When the whole world is changing, you cannot have static institutions. Perhaps Antonio Gramsci described this dilemma well when he said that “crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born”.
Whilst the failings of the current world order are evident, I do not see convincing alternatives on offer. On the contrary, what I see trying to take its place is a dangerous retreat into unilateralism, ultra-nationalism and the politics of identity. The trend to larger and more integrated entities such as the EU seems to have stimulated a corresponding dynamic towards smaller and more local entities. Bigger also means smaller, perhaps illustrating Newton’s ‘every action has an equal and opposite reaction’. When will we learn that identity is not monolithic or exclusive, but multiple and overlapping?
We must reject those siren calls that would reduce us to only one identity, whether national, religious or ethnic, and use that identity to exclude others. Or, worse still, unleash violence against them. The politics of identity are undermining both states and the inter-state system through populism, sectarianism and separatism, and offering nothing but a bitter, fragmented, parochial and dangerous world.
Many things are not going well. Nevertheless, we should not give in to despondency. Whatever the shortcomings of the international state system as we know it, never before in human history have proportionally so few people died from armed conflict. Today, cancer, heart disease and traffic accidents are far bigger threats to humanity than war. That is because the international system, composed of rules and institutions, does allow most states to settle most of their disputes peacefully, most of the time. At the heart of the rules-based system stands the United Nations. I know it is not the most popular institution in this country, but let me just say that “with all its defects, with all the failures that we can check up against it, the UN still represents man’s best-organised hope to substitute the conference table for the battlefield”.
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Those are not the words of a former secretary-general, but those of a great American, who knew a thing or two about the battlefield: President Dwight D. Eisenhower. They remind us that we should not lose sight of the UN’s core responsibilities for international peace and security. We often talk about the UN’s shortcomings in that area and not enough is said about its achievements and successes of which there have been many. We need to recall that the world’s states, despite their many differences, do gather to try to address the world’s challenges peacefully, which is a huge achievement in human history. So instead of trying to start all over again, dismantling institutions and laws painstakingly crafted over the decades, we have to see the current global context as an opportunity to improve the existing world order.
Regrettably, established powers have not always lived up to President H.W. Bush’s hope that they create “a world where the strong respect the rights of the weak”. They have ridden roughshod over international law, and refused to share the privileges – and responsibilities – of global governance with rising powers. But at times states have risen to meet their responsibilities.
At the 2005 World Summit, the United Nations’ member states recognised a Responsibility to Protect, declaring that all states must protect their own populations from war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and genocide. And if they fail to do so, the Security Council has a residual responsibility to step in to provide that protection.
RtoP was a defining moment for the United Nations and the international community it represents. But we are not living up to that responsibility. The responsibility inspired the intervention in Libya to rescue the Libyan people, but the authorisation to intervene failed to establish an effective government or sustainable peace. And the international community has failed to provide consistent and effective pressure to bring the parties to the Syrian conflict to a negotiated outcome and the people of Syria are paying the terrible price. We now need to strengthen the tools of prevention to make RtoP effective. This is the message of David Hamburg’s life work in the cause of prevention.
Unfortunately, too often early warning does not translate into early action. States that are threatened by strife should know and be firmly encouraged to call on the United Nations for mediation and timely assistance before it is too late. When coupled with timely mediation, prevention can head off escalating social violence. To cite just two examples, prevention worked in Kenya in 2008 and in Guinea in 2009 and again in 2013 without which those crises could have deteriorated into a full-scale ethnic cleansing and civil war.
For all this to happen, the world needs brave leaders, leaders who put the next generation ahead of the next elections. Addressing climate change, for example, might not be a vote-winner, but it is absolutely essential for the future of humanity. Fuelling the flames of identity politics for electoral gain might be a good career move for ambitious politicians, but it is disastrous policy in a world of increasingly mixed identities and unprecedented human mobility.
Another of the contributory factors to the lack of international coherence is the vastly increased velocity of events, to which leaders feel they have to respond immediately. Indeed, they are expected to respond immediately to the 24-hour news cycle. Who could imagine international statesmen spending months in San Francisco as in 1945? The pressure for quick results and ‘successful’ outcomes of summits all too often means that deep differences are papered over only to reappear when it comes to implementation.
The leaders of established powers have to take the long view and recognise that they too have to follow rules, and not just set them. They also have to share power with rising states. As I have often argued, this implies enlarging the Security Council and giving more voting rights to developing countries in the Bretton Woods Institutions.
But leaders of rising powers have to be willing to take on a greater share of responsibility for the global order upon which their success depends too. They cannot stand on the sidelines, just criticising the injustices of the past. To lead means to take responsibility, to set the example and to step up to the plate. All states have to recognise that since power ebbs and flows, it is in everyone’s interest to shore up a fair, rules-based system that respects not only national sovereignty, but also the rights of individuals.
In conclusion, allow me to reiterate my conviction, acquired over the decades, that no society can enjoy enduring success without peace and security, sustainable development and the respect for human rights and the rule of law. In those principles lie the essence of conflict prevention and the assurance of a more secure and fairer world order, an aspiration to which David Hamburg has devoted so much of his life.
Being a text of the Andrew Carnegie Distinguished Lecture on Conflict Prevention in honour of David Hamburg, presented Thursday, 23 October, 2014, at New York City.
Kofi Annan