UN Round-Up

It's finally here! The UN World Summit is finally here! Can't you feel the excitement? Yesterday the General Assembly passed a watered down 35 page declaration that is to be approved during the Summit. According to the NYT the key elements of the document include:

• Resolves to create a Human Rights Council that would promote universal respect for human rights. But it drops proposals for members to be elected by a two-thirds majority in the General Assembly and doesn't bar known rights violators.
• Backs Annan's call for an internal ethics office and asks that the internal U.N. watchdog, the Office of Internal Oversight Services, be strengthened "as a matter of urgency."
• Creates a peacebuilding commission, envisioned as an advisory body that would help nations emerging from war to recover.
• Seeks a comprehensive terrorism convention but doesn't call for a definition of terrorism that rules out attacks on civilians, as Secretary-General Kofi Annan had wanted.
• Includes 16 pages on development, including support for the Millennium Development Goals and those countries that set aside 0.7 percent of gross national product for development aid.
• Nations should work together to protect civilians from genocide but creates no new obligations to intervene in such cases, as some nations had sought.
• Elements that were taken out include language on nonproliferation and disarmament, as well as a mention of the International Criminal Court.

NYT is extremely disappointed with the declaration and blames Bolton and the ambivalence toward MDG. Honestly how can someone not be ambivalent about MDG? Sure it feels really nice to say that you are against poverty but when was the last time that a centrally directed UN program actually eradicated poverty? And Jeffrey Sachs? Puhlease...what in the man's record indicates that he even has a clue about what he is doing?

Speaking of the MDG the NYT also has a story on the squabble and even includes a quote from the appropriately named Charity Kaluki Ngilu who protested the Bush Admin.'s objections:

"The thing that shocked me personally was that they're trying to shift and change goal posts. If this is the case, we African leaders might as well go home and find other methods of developing ourselves."

Now there's an idea! By the way if she is serious about this then I recommend Lee Kuan Yew's From Third World to First.