WILL UNILATERALISM DESTROY THE UN?

Closely following world events, I fear that unilateralism may destroy the United Nations, writes Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1991-1995. To a certain extent, the UN plays the role of scapegoat, the author writes. The real problem is that the UN is not able to speak up. How can it defend itself by saying that a given dispute is due to Member State A when Member State A is its boss? If it were to use diplomatic weapons, it would have to say Country A is responsible. But Country A could then retaliate by stoping paying its dues and thus marginalising the whole UN machinery. The fact that we are confronted by new problems means there is a need for a drastic change in the UN. We must prepare ourselves for the third generation of international organisations, to succeed the UN as it succeeded the League of Nations. The third generation will not come about by changing the composition of the Security Council or by revolutionising the operation of the General Assembly by through drastic change in the overall concept. The change needed is to obtain the participation of non-State actors in international affairs. We will not be able to solve certain problems without the participation of, let us say, big cities, or non-governmental organisations, or multinational corporations.

THE USA/UK-IRAQ WAR: HOW ABOUT PEACE JOURNALISM?

There is a Latin proverb that reads, \'\'audiatur et altera pars\'\' -- listen to the other side too, write Johan Galtung, professor of Peace Studies and director of TRANSCEND, a peace and development network, and Dietrich Fischer, professor at Pace University and Co-director of TRANSCEND. The failure to do so was the fundamental mistake of the US and UK and lead to their misjudging the likely course of their war against Iraq. They became victims of their own propaganda, the authors write in this article. Peace journalism starts with two questions: what is the underlying conflict about? And are there any possible peaceful solutions to that conflict? Could a solution be a Kurdistan based on a confederation of autonomies in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey? With double citizenship and passports for Kurds? How about giving more reality to the ten nation Economic Cooperation Organization, extending from Turkey to Afghanistan, 12 million square kilometres, maybe 400 million inhabitants, with enormous potential?

INTERVIEW WITH FERNANDO SAVATER: ‘BUSH IS NOT ON THE SIDE OF CIVILISATION’

The current war is not a response to either an invasion or to a United Nations decision but rather a long-term geopolitical strategy of the United States, states the writer and philosophy professor Fernando Savater, a leader of the Basta Ya movement, which represents the victims of terrorism in the Basque Country. In this interview for IPS, Savater argues, \'\'the rule of international law, however precarious, must be respected for political, not ethical, reasons. The war against Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism. No one could believe such an improbable and unsubstantiated linkage.\'\' \'\'The major political challenge of the 21st century is to establish international organisations for governance, education, justice, cooperation, etc., on a planetary scale. Today the dividing line between civilisation and technologised barbarism lies in this effort. I fear that Bush, disgracefully, is not on the side of civilisation.\'\'

WANTED: THREE MILLION PEOPLE ALIVE

World Water Day -- celebrated each year on 22 March -- provides us with an opportunity to recognise the centrality of water to our daily lives, to poverty reduction, to our environment, and to the sustainable development of nations, writes Sir Richard Jolly, chair of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC). In this article for IPS, Jolly writes that top-down, supply-driven approaches to provide water and sanitation services have not worked, while treating water as a free good to be delivered weakens good water management including cost recovery and water conservation. Present levels of international aid going to water, sanitation, and hygiene are estimated at about five billion dollars per year. Yet Third World governments are spending roughly the same again. The author calls for a doubling of this level of investment and raising the share of national and international resources going to services in slums and urban shanty-towns and in rural areas. Better water, sanitation, and hygiene were and are the basis of better health in the industrialised nations. Without them, no amount of drugs, doctors, or hospitals will lift public health onto an equivalent level in the developing world.

A DARK MOMENT

It is difficult not to feel despair and powerlessness at this awful juncture, write Archbishop Desmond Tutu, recipient of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, and Ian Urbina, associate editor at the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP) in Washington DC. In this article for IPS, the authors write that millions in the world fought with all their hearts and minds to avoid the violence ensuing in Iraq. Never in history has there been such an outpouring of resistance before a war had even begun. This doctrine of moral and popular preemption must be sustained. This is the beginning not the end of heightened vigilance. With war, domestic civil liberties face their greatest threat. We must not squelch the right to protest under the pressures of patriotism. World attention has for the last months fixated on the desire for a diplomatic and United Nations solution. If we want lasting peace and security in the Middle East, if we want international law to hold any meaning, we must begin to require that UN resoltions are applied uniformly across all countries. In Iraq, we must watch to see that the promises for a truly functioning democracy are honoured, that the long-term commitment for rebuilding is provided.

