@Jennifer:
Cheng:
If he’s so powerless then why does he have a position? Maybe we could reduce world government by dissolving the position of UN SecGen permanently and allow the security council to take up any responsibilities he may have?
You know, I haven’t been successful in getting that little quote box to pop up. Hope it works this time.
I didn’t say Annan was powerless, but implied that he has power within/over the organization of the UN. And that, of course, is the reference point for much of his actions: he has fired people, admonished others, removed diplomatic immunity, etc. But he is not a head of state. And the UN is not really a world government. Yes it operates on international law, but it does not have independent police power or the ability to tax, etc. As I said, the UN is a place for diplomacy. It has little true power outside what its members delegate it. But at the same time, it could not operate the way it does, it could not function, without some level of independence.
And that I think is the biggest difficulty for people to get their minds around: there really are two UNs, and they don’t necessarily coincide. The first is the representative one, including the GA, the Security Council, the ambassadors to the UN, etc. It’s, in some respects, the ineffective one. Then, there is the Secretariat, which has oversight over UN programs like UNDP and UNICEF. This is somewhat independent of the UN’s members, and it’s probably better that it is so. But it also has much less power than the “other UN.”
So consider: if you dissolve the Secretariat side of things (and that’s really what happens if you eliminate the post of the Secretary-General), you would have a forum for world debate with maybe some action by the Security Council. But you largely lose the moral voice that the UN can speak in, particularly on issues of poverty in the developing world, human rights, response to disasters. And, I would argue, you want that voice there, but you don’t necessarily want it to have too much power. You can argue that the voice isn’t necessary, that international relations is simply realpolitik. But that’s a rather meager view of the world, and it ignores the fact that having an international forum for discussion is itself a really good thing. Add to this the UN’s pretty good track record in dealing with the places that no one wants to deal with (the tsunami comes to mind, as does sub-Saharan Africa), and you can get a sense of why the Secretary-General position exists. Would you want the 15 voices of the Security Council to be dealing with this? Or would you rather have an elected leader, speaking with the moral authority of the world community, and establishing and directing an agenda which drives poverty reduction, health, and collective security?
I think, as an exercise, it would be useful for you to describe what exactly you think the UN can do. It has far less political power than many people think, but much more moral and coordinating power than it is often given credit for, and it’d be interesting to see where exactly you fall on this.