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United Nations and Canada What Canada has done and should be doing at the United Nations John E. Trent, editor

The United Nations and Canada: What Canada has done and should be doing at the UN John E. Trent, editor This volume has been compiled and published as a project of the World Federalist Movement – Canada (www.worldfederalistscanada.org). The views and opinions expressed in each of the articles are the sole responsibility of the authors.

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Preface The United Nations And Canada What Canada Has Done And Should Be Doing At The Un John E. Trent One of the UN’s early (and great) Secretaries-General, Dag Hammarskjöld, is reported to have said, “The United Nations was not created to take man to heaven, but to save humanity from hell.” Our objective in this booklet is somewhat more restrained. It is to show how the UN can help to assure a sustainable future on this earth of ours – and how Canada can help it to do this. We can learn from Hammarskjöld’s characterization that, while we cannot expect wonders from the UN, we can recognize that during its watch the world has avoided international wars and has become wealthier and more integrated.

Our authors recognize both the UN’s achievements and its failings. But, they also believe in the absolute necessity of effective international organizations to help the world make decisions regarding global problems.

A good way to get a bird’s eye view of the United Nations is to analyse its functions as an organization, meaning the UN’s utility in international relations – how it fulfils its specific international purposes. Because the media mostly reports conflicts and Security Council blockages, the United Nations’ many and varied functions on behalf of the world are relatively little known.

Here is a partial list:

• • • •

Maintaining international peace and security Providing humanitarian assistance Promoting human rights and social justice Stewardship over the ‘Global Commons’ (including the atmosphere, outer space, the oceans, and the environment, everything outside national boundaries) • International law, courts, conventions, norm development and treaty making • Inter-state social and technical functions Despite the headlines focussing on stories on conflict, the real international story should be about co-operation. The reality is that our world functions pretty well on a day- to-day basis because of the many United Nations specialized agencies focusing on everything from mail, communications and airlines to health, agriculture, trade and education. Take, for example, the International Civil Aviation Association operating out of Montreal, which facilitates the free flow of thousands of international flights every day. These services are universally enjoyed but rarely recognized.

Nor does the United Nations rest on its laurels. Its capacity to adapt itself to changing conditions is based on its legitimacy as an all-inclusive universal organization and its founding principles of peaceful settlement of disputes supported by economic and social develop1

ment and respect for human rights. Without having a single policeman for its first 10 years, it went from pacifist peacekeeping in the 1950s to the present comprehensive peace-making missions. Peace operations are enhanced by criminal justice machinery and the promotion of human rights. The UN leads in the pacification and rebuilding of war-torn countries, the fight against communicable diseases, the struggle against poverty, and support for democracy. Such activities demonstrate the utility of international institutions and, even more, the validity of attempts by Canada to maximize their usefulness through energetic participation and reform.

And up until the arrival of the Harper government, Canada has indeed played a leading role at the UN. Since its founding, Canada has been one of the great champions of the United Nations. A Canadian, Prof. John Humphrey, was the principal architect of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Canadian diplomacy has supported the broadening of membership in the UN, decolonization, North-South dialogue, the Rio Summit on Environment and Development, negotiations to halt ozone layer depletion and acid rain, and efforts to end apartheid in South Africa. More recent Canadian initiatives include campaigns to ban land mines and curtail the trade in blood diamonds, the establishment of the International Criminal Court, and orchestrating awareness of the plight of child soldiers.

But Canada did not just go along with the wave. We have never thought the UN was a perfect institution. Canadians have always tried to improve and reform the UN. Former Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson won the Nobel peace prize for his work in introducing peacekeeping to 2

the UN. For years, we worked to improve the openness of the Security Council. More recently, Canada funded the commission that created the idea of the international community’s ‘responsibility to protect’ citizens: R2P is slowly reconstituting notions of sovereignty so that the world can get on with modernizing international relations. Canada has been an active and successful player at the UN because of our understanding of diplomacy and of international politics.

This is no longer the case. Increasingly, the government of Canada is undermining the UN and global co-operation. Some recent examples: We have not signed the treaty to regulate the arms trade; Canadian diplomats at the UN, at the direction of their political masters, make lacklustre contributions to debates on R2P; we have withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and the Convention on Desertification; Canada has so far refused to join a UN peacekeeping mission to help Mali – a country we used to support; even worse, out of 97,600 police, troops and civilian peacekeepers on UN assignments as of July 31, only 157 were Canadians; our draft legislation to implement the Convention on Cluster Munitions would nullify its intent. In addition, cuts to the Department of Foreign Affairs budgets have reduced our diplomatic capacity. We have drastically reduced the number of refugees Canada accepts and our aid program has been cut and folded in with the Department of Foreign Affairs. Where Canada was strong, it is now weak; where we were once prudent, we are now hostile to much of what the UN does and represents.

The UN is far from perfect. It is currently failing the people of Syria. Its human rights forums often include

those who are mistreating their own populations.

Money is sometimes wasted. Often, we are distressed it cannot take decisions about our global challenges. But, warts and all, it is necessary. It succeeds far more often than most people realize. As the one organization that can convene all the world’s nations, it is the basis for building a better framework for governing our interdependent world.

So, if we in this booklet, or if Canadians in general, want a UN that can help deal with the world’s problems and make decisions, then we are going to have to work very hard to bring about change in international institutions. We will have to demonstrate that we are knowledgeable team players. We must be respected in the world for our foreign policy and not marginalized. We cannot afford to simply ignore the UN, or worse, to continually denigrate it. Canada must once again become a leader in world politics and at the UN. For Canada, having strong international organizations to promote peace and justice must be one of the fundamental principles of Canadian foreign policy.

For Further Reading Paul Heinbecker (2010). Getting Back in the Game, A Foreign Policy Playbook for Canada, Toronto, Key Porter Books.

Jean E. Krasno (ed.) (2004). The United Nations: Confronting the Challenges of Global Society, Boulder, Lynne Rienner Publishers.

Clyde Sanger (ed.) (1988). Canadian and the United Nations, Ottawa, Minister of Supply and Services Canada.