US WAR A GREAT STEP BACKWARDS FOR HUMANITY

The war US President Bush is waging against Iraq is the most senseless and illegitimate war in recent history, not only because none of the arguments presented as justification are valid but also because it is a violation of the law and of the consensus of the majority of the peoples and governments of the world, writes Rigoberta Menchu, 1992 Nobel Peace Prize recipient and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. The offensive now destroying Iraq places the United States, its top government officials, and their allies in the dock for violation of international law. The United Nations should defend not only its code of law, tainted by the capriciousness and arrogance of the US; it must also take concrete steps to translate the universal condemnation into an exemplary moral and political sanction. With the world dominated by the hegemonic muscle-flexing of a government that has proclaimed itself the sole Global Power, it is necessary that people unify and mobilise to oppose the New Imperial Disorder with a new order of harmony, understanding, and intercultural respect. And we must hope that the world\'s democratic governments restore the validity and authority of the multilateral institutions, which have been gravely damaged by the unilateral declaration of war by the Bush administration.

BRAZIL CAN WIN THE WAR AGAINST HUNGER

Brazil has set itself the goal of eliminating hunger within four years and, in President Lula\'s first week in office, decided to postpone the 700-plus million-dollar purchase of jet fighters to help pay for it, writes Jacques Diouf, director-general of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). In this article for IPS, Diouf writes that Brazil\'s greatest enemies are the poverty and hunger within its borders, not military threats from its neighbours. It is in everyone\'s interest, rich and poor, to eliminate hunger. In the view of the FAO, hunger is as much a cause as an effect of poverty. As long as large numbers of the population are hungry -- and thus unable to study or work properly and likely to die young -- it is fanciful to assume that it will reach its full potential for economic growth. Getting rid of hunger is not simply a moral obligation but also an investment that is bound to generate very high returns on the relatively modest sums involved. In the global war against hunger, everyone will be a winner. Brazil is now showing the world that if you are really determined to eliminate hunger, it is both possible and not excessively costly.

THE KOREAN PENINSULA: A TRANSCEND PERSPECTIVE

(By Johan Galtung and Dietrich Fischer) German poet Goethe once said: \'\'People behave the way you treat them.\'\' To a large extent, this applies also in international relations, write Johan Galtung, Professor of Peace Studies and Director of TRANSCEND, a peace and development network, and Dietrich Fischer, Professor at Pace University and Co-director of TRANSCEND. In this article for IPS, the authors write that Bush\'s inclusion of North Korea with Iraq and Iran in the \'\'axis of evil\'\' made North Korea more belligerent, as even the US government now seems to recognise. The hawk/dove balance in North Korea can be tilted by the hawk/dove balance exerted by the US, South Korea, Japan and China, and to some extent by Russia. Fischer and Galtung recommend five steps to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula: Continuation of Sunshine Policy; Regime change in North Korea, like in China, heading for more democracy and human rights; a One nation/two states Confederation on the Korean Peninsula; a Conference for Security and Cooperation in Northeast Asia; foreign troop withdrawl from the Korean Peninsula. What helped end the cold war in Europe was a gradual mutual opening to the flow of ideas, goods and people. The same policy can work in Korea.

