United Nations General Assembly 2018: IRC Report

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the Report from the International Relations Committee The United Nations General Assembly 2018 (4th Report, HL Paper 156).

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, this is the second report on the United Nations and its affairs from your Lordships’ International Relations Committee, the first being at the time of the appointment of the new Secretary-General 22 months ago. It may not have been a bestseller but I am glad to say that Senhor Guterres and his advisers were reported to have found it useful. One of our members even spied it on the Secretary-General’s desk, so it may be that our work was not in vain. Anyway, this is the second one and it marks the annual opening meeting of the General Assembly of the UN later this month. I am very grateful to all those involved that we have the chance, even in a brief debate, to comment before the UN General Assembly meetings take place in the last week in September.

I have no direct interest to declare, except that I hope to attend this event in New York as part of the so-called High-Level Group on Governance of the Commonwealth and its reform, and that all the world’s expanding networks in the digital age—the modern Commonwealth being one among them—are of rapidly increasing relevance to the successful operation of the UN as a whole. That its operational mode should work and succeed in bringing peoples and nations together to address global issues was never more important than in this puzzling and directionless new world we have entered, driven paradoxically by connectivity of amazing power yet also by fragmentation of almost equal power. Yet that the UN institution is under the most severe challenges for many years past cannot be doubted either. Not only is its central structure still related to a past age, that of the post-war world, and suffering from the same paralysing consequences at Security Council level as way back in the Cold War years but, as power is redistributed through the web and the communications revolution, the task for the UN of keeping in effective and co-ordinated contact with all the new regional groupings, non-governmental agencies and centres of power, such as the communications giants that now dominate the globe—and with multiple new networks and civil society—becomes increasingly difficult and urgent.

Our brief report, for which I warmly thank my colleagues and our excellent support staff, who were as usual extremely helpful, seeks to address some new challenges but it cannot possibly touch on them all. At the heart of the problem lies the clash between the democracies and the autocracies, notably Russia and to a lesser extent China, about how the UN should perform its tasks—a clash which hobbles the influence of the permanent five in the Security Council and leaves many of its agencies in a deep dilemma. How can a UN-authorised force keep the peace when there is no peace to keep, or when the very nature of conflict is changing fast or it is not even clear who the conflicting and warring parties are? How can UN agencies concerned with development and poverty eradication succeed when not only are different models and views competing in the development field but the very nature of the problem has altered? How can it cope when American support is wavering under President Trump—the American view seems to blow hot and cold on the UN and its future—and the rules-based order of the past 70 years is openly flouted, or when disarmament momentum has stalled, or when the real roots of climate concern are ignored despite what was promised so hopefully in the Paris agreement?

Those are the negative questions but the scene is not all negative—I would not like to give that impression —especially when one focuses on the excellent work of many UN agencies, as we sought to do in our committee. According to official UN figures, while 20 years ago 35% of the world was living in poverty by its definition of $1.90 a day, the figure in 2013 was down to 10.4% and by some estimates is now down to 6%. Of course, for those in that percentage who are trapped in that world, the situation is still appalling and completely unacceptable. But the old picture of a planet divided in two like an orange between rich and poor countries—developed and developing countries—has been completely overtaken by modern events.

I was frankly a bit disappointed to hear the Secretary-General talk the other day about development as though it was still a “we and they” world with a yawning gap between donors and recipients. The reality today is different. Most people in most nations are in that gap, moving into conditions that would have been described a few years ago as developed. Gigantic new middle-class middle-income consumer markets are emerging in what used to be called the developing worlds of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Inside some countries, especially in the West, wider inequalities may have emerged or been perceived, creating dangerous political tensions and instability—although the measures are far from reliable. I gather we are shortly to have a visit from UN officials to survey the position here in our own United Kingdom. But in the world as a whole, inequality has been substantially reduced. That can be chalked up as a triumph and a major success for the UN agencies, among others.

The great world tragedies, and the focus points for the UN, have now shifted. The prime, truly global tasks now are to bring peace instead of war; to bring humanitarian relief where the ashes of peace have left horrific deprivation and the need to rebuild from the rubble, as in Syria; to co-ordinate moves against terrorism and the roots of terrorism; to begin bringing some principles of behaviour to the Wild West of cyberspace, which is full of dangers for us all; and to push ahead with the new proposals for addressing migration and defining more clearly the distinction between refugees and economic migrants, now disrupting the entire world, and certainly the whole of Europe, on an unprecedented scale.

In those tasks the UN will need the support and co-operation of all the powers, the non-governmental organisations and the regional networks and alliances that now weave the world together. If it cannot command that support and focus on those tasks, then other regional and bilateral alliances and coalitions of the willing will simply take its place, and in some cases I am afraid they are already doing so. If it cannot speak for the democracies and the true upholders of human rights, others will do so. Our report today points to some of the steps that the UN must take in establishing the new and stronger role that is now needed, but none of us can guarantee that these steps will be taken or that they will prove to be enough.

The pattern of international relations has changed, and the distribution of global power has shifted, beyond recognition. To retain and deploy the power and authority that the UN ought to have as a truly effective global institution, it too will have to change considerably—indeed, some would say “beyond recognition”—or be left behind as the digital world moves on into entirely new territory.

I trust that our comments on our hearings and our report will allow your Lordships some useful opportunity to think about the forthcoming UN General Assembly and the way in which Britain can play an effective role in an institution that must survive for the peace of the world.