John E. Trent (2007). Modernizing the United Nations System, Opladen, Germany, Barbara Budrich Publishers.

Thomas G. Weiss & Sam Daws (eds.) (2007).The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

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Contents

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Warren Allmand allmandw@gmail.com A Respect for Human Rights is Essential for Peace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Lloyd Axworthy l.axworthy@uwinnipeg.ca Canada, the UN and the ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Michael Byers michael.byers@ubc.ca The UN and the Law of the Sea: from the Arctic to the South China Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Ferry de Kerckhove ferry@dekerckhove.ca Canada and international organizations: time for better recognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Walter Dorn dorn@cfc.dnd.ca Unprepared for peace: A decade of decline in Canadian peacekeeping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Yves Fortier yfortier@arbitrationplace.com Canada and the Security Council, then and now: A view from within . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Robert Fowler robert.fowler@uottawa.ca Why Canada was not elected to the Security Council two years ago, and why we will never be elected unless and until there is a fundamental change in our foreign policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Gilles Gingras gingrasgilles@videotron.ca The UN, Canada and the International Civil Aviation Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Peter Langille hpl@globalcommonsecurity.org Preparing for peace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Carolyn McAskie carolynmcaskie@yahoo.com Canada’s self-interest and the United Nations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Marilou McPhedran marilou.mcphedran.uw@gmail.com The UN, UN Women and Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Errol Mendes emendes@uottawa.ca Canada, its human rights record and the UN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Douglas Roche djroche@shaw.ca Canada’s role in banning nuclear weapons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Julia Sanchez jsanchez@ccic.ca Civil society, Canada and the United Nations: Partnering for the future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Ian Smillie ismillie@magma.ca The United Nations and humanitarian assistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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John Trent jtrent@uottawa.ca Re-thinking the United Nations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Kate White kate@unac.org Where is Canada in helping set the international development agenda for the next two decades? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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The United Nations System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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A respect for human rights is essential for peace Abstract

Warren Allmand, P.C., O.C., Q.C.

When the United Nations was established in 1945, there was a strong belief that the new international order should be built on a foundation of human rights. The Charter included several significant provisions to this end. Soon a number of important human rights instruments were adopted, most notably the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with Canada’s John Humphrey playing a leading role.

The UN’s human rights machinery has evolved and improved over the years, although it is still far from perfect. But the solution is not to weaken or dissolve the UN. Our goal must be to strengthen the implementation procedures and oversight mechanisms.

Canada in the past has shown great leadership in supporting the UN’s peacekeeping, development and human rights programs. This is a proud tradition, which should be enhanced and continued.

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When the United Nations was established in 1945, there was a groundswell of sentiment that the “new world order” should be built on a foundation of human rights. As a result, the Charter included several significant provisions to this end. First, there was an emphasis on the principle of self-determination of peoples [article 1 (2)]. Second, the world organization would be based on the principle of non-discrimination on grounds of race, sex, language or religion [preamble and article1 (3)]. Third, member states committed themselves to the pursuit of international co-operation for the promotion of human rights for all peoples [article 1 (3)]. Fourth, member states pledged to take measures jointly and separately to achieve universal respect for human rights [articles 55 and 56]. Fifth, the Charter called for the establishment of a Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) as a fundamental organ of ECOSOC [the UN Economic and Social council, article 68]. This Commission was in fact established in 1946 and its first task was the drafting of an International Bill of Human Rights.

It must be remembered that these initiatives took place in the aftermath of World War II where horrible abuses had taken place – the Holocaust, the indiscriminate bombing of innocent civilians, ethnic cleansing, murder, rape and torture. All of these were still fresh in the minds of those who pressed forward the UN Charter and the International Bill of Human Rights. There was also a recognition that the other goals of the UN

(international peace and security, plus economic and social development) were closely interdependent with a respect for human rights and all had to be pursued together.

Driven by the contributions of Eleanor Roosevelt, Rene Cassin and Canadian John Humphrey, the Commission on Human Rights completed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and it was adopted in the General Assembly by a vote of 48 to 0 with 8 abstentions. This was an outstanding achievement, an important landmark in human history. Eleanor Roosevelt described the Universal Declaration as the Magna Carta for all mankind. It is hard to believe that such a high set of standards was adopted by so many states of different cultures, religions, languages, races and political systems but there was the political will at the time to make it happen.

This was supplemented by the Convention against Genocide passed by the UN the same week. Then, in turn, the UN adopted the four Geneva Conventions, establishing specific war crimes (1949), the Refugee Convention (1951), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1967), plus conventions against Racial Discrimination (1969), against Apartheid (1971) and against Torture (1984). There were also conventions establishing the Rights of Women (1981) and the Rights of Children (1989). All of this to say that the United Nations has been extremely successful in adopting human rights standards applicable to the

whole world, to all peoples, to all continents and to all races and cultures. There has been, however, a serious problem with implementation.

It was expected that the highest level of implementation would be accomplished by the passage of implementing legislation by the ratifying states, with Human Rights Charters and Human Rights Commissions in all states, all in accordance with the Paris Principles adopted by the UN in 1993. It should be noted that Canada has ratified all the major human rights conventions mentioned above, has legislated these human rights standards, set up human rights commissions and adopted a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Many other countries have done the same. Despite this, there are still too many human rights violations and too many horror stories – Rwanda, Syria, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kosovo and Darfur, the Roma in Europe, and indigenous peoples in the Americas.

In fact, there is no state without fault. But the solution is not to weaken or dissolve the UN and other interna-

tional institutions. Our goal must be to strengthen the implementation procedures and the oversight mechanisms. The acceptance by the UN of numerous human rights standards since 1945 indicated a recognition and a willingness to move ahead on these issues. The International Criminal Court was set up in 1998; Universal Periodic Review of all UN members in 2006; and the ‘responsibility to protect’ doctrine was recognized by the UN in 2005, while efforts are now being made to fine-tune its implementation procedures. The task for Canadians and for all mankind is to work together to advance the cause of peace, justice and human rights.

