Malcolm Templeton: A long road to freedom

When New Zealand helped found the United Nations organisation in 1945 there were 50 member states. Today there are 191.

While several enemy states from World War II were excluded in 1945, most of the states that have since become members formed the colonial empires of a handful of European countries. In 1945, there were only four independent countries in Africa. Today there are 52.

New Zealand and Australia, it is worth remembering, took the lead in securing the inclusion in the United Nations Charter of provisions (The Declaration regarding Non-Self-Governing Territories) which laid the foundation for the eventual self-determination of those colonies, including the island territories for which they were responsible.

We can take credit for that, but we should not be unduly complacent. The Declaration envisaged not merely progress towards self-government, but the economic, social and educational advancement of the peoples concerned.

With more than a billion people - most of them inhabitants of those former colonies - still living on less than a dollar a day, there is still a long way to go.

New Zealand also took a leading part in securing the inclusion of two other innovative provisions in the charter. It insisted, despite resistance from some of the great powers, that the United Nations should not merely proclaim fundamental human rights, but call for joint and separate action to secure their observance.

This provided a basis not only for the drafting of the Declaration of Human Rights, and later the covenants on political, economic and social rights, but also for international action against gross violation of human rights in individual countries, notably apartheid in South Africa.

The third innovative contribution for which New Zealand can take credit was to strengthen the independence of the Secretary-General and his staff.

He is forbidden by the charter to take instructions from any government, while member governments are likewise forbidden to seek to influence him and his staff in the performance of their duties.

It is not too much to say that these provisions made it possible for Kofi Annan to assert that the invasion of Iraq was illegal, and also to issue, in March of this year, an extremely brave and frank report, In Larger Freedom, looking to the future of the organisation over the next decade.

Most of the recommendations in the Secretary-General's report are such that a conscientious UN member like New Zealand, which pays its dues and has a good participatory record in UN peacekeeping, can accept and, indeed, support.

There is one exception. In official development and assistance, New Zealand's record, measured against the global target of 0.7 per cent of GDP set 30 years ago, and against the achievement of other well-off developed countries, is not good.

It is not a convincing excuse to say any quantitative deficiency in our aid is somehow made up for by its quality.

This would suggest the aid provided by, for example, Scandinavian countries that come close to meeting their targets is somehow inferior, which I doubt we would care to argue.

Given the comfortable surpluses in this year's budget, I should have liked to see a commitment by Michael Cullen to meet the interim commitment proposed by Kofi Annan in his report, to progressively increase New Zealand's ODA to 0.5 per cent of GDP by 2010 - the figure, incidentally, that Norman Kirk's Government achieved 30 years ago. Next year, perhaps?

When world leaders assemble in New York in September to review progress since the millennium summit, attention will undoubtedly concentrate on the contentious issue of the composition of the Security Council.

The difficulties should not be minimised. Any amendment of the charter requires the concurrence of the five permanent council members and a two-thirds majority of the UN membership.

Thirty years ago, explaining the position of the New Zealand Government to a United Nations committee on charter review, I recalled that from the beginning New Zealand had been strongly critical of the unanimity rule (the veto) and the indefensibly wide scope of its application.

That provision had been included on the faulty premise that the permanent members of the council would carry forward their wartime alliance in a joint endeavour to preserve the peace.

Since I made that statement in 1975 the Cold War has ended, but the consequential improvement in the operational effectiveness of the council has been less than might have been expected.

The principal proposal for reform advocated by the Secretary-General is for the enlargement of the council's membership from 15 to 24, with either six additional permanent members or eight elected for renewable four-year terms. Neither of the additional categories would be given the veto privilege of the existing permanent members (Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States).

The difficulty is that whereas the existing permanent members clearly have no disposition to give up their privileged voting right, it is unlikely that aspirants for permanent status (for example Japan, whose claim New Zealand supports) would be happy with occupying a second class category of seats.

The question remains, even if the proposed enlargement or some compromise is agreed, will an enlarged council be more efficient or authoritative? While I commend the objective, my experience of United Nations operations over the past 60 years makes me sceptical.

The successes and failures of the UN have reflected not so much the effectiveness or defectiveness of its machinery as the willingness or unwillingness of its members in individual cases to accept the limitations on national sovereignty implicit in the charter, to observe international law and where necessary to comply with the expressed will of the majority.

From the beginning there has been a reluctance to display that willingness on the part of countries that regarded themselves as superpowers or aspired to that status. To the extent that it is generally accepted that there is presently only one superpower, this observation applies with especial force to that country.

But as other countries in other continents grow more rapidly in economic strength and perhaps in military capacity, it will apply with equal force to them.

* Malcolm Templeton represented New Zealand at the UN from 1973 to 1978.