partners, such as UN agencies, Canada works
in countries where the need is greatest…” And John
Baird dismisses UN reform: “It is much more
important to consider what the United Nations is
achieving than how the UN arranges its affairs.”
Last year the Prime Minister again went to New York
at the time of UN General Assembly, but he declined
to give the Canadian address at the time of the
UNGA opening. Mr. Harper used to appear more
comfortable with intergovernmental groupings such
as the G-8. It seems of late, however, that the PM
tends to play “cavalier seul,” remaining invisible
unless he has managed to irritate his closest allies, as
with the U.S. initiative on Iran or its negotiations
between Israel and the Palestinians. Global
Citizenship is not a very strong motivation.
Altering the Harper government’s perspective on
multilateral organizations is a challenge, because it
feels it has nothing to learn from the multilateral
world. Given the crises arising all over the world
today, however, Canada will sooner or later have to reenter the multilateral tent because the chambers and
hallways of the UN are where many of these issues will
be addressed. Canada should be there. Holding the
high ground, as it believes it does, on issues of rights,
ethics and justice, the Harper government should be
prepared to discuss these where they are considered
multilaterally, rather than bemoan and blame. e
Prime Minister should announce at the UNGA that
Canada is “back in the game”, but he will have to mean
it. Otherwise, the world will look forward to a change
of the guard in Canada.
Although foreign policy issues typically play no major
role in elections, the negative perception of Canada
within the multilateral world, the realization that
Canada is no longer considered a reliable partner,
should act as a bellwether. e Government needs to
reassure Canadians and the world that multilateral
cooperation is again part and parcel of its foreign
policy narrative.
Ferry de Kerckhove entered the Canadian
Foreign Service in 1973. His postings
included Iran, NATO, Moscow, High
Commissioner to Pakistan and
Ambassador to Indonesia and Egypt. He
retired from the Foreign Service in 2011.
He is a Senior Fellow at the Graduate
School of Public and International Affairs
at the University of Ottawa, Senior
Fellow of the Canadian Defence and
Foreign Affairs Institute, and Executive
Vice President of the Conference of
Defense Associations Institute. He is a
board member of WIND Mobile Canada.
He is President of Ferry de Kerckhove
International Consultants Inc.
13
Unprepared for peace:
A decade of decline in Canadian peacekeeping
A. Walter Dorn
ABSTRACT
Canada’s international reputation as a
prolific and proficient peacekeeper has
been in decline for over a decade, owing
to the country’s disengagement with
peacekeeping operations. This loss of
experience abroad is compounded by the
loss of training at home, leaving Canada
unprepared to re-engage with UN
peacekeeping at the level it once did. As
the peacekeepers of the 1990s retire, and
as the courses and exercise that were
developed to prepare officers for the
unique challenges of peacekeeping are
cut, Canada’s future foreign policy
options are being undermined and
narrowed. Given the international
demands of the post-Afghanistan era,
there are a number of things the
Canadian Forces and government can do
to reengage in peacekeeping.
14
Peacekeeping has a place of pride in Canadian history
and identity. Canadians know that Lester B. Pearson
proposed the first peacekeeping force to move the
world back from war in the 1956 Suez Crisis, winning
him the Nobel peace prize. From then to the mid1990s, Canada was the largest contributor of
peacekeepers and the only country to have
contributed to every UN mission during the Cold
War. From Kashmir to the Congo, from Bosnia to
Ethiopia, Canadian soldiers were at the forefront of
world order, contributing to peace in war-torn lands.
is is still recognized by the Canadian Peacekeeping
Service Medal that they are entitled to wear. e
National Peacekeeping Monument (called
“Reconciliation”) in Ottawa is another testament to
their contributions, as is the female figure on the tendollar bill who wears a blue beret under a banner that
reads “Au Service de la Paix – In the Service of Peace.”
But what has become of that legacy? Is Canada the
prolific peacekeeper it once was? Unfortunately, the
answer is no. While Canada once contributed as
many as 3,000 military personnel to peacekeeping, it
currently provides only 34 – not enough to fill a
school bus. While the United Nations currently (July
2014) deploys an all-time high of over 80,000 military
personnel in the field, Canada has kept its numbers at
historical lows since 2006. Two months aer the
Conservative government came to power, Canada
withdrew its 200 logisticians from the Golan Heights,
even as the UN mission continued to serve as an
important buffer between Israel and war-wrecked
Syria. Aer 2001, instead of peacekeeping, Canada
turned to war-fighting, spending billions on
Afghanistan in an unsuccessful bid to defeat the
Taliban. e Canadian Forces became a singlemission military with Afghanistan as the sole focus of
attention. In that one decade, operating in one
country, more Canadian soldiers died than in six
decades of peacekeeping in more than 40 countries.
To make matters worse, over the past decade, the
Canadian Forces (CF) permitted a major decline in
training and education for peacekeeping – known as
peace support operations (PSOs) in Canadian
military parlance and doctrine. e government’s
withdrawal of support to the Pearson Peacekeeping
Centre caused the demise of that unique facility and
meant that Canadian soldiers could no longer train
on multidimensional peace operations alongside
civilians and foreign officers. More broadly, the CF
provides only half the peacekeeping training activities
that it did 10 years ago. Significantly, in training
exercises and simulations, Canadian officers no
longer take on roles of UN peacekeepers as they once
did. At the joint command and staff program, the
officers plan and exercise operations of an alliance,
sometimes explicitly identified as NATO, but they are
no longer given the opportunity to look from within a
UN mission or review UN procedures and practices.
e 2006–11 combat mission in Kandahar,
Afghanistan, unquestionably gave CF personnel
valuable experience in counter-insurgency (COIN)
operations. While there are some similarities between
COIN and international peace operations, there are
also fundamental differences in the training,
preparation and practice. Peacekeeping requires
specialized training as it is a more complex and
conceptually challenging task than war-fighting. War
and COIN missions are enemy-centric, nonconsensual and primarily involve offensive strategy,
whereas peacekeeping is based on a trinity of
principles: impartiality; consent of conflicting parties;
and the defensive approach on the use of force,
though robust peace enforcement action is sometimes
required. A major change in mentality would thus be
needed to properly prepare the post-Afghanistan CF
for future peace operations. Special skills, separate
from those learned in Afghanistan, are needed,
including negotiation, conflict management and
resolution, as well as an understanding of UN
procedures and past peacekeeping missions.
us, a concerted effort is needed to revitalize the
peacekeeping skills of the Canadian Forces if it is to
constructively help the United Nations in a conflictridden world. Since US-led coalitions on the ground
are unlikely in coming years, the Canadian military
does not have many alternatives to make its army
useful in the field. Peacekeeping advances both
Canada’s national values and interests in enhancing a
stable, peaceful, and rules-based order in world which
is sorely lacking in these vital qualities. ere is a
constant need for well-trained and well-equipped
peacekeepers. Canada’s return to peacekeeping would
be embraced by the United Nations and the
international community. Such a development could
help our country gain more influence and clout,
including a future seat in the UN Security Council,
and give Canadians something even more important:
a sense of renewed pride in the nation’s contribution
to a better, more peaceful world.
A. Walter Dorn is Professor of Defence
Studies at the Royal Military College and
the Canadian Forces College. He teaches
mid-level and senior officers from
Canada and a score of other nations. He
currently serves on the UN’s Expert Panel
on Technology and Innovation in UN
Peacekeeping. Email: [email protected].
Further writings on the subject by the author:
“Canadian Peacekeeping: Proud Tradition, Strong
Future?” Canadian Foreign Policy, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Fall
2005), pp.7-32, available at
http://walterdorn.org/pub/32.
“Canadian Peacekeeping: No Myth But Not What It
Once Was”, SITREP, Vol. 67, No. 2, Royal Canadian
Military Institute, 2007, available at
http://walterdorn.org/pdf/CanadianPeacekeepingNoMyth_Dorn_SitRep_April2007.pdf.
15
Why Canada was not elected to the Security Council four years
ago, and why we will never be elected unless and until there is
a fundamental change in our foreign policy
ABSTRACT
The “me-first,” insensitive policies of the
current government have caused
irreparable harm to Canada’s reputation
at the United Nations, including our 2010
bid for a seventh term on the UN Security
Council.
Canadian environmental policy remains
a fiasco. Canada had taken strong stands
in the global effort to combat
environmental degradation, beginning
in Stockholm in 1972, and worked hard
to build momentum behind efforts to
create a global climate treaty. Our
decision in December 2011 to become
the first nation to withdraw from Kyoto
represented a blow to our international
reputation from which we have not
begun to recover.
But there are numerous other examples.
From an “Israel right or wrong” policy on
the Middle East to a statistically
irrelevant contribution to UN
peacekeeping, there is little wonder why
Canada has lost support and why our
reputation will not be restored until
Canada adopts positions on international
issues that are seen to be good for the
world as well as good for Canada.
16
Robert R. Fowler
How tiresome, how smug and – I will argue – how
un-Canadian is the stolid simplicity of the HarperBaird “we won’t go along to get along” mantra. But it
is that arrogant, me-first, ‘I’m all right, Jack and to
hell with you” posture, coupled with extravagant
insensitivity, which destroyed Canada’s bid for a
seventh term on the Security Council three years ago.
Until that changes, those attitudes will ensure that
Canada is excluded from any important role within
the community of nations.
worked hard to build momentum behind efforts to
create a global climate treaty. e Montreal Protocol
to phase out materials that were damaging the ozone
layer was a good start. However daunting, our
obligations as a Party to the Kyoto Protocol
represented a formal engagement, and our decision in
December 2011 to become the first nation to
withdraw from Kyoto represented a blow to our
international reputation from which we have not
begun to recover.
e fact is, the pony we had entered in the Security
Council lists in the fall of 2010 was lame and there
was nothing hard-working Canadian diplomats in
New York and around the world could do to disguise
that fact. e nations of the world, voting according
to their own interests, did not believe that they
needed more of the Canada they had been getting on
the Security Council. How preposterous it was to
claim that our defeat was a triumph of our values over
theirs!
Subsequently Canada announced its intention to
become the first (and only) country to withdraw from
the “UN Convention to Combat Desertification.” 194
states had become a Party to the Convention
following its adoption in 1994. Imagine for a moment
how those desperately impoverished states suffering
the daily encroachment of the Sahara felt about Mr.
Harper’s insistence that such efforts were but a
“talkfest” and that our annual contribution of
$350,000 was a waste of money.
