I- Overview

The UN stands at a time of great promise and need. Despite the many commitments that have been made over the sixty years of its existence, many of these obligations and commitments haven’t been met .

The incident of 9 11 have changed the understanding of international order and security.

II- Introduction

The “report of the High Level panel on Threats, challenges and change” reflects the trend in which the debate on and understanding of concepts that are basic to the World security is being formulated. Thus the discussion of the report ought to concentrate more on the line of thought that it presents and reflects more than the mere content and propositions presented in it.

The report summarizes the elements of threat to World security in six main points; (1) social and economic factors, (2) inter-state conflicts, (3) internal conflicts and wars, (4) spread of weapons of mass destruction, (5) terrorism, and (6) trans-national organized crime.

Moreover, it divides those sources into two groups of threats; hard and soft. Yet, the report focuses on the hard threats, specifically on the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and terrorism, while dealing with the other four sources as soft threats.

This theoretical categorization is based on the fact that dealing with the hard threats overcomes the capacities of the UN system and necessitates the interventions of the state super powers. This reflects an underlying deal that advocates the need to provide legitimacy to the super powers to undertake the responsibility to fight against the hard threats. In return, the UN system is offered aid and support, through financial and other kind of assistance, by the super powers in order to deal with the soft threats.

III- Hard type of threats; WMD and terrorism

Although the inter-relation between the six main threats of Human Security is mentioned in the report, the reflected approach undermines this inter-relation. Therefore it is not clear that there is a need to address them at the same level of consideration, and that it is a common responsibility to deal with. This ambiguity can lead to a situation where threats are only treated when they are directed to the super powers and thus impact their interests regardless of their effect on other countries. The example of such bias is clear in the Middle East region; Israel is given the right to own weapons of mass destruction while all other countries are fought against due to claims of owning such weapons equally. This exists despite the fact that all the countries in the region are threatened by the overall situation.

Moreover, not having a clear understanding and definition of terrorism and the factors that bread such trends leads to a mistreatment of this threat to the whole world. It is worth noting that today terrorism’s definition is also set through the understanding that the super powers are advocating for, while all other forms of terrorism are disregarded since they do not fall under the adopted definition and understanding, and thus they do not threaten the interests of the super powers.

Despite the highly complicated task to define terrorism due to the diverse approaches, as it was mentioned in the report, still a definition of terrorism and terrorists is a baseline for any efforts invested in dealing with the issue of terrorism and its effects on world security. In this regards, the UN should be the reference to elaborate the definition reflecting the interests of all member states and not specific interests.

IV- Reforming the UN

The initiatives to reform the UN are mainly concentrating on the enlargement of the Security Council. Therefore, most of the efforts are being done to achieve an agreement on the enlargement of this very important UN body, where the decision making is mostly concentrated. It is worth noting that the five permanent members of the Security Council have the right to use the veto, which is the right to stop any process if it is not in the interest of one or more of those permanent members. Furthermore, the suggestions included in the report are trying to enlarge the number of the permanent and non-permanent members of the council and to introduce some modifications on the right to the use of veto. The main problem in this regard is that efforts are tackling the shape and the form of the institution instead of working more on its definition of its role and the political contents.

Reforming the UN requires a significant role of the General assembly in formulating binding and enforceable laws. This lead to the fact that the UN should have full jurisdiction to intervene in order to carry out its obligations as contained in its charter and other treaty processes. (Wheeler)

Member states should be equals and no member state is more important nor has any more power within the UN, therefore, the equal voting right should not be violated.

Funding is the most significant cause of the UN’s inability to fulfill the repeated commitments made by the member states.

V- Right to military intervention

According to the UN charter, Security Council can take measures to military intervention only after the five criteria are considered. Moreover, the right to military intervention is also given for “Self Defense” reasons. This right was abused by the US in order to justify the intervention on Iraq. Yet, all the arguments given and the evidences cited by the Secretary of State during the last meeting of the Security Council before leading the war, couldn’t convince other members of the Council.