This cannot be done by individual states or by a small coalition of states. To be truly successful, it must be a universal effort through a reformed, more effective United Nations. Canada in the past has shown great leadership in supporting United Nations peacekeeping, development and human rights. This is a proud tradition which should be enhanced and continued.

The Hon. Warren Allmand is the current National President of the World Federalist Movement – Canada. He was president of Rights & Democracy (the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development) from 1997 to 2002. This followed a 33-year career as a Member of Parliament, during which he held several cabinet posts, including Solicitor General, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Affairs, and Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs.

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Canada, the UN and the ‘responsibility to protect’ Abstract

Dr. Lloyd Axworthy

At the end of the last century, some will remember, Canada held a first-row seat as some of the most new and innovative initiatives in the promotion of international peace, security and the protection of human rights and civilian lives. One of these initiatives was helping to launch the idea of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). After languishing as an idea for nearly a decade, the uprisings brought about by the Arab Spring have reignited a newfound interest in discussion around intervening for the protection of civilians. Canada should once again play a diplomatic role in the institutionalization and application of the concept.

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At the end of the last century, some will remember, Canada held a first-row seat helping develop some of the most new and innovative initiatives in the promotion of international peace, security and the protection of human rights and civilian lives. Highlights include midwifery of the treaty banning landmines, actively participating in the creation of the International Criminal Court, and establishing the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which launched the idea of the ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P).

At the time, R2P represented the culmination of Canada’s foreign policy with a focus on human security.

It was a response to a new post-Cold War global disorder where violent conflicts were fought with civilians as targets. R2P was introduced to the world at the turn of the century, underneath the shadow of 9/11. There it languished for nearly a decade, while slowly building international support.

Since the intervention in Libya in 2011, R2P has emerged as a regular topic for discussion. Its legitimacy has been questioned by critics but it continues to gain traction both North and South and remains a topic worthy of serious analysis and application. Unfortunately, since our early participation in the creation of the idea, Canada has been somewhat absent from current debates and discussion.

However, despite its hesitation to use the terminology, our current government has demonstrated a

willingness to be a participant in international interventions where the priority was the protection of civilians.

We contributed a significant number of personnel and fighter jets to the UN-mandated Libyan intervention in 2011, air-lift support and financial assistance to Mali in 2013, and have committed significant funds for humanitarian assistance for Syrian refugees. I believe there remains a significant role for Canada to play in R2P’s forthcoming evolution.

Even the U.S. is showing interest. The U.S recognizes that as the preeminent military force, the world will always turn to it to for direction and action when faced with humanitarian strife. Look at Libya. Look at Syria.

Look at Egypt. The U.S.’s decision for action or inaction is very often the catalyst for a global response, or lack thereof. However, due to internal political and economic challenges, combined with over a decade at war in foreign places, it has clearly grown weary of acting as the international police force.

The recent appointment of Samantha Power as UN Ambassador and Susan Rice as National Security Advisor – both supporters of R2P – offer important clues to the future direction of U.S. foreign policy. It suggests that the U.S. may be more open to collaborative approaches to addressing complex humanitarian emergencies abroad, similar to the intervention in Libya. Just recently, a blue ribbon panel co-chaired by Madeleine Albright and Richard Williamson issued a report urging the Obama administration to fully embrace the R2P concept.

This new-found interest offers Canada an opportunity to regain its role regarding the promotion and continued development of R2P. For example, the original intent of the ‘responsibility to protect’ – when it was first hatched – was to move away from the ad hoc nature of responding to humanitarian crisis. This need evolved out of the international NATO-led intervention in Kosovo in 1999. It was recognized at that point that any future response would need to be led by the UN, with legitimacy and oversight given by the Security Council.

What remains to be created is a standing, rapid-reaction UN force so that we can collectively move away from relying on NATO. Currently, the greatest hiccup in the implementation of R2P is the stalemate taking place on the Security

Council. Any reform packages that may be proposed for expanding the Council’s permanent membership to include emerging powers should also consider adding limitations on the use of the veto powers when situations meet R2P criteria. The most obvious victim of the misuse of the veto over the past two years has been Syria. Stalling by the Security Council has led us to where we are today: civil war.

Finally, more emphasis needs to be put on early warning and prevention. These really form the bedrock of the R2P idea. I believe that Canada has the capabilities to make real and effective contributions to establishing an effective capacity at the UN for implementing the ‘responsibility to protect.’

Dr. Lloyd Axworthy is President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Winnipeg.

He graduated in 1961 with a BA from United College (now The University of Winnipeg), and received an MA and PhD from Princeton University.

His political career spanned 27 years, during six of which he served in the Manitoba Legislative Assembly and 21 in the federal Parliament. He held several cabinet positions, notably Minister of Employment and Immigration, Minister Responsible for the Status of Women, Minister of Transport, Minister of Human Resources Development, Minister of Western Economic Diversification and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 19962000.

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Abstract A US-flagged ice-strengthened supertanker, the SS Manhattan, sailed through the Northwest Passage in 1969 without seeking Canada’s permission. Canada’s diplomats immediately set to work, crafting a strategy to protect this country’s interests in the event of further challenges to our Northwest Passage claim. Central to the strategy was a close involvement in the negotiation and drafting of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. As a result of Canadian leadership, Article 234 of the Convention allows coastal states to enact laws against maritime pollution out to 200 nautical miles from shore in the Arctic.

Canadian leadership also resulted in provisions of the UN Convention that provide coastal states with extensive jurisdiction over seabed resources, a matter of no small importance to Canada which has the longest coastline of any country. Countries around the world accept the validity of these rules today. And when differences of opinion arise, they do so within a legal framework, which reduces the risk of armed conflict.

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The UN and the Law of the Sea: from the Arctic to the South China Sea Michael Byers A US-flagged ice-strengthened super-tanker, the SS Manhattan, sailed through the Northwest Passage in 1969 without seeking Canada’s permission. Canada’s diplomats immediately set to work, crafting a strategy to protect the country’s interests in the event of further challenges to our Northwest Passage claim.

