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Article Excerpt
Three decades ago John Holmes argued that the need for having the kind of "international organizations in which to tackle the inescapably complex economic and social issues in an interdependent world need not be restated." Despite these words, ten years later, when Donald Puchala and I presented the first "State of the United Nations Report" to the second annual meeting of the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS), we found an organizational system teetering and tottering on the verge of crisis. (1) There was a void of leadership, as well as a crisis of capacity precipitated largely by the refusal of the United States to fulfill its legal obligation to fund UN agencies; and staff morale was at a historic low. One of the main themes that we explored in that report was the challenge to the UN system--as intergovernmental institutions--of dealing with the plethora of global problems that confront the world and dominate the global agenda and that cannot be solved by governmental or intergovernmental means alone. Now, after twenty more years, the illusive quest continues for new avenues and directions for making global governance more effective for promoting sustainable human security and development.
In this context, this article explores the current state of the debate over United Nations-civil society/private sector relations and why this relationship is critical to the future of the UN system and its success in dealing with the nexus of complex issues that crowd the global agenda. (2) But one cannot understand the nature and implications of this debate without understanding its history and exploring the various assumptions, logic, worldviews, and intellectual and practical biases that underpin the positions within it.
The UN in Holmesian Perspective
The story begins with John Holmes, in whose honor this essay is being written. In his article examining US-UN relations, "A Non-American Perspective," (3) Holmes argued that it was because the UN was founded on "permanent reality rather than legal fictions" that the system has survived and grown. Understanding the nature of the meanings of that reality and the inherent contradictions and tensions encompassed within them is critical for understanding the past and present as well as future possibilities of civil UN-civil society/private sector relations. He challenged that
the popular perception of the UN as a failed world government must be corrected. The problem, of course, always has been that the perfervid defenders and malevolent critics have the same misunderstanding. They are concerned with structure rather than with function. What might correct this misunderstanding is the involvement of far more people in the functions for which the UN system exists. ... More precise calculation and fewer general slogans are required in determining exactly what is advisable and possible to expect of the UN system. ... A better perspective is gained by starting from the agenda rather than by concerning oneself primarily with the preservation or improvement of the structure. (4)
The United Nations, beginning from the 1942 alliance, represented a unique blend of real politic, liberal ideology, idealism, functionalism, and war weariness. John Holmes understood this well. Again quoting Holmes:
Roosevelt deliberately launched the UN with a conference dealing with the practical question of food. The United States was as much responsible as any country for seeing that agencies dealing with relief, international monetary and financial questions, and civil aviation were tackled before San Francisco. The UN in wartime had to be created in the abstract, but it was no Wilsonian philosopher's dream. Then as now there were things to be done, and institutions were devised or improvised to cope with them. (5)
The UN that Holmes saw and that Don Puchala and I observed and reported on a decade later was one that was being beaten, battered, and abused by its primary creator--the United States. Twenty years later much has happened, but little seems to have changed--the form has remained basically the same despite all the rhetoric on reform. But a focus on institutional form is narrow and misleading. As regards function, the world body has been undergoing slow but important transformation.
Putting Things in Contemporary Perspective: The "Third UN"
In their lead article, "The 'Third' United Nations," in the last issue of Global Governance, Thomas Weiss, Tatiana Carayannis, and Richard Jolly explore the intermingled and interdependent world of NGO-UN relations. (6) In doing so, they argue that there is a "third" United Nations. Building on Inis Claude's conceptualization of "two UNs" (7)--the intergovernmental bodies made up of member states, and the secretariats composed of international civil servants--they suggest that a "third UN" has evolved consisting of NGOs, academics, consultants, experts, and independent commissions. All three UNs, they suggest, coexist in symbiotic relationship. In order to understand UN politics, especially as related to institutional reform, all three UNs need to be considered holistically. (8) This essay endeavors to build on this conceptualization and explore this third United Nations and its potential for enhancing global public policy. In doing so, the focus will be on civil society and the private sector, excluding for this task the fifteen or so UN independent commissions on various topics.
Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and other civil society actors were present and active at the creation of the United Nations in San Francisco. Today, some 3,000 NGOs have some form of consultative status in the UN system. Numerous scholars, including Chadwick Alger, Leon Gordenker, Thomas Weiss, Cyril Ritchie, and others (several among us today), have presented succinct overviews of the evolution and nature of the roles of NGOs in the UN system, consisting of informal engagements as well as formal consultative status. (9) Civil society organizations are engaged in every aspect of global policy processes in the UN system, including agenda setting, advocacy, rule making, standard setting, promotion, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. (10) A problem is that there exists tremendous incoherence within this action set and ambiguity regarding the associated role of civil society in relation to the first two UNs.
In 2003, Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed a distinguished blue-ribbon panel (part of the "third UN"), chaired by former Brazilian president Fernando Cardoso, to examine the relationship between the UN...
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