A
thoroughbred diplomat of many decades and still counting, On 13 December 1996, the United Nations Security Council
recommended Annan to replace the previous Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt, whose second term
faced the veto of the United States Confirmed four days later by the vote of
the General Assembly, he
started his first term as Secretary-General on 1 January 1997. He was reelected
for a second term in 2001, which was unusual since this meant a third term for
Africa. The Asian states didn't protest although it should have been their turn
because Annan was so popular among the UN member states and UN staff.
Born Kofi Atta Annan on the
8th of April, 1938 into the Ashanti and Fante Aristocracy in Ghana,
he has continued to show his passion and commitment for a more fairer, more
peaceful and more united world. He currently chairs the Kofi Annan Foundation,
an organization.
Ten years
ago, Kofi Annan has delivered his final speech as
United Nations Secretary General at the Truman Presidential Museum and Library
in Independence, Missouri, USA. His words then, echoes stronger now!
Enjoy
excerpts from that speech.
Today I want to talk particularly about five lessons I have
learnt in the last 10 years, during which I have had the difficult but
exhilarating role of Secretary General.
I think it is especially fitting that I do that here in the
house that honours the legacy of Harry S Truman. If FDR [Franklin D Roosevelt]
was the architect of the United Nations, President Truman was the
master-builder, and the faithful champion of the Organisation in its first
years, when it had to face quite different problems from the ones FDR had
expected.
Truman's name will for ever be associated with the memory of
far-sighted American leadership in a great global endeavour. And you will see
that every one of my five lessons brings me to the conclusion that such
leadership is no less sorely needed now than it was 60 years ago.
1. Collective responsibility
My first lesson is that, in today's world, the security of
every one of us is linked to that of everyone else.That was already true in Truman's time. The man who in 1945
gave the order for nuclear weapons to be used - for the first, and let us hope
the only, time in history - understood that security for some could never again
be achieved at the price of insecurity for others.
He was determined, as he had told the founding conference of
the United Nations in San Francisco, to "prevent, if human mind, heart,
and hope can prevent it, the repetition of the disaster [meaning the world war]
from which the entire world will suffer for years to come".
He believed strongly that henceforth security must be
collective and indivisible.
That was why, for instance, he insisted, when faced with
aggression by North Korea against the South in 1950, on bringing the issue to
the United Nations and placing US troops under the UN flag, at the head of a
multinational force.
But how much more true it is in our open world today: a
world where deadly weapons can be obtained not only by rogue states but by
extremist groups; a world where SARS or avian flu can be carried across oceans,
let alone national borders, in a matter of hours; a world where failed states
in the heart of Asia or Africa can become havens for terrorists; a world where
even the climate is changing in ways that will affect the lives of everyone on
the planet.
Against such threats as these, no nation can make itself
secure by seeking supremacy over all others. We all share responsibility for
each other's security, and only by working to make each other secure can we
hope to achieve lasting security for ourselves.
And I would add that this responsibility is not simply a
matter of states being ready to come to each other's aid when attacked -
important though that is. It also includes our shared responsibility to protect
populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against
humanity - a responsibility solemnly accepted by all nations at last year's UN
summit.
That means that respect for national sovereignty can no
longer be used as a shield by governments intent on massacring their own
people, or as an excuse for the rest of us to do nothing when such heinous
crimes are committed.
But, as Truman said, "If we should pay merely lip service
to inspiring ideals, and later do violence to simple justice, we would draw
down upon us the bitter wrath of generations yet unborn."
The lesson here is that high-sounding doctrines like the
"responsibility to protect" will remain pure rhetoric unless and
until those with the power to intervene effectively - by exerting political,
economic or, in the last resort, military muscle - are prepared to take the
lead.
And I believe we have a responsibility not only to our
contemporaries but also to future generations - a responsibility to preserve
resources that belong to them as well as to us, and without which none of us
can survive. That means we must do much more, and urgently, to prevent or slow
down climate change. Every day that we do nothing, or too little, imposes
higher costs on our children and our children's children.
2. Global solidarity
My second lesson is that we are not only all responsible for
each other's security. We are also, in some measure, responsible for each
other's welfare. Global solidarity is both necessary and possible. It is
necessary because without a measure of solidarity no society can be truly
stable, and no one's prosperity truly secure.
That applies to national societies - as all the great
industrial democracies learned in the 20th century - but it also applies to the
increasingly integrated global market economy we live in today. It is not
realistic to think that some people can go on deriving great benefits from
globalization while billions of their fellow human beings are left in abject
poverty, or even thrown into it.
We have to give our fellow citizens, not only within each
nation but in the global community, at least a chance to share in our
prosperity.
That is why, five years ago, the UN Millennium Summit
adopted a set of goals - the "Millennium Development Goals" - to be
reached by 2015: goals such as halving the proportion of people in the world
who do not have clean water to drink; making sure all girls, as well as boys,
receive at least primary education; slashing infant and maternal mortality; and
stopping the spread of HIV/Aids.
Much of that can only be done by governments and people in
the poor countries themselves. But richer countries, too, have a vital role.
Here too, Harry Truman proved himself a pioneer, proposing
in his 1949 inaugural address a program of what came to be known as development
assistance.
And our success in mobilising donor countries to support the
Millennium Development Goals, through debt relief and increased foreign aid,
convinces me that global solidarity is not only necessary but possible.
Of course, foreign aid by itself is not enough. Today, we
realise that market access, fair terms of trade and a non-discriminatory
financial system are equally vital to the chances of poor countries.
