Cornell Hosts AID Panel on UN Reform

Cornell Hosts AID Panel on UN Reform

by Benjamin Seligman
Turn Left
March 16, 2005

Ithaca, NY – On Tuesday, March 1st, the Cornell chapter of Americans for an Informed Democracy held a panel discussion on the need for reform of the United Nations and how such reform fits into larger US foreign policy. The panel consisted of Jeffrey Laurenti, a senior advisor for Ted Turner’s United Nations Foundation, Dr. Benny Widyono, a Visiting Fellow at the South East Asia Program and former UN diplomat, and Eugene Kogan of Americans for an Informed Democracy.

Mr. Laurenti discussed the challenges the UN faced, such as a recent drop in approval ratings from 60 to 35 percent among the American public. He also reviewed ongoing UN efforts to combat threats to global stability, citing the new UN report A More Secure World. This report outlined six major threats to global security and presented a total of one-hundred and one recommendations on how to combat them, including the need to eliminate small arms and nuclear weapons and to ‘reign in unilateralism.’

Dr. Widyono spoke next and called attention to the UN’s ultimate paradox of making states ‘equal’ when clearly they are not. He also discussed the need for, and challenges to the reform of the Security Council, suggesting that they could perhaps add more members to the Security Council but without giving them veto power.

Finally, Mr. Kogan spoke about the gulf between US foreign policy and the world’s willingness to accept it. He criticized the Bush administration for departing from consensus by conflating state tyranny and terrorism and resorting to preemptive strikes. He also called out the administration for engaging in ‘strategic moralism.’

Following their statements, a question and answer session was held, covering topics from the specific political challenges of reforming the Security Council to whether the UN as a whole should be restructured. In response to a question of whether it is the Bush doctrine or the consensus which is problematic, Kogan responded that the problem is that Bush does not even attempt to find a consensus. ‘While terrorism and state tyranny should be handled quite differently, Bush has said that they are “two faces of the same evil,”’ Kogan said.