Canadian environmental policy was – and remains –
a fiasco. Canada had taken strong stands in the global
effort to combat environmental degradation,
beginning in Stockholm in 1972, and over the years
For the 37 members of the Alliance of Small Island
States, climate change is an existential issue. If it isn’t
fixed they will be under water. When offered the
opportunity to vote on Canada’s disdain for their
concerns, they did so with clarity of purpose. Our
refusal to understand – let alone empathize with –
such deeply held views has sorely damaged the
reputation of our country.
I have emphasized the extent to which Canada’s stand
on environmental issues has caused much of the
world community to lose faith in us, to mistrust our
words and misconstrue our motives. But rest assured,
we have offered the world community lots of other
reasons not to support us. In the eyes of the 57
members of the Organization of the Islamic
Conference at the UN, the Harper Government’s
insistence on an unbalanced “Israel right or wrong”
posture which countenances no criticism, while
characterizing other states in the region with thinly
veiled disdain, is simply an anathema.
en there’s the Harper Government’s writing off of
Africa (which accounts for 70% of the Security
Council’s business), the largest and most diverse
continent; a billion people in 54 different countries
(and votes); a region deemed not worthy of interest
by our Government.
from the discussion of how to better manage
international affairs.
ese are the areas in which for the first 60 years of
the UN’s existence Canada genuinely punched above
its weight. By being an exemplary UN citizen we were
able, in six successive decades, to win election to the
Security Council, despite the fact that the
membership of the Organization grew fourfold over
this period. e campaign in the late 90s was hard
fought, but I never doubted we would prevail. ere
was then a huge reserve of sympathy and respect for
Canada and Canadians within the Organization. We
were seen to be fair but firm, balanced and principled,
yet always sensitive to the worries and concerns of
others while being very clear about the promotion
and projection of our own beliefs and values, and
committed to an effective UN.
We have, however, squandered that fine reputation,
and it will not be restored until Canada adopts
positions on international issues that are seen to be
good for the world as well as good for Canada.
Bob Fowler, OC was the Foreign Policy
Advisor to Prime Ministers Trudeau,
Turner and Mulroney, Deputy Minister of
National Defence, Canada’s longest
serving Ambassador to the UN,
Ambassador to Italy, and Personal
Representative for Africa of Prime
Ministers Chrétien, Martin and Harper.
He retired in 2006 and is a Senior Fellow
at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate
School of Public and International Affairs.
In recent years our contribution to UN peacekeeping
has become statistically irrelevant in what is an ever
more challenging international security environment
- the management of which is the Security Council’s
mandate. Canadian military professionalism,
integrity and steadfastness are greatly missed in UN
circles. Indeed, these days Canada is simply absent
17
Reforming the UN, one step at a time
Louise Frechette
Any discussion of the United Nations invariably
concludes with a call for its reform. What reform and
to what end is never entirely clear, other than the
hope of a more effective organization to stop
conflicts, uphold human rights and help li people
out of poverty.
ABSTRACT
Any discussion of the United Nations
invariably concludes with a call for its
reform. Would-be reformers should start
by taking stock of the multiple ways the
UN has changed over time, particularly
since the end of the Cold War. Major
reforms have been implemented in all
areas of UN activity including
peacekeeping, human rights, criminal
justice as well as humanitarian and
development work. The Security
Council’s policies and practices have also
evolved significantly. Re-building the UN
from the ground up, in a Bretton Woodslike exercise, is not a realistic goal to
pursue but step-by-step reform is
entirely possible.
18
Would-be reformers would be well advised to start
from the UN as it is today rather than as they imagine
it to be. Far from being the sclerotic organization
depicted by its critics, the world organization is
constantly evolving. e post-cold war period has
been particularly fertile in this regard.
Peacekeeping is the prime example of a vastly
transformed role for the UN. Missions used to be
limited to observing ceasefires. Nowadays they oversee
every aspect of a country’s life aer a conflict,
including the protection of civilian populations
through military means if necessary. Modern
peacekeeping missions employ police officers, election
specialists, justice experts and many others. Needless
to say, doctrine, rules of engagement, administrative
systems, everything had to be overhauled in order for
the UN to be able to deploy, sustain and command the
almost 100,000 people who currently serve in these
multi-facetted peacekeeping missions.
e early 1990s also saw a major expansion of the
UN’s role in the area of human rights. e creation, in
1993, of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
post gave the UN a powerful new voice. e
institutional architecture was further enhanced in
2006 with the transformation of the Human Rights
Commission into a full-fledged Council with
reinforced powers. Significant financial resources
have been injected in the system, allowing the High
Commissioner to deploy human rights missions in
hot spots around the world.
e issue of criminal justice also received a dramatic
boost with the formation, in 1993 of the ad hoc
tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, soon to be
followed by a similar arrangement for Rwanda. e
way was thus paved for the establishment of the
permanent International Criminal Court in 2002. It is
early days yet but the Court could become a powerful
tool to hold leaders accountable for their actions.
Despite years of debate, the Security Council’s
composition remains unchanged but its policies have
evolved very significantly over time. It now routinely
deals with conflicts taking place within countries.
Human rights and humanitarian considerations
influence decisions much more than in the past. e
Council has innovated in the use of targeted
sanctions and set goals and standards on issues such
as protection of civilians and child soldiers. It even
occasionally travels to conflict zones to receive first
hand information.
e humanitarian side of the UN system has also
been strengthened thanks to better coordination,
stand-by arrangements and a $450 million revolving
fund for immediate responses to humanitarian
disasters. UN agencies, funds and programmes
involved in development now operate under a single
country program, under the leadership of a common
country coordinator.
ese are just a few examples of the ways in which the
UN has evolved and adapted in the last couple of
decades. Some of these changes were achieved as a
result of comprehensive reform proposals, oen
initiated by the Secretary General. Others were the
results of day-to-day responses to evolving
circumstances.
None of this means the UN is serving the world as
well as it should. It clearly is not and there is plenty of
room for more reform and more innovation. Indeed,
it is tempting to argue that the UN should be re-built
from the ground up. But people who dream of a new
Bretton Woods moment will find little support. Short
of a historical cataclysm on the scale of World War II,
it is hard to imagine the international community
agreeing to such an ambitious overhaul of the
international system. More will be achieved by
proceeding one step at a time.
A readiness to invest time and energy in promoting
and explaining proposed reforms to Member States is
essential to achieve success. Browbeating does not
work. Good old diplomacy does. Timing is also
important. Experience shows that consensus can be
found around reform proposals when taking
advantage of favourable political conditions.
Finally, we should not expect from institutional
reform more than it can deliver. A ‘world
government’ freed from national interests is not in
the cards. e UN will, for the foreseeable future,
continue to be a tool in the hands of its Member
States. And like all tools, it will not do the job if its
owners do not want to use it.
Louise Fréchette is the chair the Board of
CARE Canada and is a member of the
Board of CARE International. From 1998
to 2006, Madame Fréchette was Deputy
Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Prior to this, she pursued a career in the
Public Service of Canada, serving notably
as Ambassador to Argentina and
Uruguay (1985-1988), Ambassador and
Permanent Representative to the United
Nations (1992-1994), Associate Deputy
Minister of Finance (1995) and Deputy
Minister of National Defence (19951998). Madame Fréchette studied at the
University of Montreal and the College of
Europe in Bruges, and has been awarded
many honorary degrees. She is an Officer
of the Order of Canada.
19
Canada as pariah in international climate politics
Christian Holz
e current (2014-15) biennium features crucial
opportunities to advance international cooperation on
addressing the global climate crisis. For September 2014,
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon invited
world leaders to New York for a UN Climate Summit.
Governments have also committed to agree on a new,
long-lasting climate accord at the 2015 Conference of the
UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris.
ABSTRACT
International climate policy-making is
scheduled to culminate in a new climate
agreement in 2015, which must be
extremely ambitious and maximize
international cooperation and must
therefore be based on equity, trust,
accountability and transparency. Despite
those being traditional Canadian values,
Canada cannot currently effectively
advocate for them owing to its standing
as a pariah in international climate policy
thanks to its history of trust-breaking. To
re-build this trust and become once
again a genuine international partner,
Canada has to bring its domestic climate
policy house in order and fully embrace
its responsibility and capacity to act
ambitiously and urgently within
international cooperation processes on
climate change.
20
Climate change is of course a global problem, since the
effects of greenhouse gas pollution impact people
everywhere, not just in the places where the emissions
originate. As such, climate change can only be addressed
effectively through international cooperation, which
indicates an important role for the UN system. Despite
seemingly contradictory rhetoric from the federal
government, among others, Canada is a major
contributor to global climate pollution, firmly placed in
the top 10 of climate polluters regardless whether
greenhouse gas emissions are expressed in total per
country, per capita or cumulative historic terms.
erefore Canada must be part of the solution and
Canadians clearly understand that: a poll of the University
of Montreal and Canada2020 found that the vast majority
want the federal government to take the climate challenge
more seriously including by joining international treaties.
A staggering 76% of Canadians supported Canada joining
an international climate agreement even if China and the
U.S. are not yet part of it.
However, Canada has a serious image and trust problem
in international climate politics stemming from a long
history of unfulfilled and abandoned commitments. is
includes Canada’s failure to meet the greenhouse gas
reduction commitment made in 1997 under the Kyoto
Protocol and its subsequent withdrawal from the
Protocol (the only country in the world to do so).
Furthermore, it is all but certain that the substantially
weaker commitment made in 2009 in Copenhagen will
also be missed, save for an immediate and thorough
change in direction from Canada’s federal government.
Additionally, aer a short period from 2010 to 2012 of
contributing a genuinely fair share ($400 million per
year) to a global fund to assist the poorest countries in
reducing their own contributions to climate change and
dealing with its impacts, Canada’s climate finance
contributions have shrunk to very low levels. is is
particularly damaging since the 2010-2012 funding was
intended to build trust for the next round of climate
negotiations with the intention to scale up, rather than
stop, this support aer 2012. Coupled with the oen
obstructive strategies and tactics of Canada’s deputations
in the day-to-day of UN climate negotiations, these
failures cause many governments and civil society
organizations to see Canada as a cynical pariah within
the UN climate system.
Given this backdrop, the most important contribution
that a Canadian government could make to the success
of climate policy-making within the UN system is to
work in good faith toward restoring this damaged trust.
