Boutros-Ghali, Boutros. Foreign Affairs; New York Vol. 75, Iss. 2, (Mar/Apr 1996): 86.
A NEW ROLE FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL
THE DEFINITION of the U.N. secretary-general's role is far from precise. The U.N. Charter identifies the secretary-general as "the chief administrative officer" of the United Nations, permits him to "bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security," and instructs him to perform those functions entrusted to him by U.N. organs, but it leaves much about the position a mystery. This is not a liability but an asset. The leeway the language of the charter provides is essential if the United Nations as a whole, and the secretary-general in particular, are to deal effectively with the rapidly changing complexity of human and international affairs.
During the Cold War, the superpowers controlled global decisions, and the ideological contest between them constrained the secretary-general. Today we are living in the midst of a worldwide revolution. With the end of the Cold War, an international system that had politically, economically, and strategically involved every country in the world disappeared almost overnight. As international trade and commerce have rapidly expanded, peoples and places have undergone unprecedented change. The explosion of scientific knowledge has produced remarkable inventions, and human horizons appear limitless. With the communications revolution, image is becoming more influential than fact.
As the 21st century approaches, the planet is in the grip of two vast, opposing forces: globalization and fragmentation. Globalization is creating a world that is increasingly interconnected, in which national boundaries are less important, and it is generating both possibilities and problems. Alarming environmental developments expose the earth to permanent damage and spur massive human migration.
Transnational criminal activity grows. Even the spread of communications technologies, which has produced so much good, engenders pressures that our institutions were not designed to address.
And then there are the forces of fragmentation. Rising insecurity and unmet needs are leading people everywhere to seek refuge in smaller groups. This tendency can promote the healthy growth of civil society, as evidenced by the burgeoning of citizens groups and nongovernmental organizations acting in pursuit of public purposes. But fragmentation can also breed fanaticism, isolationism, separatism, and the proliferation of civil conflict.
History reveals that those caught up in revolutionary change rarely understand its ultimate significance. The outcome of the current transition period cannot yet be foreseen, but we are not helpless in the face of these global developments. The United Nations can help deal with the challenges that globalization and fragmentation pose now and in the future. It was designed to be both the world organization and the organization of its member states, responding both to global concerns and to the needs of member states and their peoples.
As if in training for precisely this moment, the United Nations has in its 50 years gained enormous experience in contending with the problems that both trends have spawned. In response to globalization, the United Nations has defined human rights for the international community. It has fostered the progress of international law. It has transformed the law of the sea.
Through a series of global conferences, it is promoting international consensus on disarmament, the environment, population, social development, migration, and the advancement of women. Confronted by fragmentation, the United Nations played a key role in decolonization, giving international recognition and economic and social support to wave after wave of newly independent states. It has responded to civil wars in Zaire, Cambodia, El Salvador, Angola, and Mozambique. It is today helping economies in transition move toward more open and inclusive economic and social systems. And it is assisting states all over the world in the process of democratization.
But the United Nations cannot meet these new challenges, for it is trapped by a second dilemma. With the emergence of the problems associated with globalization and fragmentation, the world body has been given vast responsibilities, but it lacks the political, military, material, and financial resources required to accomplish these tasks.
Today and for the foreseeable future, the secretary-general must operate within the context of both the world dialectic of globalization and fragmentation and the U.N. dialectic of an increasing burden and decreasing resources. If the United Nations is to serve the new range of requirements of member states and their peoples, the role of the secretary-general must be created anew. Faced with these obstacles, what is the role of today's secretary-general? What can the secretary-general do? I believe a great deal can be done. I believe the secretary-general can be crucial.
BIGGER IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER
THE SECRETARY-GENERAL has the overriding responsibility to heighten international awareness that the immensely powerful and potentially positive process of globalization brings with it some major problems. Globalization, largely an economic phenomenon, is failing to reach all peoples. Too many are excluded, unable to obtain access to the prosperity it offers. At the same time, the market economy that is the engine of this movement is, by its very logic, driving large numbers of people-in developing, transitional, and developed countries alike-into deeper poverty and despair.
As secretary-general I have placed great importance on international conferences as a way of raising the world's consciousness about these problems. International conferences are not a new idea; they have played a part in diplomacy since antiquity. But the conferences convened since 1992 represent something new and different. They are linked. They are cumulative. They foster global consensus on interlocking global issues. They generate specific commitments. And they provide a comprehensive framework for international action in fields that are drastically affected by the negative side of globalization: the environment and development (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), human rights (Vienna, 1993), natural disasters (Yokohama, 1994), population (Cairo, 1994), poverty, unemployment, and social disruption (Copenhagen, 1995), the advancement of women (Beijing, 1995), housing (Istanbul, 1996).
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