POLITICS: Anglo-American Alliance Reshapes Role of UN

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 25 1999 (IPS) - The failure of the United Nations to respond to NATO’s attacks on Yugoslavia is another sign of the success of a US-British alliance in reshaping international politics.

Most significantly, the NATO air strikes to punish Yugoslav military forces for their crackdown in Kosovo shows the strong influence of the US and British government in determining war efforts with or without UN approval.

The two nations were the most vociferous proponents of a NATO attack and both defended the measure in an emergency session of the UN Security Council Wednesday night – although the Council never explicitly authorised the NATO action.

“The action being taken is legal,” British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock told the Council. “It is justified as an exceptional measure to prevent an overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe. Under present circumstances in Kosovo, there is convincing evidence that such a catastrophe is imminent.”

Yet even an “imminent” catastrophe – such as Serb security forces driving more than 250,000 Kosovar Albanians from their homes in recent weeks – does not automatically warrant a NATO response, according to the UN Charter.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan argued after the attacks began Wednesday night that the 15-nation Security Council had the primary role in dealing with threats to international peace and security.

Less than 24 hours later, however, he conceded that the Kosovo Contact Group – comprising Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the United States, with Russia as a disgruntled participant – “is in the lead” for now.

“I have no plans of getting immediately involved,” Annan said.

The lead role by the Contact Group, whose work in recent weeks has been dominated by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and, to a lesser extent, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, ensures that critics of the unauthorised NATO strikes can do little more than complain.

Russia’s UN Ambassador Sergey Lavrov, blasting the “unilateral use of force,” declared: “We are talking about undermining the UN Charter and other norms of international law, about an attempt to establish de facto in the world a predominance of force and unilateral imposition.”

The Kosovo operation is not the only recent case where the United States and Britain claimed to have authorisation for military strikes, without the required authority of the Security Council as called for under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter.

Last December, the two governments launched four days of air strikes on Iraq, citing examples of friction between the Iraqi government and the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) entrusted with inspecting Baghdad’s military arsenal.

The strikes resulted in UNSCOM’s indefinite expulsion and have been followed by near-daily US and British strikes on Iraqi anti- aircraft installations.

Those strikes, in turn, are justified in London and Washington by the need to protect “no-fly zones” set up by the United States, Britain and France in southern and northern Iraq – even though those zones, as well, are not explicitly authorised by the United Nations.

The Iraq involvement is privately regarded by many UN diplomats as an undeclared war. Yet, as one Asian diplomat told IPS, “the UN Security Council hasn’t been able to take on the no-fly zones, even though the majority does not support them.”

Malaysia has tried to debate the legality of the no-fly zones in the Council but that effort was easily quashed by the two Western powers and their allies.

Part of the reason behind US-British dominance is an old one: Both nations have veto power in the Security Council and, with the United States’ dominance over most world economic and military affairs, can combine to block Council action.

But a new factor has come into play since Tony Blair’s Labour government swept into power in 1997: Both governments are unusually close, even compared to previous Anglo-American relationships.

As a result, Washington can sometimes use its alliance with London to seize the initiative with the European Union (EU) and the United Nations.

The reasons for the close ties are largely political and personal. US President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Blair are friends who share a belief in “Third Way” politics linking neoliberalism and conservative policies on crime and welfare with some social-democratic leanings.

The two men also shared some campaign advisers, such as US political consultants James Carville and Stanley Greenberg.

Within UN politics, however, the close ties have an added benefit: Britain can bring a European veneer to US interests, while Washington can push forward British policies which could otherwise leave London marginalised within European politics.

For example, take the establishment last year of the International Criminal Court (ICC) during a five-week conference in June and July in Rome.

The US government, prodded by the Pentagon, was wary of any Court that could try suspects – including military officials – for war crimes without first going through the Security Council, and thereby offering the chance of a Washington veto.

The European Union and others favoured an ICC with an independent prosecutor who could act without Council authorisation.

Human-rights groups contended that Britain helped split the EU alliance several times, offering compromises which they claimed watered down the prosecutor’s ability to bring up cases on his or her own authority.

“The British pretended to offer compromises, which actually were always on the terms that Washington wanted all along,” said one human-rights lawyer, who worked with a European delegation at the Rome talks.

More recently, diplomats have argued that the United States and Britain have secretly teamed up to propose an alternate candidate to the EU’s choice to replace departing UN Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator James Gustave Speth.

Speth, a US national, is slated to leave the UNDP this year, and the EU had nominated a Danish official, Poul Nielson, to replace him.

In recent days, however, diplomats have circulated reports that the United States and Britain are supporting World Bank Vice President for External Relations Mark Malloch Brown for the job. Brown’s candidacy is now believed to command Annan’s support – which would all but sink the official EU choice.

Many of these developments, of course, follow a simple rule: If the United States really pushes for something, it will win.

As Yugoslav Ambassador Vladislav Jovanovic observed, the silence by the United Nations over Kosovo reflected “the overwhelming might of the only superpower.”

In some cases, however, that overwhelming might includes two powers – who dominate UN affairs in tandem more than ever.