The opening of this year's UN General Assembly highlights well the rift that exists in the world body, writes Curtis Doebbler* The opening of the United Nations General Assembly at the organisation's headquarters during September and October each year is a time for the world body to stand up for international justice and moral authority. Dozens of world leaders come to address their peers and the rest of us, "We the People" who the UN Charter proudly exclaims have created the body to ensure world peace and development. It should be a time for lofty expressions of common aspirations and commitments. It should also be a time when the nations of the world come together to make policies leading to joint action for the common benefit of the people of the world; when rational discussion of the world's problems -- world poverty, disarmament, the economy, and the environmental survival of earth -- is initiated and solutions found. It would be a time for diplomacy were it not for the fact that the General Assembly meets in New York City in the United States where Americans without hesitation ignore diplomatic civilities and express freely their lack of concern for just about everything they don't like about others. Thus instead of welcoming the world to the Big Apple, where the UN is based, New Yorkers and American diplomats bent over backwards to insult foreign dignitaries. Nearly everyone seemed to get in on the act, from New York businesses that raise prices sometimes more than 10 times to earn as much money as possible from delegations of visitors to senior American politicians and officials who flaunt the arrogance of power to as great an extent possible. Surprisingly, it was not the usually linguistically clumsy US President George W Bush who led the barrage of insults, although he couldn't refrain from joining in. The insults started even before the UN General Assembly officially opened. When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a request to visit the site of the 11 September 2001 tragedy where the World Trade Center buildings had stood in lower Manhattan he received an insulting reply. He said he wanted to pay his respects to the almost 3,000 people who had been killed. The New York City police did not want him to do so and denied him permission to visit the site while New York newspapers referred to him in derogatory terms for seeking to pay respect to the city's dead. Columbia University was more interested in having President Ahmadinejad visit. Nevertheless, its president couldn't find a kind word to say to his guest and instead repeatedly insulted him in his introduction, undoubtedly to appease the strong anti-Arab lobby at the university. The Iranian president showed more decorum than his hosts. He smilingly brushed off the egregious welcome. He then proceeded to tell his audience of the inequalities that exist in the world and the need for reconciliation based on principles of justice and respect. The speech was apparently too complex for the New York media to comprehend as they instead focussed on the university president's insults and a few answers to tabled questions. While America's academe provided pre-show entertainment, the speeches to the UN General Assembly were the real draw. Although more dignified and less insulting than the university president, the speeches at the UN bore a clearly disappointing message: the UN is not working properly. The new UN secretary-general was the first speaker to take the podium entering the Great Hall as diplomats whispered about how he was "a nice guy but too beholden the US" or "someone who wants to try, but just doesn't have the insight." As if to ratify suspicions still lingering in the air, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon congratulated states for "a highly successful conference on climate change" appearing oblivious to the fact that many of the leaders sitting in front of him had already expressed concern about what the climate summit failed to achieve. The UN's host -- President Bush -- did not even bother to attend the summit, instead deciding to hold his own a few days later. This faux pas did not deter Ban from proceeding to lecture his audience on how the UN should be made stronger while remaining almost silent about the concrete action that had to be taken. He even failed to state exactly what he would get the UN to do, the only body he actually exercises some control over. He did mention the many problems facing the world that many people expect the UN to solve. But mention of these problems was also problematic. For example, in his brief mention of Iraq he failed to recognise that the UN Human Rights Council -- a body directly under the authority of General Assembly -- does not even discuss the mass killing of more than an estimated one million Iraqis, or the punishment of the people responsible for this heinous deed. Instead, Ban's most important point concerning Iraq was that "the safety and security of UN staff is paramount". The secretary-general also emphasised the need to save the planet from environmental destruction, but failed to mention that the US president -- the most ardent opponent of environmental action to control depletion of the world's resources -- had snubbed the most recent summit. In short, he showed that he knew what the problems were, but had no idea about what he, the UN, or the world's leaders could do to solve them. Second to speak was the newly elected President of the UN General Assembly Srgjan Kerim, a wealthy Macedonian businessman who had once served his country in a variety of diplomatic posts but now serves the commercial interests of a private corporation. Nevertheless, he was nominated by Macedonia to preside over the 62nd General Assembly during 2007-2008. Kerim stressed the lofty goals of the UN in a motivational speech that sounded like a sales pitch for intangible goods. What he was selling remained as unclear as the price. What did become clear was that Kerim -- who, like Ban, had supported the US war on Iraq -- was not selling anything that the US did not like. Moreover, it was clear that he did not want to hear creative thoughts as just days before the General Assembly opened he reconfirmed its worst exclusive traditions by supporting the denial of entry to UN grounds by accredited NGO representatives during the high level session. Within 40 minutes of the opening of the 62nd session of the UN General Assembly, two of the most important diplomats of the UN had discredited the organisation by appearing to subordinate it to US interests and to elitism. The third speaker, Brazilian President Luiz Inàcio Lula da Silva, finally began to address topics of concern to most of the states represented in the room and their people. He chastised the "anachronistic, predatory and senseless" notion that "profits and wealth can grow forever." And he committed his country to meeting the challenges of multilateral cooperation. In contrast to the previous speakers, President da Silva