Their response was the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act, which Parliament adopted the next year. The Act imposed strict safety and environmental requirements on all shipping within 100 nautical miles of Canada’s Arctic coast. In doing so, it stretched the limits of international law, which at the time did not recognize coastal state rights more than 12 nautical miles from shore.

The United States declared the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act illegal but Canada’s diplomats persisted.

They focused on a negotiating process that was beginning at the United Nations with the goal of producing a globally applicable UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Canada’s Alan Beesley was elected as the chair of the drafting committee, positioning him at the centre of Great Power diplomacy. At one closed-door session with just the American and Soviet delegations, Beesley secured Article 234 of the UN Convention, the so-called “Arctic exception” which allows coastal states to enact

laws against maritime pollution out to 200 nautical miles from shore when almost year-round ice creates exceptional navigational hazards.

The Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act was legitimized internationally just 12 years after its adoption.

Just as importantly, Article 234 sparked the development of a parallel rule of “customary international law” that is today regarded as binding on all countries – including those, like the United States, that have not yet ratified the UN Convention. Indeed, the United States now recommends that US-flagged merchant vessels abide by the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act when sailing in or near Canada’s Arctic waters.

Beesley and his colleagues also succeeded in advancing Canada’s interests with regard to ocean resources.

Under the UN Convention, each coastal state is entitled to a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea as well as an “exclusive economic zone” from 12 to 200 nautical miles where, as the name suggests, it holds exclusive rights over the resources of the water column, ocean floor and seabed.

Canada’s diplomats also recognized that new technologies and higher prices would eventually lead to the exploitation of oil, gas and minerals more than 200 nautical miles from shore, including in the relatively shallow waters near Canada’s Atlantic and Arctic coasts. They helped craft Article 76 of the UN Convention, which accords coastal states rights over an “extended conti-

nental shelf” beyond 200 nautical miles, if the depth and shape of the seabed and the thickness of underlying sediments indicate a “natural prolongation” of the shelf closer inshore. Article 76 specifies that the existence of a natural prolongation is a question of science, not technological competence or military might, and it lays out detailed rules concerning the geographical and geological criteria that must be fulfilled.

Countries wishing to claim an extended continental shelf must submit supporting scientific evidence to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, a body composed entirely of scientists. Norway filed its submission in 2006, Canada is doing so this December, and both Denmark and Russia will file next year. Even the United States, although it has not yet ratified the UN Convention, has been co-operating with Canada to collect scientific evidence from the seabed north of Alaska to support an eventual claim.

Everyone benefits from these rules. The sheer size of the Arctic Ocean and the lengths of uncontested

coastlines mean that Russia could legitimately claim an expanse of seabed larger than Europe. Canada, with the world’s longest coastline, could claim an area larger than Alberta and Saskatchewan combined.

Most importantly, countries that do not border on the Arctic Ocean accept the validity of this process, because the rules apply globally. China, for instance, is using Article 76 to support its seabed claims in the East China Sea. It is using other provisions of the UN Convention to support its quite different claims in the South China Sea, and while those claims are contentious, the fact that the dispute is framed in legal terms reduces the possibility of armed conflict.

So the next time that someone says the Arctic is “up for grabs”, that Canada needs to “use it or lose it”, or that China is behaving in an unbridled manner in the East and South China Seas, tell them about the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea – and the central role that Canada played in its negotiation.

Michael Byers teaches at the University of British Columbia where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law. His work focuses on Canadian foreign policy, including the Arctic, climate change, and the use of military force. Dr. Byers has been a Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University, and a Professor of Law at Duke University. He has also taught as a visiting professor at the universities of Cape Town, Tel Aviv, and Novosibirsk. Dr. Byers is the author of seven books, including “International Law and the Arctic”, which was published just this month by Cambridge University Press.

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Abstract The Government of Canada has a difficult relationship with the multilateral world. It prefers intergovernmental groupings where major players’ consensus is the rule. It paid a price such as its defeat in its UN Security Council campaign. There was a feeling at the UN that, with its multilateralism “à la carte”, Canada had renounced some of the tenets which gave it credibility on the international stage.

The Government should a) manage itself out of its frustrations with multilateral convoluted processes; b) recommit Canada to the painstakingly built architecture of functional organizations; and c) undertake an open-minded review of all the international/multilateral organizations to which Canada belongs.

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Canada and international organizations: time for better recognition Ferry de Kerckhove A government unfriendly to multilateralism: It is a common refrain that Canada’s international standing has been falling over the last few years. Yet, Canada’s participation in global economic governance is a source of pride for the prime minister. But the present government is uncomfortable with multilateralism as “the international governance of the many” (Kahler, 1992). It clearly prefers intergovernmental groupings such as the G-8 or G-20 where sovereignty is unfettered and major players’ consensus is the rule. Canada seems unprepared to treat international organizations as independent actors on the international stage. It is regrettable that its disdain for the inevitable politics and grandstanding at the UN makes the government less sensitive to broader issues mostly beyond the realm of geopolitics, such as climate change and the many evils that know no frontier but which all have multilateral organizations painstakingly engaged in working out solutions. Hence, the withdrawal from the UN Convention to Combat Desertification referred to as a “bureaucratic talkfest” with little concern for the decision being branded by some as “a departure from global citizenship.”

It paid the price: Global citizenship was certainly not on Canada’s side when it lost its bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council. There was also a general feeling that the Conservative government of Canada

had renounced some of the fundamental tenets which gave Canada credibility on the international stage, such as a commitment to human security, the ‘responsibility to protect’, a preference for multilateral diplomacy, and a desire to enhance the normative framework within which international organizations strive. While the government’s refusal to entertain any compromise, particularly with undemocratic regimes, is principled, it should avoid, in the process, demonizing the organization rather than its many despicable members.

