Capturing the 21st Century Security Agenda

141 Pages·2004·1.18 MB·English

by  The Stanley Foundation

Capturing the 21st Century
Security Agenda:
Prospects for Collective Responses
The Stanley Foundation
This publication collects the rapporteur reports from six Stanley Foundation con-
ferences in the first half of 2004 that dealt with the UN Secretary-General's
High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change, including four meetings
that were cosponsored with the United Nations Foundation. The reports are
interpretations rather than mere descriptions of the proceedings, and since they
were neither reviewed nor approved by participants, it should not be assumed
that every participant subscribes to all recommendations, observations, or conclu-
sions.
Rapporteurs for the meetings were Michael Pan, Minh-Thu Pham, and Milan
Vaishnav. Stanley Foundation program officer David Shorr was project director for
these conferences, and Jeffrey Laurenti and Johanna Mendelson-Forman served as his
counterparts at the United Nations Foundation. Additional editing was provided by
Loren Keller and Margo Schneider. The publication was designed by Amy Bakke.
The images of the United Nations’ headquarters illustrating the publication are by
photographer Judah S. Harris.
The Stanley Foundation encourages use of this report for educational purposes. Any
part of the material may be duplicated with proper acknowledgment. Additional
copies are available. This report is available at http://reports.stanleyfoundation.org. For
further information about the Stanley Foundation, as well as the foundation’s recent
radio documentary “UNderfire: The United Nations’ Battle for Relevance,” see the
inside back cover.
October 2004
Capturing the 21st Century
Security Agenda:
Prospects for Collective Responses
The Stanley Foundation
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Table of Contents
Preface
Timothy E. Wirth, President
United Nations Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Introduction
Richard H. Stanley, Chair and President
The Stanley Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Rethinking the International System
Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Conference Report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Participant List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Legitimacy and the Use of Force. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Halting Future Genocides. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
The Poverty-Security Link . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
The Scourge of Small Arms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Maximizing the High-Level Panel’s Impact
Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Conference Report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Participant List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Appendix
Membership and Terms of Reference
of the High-Level Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
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Preface
In response to a rapidly shifting geopolitical landscape,
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in
November 2003, commissioned a High-level Panel on
Threats, Challenges, and Change.1 Sixteen distinguished
and internationally experienced men and women were
asked by the secretary-general to examine the state of “col-
lective security” in the wake of an evolving terrorist threat
and two major military actions led by the United States to
address it. The secretary-general asked the panel to exam-
ine the threats and the suitability of the existing interna-
tional structure to meet these new challenges.
Led by the victors of World War II, the nations of the
world in 1945 chartered a new organization “to maintain
international peace and security, and to that end: to take
effective collective measures for the prevention and removal
of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of
aggression or other breaches of the peace.” Premised on
state sovereignty, the system of “collective security” that
evolved reflected a balance of power between the West, led
by the United States, and the Soviet bloc. In recent years,
however, the end of the Cold War and the redistribution of
1 See Appendix for a list of the members of the Secretary-General’s
High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change.
power resulting from it, the appearance of new threats—
especially terrorism conducted by nonstate actors and the
increasing number of intrastate conflicts—have transformed
the risks and raised fundamental questions regarding the
adequacy of the existing arrangements for the maintenance
of peace and security.
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This uncertainty has been compounded by the increasing
perception that endemic poverty, malnutrition, and diseases
(especially the new AIDS pandemic) were not only perpet-
uating unfathomable human suffering but also aggravating
International
social unrest and political instability in many countries, and
institutions are thus contributing to general insecurity. The UN Charter
itself recognized that the mission to preserve peace
more essential
depended on the organization’s work “to promote social
than ever. progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.”
Secretary-General Annan underscored this reality when
he established the high-level panel in 2003 and called for
institutional change that will enable the international
community to respond to the new threats facing states,
communities, and individuals.
In support of the secretary-general’s initiative, two institu-
tions—the Stanley Foundation, which has long supported
international policy research and similar UN commissions,
and the United Nations Foundation, a public charity created
in 1998 by entrepreneur and philanthropist Ted Turner to
support the United Nations and its causes—joined forces to
solicit issue briefs and host four roundtables in support of
the panel’s deliberations over the course of 2004. The issues
and format of these sessions were greatly assisted by the
United Nations research group (directed by Dr. Stephen
Stedman) established to support the panel’s work.
This report is a synthesis of the roundtable discussions and
the papers commissioned to inform them. Although it is
far from a compendium of the panel’s total inquiry, this
compilation provides a picture of the breadth and serious-
ness of the panel’s review—and the challenge faced by the
community of nations.
As this publication goes to press, we cannot forecast what
the Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Threats,
Challenges and Change will recommend; we can, however,
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say that we are honored to have played a role in furthering
critical discussions that could well set the course for the
new century. We believe that international institutions are
more essential than ever, and we commend the secretary-
general’s courage and leadership in calling for a new look
at both the issues and the institutions that have served us
for more than half a century in our continued quest for
peace, prosperity, and security for all people.
Timothy E. Wirth
President
United Nations Foundation
September 2004