Despite its flaws, U.N. well worth preserving

Annan, a realist about the U.N.'s shortcomings in the face of a changing world, last year appointed a panel of distinguished leaders to recommend reforms. Last week the panel offered ideas that might prevent the United Nations from drifting into irrelevance.

It tiptoes around the controversial question of pre-emptive strikes that are central to the Bush administration's foreign policy in the age of al-Qaida. The U.N. Charter (Article 51) enshrines the "long-established customary international law" of self-defense that "makes it clear that states can take military action as long as the threatened attack is imminent," and no other means would deflect it. The panel does not seek to change this. But it says that in the case of "non-imminent threat," arguments for it should be "put to the Security Council, which can authorize such action if it chooses to."

Thus the panel appears to reinforce the principle of pre-emptive strikes but offers caveats about the conditions under which they can be launched.

The panel says the United Nations has lagged in combating terrorism; offers criticism of various U.N. agencies; makes proposals for making the bureaucracy more efficient; and offers a variety of strategies to curb the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, about which it is clearly alarmed.

One of the panel's most significant recommendations is to restructure the Security Council, whose present membership it considers unrepresentative and ineffective. The council presently consists of five permanent members with veto power — the United States, Britain, Russia, France and China — and 10 revolving members who each serve for two years. Two options for enlargement are offered that could expand the council to 25, but neither is likely to quell political dissent and squabbling as nations like Japan, India, Brazil and Italy argue their respective claims.

Major action must probably wait for a heads of state meeting on the eve of next September's General Assembly session. In the intervening months, the United States should be busily promoting those reforms at the United Nations that would make it more relevant to U.S. interests.

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John Hughes is editor and chief operating officer of the Deseret Morning News. He served a one-year term in 1995 as assistant secretary-general and director of communications at the United Nations. He is a former editor of the Christian Science Monitor, which syndicates this column. E-mail: hughes@desnews.com