Multilateralism à la carte: While it continues to commit funds to functional international organizations, the Canadian government has little interest in dedicating time and effort to improving the effectiveness of the United Nations and its associated instruments of global governance. Of course, there is no denying that there are often huge distances between an international organization’s mandate and charter, and its actual delivery or activities. So it is normal for the government to call for accountability, value for money, and resultsbased management. But blaming the organizations – as opposed to the nations that dictate their actions (or prevent them from acting) – is like blaming the ingredients in a dish rather than the choice of recipe.

What the government should do: First, it has to find a way to manage itself out of the frustrations it seems to harbour towards the purely “political organizations” such as the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly

and to stop taking any resolution voted by UNGA which it dislikes as a direct, frontal assault against it.

Secondly, it has to recommit Canada to the painstakingly built architecture of functional organizations whose leaders and managers desperately try to avoid political interference in the work at hand. Canada has to accept that at times decisions will go differently than where it wants an organization to go but, by ‘being in the tent,’ it has a better chance of alleviating their impacts.

Thirdly, more importantly, a strong call for accountability must go hand-in-hand with working, as suggested by Tony Blair, towards enhancing what he called “the concerted means to act” (Blair, 2007). Thus, the government must undertake a review of all international/multilateral organizations to which Canada belongs, starting with their objectives and mandates and running through the way they perform their roles and deliver their contributions. The government has to decide how much more aggressively Canada should be engaged in the institutions dealing with the global issues of our time. Canada has a vital interest in participating fully in all the debates, multilateral and intergovernmental, where the future of our planet is involved. For a government deeply convinced it holds the high ground on any issue of ethics, rights or moral standing, a more open-

minded approach is much more likely to provide positive results than entertaining publicly various prejudices against what Arthur Stein calls the “existential reality of multilateralism” (Stein, 2008).

This calls for a less brutal approach to the multilateral world and for a more compassionate understanding of the different approaches to world problems. More balance and less stridency do not translate in lowering our thresholds of acceptance. But it certainly makes up for better listening. Be they deeply frustrating at times, international organizations do offer a window to the world and Canada cannot be as great a country as it deserves if it does not use that window.

References/reading Miles Kahler, Multilateralism with Small and Large Numbers”, International Organization, 46, 3, Summer 1992 Dennis Stairs, “Pogo Land: the challenge of UN Reform”; The Dispatch, CDFAI, Winter 2012 Tony Blair, speech at Davos, January 27, 2007 Arthur Stein, “Incentive compatibility and global governance” in A. Alexandroff (ed.) Can the World be Governed; WLU Press, 2008.

Ferry de Kerckhove, “Multilateralism on Trial” in A. Alexandroff (ed.) Can the World be Governed; WLU Press, 2008.

Ferry de Kerckhove entered the Canadian Foreign Service in 1973. His postings included Iran, NATO and Moscow.

He retired from the Foreign Service in 2011. He is a Senior Fellow at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, Distinguished Research Fellow of the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, and a member of the Board of the Conference of Defense Associations Institute.

He is a board member of WIND Mobile Canada. He is President of Ferry de Kerckhove International Consultants Inc.

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Abstract Canada’s international reputation as a prolific and proficient peacekeeper has been in decline for over a decade, owing to the country’s disengagement with peacekeeping operations.

This loss of experience abroad is compounded by the loss of training at home, leaving Canada unprepared to re-engage with UN peacekeeping at the level it once did. As the peacekeeping veterans from the 1990’s retire, and as the courses and exercise that were developed to prepare officers for the unique challenges of peacekeeping deployment are cut, Canada’s future foreign policy options are being undermined and narrowed. In the event that national and international demands in the post-Afghanistan era shift back to UN operations, the Canadian Forces and government need to be ready. To be properly prepared for peace, Canada requires major changes to its training and preparations, as well as a mindset that is once again open to serving the cause of peacekeeping in a constructive and progressive fashion.

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Unprepared for peace: A decade of decline in Canadian peacekeeping A. Walter Dorn Peacekeeping has a place of pride in Canadian history and identity. Canadians know that Lester B. Pearson proposed the first peacekeeping force to move the world back from war in the 1956 Suez Crisis, winning him the Nobel peace prize. Canada was the largest contributor of peacekeepers during the Cold War and the only country to have contributed to every UN mission until the mid-1990s. From Kashmir to the Congo, from Bosnia to Ethiopia, Canadian soldiers were at the forefront of world order, contributing to peace in war-torn lands.

This was recognized by the Canadian Peacekeeping Service Medal that they are entitled to wear. The National Peacekeeping Monument (called “Reconciliation”) in Ottawa is another testament to their contributions, as is the female figure on the ten-dollar bill who wears a blue beret under a banner that reads “Au Service de la Paix – In the Service of Peace.”

But what has become of that legacy? Is Canada the prolific peacekeeper it once was? Unfortunately, the answer is no. While Canada once contributed 3,000 military personnel to peacekeeping, it currently provides only 60 – as a friend says, just enough to fill a school bus. While the United Nations has maintained an all-time high of over 80,000 military in the field, Canada has kept its numbers at historical lows since 2006. Two months after the Conservative government

came to power, Canada withdrew its 200 logisticians from the Golan Heights, even as the UN mission continues to serve as an important buffer between Israel and war-wrecked Syria. Instead of peacekeeping, Canada turned to war-fighting, spending billions on Afghanistan in an unsuccessful bid to defeat the Taliban and bring stability. The Canadian Forces became a single-mission military with Afghanistan as the sole focus of attention.

In that one decade, operating in one country, more Canadian soldiers died than in six decades of peacekeeping in more than 40 countries.

To make matters worse, over the past decade, the Canadian Forces (CF) permitted a major decline in training and education for peacekeeping – known as peace support operations (PSOs) in Canadian military parlance and doctrine. The government’s withdrawal of support to the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre caused the closure of that unique facility and meant that Canadian soldiers could no longer train on multidimensional peace operations alongside civilians and foreign officers. More broadly, the CF provides only half the peacekeeping training activities that it did 10 years ago. Significantly, in training exercises and simulations, Canadian officers no longer take on roles of UN peacekeepers as they once did. At the joint command and staff program, the officers plan and exercise operations of an alliance, sometimes explicitly identified as NATO, but they are no longer given the opportunity to look from within a UN

mission or review UN procedures and practices.

