UN: Senior Appointments

Lord Giddens Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Giddens (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lord Dubs on having secured this debate and introduced it so ably.

It is a central paradox of international relations that we live in the most interdependent world ever, yet global institutions seem to be at their weakest. An anecdote about this is going the rounds and might amuse noble Lords—or it might not; I do not know, but I will give it a try. Three world leaders get together and have an audience with God. Bill Clinton is the first up. He asks, “When will there be agreement to limit climate change?”. God says, “Not this year—not even in my lifetime”, and Clinton walks away in tears. David Cameron is next up. He asks, “When will we get recovery in global growth?”. God answers, “Not this year—not even in your lifetime”, and David Cameron walks away in tears. The UN Secretary-General is the last one up. He asks, “When will our international institutions really work?”, and God walks away in tears.

Consider climate change, a field in which I happen to work, and which has been mentioned. Climate change poses a huge set of risks for the world. Some say that these risks are lower than the majority of climatologists think, but they could just as easily be much greater. Moreover, climate change is irreversible. This year, COP21 will take place in Paris. There have been 21 years of meetings organised under the auspices of the UN to try to get agreement to reduce carbon emissions. The results, I am afraid to say, are almost negligible as regards the huge scale of the problem. The volume of CO₂ in the atmosphere continues to mount each year. Will the Paris meetings be more effective than those in the past, or a replay of the notorious ones in Copenhagen in 2009, which were invested with massive hopes but turned out to be so shambolic? We have to hope so; but even if some sort of formal agreement is reached, there is no effective system of international law to back them up.

The reasons for the fractured nature of global society are quite easy to find. The first is the decline of US dominance and growing multi-polarity. The second is the historically unprecedented nature of the problems we face; no other civilisation has had to cope with human-induced climate change, off-the-scale population growth or the existence of nuclear weapons. These are almost wholly new threats, which can be confronted only globally. The third influence is the frozen nature, as we all know, of some of the core institutions on a global level. Thus the permanent members of the UN Security Council famously reflect the world of 1945 rather than that of 2015. Yet we are living in a kind of runaway world which has a dangerous and disturbing feel to it.

All these factors are reflected in the inchoate way in which appointments to the post of UN Secretary-General are made—and the consequent lack of legitimacy it has. Of course, some Secretary-Generals, as has been said, have been very influential, and deservedly so, but it is widely acknowledged that the post is more about prestige than power, which remains largely in the hands of nations and groups of nations, especially the five permanent members of the Security Council. Each of them has de facto veto power, sharply reducing the chances that a strong leader could be chosen. The process might be even more convoluted this time given the divisions between Russia and the western members and between the US and China. The UN has carried out its own review of appointments procedures to executive positions, including that of Secretary-General, but it has become mired in the very processes it was supposed to help overcome.

A group of NGOs has also launched a worldwide campaign for reform with a list of proposals, so has Equality Now, which is pressing hard for there to be a female leader for the first time. There could, indeed, be a female leader. But otherwise, so far as I can see, there is unlikely to be much real change without reform of the Security Council, where the UK drags its feet as much as anyone. The situation would be comic were it not tragic in its consequences for world order and world security. I have two questions for the Minister. Is there serious hope that the situation can be otherwise? The Government have their own proposals, I believe. And is not the UK just a little bit complicit in this situation, which has been so difficult in the past and will probably prove difficult in the present too?