3. The rule of law
My third lesson is that both security and development
ultimately depend on respect for human rights and the rule of law. Although
increasingly interdependent, our world continues to be divided - not only by
economic differences, but also by religion and culture.
That is vital for development, too. Both foreign investors
and a country's own citizens are more likely to engage in productive activity
when their basic rights are protected and they can be confident of fair
treatment under the law.
And policies that genuinely favour economic development are
much more likely to be adopted if the people most in need of development can
make their voice heard. In short, human rights and the rule of law are vital to
global security and prosperity. As Truman said, "We must, once and for all, prove
by our acts conclusively that Right Has Might."
That is why this country has historically been in the
vanguard of the global human rights movement. But that lead can only be
maintained if America remains true to its principles, including in the struggle
against terrorism.
No community anywhere suffers from too much rule of law;
many do suffer from too little - and the international community is among them.
This we must change.
The US has given the world an example of a democracy in
which everyone, including the most powerful, is subject to legal restraint. Its
current moment of world supremacy gives it a priceless opportunity to entrench
the same principles at the global level.
As Harry Truman said, "We all have to recognise, no
matter how great our strength, that we must deny ourselves the licence to do
always as we please."
4. Mutual accountability
My fourth lesson - closely related to the last one - is that
governments must be accountable for their actions in the international arena,
as well as in the domestic one. Today the actions of one state can often have a
decisive effect on the lives of people in other states. So does it not owe some
account to those other states and their citizens, as well as to its own? I
believe it does.
As things stand, accountability between states is highly
skewed. Poor and weak states are easily held to account, because they need
foreign assistance. But large and powerful states, whose actions have the
greatest impact on others, can be constrained only by their own people, working
through their domestic institutions.
That gives the people and institutions of such powerful
states a special responsibility to take account of global views and interests,
as well as national ones.
And today they need to take into account also the views of
what, in UN jargon, we call "non-state actors". I mean commercial
corporations, charities and pressure groups, labour unions, philanthropic
foundations, universities and think tanks - all the myriad forms in which
people come together voluntarily to think about, or try to change, the world.
None of these should be allowed to substitute itself for the
state, or for the democratic process by which citizens choose their governments
and decide policy. But they all have the capacity to influence political
processes, on the international as well as the national level.
States that try to ignore this are hiding their heads in the
sand. The fact is that states can no longer - if they ever could - confront
global challenges alone. Increasingly, we need to enlist the help of these
other actors, both in working out global strategies and in putting those
strategies into action once agreed.
It has been one of my guiding principles as Secretary General
to get them to help achieve UN aims - for instance through the Global Compact
with international business, which I initiated in 1999, or in the worldwide
fight against polio, which I hope is now in its final chapter, thanks to a
wonderful partnership between the UN family, the US Centers for Disease Control
and - crucially - Rotary International.
5. Multilateralism
So that is four lessons. Let me briefly remind you of them:
First, we are all responsible for each other's security. Second, we can and must
give everyone the chance to benefit from global prosperity. Third, both
security and prosperity depend on human rights and the rule of law. Fourth,
states must be accountable to each other, and to a broad range of non-state
actors, in their international conduct.
My fifth and final lesson derives inescapably from those
other four. We can only do all these things by working together through a
multilateral system, and by making the best possible use of the unique
instrument bequeathed to us by Harry Truman and his contemporaries, namely the
United Nations.
In fact, it is only through multilateral institutions that
states can hold each other to account. And that makes it very important to
organize those institutions in a fair and democratic way, giving the poor and
the weak some influence over the actions of the rich and the strong.
That applies particularly to the international financial
institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Developing countries should have a stronger voice in these bodies, whose
decisions can have almost a life-or-death impact on their fate.
And it also applies to the UN Security Council, whose
membership still reflects the reality of 1945, not of today's world. That is
why I have continued to press for Security Council reform. But reform involves
two separate issues.
One is that new members should be added, on a permanent or
long-term basis, to give greater representation to parts of the world which
have limited voice today. The other, perhaps even more important, is that all
Council members, and especially the major powers who are permanent members,
must accept the special responsibility that comes with their privilege.
The Security Council is not just another stage on which to
act out national interests. It is the management committee, if you will, of our
fledgling collective security system.
As President Truman said, "The responsibility of the great
states is to serve and not dominate the peoples of the world."
He showed what can be achieved when the US assumes that
responsibility. And still today, none of our global institutions can accomplish
much when the US remains aloof. But when it is fully engaged, the sky is the
limit.
These five lessons can be summed up as five principles,
which I believe are essential for the future conduct of international
relations: collective responsibility, global solidarity, the rule of law,
mutual accountability, and multilateralism.
Let me leave them with you, in solemn trust, as I hand over
to a new Secretary General in three weeks' time.
My friends, we have achieved much since 1945, when the
United Nations was established.
But much remains to be done to put those five principles
into practice.
Standing here, I am reminded of Winston Churchill's last
visit to the White House, just before Truman left office in 1953. Churchill
recalled their only previous meeting, at the Potsdam conference in 1945.
"I must confess, sir," he said boldly, "I
held you in very low regard then. I loathed your taking the place of Franklin
Roosevelt." Then he paused for a moment, and continued: "I misjudged
you badly. Since that time, you more than any other man, have saved Western
civilisation."
My friends, our challenge today is not to save Western
civilisation - or Eastern, for that matter. All civilisation is at stake, and
we can save it only if all peoples join together in the task.
You Americans did so much, in the last century, to build an
effective multilateral system, with the United Nations at its heart.
Do you need it less today, and does it need you less, than
60 years ago? Surely not.
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