recognised the failings of the climate talks, warning that we must "not delude ourselves" and that it "is unacceptable that the cost of irresponsibility of a privileged few be shouldered by the dispossessed of the earth." He also enumerated concrete action that his country had taken both domestically and internationally in cooperation with other countries. The Brazilian president's speech was an eloquent defence of human rights, environmental concern and social justice, although it did not mention much in the way of new action that Brazil would undertake to achieve these laudable UN goals. The mood change sharply, however, when following the Brazilian president, US President Bush took the General Assembly podium. The American president began by quoting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but neglecting to mention America's Guantanamo Naval Base that has been perhaps the most criticised situation of ongoing and systematic human rights abuses in the world. He also vaguely committed the US government to many things it has long said it espoused, but which it has yet to deliver on and sometimes has affirmatively worked against. For example, Bush urged preservation of the environment, but alluded to his long held view that any action to protect the environment must not interfere with the unfettered ability of American business to exhaust the planet's natural resources. He also pledged allegiance to democracy using the failed example of Iraq to clumsily suggest that it was the right path to democracy. Bush seemed oblivious to the fact that in the eyes of most of the rest of the world America's illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq constituted a crime of aggression. Nevertheless, Bush called on the UN and its member states to help extricate the US from its Iraq fiasco. At the same time he abdicated any responsibility for the international crimes committed by the aggression against Iraq that had already claimed the lives of more than a million Iraqis. Bush's message -- to the most democratically constituted body of the UN -- was that the General Assembly had no power over important international matters such as peace and security. These issues, according to Bush were exclusively within the competence of the UN Security Council, a body in which the US exercises a veto. This only partially repeated a general division of authority found in the UN Charter. Bush either did not know or failed to recognise that the General Assembly can, and has in the past, act on matters of peace and security when the Security Council fails to act or acts inadequately. More disturbingly for supporters of the UN, Bush issued a subtle threat to his peers that if the UN did not act the way that the US wants it to act then the US would act alone. This reiterated to the world's leaders that it is the continued practice of the US administration to take unilateral action instead of attempting to cooperate with others. It was also an implicit insult to the authority of the body before which he was speaking. Nevertheless, the UN secretary-general and president of the UN General Assembly seated behind the US president politely applauded this insult to their authority. But if Bush's speech expressed an arrogance of power aimed at consolidating the US's hegemony over the world, these aspirations were not met with silence. The strong words of several leaders who criticised the US also resonated with the majority of the countries as was evident during the Non-Aligned Movement's meeting of foreign ministers that took place on the sidelines of the General Assembly. It was also evident from the immediate reaction of leaders assembled in the General Assembly, especially from some of the US's closest neighbours. For example, when Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolàs Maduro Moros criticised the US for creating a more dangerous world by invading and destroying Iraq he received a hearty ovation. When Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque berated Bush's "crude language and arrogant tone" in threatening several states and called for Bush to be held responsible for his international crimes, he also received applause. When Iranian President Ahmadinejad criticised American hypocrisy in building an arsenal of nuclear weapons while taking steps to prevent Iran from utilising nuclear energy, he received enthusiastic applause. And when Nicaraguan President José Daniel Ortega Saavedra referred to the United States "empire" as a "tyranny" that is the "greatest threat to democracy", calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons everywhere starting with the US, he was applauded both before and after his speech. Ortega also tellingly noted that when he addressed the General Assembly 18 years ago as president of his country, the same problem of a hegemonial power dictating through force, not law or moral right, was the greatest threat facing the world and the UN. This, he concluded, was still true today. Bolivian President Evo Morales Ayma seemed to express the frustration of America's neighbours as he suggested the UN General Assembly consider moving the UN's headquarters out of the United States. Indeed, many people in the world must wonder if it is not about time that international diplomats stop gathering in the shadow of a belligerent host. Ignoring an insolent bully until it can learn how to cooperate with its peers is sometimes the best that can be done. Indeed, the United Nations, while under the shadow of the American government, is increasingly of less relevance to addressing the most pressing problems in the world. For example, when Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg decided to announce his country's astonishing one billion dollar new investment in maternal and child health, he chose the Clinton Foundation meeting, not the General Assembly, as a location. While repeating the announcement to the General Assembly, it sounded as if he was explaining old news to a body that really didn't matter as much as the non-governmental initiative of a former official from a single country. To restore a minimal level of respect in the UN, its officials and its member states need to act with integrity and independence to achieve the goals for which the UN was created. These goals are stated clearly in the UN Charter -- the heart and soul of the world body. They include preventing the use of force by one state against another, the sovereign equality and equal development of all states, and respect for the rule of law, among others. Achieving any of these goals first requires an environment of decorum in which states can speak to each other with respect and in which promises will be kept. The leaders of the world gathered in New York made it clear that such an environment does not exist. The lingering question is: but can they build it? * The writer is a professor of law at An-Najah National University and delegate of the NGO Nord-Sud XXI to the UN in New York and Geneva.