PROTECTIONISM – BAD MEDICINE, WRONG DIAGNOSIS

A phantom is stalking the globalised world and threatening to turn back history: protectionism, which made a big comeback in 2002, writes Benedetto della Vedova, a deputy in the European Parliament for the Transnational Radical Party. US president George W. Bush was the first to try this dance, beginning with tariffs on steel and then gigantic subsidies for agriculture. But the protectionist wind is blowing in Europe too (and not only in agriculture) where the economic crisis is provoking calls for state intervention and trade protectionism. Given that the transferral of traditional industries and production of intermediate goods to countries with lower production costs have benefitted, not harmed, the industrialised countries, Vedova argues that their invocation of protectionist policy is indefensible. The author agues that the industrialised countries should accept, whatever the consequences, the challenge of achieving production excellence in keeping with the new international division of labour. To do so it is necessary to renew systems that have aged to the verge of paralysis and make major investments in research and development. Financing for these changes could come in part from agricultural subsidies, which devour over 40 percent of the EU budget and force European consumers to spend far more one food than they would in a free market.

OLD AND NEW EUROPE

Just when the leadership of France and Germany was commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Elysee Treaty, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, irritated with Paris and Berlin for their opposition to war against Iraq, lashed out at the Franco-German position as simply coming from the \'\'old Europe\'\', writes Joaquin Roy, Jean Monnet professor and Director of European Union Centre at the University of Miami. In this article for IPS, Roy writes that to believe that Lithuania, Slovakia, or even Poland, because of their fast conversion from satellites of the Soviet Union are today the true representatives of Europe is preposterous. In the post-September 11th world, the \'\'old Europe\'\' is the one formed around the nucleus forged by two nations tragically mangled by self-inflicted wars that ended in near suicide (Germany) and humiliation and occupation (France) in World War II. Their leaders concluded that the only way to end their tendency to bloody conflict was to place the means of war under the control of common institutions. The grave danger raised by Rumsfeld\'s remark is that the US might persist in considering the European doubts irrelevant. The risk is that the US will decide to carry out the war by itself and believes that others will follow. Only when the cards are down on the Security Council table or the first shots are fired over Iraq will we know the truth. Until now, fortunately, only words and pots of ink have been launched. It is an improvement, given past experience.

STARVING THE POOR TO FEED THE CORPORATIONS

There are two paradigms vying for the future of food and farming: one is based on non-sustainable production on large-scale industrial farms with costly hybrid/genetically modified (GM) seed and agrochemical inputs, the other on small farms, ecological /organic internal inputs/systems which are low cost and accessible to poor producers, writes Vandana Shiva, an author and international campaigner for women and the environment. In this article for IPS, the author writes a deceptive productivity calculus has then been used to sell the bogus claim that without industrial agriculture, pesticides, and genetically- modified organisms (GMOs), the world cannot be fed. Quite to the contrary, the solution to hunger and poverty is the promotion of ecological, organic, biodiverse small farms which use less energy and fewer natural resources, reduce the costs of inputs, and produce more nutritional output per unit acre. While the conditionalities imposed by global trade and financial institutions are preventing the government from supporting the poor\'s access to adequate and nutritious food, they are promoting the diversion of subsidies from people to corporations. If we are to build food security upwards and outwards from the household to the community to national and global levels, the principle for trade and distribution must be localisation, not globalisation.

GLOBALISATION

Globalisation is a double-edged tool, writes Jose Maria Figueres, managing director of the World Economic Forum and former president of Costa Rica (1994-1998). We can take advantage of it with sound national strategies designed to increase the well-being of our citizens. Or we can cross our arms and do nothing and allow globalisation to take advantage of us. Thus we have the possibility to decide and build our future, but no one will do it for us. The responsibility is ours. Globalisation is more than a simple process of economic opening and tariff reduction. Taking advantage of it requires clear policies and that at the same time reinforce macro-economic health, strengthen strategic social investment, and promote responsible use of natural resources. Convinced that business has responsibilities to society and can play a positive role in areas relating to development, the WEF supports programmes that work in this direction. Many governments and many grass roots organisations share this understanding. Today it is more important than ever to join forces and move forward. The World Economic Forum and the World Social Forum share the obligation to explore their common goals and work towards them rather than accentuate their differences.

OPEN MARKETS OR OPEN PLUNDER ?