Later on, the whole world witnessed how falsified those evidences and arguments were. Therefore the criteria such as the seriousness of threats, the proper purpose, the proportional of means and the balance of consequences were not respected. This specific case leads to the conclusion that any military intervention requires a consensus among Security Council members, particularly because the five criteria cannot be in any case a matter of conflict or misunderstanding among them. Therefore, this specific case should also lead the UN Security Council to reconsider its “rights based approach” in favor of a “rights and responsibilities approach”, which puts forward mechanisms to hold any country accountable to the decision they take without the decision or the consensus of the Council.
Moreover, the panel recommended that the decision to the use of force to address external threats should be based on five criteria: (1) serious of threats, (2) proper purpose, (3) Last resort, (4) proportional means and (5) Balance of consequences.

The report mentions that one of the resorts before a military intervention is sanctions; sanctions were used as a tool against Sudan, Libya and Iraq. It is worth noting that it was shown in practice that the results of the mechanisms of implementing the sanctions did not yield to the expected outcomes. It increased the inequalities within the society diverted to a tool that contributed to increasing social disparities and degradation of socio-economic conditions. Accordingly, there is an essential need to evaluate these experiences from which lessons should be taken.

VI- Interrelation between state security and human security

Furthermore, it is important to underline the interrelation between the six threats mentioned in the reports. Therefore, this interrelation reflects the relation between state security and human security, where human security is not an alternative to that security but it establishes a complementary process by which state security is one of the means to an end product: human security .

Human security is based on two core elements; Human Rights and developmental needs . However, the discourse on security in the concerned UN bodies such as the Security Council does not include the developmental dimension in the process of achieving security thus causing a gap between working toward state security and working toward human security.

“it is essential to understand that in order to protect human security the member states and the UN have to eliminate poverty and, meet basic human needs, provide sustainability and fund specific programs that are needed to do so” (Rob Wheeler; strengthening and empowering the United Nations).

However, the existing world system works in favor of big companies and rich countries while developing countries and individuals are still facing challenges of the unbalanced international relations among this system. Following are some example explaining how the current system functions:

- The rules of global trade within the WTO and all other regional trade agreements are set in order to defend the rights and the interest of TNC on the account of the UN and other institutions. However, new regulations and laws are being implemented while ILO convention defending workers rights and the conventions on Human Rights especially the ESCR are not being implemented and respected.

- WB and IMF structural Adjustment programs were the main recipe and the precondition for the developing countries to receive loans and aids, while the developed countries still are ignoring the commitment to increase their ODA up to 0.7%, in addition, debt restructuring and release is being neglected and not considered.

- World military expenditures overcome 800 billion dollars; the US spends more than 500 billion, while the yearly spending on aids does not exceed 60 billion dollars. It is worth noting in this regard that the amount of 0.7% ODA is not more than 167 billion dollars. And that the due debts of developing countries are less than 400 billion dollars.

The millennium declaration clearly mentioned the interrelation between peace and security and the implementation of human rights. It was also noted in the declaration that developmental challenges are core issues to be solved while talking about stability and security. Therefore, fighting poverty, diseases, illiteracy, gap between rich and poor, sustainability and life conditions are common responsibilities and concerns. Furthermore, the goal number eight focusing on global partnership reflects this common responsibility. It focuses on three main pillar challenges facing developing countries; Trade, aid and debt, therefore the requirement of full implication of the developed countries in facing those challenges.

VII- Conclusion

Five years after the adoption of the millennium declaration and the commitment to the implementation of the MDG, indicators and figures show how far humanity is from the realization of these goals. The reasons are diversified, and the responsibilities are divided between the wrong policies adopted in the developing countries, and the role of the IFI in dictating the trend of those policies. But also the lack of commitment of the developed countries, particularly the G8 to the implementation of the goal number eight. Therefore, according to the coordinator of social watch , benchmarks should be adopted by the international community according to which governments and their politician members can be judged objectively . Moreover, it was concluded that the decision making is scattered in a multiplicity of fora and institutions attended by different ministers and officials. Trade ministers attend the ministerial meetings of WTO, ministers of finance attend the annual meetings of IFIs, and therefore the coherence could be reached by the head of states while meeting in the UN General Assembly that should be given the more important role, mandate and responsibilities.