First and foremost, this requires bringing its house in
order domestically through good faith efforts toward
meeting the greenhouse gas reduction target promised
in Copenhagen. Canada should, for example, provide
substantial government support to renewable energy and
energy efficiency, and develop and implement policies
and measures to drastically reduce emissions from
Canada’s leading sources: transportation, oil and gas, and
buildings. It would also involve initiating a genuine and
honest conversation in Canada about our inevitable
transformation away from extracting and burning oil,
coal and gas.
In addition to getting domestic climate action on track,
Canada must re-build trust on the international stage.
An obvious starting point is to restore international
climate finance to 2010-2012 levels. But the current
international discussions are also about each country’s
future emissions reductions target. Canada should
propose a deep and ambitious target for itself, one that
embraces (not denies) Canada’s role as a major
contributor to climate change and that this
responsibility, coupled with a wealthy country’s high
level of capacity, justifies doing more than others and
acting with urgency and vigour.
e new climate accord to be struck in 2015 can only
succeed in the long term if it enables and encourages the
largest possible degree of international cooperation on
climate change, which requires that the accord is based
on trust, equity, transparency and accountability. ese
characteristics reflect traditional Canadian values and
suggest that Canada could play an important role
bringing about such an accord. But currently, Canada is
not a credible ambassador for such values in international
climate politics. By embracing a truly fair share – based
on its responsibility and capacity to act – and by showing
it is serious to meet that commitment and to help poorer
countries to do the most they can (for example, by
providing finance, green technology etc), Canada could
restore damaged trust internationally and help create the
long-lasting, equitable, and ambitious climate accord
needed to avoid the worst of climate change.
Further Reading:
IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change):
Fih Assessment Report.
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5
World Resource Institute: Climate Analysis Indicator
Tool (CAIT) 2.0 Climate Data Explorer.
http://cait2.wri.org/
Canadian Coalition for Climate Change and
Development (C4D): Protecting Our Common
Future: An Assessment of Canada’s Fast-Start Climate
Financing. http://c4d.ca/publications/policybriefs/protecting-our-common-future-report
UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network
(SDSN): Deep Decarbonization Pathways.
http://deepdecarbonization.org (especially Country
Chapter “Canada”)
Dr. Christian Holz is currently a SSHRC
Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the
University of Ottawa’s School of Political
Studies. Prior to joining the University of
Ottawa, he served as the Executive
Director of Climate Action Network
Canada, a network of nearly 100
organizations committed to working
together to advance action on climate
change at all levels of government in
Canada. For the past decade he has also
been involved with Climate Action
Network International, engaging in
various roles related to their advocacy
work at the UN climate change
negotiations. His main research interests
are the role of equity and fairness as
enablers of ambitious action in domestic
and international climate policy and the
role of civil society in international
climate change politics.
21
R2P – Getting back in the game, easier than some might think
Naomi Kikoler
“We miss them badly,” said the senior Latin American
diplomat, referring to Canada’s diminished leadership
on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). is simple
yet poignant statement captures the sentiments of
many foreign diplomats.
Canada, the progenitor of R2P and its early
champion, has in recent years abandoned this role,
and arguably no one has thus far been able to fill the
gap created by our absence. e Netherlands,
Denmark, and Rwanda have made positive and
lasting contributions to R2P promotion and
operationalization. Yet none of these governments
have been able to establish a vision for R2P’s future,
cra a strategy to achieve it, or consistently lead
efforts to shepherd this nascent norm.
ABSTRACT
Canada’s transition from an ardent
champion of the Responsibility to Protect
to a silent supporter has left a gap in
international efforts to advance R2P – a
gap that is noticed by diplomats from the
world’s smallest to largest nations. As
civilians face a seemingly growing threat
of mass atrocities in 2014, Canada should
re-engage and help lead efforts to
advance R2P and save lives. This article
outlines four steps that Canada can take
immediately to get back into the R2P game.
22
is gap persists at a time when the need to
operationalize R2P is all too glaring. Muslims from
the Central African Republic have been largely driven
from the country, while Yazidis in Iraq face the threat
of genocide. Populations throughout Syria face a daily
onslaught of indiscriminate bombings, while the
Rohingya in Myanmar are persecuted on the basis of
their religion and ethnicity. e promise of a peaceful
and independent South Sudan has dissolved into
ethnic conflict involving the violent targeting of
civilians. Around the world the threat of mass
atrocities looms large and the international
community continues to engage too little, too late, if
at all, to prevent and halt mass atrocities.
In the wake of the international community’s failures
in Rwanda and Srebrenica, Canada led efforts to find
a way to prevent states from using sovereignty as a
license to kill, or being indifferent bystanders to
unfolding atrocities. Working with a coalition of
committed states, Canada marshaled unanimous
support for R2P at the 2005 United Nations World
Summit.
As R2P approaches its second decade of existence, the
international community needs to allocate necessary
resources to strengthening the legal and political
machinery for prevention and protection at the
domestic, regional and international level.
Canada should lead those efforts. While we are
missed, we are not forgotten. On this issue
considerable goodwill towards Canada remains and
re-engaging robustly in advancing R2P will be easier
than some may think.
What would a practical immediate strategy for reengaging on R2P look like?
4To start with, in September, Prime Minister Harper
or Foreign Minister Baird would re-affirm the
government’s commitment to R2P and announce
Canada’s intention to prioritize mass atrocity
prevention in their statement at the opening of the
United Nations (UN) General Assembly.
4is statement should be followed by a declaration 4is should be followed by an investment over the
by the government that preventing and halting
mass atrocities is a national interest. e United
States provides a useful example of how this could
be done. In 2011 President Obama declared that
preventing mass atrocities was a national interest
of the United States and ordered relevant agencies
and departments to undertake an assessment of
their preventive and protective capacities.
President Obama has oen reiterated that mass
atrocity prevention is a U.S. national interest.
4e next step in conjunction with this
commitment would be to strengthen Canada’s
own institutional architecture for prevention. is
includes appointing a R2P Focal Point to
‘domesticate’ R2P and formalizing an internal
decision-making process involving relevant
government agencies and departments. irtyseven countries, ranging from the United States
and the United Kingdom to Ghana have appointed
senior-level government officials to serve as R2P
focal points for atrocity prevention. ese focal
points, and the Global R2P network that they
form, help ensure that governments remain
vigilant so that ‘Never Again’ does not continue to
be ‘again and again.’ Canada should join this
broader effort to appoint focal points and
systematize early warning and action.
next five years in strengthening our preventive
diplomacy capacities and increasing our
participation in UN peacekeeping. In practice this
would involve re-doubling support for UN and
regional mediation capacities; creating forums for
problem-solving, strategizing, and coalition
building to save lives in emerging crises;
promoting Canadians for senior UN positions; reestablishing Canada as a leader in training
peacekeepers; and deploying more troops, police
and civilian personnel to UN peacekeeping
missions.
Canada can and should play a larger role in
shepherding R2P into its second decade. is need
not entail a heavy financial burden. Rather, the cost is
one of mustering the political will to act, and
accepting that ‘Never Again’ is a shared endeavour.
us, to save lives, the Canadian government must
prioritize multilateral engagement through the UN,
to find solutions to some of the world’s most
intractable of crises.
We are ‘missed’ because we showed that tenacity,
vision, and astute diplomacy could revolutionize
international relations. Today our bold leadership is
again needed, to ensure that our noble idea of the
Responsibility to Protect is not just of interest to
international relations textbooks, but that it saves lives.
Naomi Kikoler is a Canadian human
rights lawyer who serves as the Director
of Policy and Advocacy at the Global
Centre for the Responsibility to Protect in
New York. A graduate of the University of
Toronto, Oxford, and McGill’s Faculty of
Law, she has worked for the United
Nations, Amnesty International, the
Brookings Institution and serves as an
advisor to organizations on conflict and
mass atrocity prevention and
international human rights and
humanitarian law.
23
The UN’s post-2015 sustainable development goals and Canada
Shannon Kindornay
In 2015, governments will conclude negotiations on a set of
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of their
commitments from the Rio+20 United Nations (UN)
Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012. e SDGs
will replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
which expire in 2015 with a broad, sustainable development
agenda underpinned by a framework of goals, targets and
indicators for 2030. Unlike the MDGs, the post-2015
sustainable development agenda will likely be universal,
applying to all countries, not just developing ones.
ABSTRACT
In 2015 countries will negotiate a set of
Sustainable Development Goals at the
United Nations. These goals, which will
replace the Millennium Development
Goals, are set to be universal in nature,
applying to all countries, including
Canada. The “post-2015” agenda affords
Canada a number of opportunities to
champion a progressive set of goals,
support a robust monitoring and
evaluation framework, and engage the
UN differently. Monitoring progress on a
broad set of SDGs may present an
opportunity for a coordinated and
coherent approach to UN engagement
across sectors and government
departments.
24
Canada is engaging in UN preparations for the 2015
negotiations. To date, much of this participation has been
led by the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and
Development (DFATD). Canada is championing an
agenda based on realistic, focused and measurable targets
and indicators. Statements by government officials have
emphasized the poorest and most vulnerable as a key
focus for the sustainable development agenda. Canada is
also pushing on issues that are reflective of the
government’s current aid priorities, including job creation
and economic growth (with a strong role for the private
sector), strengthening accountability and results, and
perhaps most importantly, maternal, newborn and child
health, which is the highest priority for the Canadian
government. e government has also supported post2015 consultation processes through the UN, notably on
education and data and accountability.
In Canada, a number of steps have also been taken to
coordinate within DFATD and between government
departments. ematic, DFATD department-wide
working groups meet on a monthly basis and interdepartmental working groups have been set up, meeting
periodically. A Post-2015 Task Force was created in
August 2014 to coordinate inputs from working groups,
consolidate the Canadian government’s position on the
post-2015 agenda and support negotiations in 2015.
While this engagement sends a positive signal regarding
Canada’s participation in the post-2015 agenda, some
commentators have noted that Canadian leadership is
lacking and that the country could be more involved in
international discussions. Further, the Canadian
government has been ambivalent to date with respect to
endorsing the universality dimension of the post-2015
agenda. Government inputs show a tendency to frame
issues from a “development or MDG-like” perspective –
i.e. a focus is on maternal, newborn and child health as
well as the poorest and most vulnerable in developing
countries.
Nevertheless, at the national level, DFATD is engaging
other government departments and providing
information to provincial and territorial governments –
which in theory will have a key role to play in realising the
SDGs in Canada. Yet, the extent to which sub-national
governments (and other government departments) are
aware of or engaged in the post-2015 process is unclear.