Once upon a time, empires were built through direct conquest. These days the equivalent gains are routinely achieved through different, and more efficient, means, which those in power prefer to call not open theft but \'\'open markets\'\', writes Anuradha Mittal, Co-Director of Food First (Institute for Food and Development Policy). The question is, open for whom, and for what? the author writes in this article for IPS. US Secretary of State Colin Powell gave the clearest possible answer: \'\'Our objective with FTAA is to guarantee North American companies the control of a territory that goes from the Arctic Pole all the way to Antarctica, free access to the whole hemisphere without difficulties or obstacles for our products, services, technology, and capital.\'\' Resistance to such domination is strong and growing stronger. Since January 7, 2003, Mexican farm leaders have been on hunger strike as many demonstrations have been held. These protests are part of a worldwide opposition to free trade in agriculture that will be present at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre. It advocates alternatives to corporate agriculture, rallying around the battle cry,\'\'Food sovereignty is a fundamental human right.\'\' To make this vision a reality for farmers around the world, the corporate elites are being put on notice -- the World Trade Organisation, NAFTA, FTAA, and other trade agreements must get out of agriculture; there must be a complete moratorium on GE crops and no patents on living matter.

GLOBALISING JUSTICE

The world has seen the globalisation of capital and communications but not of justice, solidarity, respect, and tolerance because the forces that unilaterally drive globalisation have not permitted it, writes Rigoberta Menchu, recipient of the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize. In this article for IPS, Menchu writes that these forces have opened up the markets of countries that produce raw materials for their own products while blocking these countries\' access to many of their own markets. They have used security as an excuse to create obstacles to migration. And they have made war into their economic engine. Popular demonstrations against a discredited international system and events like the World Social Forum represent the legitimate endeavour to give globalisation a human face, to transform it into a process that takes into account the interests of the people and not just of giant transnational corporations. Menchu calls for reform that breaks the system of exclusivity that until now has transformed government representatives into servants of the major corporations, corporate mafias, and supranational interests. Such reform must open the way for the participation of social actors that thus far have no representation in the existing institutional systems.

GLOBALISING CONFUSION

In the last few years, globalisation has forced traditional capitalist thinking to reposition itself in relation to both the market and society, writes Michel Ogrizek, director of communications for the World Economic Forum. In this article for IPS, the author asserts that the result has been the proliferation of numerous and often paradoxical interpretations by technocrats which have been hijacked by various popularity-seeking groups. A generally distorted perception of what globalisation is has been aggravated by simplistic behaviour from some political and business leaders, contradictory economic data, social and cultural side-effects, and extreme adverse psycho-sociological reactions. The global smoke screen, generated by the actors on centre stage today, hides not only the real nature of the risk but also the potential positive impact. Should we see globalisation as the Trojan Horse for a new worldwide order? I don\'t think so, for the simple reason that the same communications technologies which are the driving force make it impossible to carry out such a supposedly imperialistic project.

THE KOREAN PENINSULA: A TRANSCEND PERSPECTIVE

German poet Goethe once said: \'\'People behave the way you treat them.\'\' To a large extent, this applies also in international relations, write Johan Galtung, Professor of Peace Studies and Director of TRANSCEND, a peace and development network, and Dietrich Fischer, Professor at Pace University and Co-director of TRANSCEND. In this article for IPS, the authors write that Bush\'s inclusion of North Korea with Iraq and Iran in the \'\'axis of evil\'\' made North Korea more belligerent, as even the US government now seems to recognise. The hawk/dove balance in North Korea can be tilted by the hawk/dove balance exerted by the US, South Korea, Japan and China, and to some extent by Russia. Fischer and Galtung recommend five steps to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula: Continuation of Sunshine Policy; Regime change in North Korea, like in China, heading for more democracy and human rights; a One nation/two states Confederation on the Korean Peninsula; a Conference for Security and Cooperation in Northeast Asia; foreign troop withdrawl from the Korean Peninsula. What helped end the cold war in Europe was a gradual mutual opening to the flow of ideas, goods and people. The same policy can work in Korea.