The 2006–11 combat mission in Kandahar, Afghanistan, unquestionably gave CF personnel valuable experience in combat and counter-insurgency (COIN) operations. While there are some similarities between these types of missions and international peace operations, there are also fundamental differences in the training, preparation and practice. Peacekeeping requires specialized training as it is a more complex and conceptually challenging task than war-fighting. War and COIN missions are enemy-centric, non-consensual and primarily involve offensive strategy, whereas peacekeeping is based on a trinity of principles: impartiality; consent of conflicting parties; and the defensive approach on the use of force, though robust peace enforcement action is sometimes required. A major change in mentality would thus be needed to properly prepare the post-Afghanistan CF for future peace operations. Special skills, separate from those learned in Afghanistan, are needed, including negotiation, conflict management and resolution, as well as an understanding of UN procedures and past peacekeeping missions.

Thus, a concerted effort is needed to revitalize the peacekeeping skills of the Canadian Forces if it is to constructively help the United Nations in a conflict-rid-

den world. Since U.S.-led coalitions on the ground are unlikely in coming years, the Canadian military does not have many alternatives to make its army useful. Peacekeeping advances both Canada’s national values and interests in enhancing a stable, peaceful, and rules-based international order. There is a constant need for welltrained and well-equipped peacekeepers. Canada’s return to peacekeeping would be embraced by the United Nations and the international community. Such a development could help our country gain more influence and clout, including a future seat in the UN Security Council, and give Canadians something even more important: a sense of renewed pride in the nation’s contribution to a better, more peaceful world.

Further writings on the subject by the author: “Canadian Peacekeeping: Proud Tradition, Strong Future?” Canadian Foreign Policy, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Fall 2005), pp.7-32, available at http://walterdorn.org/pub/32.

“Canadian Peacekeeping: No Myth But Not What It Once Was”, SITREP, Vol. 67, No. 2, Royal Canadian Military Institute, 2007, available at http://walterdorn.org/ pdf/CanadianPeacekeeping-NoMyth_Dorn_ SitRep_April2007.pdf.

A.Walter Dorn is a professor of defence studies at the Royal Military College and the Canadian Forces College. He teaches mid-level and senior officers from Canada and a score of other nations. In the past, he has served UN’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations as a Training Adviser and a consultant as well as a civilian peacekeeper in the field. Email: dorn@rmc.ca.

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Abstract On 1 January 1989, I had the privilege, as Ambassador to the United Nations in New York, of commencing a twoyear term as Canada’s Representative on the U.N. Security Council. It is with immense pride that I recall the intensive campaign, spearheaded by Prime Minister Mulroney, that resulted in Canada’s election to the Security Council in October 1988. Indeed, Canada’s was the most successful, competitive non-permanent member election in UNSC history.

Amongst Member States it came to be accepted that every ten years or so, Canada, because it was such an active and constructive participant at the UN could expect to be asked by its peers to sit at this exclusive table. And in 1998, Canada was elected again for a sixth term on the Council.

How times have changed! With many other Canadians, I was chagrined in October 2010 to learn that, for the first time in over 60 years, Canada had failed to be elected to the Council.

On the basis of my experience, I can assert categorically that it is far preferable to be in the tent with a voice 16

Canada and the Security Council, then and now: A view from within The Honorable L. Yves Fortier, PC, CC, OQ, QC On 1 January 1989, I had the privilege, as Canada’s Ambassador to the United Nations in New York, of commencing a two-year term as Canada’s representative on the UN Security Council. During those two years, the earth moved in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere on the planet. It is no exaggeration to say that, until the Arab Spring in 2011, these were the most momentous years on the world stage since the end of the Second World War and Canada, because of its seat on the Security Council, was one of the 15 informed and active nations participating in the deliberations which led to the adoption of a significant number of important resolutions by the Council during those years.

To name but a few of those events during 1989 and 1990, I recall that the Berlin wall fell, the Soviet Union disintegrated, the Cold War ended, Nelson Mandela was released from prison, apartheid became a disgraced regime in South Africa, Namibia gained its independence and Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.

Canada’s election in the fall of 1988 to a two-year term as a non-permanent member of the Council marked the fifth time since the UN Charter was signed in San Francisco in 1945 that Canada had secured a seat on this most prestigious and highly coveted organ of the United Nations, whose decisions under Chapter VII of the Charter are binding on all member states. Even the

decisions of the principal judicial organ of the UN, the International Court of Justice, do not command the same respect.

It is with immense pride that I recall that, after an intensive campaign in New York, Ottawa and the capitals of member states, spearheaded by the active participation of the Prime Minister himself, the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney, when the votes were counted in the General Assembly, the evening of October 26, 1988, Canada was elected to the Council on the first ballot with an impressive majority. Canada’s election that year was the most successful, competitive non-permanent member election in UNSC history.

Among member states on the floor of the General Assembly and within the UN Secretariat, it came to be accepted that every 10 years or so, Canada, because it was such an active and constructive participant in every committee of the General Assembly and in nearly every body of the UN’s large constellation of specialized agencies, could expect to be asked by its peers to sit at this exclusive table. And indeed, in 1998, Canada was elected again for a sixth term on the Council.

How times have changed! With many other Canadians, I was chagrined in October 2010 to learn that, for the first time in over 60 years, Canada had failed to be elected to the Council. It is not my remit today to analyze how this came to be. I leave this analysis to others.

But, on the basis of my experience at the table a little

more than 20 years ago, I can assert categorically that it is far preferable to be in the tent with a voice that is respected in the consultations and deliberations of the Council than to be outside the tent sulking in a corner.

After all, the Security Council is the only permanent international diplomatic forum where non-permanent member countries such as Canada have the opportunity of being consulted almost daily by representatives of the five permanent members on issues pertaining to international peace. Membership on the UNSC also affords the ambassador of each member nation a close and regular contact with the Secretary General.