Consultations with civil society on the post-2015 agenda
have also been limited, and largely focused on the
development community. Given the universality
dimension of the agenda, engagement on post-2015
commitments needs to move beyond the usual suspects
and certainly beyond DFATD.
e post-2015 agenda also presents an interesting
opportunity for Canada’s re-engagement with the UN in a
number of ways. First, it is likely that the post-2015 SDGs
will be as influential as the MDGs in determining sustainable
development priorities. Significant efforts (and funding) have
gone into ensuring the new framework is developed through
a consultative, inclusive process and that it broadly reflects
the priorities of all states, unlike the MDGs, which were
largely seen as a donor-driven, top-down agenda. Canada
should remain engaged to support a progressive sustainable
development agenda that will shape and define Canada’s
international development efforts beyond 2015.
Second, the scope of the SDG agenda is broad. e
current “zero dra” list of SDGs has 17 priority areas
including poverty reduction, addressing inequality, water
and sanitation, industrialization and infrastructure,
environmental, sustainable consumption and production,
and peace and security. e breadth of the agenda affords
Canada an opportunity to engage with the UN across
different sectors (and levels of government) within a
broad sustainable development framework. e interconnectedness of the goal areas (for example, ensuring
sustainable consumption and production while also
supporting inclusive growth and employment generation)
may call for greater levels of coordination among
responsible departments and between different levels of
government to ensure a balanced approach to achieving
sustainable development outcomes. e development by
Canada of a national plan for realising the SDGs would
facilitate this. In addition, monitoring and accountability
frameworks associated with the international agenda may
necessitate coordinated engagement with lead UN
agencies through various government departments.
Finally, given the government’s current focus on
accountability and results, Canada also has the potential
to champion a robust monitoring and accountability
framework under the auspices of the newly created High
Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. As
mentioned, Canada has already argued for realistic,
measurable and focussed targets, and supported the
global UN consultation on data and accountability. Going
forward, there is space for Canada to champion the use of
existing UN monitoring mechanisms – such as those that
exist under different environmental, social, and human
rights conventions as well as the Universal Periodic
Review – to support the SDG monitoring framework.
is would also ground the SDGs in existing processes
and avoid duplication of efforts.
References
For more information on the preparatory process for the
negotiations in 2015, see
http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/owg.html.
For more information on the UN Post-2015 consultation
processes, see www.worldwewant.org.
CCIC (Canadian Council for International Co-operation).
2014, forthcoming. e Post-2015 Development Framework:
International Process and Canadian Priorities. Ottawa: CCIC.
Kindornay, Shannon. 2014. “Canada post-2015: Confronting
our own development challenges.” Canadian Government
Executive (20) 4.
Rochon, Paul. 2014. “Millennium Development Goals: A
sprint to 2015 and the way forward.” Canadian Government
Executive 20 (4).
Shannon Kindornay is a researcher at The
North-South Institute. Her research
interests include development
cooperation, governance of the aid
architecture, aid effectiveness, and aid
and the private sector. Her current work
includes a major study that explores how
the post-2015 sustainable development
goals can be applied to Canada. She
holds an MA from Carleton University’s
Norman Paterson School of International
Affairs (NPSIA) and a BA in Global
Studies and Political Science, from Wilfrid
Laurier University.
25
Revitalizing an agenda for peace
H. Peter Langille
ABSTRACT
After the Cold War, UN Secretary-General
Boutros Boutros-Ghali presented An
Agenda for Peace, with a bold call for
preventive action, including new
peacekeeping and peacebuilding
mechanisms.
The idea of a permanent United Nations
Emergency Peace Service (UNEPS)
stemmed largely from Canada’s response
to An Agenda for Peace, as well as the
Secretary-General’s request for a UN
rapid reaction force. Rather than rely on
slow, conditional standby peacekeeping
arrangements for renting national
personnel, a UNEPS would provide the
UN with its own standing service.
Demand for UN peacekeeping has
increased. Calls for rapid deployment have
accompanied most recent operations, but
contributing states are seldom ready and/or
willing to deploy rapidly. By addressing the
critical gap in the first six months of
complex emergencies, a UNEPS would help
prevent armed conflict and genocide,
protect civilians at extreme risk, ensure
prompt start-up of demanding operations,
and address human needs in areas where
others either cannot or will not.
26
e current outlook for global security is worrisome.
While our common security depends on governments
working together, how can we generate the sense of
common cause and the momentum that is now
required? With one step the UN might improve its
capacity to prevent armed conflict and protect civilians.
Aer the Cold War, UN Secretary-General Boutros
Boutros-Ghali presented An Agenda for Peace, with a
bold call for preventive action, including new
peacekeeping and peacebuilding mechanisms. His
report was prefaced with a caution that, “…the search for
improved mechanisms and techniques will be of little
significance unless this new spirit of commonality is
propelled by the will to take the hard decisions
demanded by this time of opportunity.”
e idea of a permanent United Nations Emergency
Peace Service (UNEPS) stemmed largely from Canada’s
response to An Agenda for Peace, as well as the
Secretary-General’s request for a UN rapid reaction
force. Rather than rely on slow, conditional standby
peacekeeping arrangements for renting national
personnel, a UNEPS would provide the UN with its own
standing service to fulfill assigned tasks -- a rapid and
reliable first responder to save time, lives and resources.
Yet then, as now, governments were reluctant to take this
step for a more effective UN.
Of course, peacekeeping didn’t die and the demand
didn’t diminish. Currently there are over 117,000
peacekeepers (civilian as well as uniformed personnel)
from 122 countries deployed to 17 UN operations
worldwide, a nine-fold increase since 1999. Considerable
progress is evident in the UN’s foundation for
peacekeeping with new contributors, improved
command and control procedures, a global supply and
support system, a cost-effective standing police capacity,
as well as doctrine for integrated complex operations.
e UN’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations and
Department of Field Support have expanded into highly
professional organizations. And, thanks largely to the
pioneering work of Canada’s Walter Dorn, the use of
surveillance and monitoring technology is improving
situational awareness and safety in many operations.
Gone are the days when ad hoc improvisation was
necessary to ‘re-invent the wheel in the dark’.
Yet three long-standing problems remain. e UN has
insufficient capacity for rapid deployment, prevention
and protection.
Calls for rapid deployment have accompanied most
recent operations, but there is seldom support from
contributing states ready and willing to deploy rapidly.
Further, in the current UN system, planning, mounting
and deploying a new operation involves a long list of
essential tasks that slow response times. UN documents
acknowledge this process now requires from six to
twelve months, which is far from rapid or adequate for
pressing emergencies.
Protecting civilians at risk is another uphill struggle. A
recent internal audit found that while UN mandates
have increasingly prioritized protection of civilians, the
national troops available are oen unwilling to assume
the risks entailed.
While no panacea, a permanent UN Emergency Peace
Service would help. It is intended as a first responder,
effectively a multifunctional ‘UN 911’, to address the
critical gap in the first six months of complex
emergencies. UNEPS was designed to help prevent
armed conflict and genocide, protect civilians at extreme
risk, ensure prompt start-up of demanding operations,
and address human needs in areas where others either
cannot or will not.
Of course, such an idea will inevitably raise concerns
over the financial costs, the political will and whether it
may be managed effectively.
Is it affordable? Better yet, a UNEPS would be costeffective! e UN already suffers from insufficient
funding, with all operations constrained by austerity and
the mantra of ‘do more with less’. Soon, the budget for
peacekeeping will exceed what had been deemed the
‘sacred ceiling’ of $8 billion. UNEPS would entail a startup cost of approximately $3 billion and annual recurring
costs of another $1 billion. is should be contrasted
with annual global military spending, now nearing $2
trillion. Worse, the Global Peace Index estimates that the
annual cost of war has risen to $9.8 trillion. It would be a
great saving if the UN was able to deter armed conflict,
or at least prevent it from escalating and spreading. A
UNEPS would reduce the need for many new operations
and reduce the requirement for later, larger, longer and
costlier operations.
Could the UN manage a UNEPS or provide the support
required? As noted, the UN’s foundation for peace
operations has improved, with DPKO and DFS already
managing and supporting over 120,000 personnel in
field missions around the world. A UNEPS would have a
static operational headquarters and two mobile missions
HQs to help administer, organize and direct operations.
Its logistic support could either be provided internally or
by the new UN global support system.
Could the Security Council be trusted not to abuse a
UNEPS? Security Council decisions are followed,
analyzed and reported world-wide. As Security Council
members would share in the investment required to
develop a UNEPS and provide strategic direction, they
should be even more inclined to show responsible
leadership and ensure its success. For the Security
Council, the "will" to do a job may oen depend upon
having an appropriate tool for the job, preferably one
that is readily available, reliable and recognized as
legitimate. At least when you have an appropriate tool,
there are fewer excuses for failing to attempt a task.
Dr. H. Peter Langille is a senior research
fellow in the Centre for Global Studies,
University of Victoria. He was an early
recipient of the Hanna Newcombe
Lifetime Achievement Award from the
World Federalist Movement - Canada for
his numerous contributions in support of
more effective UN peace operations.
At present, there is insufficient political will to support
the development of a UNEPS. Nevertheless, over the
years there have been seven occasions – aer bad wars
and genocide—when governments have attempted to
generate support for vaguely similar proposals (a UN
standing force). In the near future taking a few steps to
revitalize An Agenda for Peace may not seem like such a
hard decision.
27
Why UN peacekeeping is indispensable
Peggy Mason
ABSTRACT
Complex political problems lie at the
heart of violent conflict and require
political solutions, negotiated and
agreed by the parties. The structure of
the integrated UN mission –with the
military, police and civilian components
all reporting to the civilian head of
Mission – reflects the primacy of the
peace process and stands in sharp
contrast to the situation where NATO
provides military forces under a separate
command structure from the UN mission.
The demand for UN Blue Helmets has
never been greater but significant
shortfalls persist in both personnel and
equipment. It is time for Canada to
re-engage.
28
e UN has learned a lot about conflict resolution
since the first military peacekeepers were deployed in
UNEF 1 in 1956 to serve as a buffer between the
Egyptian and Israeli forces and to provide impartial
supervision of the ceasefire. Specifically the UN has
learned that peacebuilding is a complex, long-term
process of helping the conflicting parties to create the
necessary conditions – political, economic, security –
for a sustainable peace. At the centre of this effort is
the peace process. Complex political problems lie at
the heart of violent conflict and require political
solutions, negotiated and agreed by the parties. A
robust security element may be essential in both the
negotiation and implementation phases but it is a
supporting element nonetheless. As the Afghanistan
debacle has so dramatically and tragically illustrated,
no amount of military ‘robustness’ on the part of
international military forces can make up for the lack
of a credible peace process.
