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Resources updated between Monday, June 26, 2006 and Sunday, July 2, 2006
June 30, 2006
June 29, 2006
The U.N.'s Day in Court Article
For Iran, the Man Is the Mess Article
Statement of Iran on Universal Periodic Review Development
June 28, 2006
Another UN meeting giving a voice to the Israeli apartheid theme (see contribution of the Political Committee of the Palestinian Legislative Council).
UN International Meeting in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace continues in Geneva (press release) Development
Another UN meeting giving a voice to the Israeli apartheid theme (see contributions of the Palestinian Working Women's Society for Development and Birzeit University).
UN International Meeting in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace continues in Vienna (press release) Development
Another UN meeting giving a voice to the Israeli apartheid theme (see contributions of Algeria and the Organization of Islamic Conference).
UN International Meeting in support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace opens in Geneva (press release) Development
Draft resolution on the Right to Development Development
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Anne Bayefsky
Today's headline is that the crisis at the UN has been averted. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has made a formal request for the spending cap to be lifted and most observers assume that he has done so with the blessing of Secretary Rice who has assured him that the United States will not vote against a resolution to this effect. At a recent news conference Annan said "The cap on the budget will be lifted. There will be no crisis."
No, the crisis, said the G-77 UN majority, the Secretary-General and his Deputy Mark Malloch Brown, was the so-called "artificial leverage" of linking the obligation to pay for the corruption and mismanagement to the corruption and mismanagement itself.
So what happened after the pages of ambiguous promises made in last year's Summit? Faced with the prospect of ending an entrenched culture of blank checks, and entitlements flowing in one direction, the UN majority and its secretariat had a lot to lose. So they took the offensive and have showed not slightest reticence in making their demands plain:
And yet, it wasn't their audacity that attracted attention. It was the attempt by the American UN Ambassador and members of Congress to say "enough." American taxpayers deserved better. The deluge of UN-hate speech which followed was voluminous: the U.S. was responsible for "non-cooperation," "politicization," "conditionality." Deputy Secretary-General Malloch Brown decided to eschew the UN-eeze – he took direct aim at the ignorance of "Middle America" and the Administration's failure to do an adequate selling job.
The Secretary-General and his deputy were worried about a possible paradigm shift. They even spoke of the UN facing a moment of truth. But that moment appears to have come and gone, despite the current state of UN "reform."
From an American perspective, the price of UN-led multilateralism appears to be an affinity for self-flagellation. But rather than some kind of harmless predilection, the hatred the UN fuels for America does real harm. The membership of the UN – where democracies are outnumbered and often work against each other – dooms its capacity to undertake a number of the major challenges of the 21st century. Until such time as we redefine multilateralism to serve the interests of democracies, we can expect to be undermined and demonized on the world stage. I hope the prospect of another blank check to those who resist reform will serve as a wake-up call. Because the truth is, the crisis of confidence is as real today as it ever was.
This note was delivered as oral testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, June 20, 2006. The full written testimony appears here.
Today's headline is that the crisis at the UN has been averted. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has made a formal request for the spending cap to be lifted and most observers assume that he has done so with the blessing of Secretary Rice who has assured him that the United States will not vote against a resolution to this effect. At a recent news conference Annan said "The cap on the budget will be lifted. There will be no crisis."
The UN Budget and UN Reform: Never the Twain Shall Meet Editor's Note
Draft Resolution on Universal Periodic Review Development
Statement of the OIC on the Right to Development Development
June 26, 2006
Venezuela denies UN misuse claim Article