Yes, the UNSC has its weaknesses, most of which are due to the right of veto wielded by the five permanent

members. Vetoes have, all too often, paralyzed the Council. But, if the Charter is to be modified, Canada stands a better chance to contribute constructively to the process if it is in the tent.

Obviously, the government of the day will always decide where its interest lies on the world stage and what its priorities will be in order to further that interest.

However, in my humble opinion, in our increasingly interdependent world, where traditional and novel facets of peace and security surface constantly, it should be in the interest of Canada to resume its traditional role as a nation whose opinion is sought at the ‘high table’ of the United Nations.

L. Yves Fortier is recognized as one of the top arbitrators in the world. Since 1 January 2012, he has been a sole practitioner with offices in Montreal, Toronto and London. In the past 20 years, he has served as Chairman or party-appointed arbitrator on more than 100 international arbitral tribunals.

He is a past President of the Canadian Bar Association.

From 1984 to 1989, he was a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. From 1998 to 2001, he served as President of the London Court of International Arbitration. From July 1988 until January 1992, he was Canada’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York.

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Abstract The “me-first,” insensitive policies of the current government have caused irreparable harm to Canada’s reputa-

Why Canada was not elected to the Security Council three years ago, and why we will never be elected unless and until there is a fundamental change in our foreign policy Robert Fowler, O.C.

tion at the United Nations, including our bid three years ago for a seventh term on the UN Security Council.

Canadian environmental policy remains a fiasco. Canada had taken strong stands in the global effort to combat environmental degradation, beginning in Stockholm in 1972, and worked hard to build momentum behind efforts to create a global climate treaty. Our decision in December 2011 to become the first nation to withdraw from Kyoto represented a blow to our international reputation from which we have not begun to recover.

But there are numerous other examples. From an “Israel right or wrong” policy on the Middle East to a statistically irrelevant contribution to UN peacekeeping, there is little wonder why Canada has lost support and why our reputation will not be restored until Canada adopts positions on international issues that are seen to be good for the world as well as good for Canada.

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How tiresome, how smug and – I will argue – how un-Canadian is the stolid simplicity of the Harper-Baird “we won’t go along to get along” mantra. But it is that arrogant, me-first, ‘I’m all right, Jack and to hell with you” posture, coupled with extravagant insensitivity, which destroyed Canada’s bid for a seventh term on the Security Council three years ago. Until that changes, those attitudes will ensure that Canada is excluded from any important role within the community of nations.

The fact is, the pony we had entered in the Security Council lists in the fall of 2010 was lame and there was nothing hard-working Canadian diplomats in New York and around the world could do to disguise that fact.

Three years ago the nations of the world, voting according to their own interests, did not believe that they needed more of the Canada they had been getting on the Security Council. How preposterous it was to claim that our defeat was a triumph of our values over theirs!

Canadian environmental policy was – and remains – a fiasco. Canada had taken strong stands in the global effort to combat environmental degradation, beginning in Stockholm in 1972, and over the years worked hard to build momentum behind efforts to create a global climate treaty. The Montreal Protocol to phase out materials that were damaging the ozone layer was a good

start. However daunting, our obligations as a Party to the Kyoto Protocol represented a formal engagement, and our decision in December 2011 to become the first nation to withdraw from Kyoto represented a blow to our international reputation from which we have not begun to recover.

And then, only a few months ago, Canada announced its intention to become the first (and only) country to withdraw from the “UN Convention to Combat Desertification” to which 194 states had become a Party following its adoption in 1994. Imagine for a moment how those desperately impoverished states suffering the daily encroachment of the Sahara felt about Mr. Harper’s insistence that such efforts were but a “talkfest” and that our annual contribution of $350,000 was a waste of money.

For the 37 members of the Alliance of Small Island States, climate change is an existential issue. If it isn’t fixed, they will be under water. When offered the opportunity to vote on Canada’s disdain for their concerns, they did so with clarity of purpose. Our refusal to understand – let alone empathize with – such deeply held views has sorely damaged the reputation of our country.

I have emphasized the extent to which Canada’s stand on environmental issues has caused much of the world community to lose faith in us, to mistrust our words and misconstrue our motives. But rest assured, we have

offered the world community lots of other reasons not to support us. In the eyes of the 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference at the UN, the Harper government’s insistence on an unbalanced “Israel right or wrong” posture which countenances no criticism, while characterizing other states in the region with thinly veiled disdain, is simply an anathema.

Then there’s the Harper government’s writing off of Africa (which accounts for 70 per cent of the Security Council’s business), the largest and most diverse continent; a billion people in 54 different countries (and votes); a region deemed not worthy of interest by our government.

In recent years, our contribution to UN peacekeeping has become statistically irrelevant in what is an ever more challenging international security environment, the management of which is the Security Council’s mandate. Canadian military professionalism, integrity and steadfastness are greatly missed in UN circles. Indeed, these days Canada is simply absent from the discussion of how to better manage international affairs.

These are the areas in which for the first 60 years of the UN’s existence Canada genuinely punched above its weight. By being an exemplary UN citizen, we were able, in six successive decades, to win election to the Security Council, despite the fact that the membership of the organization grew four-fold over this period. The campaign in the late 90s was hard fought, but I never doubted we would prevail. There was then a huge reserve of sympathy and respect for Canada and Canadians within the organization. We were seen to be fair but firm, balanced and principled, yet always sensitive to the worries and concerns of others while being very clear about the promotion and projection of our own beliefs and values, and committed to an effective UN. We have, however, squandered that fine reputation, and it will not be restored until Canada adopts positions on international issues that are seen to be good for the world as well as good for Canada.

Robert Fowler was the Foreign Policy Advisor to Prime Ministers Trudeau, Turner and Mulroney, Deputy Minister of National Defence, Canada’s longest serving Ambassador to the UN, Ambassador to Italy, and Personal Representative for Africa of Prime Ministers Chrétien, Martin and Harper.

He retired in 2006 and is a Senior Fellow at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.