Accordingly, today’s multidimensional UN
peacekeeping operations are called upon not only to
help maintain peace and security and to promote the
rule of law, but also to facilitate the political process
and support the establishment of legitimate and
effective institutions of governance. Increasingly,
mandates like that for MINUSMA in Mali, also
include security assistance to the transitional
government in reasserting its authority nation-wide,
in concert with support for the national political
dialogue and reconciliation efforts.
For a collective enterprise of this magnitude to
succeed – as UN peacekeeping does more oen than
not – the international effort must be perceived as
legitimate and impartial by all or most of the parties
to the conflict. And it must have the broadest possible
international support within a coherent legal and
operational framework.
Only the UN Security Council (UNSC) can mandate
such an operation and only the UN Organization can
even notionally lead it, if only because there is simply
no other single entity acceptable to the international
community. Headed by a civilian in the role of the
Special Representative of the [UN] Secretary-General
(SRSG), with all the other components, including the
military and police reporting to him or her, the very
structure of the UN PKO reflects the centrality of the
peace process. is stands in sharp contrast to
NATO-led missions, authorized by the UNSC to
assist in stabilizing a conflict. How can the military
effectively support the peace process under a separate
command structure? My ten years of training
exercises with senior NATO commanders have
demonstrated time and again that a divided
command structure at the operational level is a recipe
for an ineffective command structure. And further
note that, while the NATO-led mission is typically
mandated by the UNSC to ‘cooperate’ with the UN
mission, its political guidance comes from the
political lead in NATO – the North Atlantic Council,
which then has to coordinate with the UN SecretaryGeneral. So the political leadership at the strategic
level is divided as well.
ere is another stark problem with NATO-led
stability operations – they lack the perceived
legitimacy and impartiality of UN-led operations
precisely because their political and military
leadership represent a very specific set of countries
and interests, notwithstanding UN authorization and
the presence of some non-NATO countries within the
coalition. is not only undermines coherence in the
international effort, but is a gi to spoilers on the
ground decrying ‘foreign occupation’. Of course
narrow national interests are still in play in the
capitals of UN troop contributors, but the structure of
a UN peacekeeping mission at least works to mitigate
this tendency in both perception and reality.
e demand for UN Blue Helmets has never been
greater. But UN peacekeeping cannot begin to live up
to its potential to assist countries in transition from
civil war to stable governance unless it has the
resources to do the job. e almost wholesale
withdrawal of western forces from UN peacekeeping,
in favour of NATO-led missions in the Balkans and
then Afghanistan, occurred even as UN PKO
mandates required increasingly capable and well-
equipped military components, operating under
Chapter VII of the UN Charter. e latest Report of
the UN Secretary-General on the progress of the Mali
mission cites significant gaps in both military
personnel and equipment, in one of the most
logistically demanding operations the UN has ever
undertaken, given the distances involved and the lack
of infrastructure.
Significantly, some NATO countries including the
Netherlands and Italy are beginning to re-engage. It is
time for Canada to do the same.
Peggy Mason is President of the Rideau
Institute on International Affairs. While
Canada’s Ambassador for Disarmament
to the UN, she chaired UN expert studies
on disarmament verification and the
regulation of small arms and light
weapons. Since 1996 Peggy Mason has
increasingly focused on UN post-conflict
peacebuilding and the role of military
forces in supporting a comprehensive
peace process. She works with several
civil society organizations and initiatives,
including civil society promotion of
peace talks in Afghanistan. Peggy Mason
was inducted into the Honour Society of
the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of
Common Law in 2003.
29
Canada, human rights and the UN: It starts at home
Alex Neve
One measure of a state’s engagement with the UN’s
human rights system lies on the world stage. We look
at responses to human rights situations in other
countries, support for new international human
rights laws and institutions, and positions regarding
global human rights concerns.
ABSTRACT
Canada’s global human rights standing
has diminished in recent years. Canada’s
positions have far too often been more
obstructive than constructive. The same
is true of Canada’s engagement with the
UN human rights system with regards to
the country’s own record. The list of
unratified human rights treaties grows
long. Canada is increasingly dismissive of
UN human rights reviews. And there is
no political leadership or
intergovernmental accords in place to
ensure effective implementation of
Canada’s international human rights
obligations. This weakens domestic
human rights protection and diminishes
Canada’s international leadership. It is
time for federal, provincial and territorial
ministers to reform Canada’s approach to
international human rights.
30
ese days Canada’s record on that front is mixed at
best. Some admirable initiatives: early and forced
marriage, Iran’s human rights record and
decriminalization of homosexuality stand out.
Considerable disappointment and confusion: refusal
to countenance criticism of Israel, backsliding on
sexual and reproductive rights, obstructive stance on
the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples and opposition to rights to safe water and
sanitation.
Another measure is on the home front. How willingly
does a government commit to UN obligations and
scrutiny of its own human rights record? It is not just
about pointing the finger at others.
All have been disregarded. ere is a treaty on
enforced disappearances, adopted by the UN in 2006.
It is not under consideration. A 1990 treaty dealing
with migrant workers is dismissed as irrelevant.
e Optional Protocol to the Convention against
Torture, adopted by the UN in 2002, sets up a system
of prison inspections to prevent torture. In 2006 and
2009 Canada promised the UN to consider ratifying
it. But during a 2013 UN human rights review
Canada stepped back and said there are no current
plans to ratify.
en there is the new Arms Trade Treaty, bringing
long-needed human rights rules to the deadly global
commerce in weapons. Adopted by the UN in April
2013, it has already been signed (a symbolic but
important step) by 118 states (even including the
United States) and ratified by 43 (including many
close allies). Canada is not poised to do either
anytime soon.
Here Canada consistently comes up short.
Signing on to UN instruments is one thing. Living up
to them is another.
Consider the glacial pace of signing on to human
rights treaties. e number of important treaties not
ratified by Canada is growing. ere are three
Optional Protocols establishing complaints processes
for children’s rights, the rights of persons living with
disabilities and economic, social and cultural rights.
at involves UN reviews and effective
implementation of the resulting recommendations.
at has always been fraught for Canada, partially
because of the complexities of federalism and
partially because of a lack of leadership. It has
worsened substantially in recent years.
roughout 2012 the government responded to UN
scrutiny with dismissive and derisive commentary
that the UN shouldn’t waste time on a country like
Canada. We saw that during a mission to Canada by
the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, when
UN committees dealing with torture and the rights of
children carried out their regular reviews of Canada,
and when the UN High Commissioner on Human
Rights expressed concern about the Quebec student
protests.
Last year’s response to the UN Human Rights
Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) added
further concern. e UPR, an unprecedented review
of the human rights record of every UN member
state, began in 2008. Canada’s second time through
was in 2013. Faced with recommendations from
dozens of countries Canada said the only ones being
accepted were those already underway. It ran counter
to the very point of a UN human rights review: to
move beyond status quo.
Treaties and reviews mean nothing without
implementation. Here we see total disarray. ere is
no political leadership to translate words at the UN
into action at home. No federal minister ensures
compliance across departments. No accountability
process brings federal, provincial and territorial
(FPT) governments together to make decisions for
the whole country. e last FPT ministerial human
rights meeting was in 1988.
Why does this matter? First, taking international
human rights obligations seriously domestically
obviously strengthens human rights protection in
Canada.
Second, it has major foreign policy implications.
Signing on to key UN treaties allows us to press other
countries to follow suit. Engaging in UN reviews in
good faith means we can demand the same of other
governments. And showing we are serious about
implementation is essential; as that is where the
international human rights system falls short,
worldwide.
So how to turn this around? e long overdue
ministerial meeting would be a good start. Some
intergovernmental issues benefit from yearly
ministerial meetings. Surely human rights should be
discussed more than once every quarter-century. It is
time to bring ministers together to generate political
will, encourage leadership, and generate momentum
for human rights reform.
Alex Neve has served as Secretary
General of Amnesty International Canada
since 2000. In that role he has carried out
numerous human rights research
missions throughout Africa and Latin
America, and within Canada. He speaks
to audiences across the country about a
wide range of human rights issues,
appears regularly before parliamentary
committees and UN bodies, and is a
frequent commentator in the media.
Alex is a lawyer, with an LLB from
Dalhousie University and a Masters
Degree in International Human Rights
Law from the University of Essex. Alex
has been named an Officer of the Order
of Canada, a Trudeau Foundation Mentor
and has received an honorary Doctorate
of Laws degree from the University of
New Brunswick.
31
Gender equality and the United Nations:
Can Canada get back in front?
Diana Rivington
ABSTRACT
Canada, with other “like-minded”
countries, has played a pivotal role in
enlarging the multilateral dialogue on
gender equality, building alliances
between North and South and
encouraging the active participation of
civil society, especially at the four World
Conferences on Women held since 1975.
While Canada played an important role
in the creation of UN Women in 2010, in
other area’s related to women’s rights,
Canada has been retrograde. In the lead
up to the Sustainable Development
Goals and to the election in 2015, a
leaders’ debate on gender equality issues
could renew Canada’s leadership.
32
Since the creation of the United Nations, women’s
organizations and national women’s machineries like
Status of Women Canada have used the UN both as
an arbiter and as a process to shape international and
domestic dialogues on women’s status. e halls of
the UN became the place where standards for
women’s rights and equality could be defined and
then brought home to national parliaments as
aspirations and models for domestic legislation.
Indeed, women’s organizations sometimes had more
confidence in the international process than in their
own legislatures. Canada, with other “like-minded”
countries, played a pivotal role in these processes,
building alliances between North and South and
encouraging the active participation of civil society,
especially at the four World Conferences on Women
held since 1975.
e recurring themes of these World Conferences on
Women are equality, development and peace. e
Platform for Action from the 1995 Fourth World
Conference on Women in Beijing has nourished
autonomous women’s organizations, equality-seeking
organizations, and the international cooperation
system for almost twenty years. Countries’
commitments to the Platform led to “gender equality
and the empowerment of women and girls”
becoming the third Millennium Development Goal
(MDG) in 2000.
Ambitiously, negotiators have used the UN process
to keep moving the goalposts on gender equality. For
example, violence against women, hardly mentioned
at the Mexico Conference in 1975, is now firmly on
the international agenda. It was a “critical area of
concern” in Beijing in 1995. Most recently UN
Security Council resolutions have declared sexual
violence including rape as war crimes.
