Bolton Wants '11th Hour' Changes To UN Reform Plan

Bolton wants '11th hour' changes to UN reform plan
US says it supports UN reform, but some see a 'settling of scores' in new demands.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0829/dailyUpdate.html

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

Although America's controversial ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, came to the job in early August promising to "work with people," he has now requested extensive, last-minute revisions to a 30-page plan on UN reform that was to be signed by world leaders when they meet in New York in September.

The Globe and Mail reports that Mr. Bolton, who was appointed to his job by President Bush without the approval of Congress, circulated a letter last week "demanding that last-second changes" in a document that has been debated among UN members for the past year.

Among the changes that Mr. Bolton is demanding is the deletion of a clause that would urge the five permanent members of the Security Council not to veto action aimed at halting genocide or ethnic cleansing.

Paul Heinbecker, a former Canadian ambassador to the UN, said the Bush administration is torn between its desire for genuine UN reform in key areas and placating Republican hard-liners who deeply mistrust the institution. Mr. Heinbecker said he hoped Mr. Bolton's proposed amendments represent a negotiating position and not a demand for line-by-line renegotiation."

The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday that General Assembly President Jean Ping named a core group of 30 countries to try and work through Mr. Bolton's 750 requested amendments. The group will focus on hard-core issues, such as "defining terrorism and financing development" where the US and most other countries in the world have completely opposite positions.

The United States' 39-page revised draft eliminates nearly all references to the Millennium Development Goals adopted by all nations, including the United States, at a similar UN summit in 2000. Those goals pledge, among other things, to halve world poverty by 2015, and other nations are likely to resist that change in the document most strongly.

The US draft significantly reduces a section on poverty in favor of bolstered sections on strengthening free-market values and spreading democracy. It deletes mention of institutions and treaties the United States opposes, such as the International Criminal Court and the Kyoto treaty on global warming. The draft also deletes a proposal that nuclear powers dismantle their arsenals, but strengthens passages on fighting terrorism.

The BBC reports Mr. Ping hopes to have a revised document ready by Sept. 6.

The Guardian reported Friday that Britain is one of the countries that intends to fight many of the changes requested by Bolton, possibly setting up a clash between the two allies.

A [British] Foreign Office spokesman said yesterday that the UK and the European Union, of which Britain holds the presidency, "are broadly content with the summit draft. It reflects the ambitious agenda thrown up by Kofi Annan." The spokesman said it was "important that we do not row back from previous high-level summits", such as the G8 meeting at Gleneagles in July and the UN millennium summit in 2000.

Julian Borger of the Guardian writes that the requested changes in the UN document are "a road map" for US disagreements with the rest of the world. He notes that it's not a surprise that the US doesn't want to sign a document that urges nations to support the Kyoto Accords or the International Criminal Court, both of which are detested by the Bush administration, but "the mystery is how these differences surfaced only at the end of a long drafting process."

There are two versions of how this happened. The US delegation says it was raising its objections informally at meetings to discuss the draft, and was forced to circulate its blunt list of deletions and additions only after those objections were ignored.

The account provided by European officials at the UN explains the late timing of this intervention by turmoil inside the US foreign policy establishment. For the first seven months of this year, as the draft was being hammered out, the US had no full permanent representative at the UN. John Danforth retired in January, and the White House's attention was focused on persuading the Senate to confirm John Bolton. A career diplomat, Anne Patterson, led the delegation in the interim, but reportedly received little political guidance from Washington.

Columnist Benny Avni of the New York Sun, however, applauds Bolton's actions, calling them much needed.

Mr. Bolton's exercise underlined one strength that the new American ambassador brings to the table, one largely overlooked by detractors who portrayed him as an anti-UN simpleton. Agree with him or not, the Senate confirmation hearings brought out Mr. Bolton's mastery of the details of the inner workings of world institutions, rarely matched by any of his critics.
Last week, he did not take all his marbles home and refuse to play, but instead showed [the UN] that America can shoot with the best of them. Owning the largest marbles, of course, makes him the most fearsome shooter on the playground.

But an editorial in the Guardian argues that the US approach to the document smacks of retaliation for not supporting the US-led war in Iraq.
Mr Bush has never really forgiven secretary general Kofi Annan and other senior UN figures for their failure to support his invasion of Iraq. Although no one disputes that the UN is in need of reform, the American notion of reform looks more like a settling of scores than an attempt to improve its workings.

The Washington Post reported last week that the US is not the only country with some concerns about the document. Arab nations don't like the terms defining terrorism, and Russia objects to any attempts to give authority to intervene in cases of genocide. "Only the 25-member European Union, Australia, Canada and New Zealand appear to be backing most of the key proposals in the draft document."