UN REFORM: The Fine Print

September 12, 2005
Anne Bayefsky 

The UN reform effort is operating around the clock. 170 Presidents and Prime Ministers, who are expected to come to the Summit this week, want something to show for themselves. Right up at the top of the draft now on the table is a list of values and principles. Included is a – HYPERLINK http://www.eyeontheun.org/documents.asp?c=17&cl=1&cf=0&chn=0&cn=U%2EN%2E+Reform&ca=0&l=19&lhn=0&lf=0&ln=Documents+of+the+Secretary%2DGeneral+and+of+the+President+of+the+General+Assembly&la=0&d=581 statement that the role of the major UN conferences is to be recognized and valued.

Obviously the authors of this provision thought the passage of time, the pressure for an outcome document, forty pages of provisions, and the seeming banality of the prose, would let this one slip by.

But remember the Durban World Conference Against Racism?

In early September 2001, ending only three days before 9/11, the UN held a World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa. The Conference produced the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action.

The only state on the planet named as guilty of racism by the Durban Declaration was Israel. The Declaration said Palestinians were http://www.eyeontheun.org/view.asp?l=15&p=66 victims of Israeli racism.

The NGO Forum which preceded the government conference used different language with the same purpose and target, describing http://www.eyeontheun.org/view.asp?l=15&p=67 Zionism as racism.

The United States and Israel walked out of the Durban Conference in disgust, refusing to join consensus on the Declaration. What was not valuable then, is no more valuable today.

http://www.eyeontheun.org/view.asp?l=16&p=70Six-minute Film - Witnessing the Durban Conference

http://www.eyeontheun.org/view.asp?l=16&p=69 Images from the Durban Conference