UN negotiations are rarely “clean.” ere may be
progress on one issue while another stagnates and a
third slowly rolls backward. So it was a welcome
victory for women’s organizations when in 2010, as
part of on-going UN reforms, their campaign to
change the “gender equality architecture” led to the
creation of UN Women. is occurred by merging
the United Nations Women’s Fund (UNIFEM), the
International Research and Training Institute for the
Advancement of Women (INSTRAW), the Division
for the Advancement of Women, and the Office of
the Special Advisor on Gender Issues. Canada was a
leader in these negotiations and an early donor,
although its core grant of $10 million was recently
cut to $9.5 million.
However, Canada has rolled backward on other
gender equality issues. ere is the conundrum of
having one standard of care and information on
sexual and reproductive health and rights for
Canadian citizens, and another for citizens in
developing countries where lack of knowledge about
family planning and HIV/AIDS kills. Canada’s denial
of support for a full range of reproductive health
services in its Maternal and Newborn Child Health
Initiative has led “like-minded” allies to look
elsewhere for vision on providing full services to
women and girls, especially in areas affected by war.
Another longstanding issue, raised at the Beijing
Conference and elsewhere, has been how to assess
and value unpaid care and domestic work, that is,
women’s labour in the home and in family
enterprises, including farming. Aer Beijing,
Statistics Canada was the first to add a census
question to capture both women’s and men’s unpaid
work in childcare, elder care, home maintenance, and
family business as well as volunteer activities. is
question was removed from the Canadian census in
2010 for reasons that remain unclear, while likeminded countries such as the UK continue to support
such analysis.
Goals (SDGs) that will replace the MDGs. Over 500
women’s human rights, environmental, and
development organizations, organized as the
“Women’s Major Group,” have contributed to
negotiations to date. While welcoming “Gender
equality and the empowerment of women and girls”
as the fih SDG (with 9 sub-goals), they remain
concerned that action on women’s human rights is
not an integral part of the proposed goal.
Against this background, there is a campaign
underway to demand a federal leaders’ debate on
women’s issues prior to the next Canadian election.
e campaigners want all Canadian political parties
to demonstrate the nature of their commitment to
domestic and international women’s human rights,
including sexual and reproductive health and rights.
In the transition to the SDGs, such a public debate
would be timely, creating a public space to define how
Canada will contribute to the global progress on SDG
5 domestically and internationally. It is an
opportunity for Canada to reclaim its role as a leader.
Our allies are waiting for Canada to return.
Diana Rivington is a Senior Fellow in the
Faculty of Social Sciences at the
University of Ottawa with a cross
assignment between the School of
International Development and Global
Studies and the Institute of Feminist and
Gender Studies. She is also a consultant
with expertise in gender equality and
social equity. She enjoyed a long career
at the Canadian International
Development Agency (CIDA) where her
last assignment was as Director, Human
Development and Gender Equality. Ms.
Rivington is a member of the McLeod
Group.
e MDGs have been viewed as a powerful tool
because of their time-bound targets. As 2015 and the
end of the MDGs approach, UN members are
engaged in defining the Sustainable Development
33
Canada and the humanitarian movement to abolish nuclear weapons
Douglas Roche
ABSTRACT
A growing number of states are joining a
new movement, emphasizing
humanitarian law, to create a legally
binding instrument to ban nuclear
weapons.
Canadian policy is incoherent. On one
hand Canada supports NATO doctrine,
which continues to maintain that nuclear
weapons provide the “supreme
guarantee” of security. On the other
hand, Canada supports the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which includes
important nuclear disarmament
obligations.
The humanitarian movement to
eliminate nuclear weapons fits in with
long-held Canadian values. Canada
should join with those states calling for
comprehensive negotiations to start
now, leading to a legal framework for
the verified, irreversible, and enforceable
elimination of nuclear weapons.
34
Has the violence-torn summer of 2014 killed any hopes
for progress in nuclear disarmament? Have the televised
killings in the Middle-East, Ukraine, Syria and Iraq
made it impossible to focus attention on the 16,300
nuclear weapons still in existence, any one of which, by
design, accident or terrorism, could set off a catastrophe
of epic proportions? On the contrary, global instability is
not a time to back away from the United Nations goal of
a nuclear weapons free world; rather, when barbarism
breaks out, it is time to re-double our efforts to build the
rule of law. Canada should step up its work and join with
those states that are serious about developing a law to
eliminate nuclear weapons.
ree events show that nuclear disarmament is still very
much on the international political agenda.
4e first UN Day for the Total Elimination of
Nuclear Weapons -- September 26 – now provides a
built-in mechanism focused on promoting
multilateral negotiations for a nuclear weapons
convention – a global treaty to prohibit and eliminate
nuclear weapons.
4On December 8-9, the Austrian government will
host in Vienna the third in a series of international
conferences on the “catastrophic humanitarian
consequences” of nuclear weapons. e first of these
conferences at Oslo in 2013 attracted 127 states; the
second at Nayarit in Mexico last February was
attended by 146. ese meetings, buttressed by civil
society campaigners, have spelled out in excruciating
detail the horrors that await humanity in the
accidental or deliberate use of nuclear weapons.
4Next May in New York, the Non-Proliferation Treaty
will undergo its month-long quinquennial Review
Conference, where the good faith pledge of the five
permanent members of the Security Council (the
principal nuclear weapons states) to negotiate the
elimination of their nuclear arsenals will again be
tested. Since the NPT came into existence in 1970,
the big five have been bobbing and weaving on their
commitments, all the while modernizing their
stocks.
If nuclear disarmament had to wait for calm political
weather to make progress, we would have nuclear
weapons forever. Nuclear disarmament is not something
that culminates the peace process, it stimulates it.
Eliminating nuclear weapons requires vision and a sense
of urgency. A terrorist nuclear attack is an undeniable
possibility. How long can the world’s luck hold out? is
is the view that drives a number of nations, and thus
they want comprehensive negotiations to start now
leading to a legal framework for the verified, irreversible,
and enforceable elimination of nuclear weapons.
But the nuclear weapons states, aided principally by
NATO, are holding out for a step-by-step approach: first,
get a ban on the production of fissile materials, bring the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty into force, get more
U.S.-Russian reductions before attempting global
negotiations. is approach, which has been embraced
by Canada, has led to today’s virtual paralysis. U.S.Russia bilateral negotiations for deeper cuts are stalled
over such issues as the U.S.’s proposed missile defence
system in Europe, the militarization of space, and the
U.S. intention to militarily dominate air, land, sea, space
and cyberwarfare. e Conference on Disarmament in
Geneva has become a ritualistic façade.
Canada participates in the 12-nation Non-Proliferation
and Disarmament Initiative, which sees multilateral
negotiations taking place only aer the U.S.-Russia
reduction process has greatly reduced existing stocks.
But this is a dead-end hope. is is why nations like
Mexico, Norway, Austria, Switzerland and Indonesia are
in the forefront of a new movement, emphasizing
humanitarian law, to create a legally binding instrument
to ban nuclear weapons. “e time has come to initiate a
diplomatic process [with] a specific timeframe,” the
Mexican chairman told the Nayarit meeting. is is the
movement Canada should join.
A chief impediment to such action is Canada’s
membership in NATO, which keeps insisting that
nuclear weapons are the “supreme guarantee” of security.
However, a double standard has deeply conflicted
NATO. At one and the same time, NATO member states
reaffirm their commitment to the Non-Proliferation
Treaty goal of nuclear disarmament and their NATO
dependence on nuclear weapons. e policies are
incoherent. e continued deployment of US tactical
nuclear bombs on the soil of Belgium, Germany, the
Netherlands, Italy and Turkey, though resisted by
growing numbers of people in those countries, is a
standing provocation to Russia, which is consequently
disinclined to lower its own huge numbers of tactical
nuclear weapons. Russia is unlikely to give up its nuclear
weapons while it is virtually surrounded by an
expanding NATO.
About 15 years ago, Canada tried to get NATO to change
its nuclear policies. When NATO resisted, Canada gave
up. But Norway, another NATO country, is a leader in
the new humanitarian movement. Why can’t Canada
give this effort full support?
e humanitarian movement to eliminate nuclear
weapons fits in with long-held Canadian values. More
than 750 members of the Order of Canada have called
on the Canadian government to take a major diplomatic
initiative to support the UN Secretary-General’s FivePoint Plan for Nuclear Disarmament, which centers on a
nuclear weapons convention. A motion supporting this
was unanimously passed by both the Senate and the
House of Commons.
Canada should align itself with the highly respected
New Agenda Coalition countries (Brazil, Egypt, Ireland,
Mexico, New Zealand and South Africa) and commit
itself to achieving “a comprehensive and legally binding
framework” to eliminate all nuclear weapons in a
defined time period.
It is not NATO but the UN goals that should drive
Canada’s work for nuclear disarmament.
The Hon. Douglas Roche, O.C., is an author,
parliamentarian and diplomat, who has
specialized throughout his 40-year public
career in peace and human security issues.
Mr. Roche was a Senator, Member of
Parliament, Canadian Ambassador for
Disarmament, and Visiting Professor at the
University of Alberta. He was elected
Chairman of the United
Nations Disarmament Committee at the
43rd General Assembly in 1988. In 2009,
he received the Distinguished Service
Award of the Canadian Association
of Former Parliamentarians for his
“promotion of human welfare, human
rights and parliamentary democracy in
Canada and abroad.” He is an Officer of
the Order of Canada. In 2011,
the International Peace Bureau nominated
him for the Nobel Peace Prize.
35
Selecting the Secretary-General: How to improve the process
Allan Rock
ABSTRACT
The process for selecting the United
Nations Secretary-General (SG) is sadly
lacking. There is no agreed list of
qualifications, no search committee to
identify prospects, no vetting of
potential candidates and little testing of
their views and aptitudes – either by the
Security Council or the GA – before the
final selection is made
In 2006, Canada called for reform to the
process of selection, to make it more
transparent. The proposals we made
then are still relevant now.
Ban Ki-Moon’s successor will take office
in January 2017. It will be difficult to
change a process that has been “owned”
exclusively for so many decades by the
Security Council (especially the five
permanent members). Nonetheless,
given what is at stake and the
weaknesses of the current practice, I
suggest that Canada should renew and
press the effort to address its flaws.