BUILDING UTOPIA

The World Social Forum grew directly out of the economic, social, and political conditions of the opening of the 21st century, writes Candido Grzybowski a sociologist, director of IBASE (Brazilian Institute for Socio-economic Analysis) and member of the organising committee of the World Social Forum. Vast numbers of people remain trapped in profound desperation, in the deep crisis of a global capitalism that in its neo-liberal form is even more savage and destructive. Others face the even worse prospect of bombs and death, the fruits of a logic of terror and war. While it isn\'t yet clear how we can exit this crisis, what is clear is that it is time to act, the author writes in this article for IPS. The WSF is an initiative designed to overcome neoliberal globalisation and bring about a globalisation based on solidarity, democracy, and sustainability. It establishes that political action is the responsibility of each individual and the coalitions they form, not an attribute of the forum.

THE DOHA DEVELOPMENT AGENDA: CHALLENGES AHEAD

Multilateralism is the only sustainable way to secure our global future, writes Supachai Panitchpakdi, Director-General of the World Trade Organisation. At Doha in November 2001, in a climate of dangerous international uncertainty, WTO members showed the determination to make multilateralism work. What the world needs today is a reaffirmation of this choice of multilateralism over unilateralism. In this article for IPS, the author writes that trade liberalisation is a powerful ally of sustainable development. Improving market access for products of particular interest to developing countries, such as agriculture goods and textiles, will make a huge difference to the lives of millions. We should also remember that trade is not a zero-sum game. Developed countries also stand to gain from trade liberalisation in these areas. For instance, agricultural support in developed countries, which comes close to USD 1 billion every day, represents a significant cost to developed country tax payers and consumers. In the WTO, developed country members have committed themselves to respond to the concerns of developing countries, but more could be done.

WTO: DOUBLE STANDARDS AND DECEIT

If it is to stop terrorising the weak and the powerless to pry open markets for rich corporations and rich countries, the World Trade Organisation must be reformed, writes Vandana Shiva, an author and international campaigner for women and the environment. In this article for IPS, Shiva writes that what is urgently needed to bring justice and fairness into international trade rules, protect the survival of Third World peasants, and defend the food rights of the poor is to lower production costs and prevent unfair competition from artificially cheap subsidised imports. While US and European subsidies have actually increased in the past year, countries like India have been forced to remove import restrictions and have seen domestic markets and prices collapse as artificially-cheap, heavily-subsidised products flood the market. Sustainable agriculture/organic farming along with import restrictions are the only guarantee for livelihood security and food security in the Third World, the author writes.

LEGAL ACTION THREATENED TO BLOCK IRAQ WAR

While the Bush administration was boasting recently that other countries will join a war against Iraq, fast increasing majorities in Britain and much of the rest of the world were telling their governments not to do so, writes Fredrik S. Heffermehl, Norwegian lawyer, International Peace Bureau consultant, and author of \'\'Peace is Possible\'\'. In this article for IPS, the author writes that several governments have even been threatened with legal action to stop them from taking any part in the US war. Notice of legal action was served upon the prime ministers of Britain and Canada last week, warning government officials to respect the 1998 Rome Treaty or face prosecution before the new International Criminal Court. Bush may face his toughest challenge at home if anyone in Congress accepts an offer from international law professor Francis Boyle to assist in impeaching the president for unlawful threats. \'\'The Bush doctrine of pre-emptive warfare or pre-emptive attack in alleged self-defence was rejected soundly in 1945 in the Nuremberg Judgment, \'\' Boyle says. The strong prohibition against power between nations has taken centuries to establish. The purpose of the UN is to avoid wars and the power to veto military action is an intentional component of its design. No state can claim a right to attack because it finds that the Security Council has proved unable to act, Heffermehl writes.

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS: LEADERS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

Progress depends on more than high-level cooperation among global decision-takers, writes Klaus Schwab, founder and president of the World Economic Forum. It also requires a different kind of leader, Schwab writes in this article for IPS -- one that has contributed to social transformation by applying entrepreneurial skills to address a wide array of social challenges at the local level. These leaders are called social entrepreneurs. Social entrepreneurs enter the scene precisely where markets have failed to deliver critical public goods and services, particularly to those who cannot pay. Without market assistance, social entrepreneurs create the social value underpinning the productive healthy societies upon which sustainable development depends. The World Economic Forum uses its leverage such that the scalable solutions of social entrepreneurs can be replicated, improved, and expanded, so that their practical insights can be incorporated into government policy and business initiatives, Schwab writes.