UN races to salvage summit
U.S. revisions on proposed reforms surprise members
By Maggie Farley

Tribune Newspapers: Los Angeles Times

August 27, 2005

NEW YORK -- Faced with a last-minute list of demands from Washington, key nations met in crisis talks here Friday to head off a collapse of a UN reform summit of 180 world leaders next month.

John Bolton, the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, surprised diplomats returning from vacation this week with 750 amendments to the reform document that is supposed to be the focus of the 60th anniversary summit Sept. 14.

In response to the ensuing panic, General Assembly President Jean Ping on Friday named a core group of nearly 30 countries, including the United States, to come up with a new text before the summit.

The group will concentrate on several crucial sticking points, such as defining terrorism, tackling disarmament and financing development, where the United States and other countries have nearly unbudgeable positions on opposite sides.

Washington's 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.

U.S. deletions

The U.S. 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.

Diplomats worry that if the U.S. doesn't get its way, there will be nothing of substance for leaders to sign in September.

There will not be nothing. But what there will be may be watered down so much, it may mean nothing, said Greek Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis, a member of the Security Council.

The carefully crafted document is meant to reaffirm the role of the UN in security and development and define ways the world body can deal with new challenges brought by epidemics, poverty, terrorism and deadly weapons. The statement is the result of more than a year and a half of studies and negotiations, and when the final draft was published Aug. 5 with a request for comments, UN officials expected some last-minute tweaking. No one expected the United States to want to rewrite nearly every paragraph.

The whole thing is going to die by suffocation, said Pakistani Ambassador Munir Akram.

That may be just what the United States has in mind.

`We have our differences'

Bolton's proposed alternative to renegotiating the document line-by-line is a two- or three-page statement of general reform principles, with the details to be worked out later. In a display of multilateral spirit, the controversial U.S. envoy sent a letter to his 190 fellow ambassadors this week, noting that time is short and urging that they all work intensively to reach a consensus before the summit.

People understand that we have our differences. Other governments have their differences, too. Now we have a chance to talk about it, he said. We want a successful outcome and a strong, substantive document.

Other, regional groups had objections to the UN proposals as well. But the focus is on the United States' concerns, in part because of Bolton's reputation for being a UN skeptic and a take-it-or-leave-it negotiator. It is also a moment for Bolton to prove his mettle after the Senate refused to vote on his confirmation, leading the president to install him in a recess appointment without congressional approval.

U.S. officials say that the 11th-hour introduction of their many amendments was not an act of sabotage but simply a result of a lengthy interagency consultation in Washington. But others criticize the U.S. for being nearly silent during the months of negotiations this year.

In short, said Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya, the U.S. revision takes the conflict between U.S. interests and those of developing nations and rival powers straight into the spotlight of the UN stage, yet asks other nations to work together to protect the U.S. agenda. The question is, how much is the United States willing to give?

Each country has to defend its position, Wang said. But you also have to work together with other members.
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