36
For UN member states, few decisions are as
important as the choice of a new Secretary-General
(SG). Although Article 97 of the UN Charter
describes the SG only as “the chief administrative
officer of the organization”, the person who holds that
office is more than simply an administrator: SGs
occupy a unique space in the international setting,
with singular influence and authority. In the words of
Sir Brian Urquhart, they serve as “both symbol and
guardian of the original vision of the organization.”
Yet the process for selecting the SG is sadly lacking.
ere is no agreed list of qualifications, no search
committee to identify prospects, no vetting of
potential candidates and little testing of their views
and aptitudes – either by the Security Council or the
GA – before the final selection is made.
e Charter provides for the SG to be elected by the
General Assembly (GA) on the recommendation of
the Security Council. is seems to suggest a mature
and deliberative process between the two principal
bodies of the UN. In reality, however, the Security
Council simply announces its choice following secret
deliberations and then expects the GA automatically
to approve it as a formality – an expectation that the
GA has, regrettably, fulfilled on each such occasion in
the past.
How can the process be opened up? Of course the
person selected must be someone with whom the
Security Council can work, but the GA’s important
role in the process must also be respected.
In the spring of 2006, I addressed the GA as Canada’s
Ambassador and Permanent Representative, calling
for reform to the process of selection to make it more
transparent.
My purpose here is to recall the key
recommendations that Canada put forward at that
time, and that are just as relevant today as they were
eight years ago. I also hope to encourage our current
political leaders and diplomats to advance these
proposals anew. Ban Ki-Moon’s successor will take
office in January 2017 and campaigning has already
begun. ere is nevertheless still time to effect
change.
So what were our proposals in 2006? ere were five:
First, a consensus should be developed as to the
qualities we seek in an SG. ose who aspire to the
post must know the expectations of member states. In
turn, member states should agree on what they are
looking for in a leader. ose qualifications may
change to reflect the times but they must surely
include political and communication skills that have
become essential in the post.
Second, we argued for a systematic effort to identify
potential candidates. is might include a search
committee, a general call for expressions of interest
and approaches to specific individuals to encourage
them to apply.
ird, we suggested that member states hear from
candidates well before the selection, so that those
making the decision can do so in an informed way.
is might be done in sessions organized in Geneva
and New York by the GA President, through regional
meetings, or in more informal settings. Member
states would then be able to make their views known
to the Security Council regarding the various
candidates under consideration.
Fourth, we advocated a deadline by which potential
candidates would be required to declare their interest.
is would avoid a last-minute entry by someone
about whom the GA had not had the opportunity to
develop a view.
Finally, we proposed that the SG’s appointment be
limited to a single five or seven year term, in order to
avoid “angling for re-appointment” and also to cause
a more frequent use of the open selection process,
thereby encouraging broader geographical and
gender participation.
ere are, of course, many other ideas to be explored
in our effort to improve both the process and the
outcome in the selection of an SG. For example:
4e Security Council might be asked to
recommend more than one name to the GA;
4Rotation might be introduced for gender as well as
region;
4Given the increasing importance of the Deputy
SG, candidates might be asked before the selection
to declare who they would appoint to that post.
I am under no illusions about the difficulties in
changing a process that has been “owned” exclusively
for so many decades by the Security Council (and,
more precisely, by the five permanent members).
Nonetheless, given what is at stake and the
weaknesses of the current practice, I suggest that
Canada should renew and press the effort to address
its flaws.
Allan Rock is President and Vice-Chancellor
of the University of Ottawa, a position he
has held since July 2008. In 2003 he was
appointed Ambassador of Canada to the
United Nations, where he was an outspoken
advocate of human rights, human security
and reforming the UN. At the 2005 World
Summit he led the successful Canadian
effort to secure the adoption by world
leaders of the Responsibility to Protect
doctrine, which aims to strengthen UN
efforts to protect populations from
genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and
crimes against humanity.
In 1993, he was elected as the Member of
Parliament for Etobicoke-Centre and named
Minister of Justice and Attorney General of
Canada. He has also served as Minister of
Health, Minister of Industry and Minister of
Infrastructure.
This paper benefits greatly from work done
by David Malone in 2006 and from research
assistance provided by Anaïs DesjardinsCharbonneau.
37
The UN and humanitarian assistance: A little respect, please
Ian Smillie
When a humanitarian emergency occurs, donors look
for the best and fastest ways of delivering assistance.
Although the average Canadian might not know it—
given the inevitable preening of the aid minister, the
government’s disdain for the UN and the standard
NGO fundraising blitz—the favoured channel by far
for Canadian government humanitarian dollars is the
United Nations. It is also the favoured channel for all
major donor governments in the world.
ABSTRACT
Globally, more than half of all emergency
assistance is managed by UN agencies,
primarily the World Food Program and
UNHCR. Governments have little delivery
capacity and the NGO contribution, while
important, is patchy and uncoordinated.
UN agencies act as a focal point for
funders; they serve as coordinators,
managers and front-line delivery
agencies. They are often the first to arrive
and the last to leave, and are frequently
the only serious humanitarian delivery
mechanism in some of the world’s
toughest emergencies.
It is still insufficient. The challenge for UN
member states, including Canada, is to
find ways to build, strengthen and
improve the UN’s herculean response to
humanitarian need.
38
Governments and private donors are the primary
source of humanitarian funding. In a typical
emergency, about 10% of the money will be provided
by or through the Red Cross, and 25% through NGOs.
But the bulk, usually more than half, goes through UN
agencies, primarily the World Food Program,
UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) and
UNICEF. ere are several good reasons for this. e
first is that apart from the occasional use of military
assets to deliver commodities, most donor
governments, Canada included, have zero capacity for
on-the-ground delivery themselves. Somebody else
has to do it. Local governments can occasionally
manage some of it, but emergencies by their very
nature stretch local capacities to the breaking point.
NGOs can manage some of it, and this is
acknowledged in their governmental support, but they
have their limits as well. And somewhere in the mix,
there has to be coordination.
Led by the Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), UN agencies act as a
focal point for funders; they serve as coordinators, as
managers and as front-line delivery agencies. OCHA
created ReliefWeb, the principal online source for
reliable and timely information on global crises and
disasters. And it created IRIN, a well-respected news
agency specializing in humanitarian issues. UN
agencies provide advance warning and the longerterm research needed to underpin good practice.
ey remind individual donors of “forgotten
emergencies” that are not on anyone’s radar; they are
oen the first to arrive and the last to leave, and they
are frequently the only serious humanitarian delivery
mechanism in some of the world’s toughest places.
e UN effort is massive. Because of new conflicts in
South Sudan and Central African Republic, and
escalating violence in Syria, worldwide there were--as
of mid-2014--12 million refugees, 10 million stateless
persons and 24 million displaced persons. UNHCR
provides shelter, protection, legal aid, health care and
food. To do this, it maintains 7,700 staff in 126
different countries. e World Food Program was
providing assistance to nearly three million people in
Darfur and the same number of Syrians in 2014. In
addition to its work on child protection, health and
education, UNICEF is the world’s premier
humanitarian response organization for children.
And other UN agencies play important roles: UNDP,
the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World
Health Organization and the UN Human Settlements
Program.
In fast-onset emergencies—earthquakes, floods and
hurricanes—government donors can be slow in
stepping forward. For victims, however, every hour
counts, and even small delays can mean the difference
between life and death for tens of thousands of
people. e UN system has created general and
specific pooled funding mechanisms that allow it
move quickly while larger donor resources are being
mobilized. ese funds are also useful in more
extended, complex emergencies when an opportunity
to cross rebel lines or to get assistance through a
blockade opens on short notice. UN agencies have
clout and credibility, and with the UN’s political
offices and its peacekeeping operations, can go places
and do things that nobody else can.
e UN is sometimes criticized for failures of
coordination, as in Haiti, which became a nightmare
of confusion aer the 2010 earthquake. Coordination
works best, however, when those on the ground want
it, and when the political situation is clear. Haiti was
confused by the US military presence and by the
many hundreds of NGOs crowding in to do their own
thing. Elsewhere, the UN has been the unsung
humanitarian hero of a dozen disaster situations—
East Timor and Sierra Leone, for example, and most
notably today on the Syrian border. “Unsung hero” of
course, is not the right expression for those who have
to muddle through in situations fraught with chaos,
starvation and violence, and who rarely have half the
resources they need. In the summer of 2014 there
were three million Syrians in refugee camps and
another 6.5 million displaced by violence. As of
August 1, combined UN appeals were running at
about 39% of requirement.
e UN is a creation of its member states, and it is as
good or as bad as it is allowed to be by its funders, the
boards of governors they inhabit, and the managers
they contribute. e world’s humanitarian response
may leave much to be desired in terms of speed,
coordination and effectiveness, but the United
Nations is what makes humanitarian assistance today
better than it has ever been over the past half century.
e challenge for UN member states, including
Canada, is to find ways to strengthen and improve the
UN’s herculean response to humanitarian need.
Ian Smillie has lived and worked in Sierra
Leone, Nigeria and Bangladesh. He was a
founder of the Canadian NGO, Inter Pares
and was Executive Director of CUSO. He
has worked at Tufts and Tulane
Universities and as a development
consultant with many Canadian,
American and European organizations.
He is the author of several books,
including The Charity of Nations:
Humanitarian Action in a Calculating
World (2004, with Larry Minear),
Freedom from Want (2009), Blood on the
Stone: Greed, Corruption and War in the
Global Diamond Trade (2010), and
Diamonds (2014). Ian Smillie
participated in the creation of the
Kimberley Process and he chairs the
Diamond Development Initiative.
39
Rethinking the United Nations
John E. Trent
Whatever we think about the United Nations, most of us
can agree that it needs to be fixed. Although reform has
been a constant in the UN’s near seventy year history, it
has not always been possible to successfully adapt post
World War II institutions to a changing world. But more
than anything we need to fix the attitudes of nation-states
toward international organizations in general and the UN
in particular.
What is wrong with the world?
ABSTRACT
Although reform has been a constant in
the near seventy-year history of the
United Nations, it has not always been
possible to successfully adapt UN
institutions to a changing world.
Meanwhile a multitude of global
problems illustrates the growing need
for global institutions that can make
timely and effective decisions.
At the heart of the problem is the
attitudes of nation-states, that cling to
outmoded concepts of national
sovereignty and do not attach sufficient
priority to the necessary and important
steps that would improve global
governance. A forward-looking
government of Canada would make
‘Rethinking the United Nations’ a central
program of the Department of Foreign
Affairs.
40
e world has a desperate need for global institutions
capable of making decisions about a multitude of global
problems. We are challenged by: armed conflicts (civil
and international), climate change, the wealth-poverty
gap, terrorism, pollution, global warming, the plight of
women and children, fundamentalism, mass migrations,
pandemics, financial crises and enfeebled states, etc. But
each one of these global challenges has one common
denominator: the world is incapable of taking
authoritative decisions that will command respect and be
adhered to. Syria: no decisions. Ukraine: no decisions.
South China Sea: no decisions. Israel and Palestine: no
decisions. Nuclear weapons, no decisions. But arms sales
flourish and thousands die.
Why can’t the UN make the big, urgent decisions? In one
word, because of sovereignty – the belief that each state
can do as it wants with impunity. e problems of
international organizations flow from this outdated
European concept of sovereignty elaborated three and a
half centuries ago.
I said the UN needs to be fixed. What I really mean
though is that the attitudes of states and peoples and
short-sighted leaders about sovereignty and nationalism
need to be changed. e Security Council veto is founded
on the bully principle that the most powerful – not the
community – should call the shots. Regional caucuses of
sovereign states demand equal representation in all UN
affairs including human rights. e bureaucracy of the
UN is still corrupted by hiring on the basis of national
quotas. But the root problem is, first, countries still put
their own ‘interests’ ahead of those of the world
community and, second, national foreign policies are still
determined by presidents and prime ministers acting like
monarchs. ere are few democratic controls.
What would effective global institutions look like?
First, we should democratize international organizations
by including popular assemblies beside their state
decision-making bodies. Everyone knows we must limit
use of the veto. We need authoritative courts and
international peacemakers. Hiring in the UN should be
done on the basis of competence and integrity. Criteria
for the use of the Responsibility to Protect policy need to
be established.
Second, we should learn from the European Union’s stepby-step model of gradually building common functional
institutions, creating supranational law, rights and
institutions, utilizing weighted voting according to
population, particular interests, economic weight and
sovereign participation. We need to open our foreign
policy apparatus to democratic participation and
controls.
ird, principles and values are fundamental. Fears of
creating an authoritarian global government must be
displaced by the certainty that any new institutions will
include the techniques of democratic state-cra
including: dividing and controlling power, promoting
rights and equality, constitutional safeguards, democratic
institutions, elections, federalism, liberalism, rule of law,
local police and decentralization.
How Canada can move the world ahead?
A forward looking government of Canada would make
‘Rethinking the United Nations’ a central program of the
Department of Foreign Affairs and give it the resources
required to carry out this monumental task. e
Department would be initiating a quasi-constitutional
process with the intention of advancing global
governance and encouraging other ‘like-minded’
governments to become partners. States are responsible
for hobbling decision-making by international
organizations and only they have the resources to solve
the problem.
Still, we need a publicly supported process to legitimate
state policies. Non-governmental organizations (NGO’s)
can plan, push and prod to get the ball moving, but
eventually governments have to buy in. To get the public
interested, we can learn from ‘deliberative democracy’
exercises about how to include citizens. is process of
democratic assemblies was developed over the past two
decades to be both educative and participative and to
bring informed public input to policy making.
e first step is to start a process that will seek to answer
the question, “How do we create authoritative global
institutions?” We must analyse: current world problems;
a set of values for world governance, creative new global
institutions, and a path for achieving them -accompanied by an outreach program of education and
communications.
Canada can help develop a constituency that values
cooperation and global governance. Reform will not be
easy. It will be opposed by those who have an interest in
war rather than peace; who feel secure within their
narrow nationalism; and those who want to keep ‘the
ignorant mob’ outside foreign policy decision-making.
But I am convinced they will be outweighed by those
everywhere who are wise enough to recognize that
survival in an interdependent world requires of humanity
that we develop the means for our own self-governance.
Further Reading:
Jacques Attali (2011). Demain, qui gouvernera le monde?
Paris, Fayard.
W. Andy Knight (ed.) (2005). Adapting the United Nations to
a Postmodern Era: Lessons Learned, Houndmills U.K,
Palgrave MacMillan.
John E. Trent is a Fellow of the Centre on
Governance at the University of Ottawa,
where he was formerly a professor and
chair of the University’s Department of
Political Science. Professor Trent is the
former Secretary General of the
International Political Science
Association (IPSA), Executive Director of
the Social Science Federation of Canada,
a founding Vice-President of the
Academic Council on the United Nations
System (ACUNS), past-president of the
Société québécoise de Science politique
and a member of the International Social
Science Council.
Joseph E. Schwartzberg (2013). Transforming the United
Nations System: Designs for a Workable World, Tokyo, United
Nations University Press.
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Canadian perceptions of the United Nations
Kathryn White
ABSTRACT
Canada’s convening earlier this year of
the global summit, “Every Woman, Every
Child,” on maternal, newborn and child
health (MNCH) demonstrates that, when
it comes to development, Prime Minister
Stephen Harper recognizes the reach,
legitimacy and return on investment for
his Government through the unique
channel of the United Nations.
Canadians also continue to demonstrate
a deep reservoir of support for the UN.
UNA – Canada opinion surveys canvas a
particular segment of Canadian society,
i.e. what might be called the “civic core”
of Canada: the 25% of Canadians with
higher household income, are civically
active, older, frequently religious and
frequently helping others both
informally and directly. They are also
significantly more likely to vote. These
surveys demonstrate greater than 80%
support for a range of the UN’s programs
and activities. UNA – Canada’s results are
backed up by other polls measuring the
views of all Canadians.
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Late May 2014 saw a major gathering in Toronto
organized by, and with the full imprimateur of, the
Prime Minister. e global summit, “Every Woman,
Every Child,” on maternal, newborn and child health
(MNCH) convened the most significant international
protagonists, along with representatives from
Canadian development NGOs. Both seasoned
specialists and casual observers recognize that Stephen
Harper is investing much of his Government’s future
and legacy in making a real, concrete difference in this
singular – and unquestionably singularly important area of development.
Tellingly, the summit was a very large gathering of the
most senior United Nations officials. From the
dynamic and outspoken World Health Organization’s
Margaret Chan, through Ertharin Cousin, head of the
UN World Food Programme; Tony Lake from the UN
Children’s Fund; Babatunde Osotimehim of the UN
Population Fund – right up to the UN SecretaryGeneral, Ban Ki-moon, himself, the UN had a central
and formidable presence. e reason is clear: on
issues of development, the UN has both the ears of
the General Assembly and the executive political
functions of the Security Council, along with eyes and
feet on the ground – in other words, real capacity to
deliver, or scale up, promising development practices.
It has been doing so since it was created to deal with
the terrible aermath of World War II.
What does this have to do with Canadian’s
perceptions of the United Nations? Clearly it tells us
something of one Canadian’s perception of the UN and one who matters: when it comes to development,
Prime Minister Stephen Harper recognizes the reach,
legitimacy and return on investment for his
Government through the unique channel of the UN.
From the United Nations agencies of development
there is an equally clear valuing of Canadian
leadership on maternal, newborn and child health as
well as in the Canadian government’s investment in
accountability, governance and scaling up promising
innovation.
To add some broader context of Canadians’
perceptions of the United Nations, and trends in that
perception, UNA-Canada regularly surveys
Canadians. ere are important and exclusive biases
in our ‘sample’. First, the survey goes to those who
have previously given to charities (not UNA-Canada)
or who are subscribers to periodicals which might
have an international, development or national focus.
Based on the research of charitable giving by Canada’s
leading charitable giving scholar, Paul Reed, formerly
of Statistics Canada and currently at Carleton
University, our sample is biased to be representative
of the “civic core” of Canada: the 25% who, by and
large, have higher household income, are civically
active, older, frequently religious and frequently
helping others both informally and directly. ey are
also significantly more likely to vote.
We believe this set or cohort of biases makes their
input particularly valuable. Additionally, my own
assessment is that they also have a significantly higher
likelihood of following news – and therefore may be,
contrapuntally, both more likely to support the UN
and more likely to do so with a critical eye, or higher
expectations, of the Organization.
With these caveats in mind, the Canadian civic core
remains steadfast in their support of the United
Nations and its work. An astounding 88% of
respondents say that Canada needs to commit
strongly to UN initiatives that address environmental
issues; 84% believe that Canada should lead on
activities on the UN principle of the Responsibility to
Protect; 81% endorse supporting the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) and the follow up goals.
at this support has remained solid in the face of
some countervailing views expressed by some
Canadian leaders speaks to an awareness of the need
for this ‘global table’ during times of conflict and
geopolitical change.
While the overall statistics remain remarkably stable
year over year, there are two noteworthy changes in
the numbers from our 2014 survey. ere is a decline
in how Canadians rate Canada’s participation in the
UN, from 61% in 2012 who feel we are doing well to
46% in 2014. Secondly, in 2014, a year of egregious
violence, the uprising of extremism and terrorism,
conflict in eastern Ukraine, ongoing conflict in the
Central Africa Republic and South Sudan, 65% of
Canadian believe that the UN offers the best
alternative to resolve conflict – up from 59% in 2012.
In the interests of fully representing this data and
analysis, there was a matching decline, from 41% in
2012 to 33% in 2014, of those who answered ‘unsure’
to the question of whether the UN offers the best
alternative to resolve conflict. is suggests that in the
face of increased global conflict, those Canadians who
are giving, volunteering, helping their neighbours and
voting, believe even more strongly that the United
Nations is the best hope for resolution.
ese indicators are supported by other polls. For
example, the well-regarded Pew Global Attitudes
Project, which measures public impressions of the
United Nations in 39 countries around the world,
reported in 2013 that among Canadians, 62% have a
favourable view of the UN, while only 25% hold an
unfavourable view.
For those who wonder where Canadians sit on our
role in the world and our relationship and
‘perceptions’ of the UN, it is clear they don’t sit –
they stand with the United Nations, in support of a
better world.
Kathryn White is the President and CEO of
the United Nations Association in Canada
(UNA-Canada), since 2004. She also
serves as elected Chair of the Board of the
World Federation of UN Associations
(WFUNA). Prior to her work at UNACanada, she had been the head of Black &
White Inc. an Ottawa-based international
consultancy specializing in foreign and
social policy research, and development.
Ms. White has published on issues
including the role of civil society in global
health pandemics – which instigated a
change of architecture at the UN in
response to avian influenza; on
successfully integrating dissent into
global conferences; and on the
perceptions of facilitators in the
negotiation towards the
Good Friday Accord in Northern Ireland.
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