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The UN, Canada and the International Civil Aviation Organization Abstract

Gilles Gingras

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) counts 191 member states. The ICAO sets the standards and regulations of international civil aviation to ensure security, safety and environmental protection which protect human lives every day, all over the world. Unfortunately, most Canadians are unaware of the existence of the ICAO and its headquarters in Canada – and even less aware of its strategic and essential role in ensuring peace and security in the world.

The ICAO is the key piece in the Montreal aerospace sector, which employs 42,500 people and posts annual sales of $12.1 billion.

Last spring, the unsuccessful bid

by Qatar upped the ante. The ICAO obtained additional support from Ottawa and Quebec and resolved irritants raised by Qatar.

During their UN interventions, the Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Canada’s Ambassador to the UN should remind listeners that Canada is proud of this contribution to peace and security around the world.

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Located in Montreal since 1947, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is part of a family of 15 specialized agencies of the United Nations that includes UNESCO in Paris, the FAO in Rome, UNICEF in New York and the IMF in Washington.

In Canada, the ICAO rarely makes headlines. And Canada only seems to take an interest when the headquarters might leave the country. This was the case last spring. On May 1, Le Devoir ran the headline (translation): ‘ICAO: Ottawa must eliminate irritants and sweeten its offer’ while The Globe and Mail announced ‘Canada’s airline lobby joins fight to keep ICAO HQ in Montreal’. To relocate ICAO headquarters, Doha, Qatar (one of the 191 member countries of the ICAO) was offering conditions that were more advantageous than those in Canada.

History was repeating itself. In 1990, when the ICAO occupied inadequate premises, a few countries had discreetly made offers to give the organization a new home. Singapore made quiet overtures in 2009, as did China in 2010. In the 1950s, several nations had also exerted similar pressures because of numerous irritants (Hilliker and Barry, 1995: 102). Each time, the worst was avoided only through the intercession of elected officials authorized to modify the rules of the agreement.

Apparently, we are the envy of several countries who find it unfair that most of the UN’s specialized agencies are concentrated in Europe and North America. To be

sure, ever since the post-war period, Canada has played a leading role in the regulation of civil aviation. The Chicago Convention, which led to the creation of the ICAO in 1944, was based on a Canadian document (Hilliker, 1990: 358). But we live in a world of fierce competition which requires a regular revision of the conditions accorded the ICAO. In June 2013 in Montreal, the organization signed an extension of its lease for twenty years (2016-2036), after having obtained several improvements, including better financial and fiscal conditions.

Aviation, a favourite target of terrorists, represents about eight per cent of the global GDP. Since September 11, 2001, the role of the ICAO has proven essential for effective and harmonized security actions on a global scale, despite the political differences of its member countries. Each of 2.5 billion air passengers is subjected to increasingly sophisticated security and safety measures. To reinforce these security systems, the ICAO proposes inspection and control procedures based on studies by its own experts. Once adopted, their implementation has to be monitored throughout the world.

The ICAO also offers technical assistance to states that do not have resources or expertise in this area, and the ICAO’s seven regional offices are extremely useful for this purpose.

Aviation safety has been part of the ICAO’s mandate since its creation. Despite the steady growth of air traffic, the number of fatal accidents is dropping, a success that can be largely attributed to the ICAO. Member states must ensure that their planes, pilots and mechan-

ics comply with standards established by the ICAO. If required, they can call upon the organization for technical assistance. Jointly with some other civil aviation organizations, the ICAO establishes the standards for the design and use of the flight data recording system commonly known as the ‘black box.’

For the protection of the environment, the ICAO is aiming to reduce aviation greenhouse gas emissions by two per cent. This is a sizeable objective. Nevertheless, in October 2012, in co-operation with the air transport industry, states representing most of the world’s commercial air traffic succeeded in agreeing on specific objectives, including improved fuel efficiency and the development of alternative fuels. In 1992, non-smoking flights were first proposed at the ICAO (Resolution A. 2915 sponsored by Canada). Although initially unpopular, these flights have become the standard practice for the comfort of millions of passengers.

Through its program of technical co-operation, the ICAO is currently contributing to rebuilding airport facilities in Haiti, as was also the case in certain countries in Africa, in Afghanistan, and in Kosovo.

Following in the wake of the ICAO, nine other international aviation organizations have established offices in Montreal, including the International Air Transport Association (IATA), Airports Council International (ACI), based in Geneva until 2010, and the International Federation of Air Line Pilots Associations (IFALPA), which moved from London in 2012. This core of expertise has in turn drawn several other international organizations to Montreal, including the Statistics Institute of UNESCO, and facilitated the development of the important Secretariat

of the Convention on Biodiversity (CBDS).

In September 2013, some 1,500 high-level delegates congregated on Montreal for the ICAO 38th triennial Assembly. In addition, every year hundreds of representatives come to meetings at the ICAO and the other organizations and local businesses linked to civil aviation. This business tourism is precious – not only for the economic benefits, but also, and above all, because it contributes significantly to Canada’s international outreach and image.

The Qatar proposal had a shock-wave effect, provoking a sudden rise in interest in the ICAO and upping the ante. The result was a closer political consensus between Ottawa, Quebec and Montreal. Now, the question is: how can we assure that these three levels of government remain vigilant? That the ICAO hosting conditions and other formalities are revised and updated regularly?

That the presence and essential role of the ICAO are proclaimed loud and clear by our political leaders?

The time has come for all Canadians to be more aware and proud of the United Nations in their midst, and of its contribution to peace and security around the world.

Hilliker, John and Barry, Donald, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada – Coming of Age, 1946-1968, Vol. II, 1995.

Hilliker, John, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada – The Early Years, 1909-1946, Vol. I, 1990. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Civil_Aviation_Organization

At the Department of Foreign Affairs, Gilles Gingras worked in the UN and Commonwealth Affairs Division, International Organization Directorate. In the course of his career he was on posting in New York, Abidjan, Paris, Washington and Oslo.

In 2003, he taught classes on international organizations at the Sherbrooke University’s École de Politique appliquée.

Since 2004, he has been ViceChair of the United Nations Association in CanadaGreater Montreal. Email: gingrasgilles@videotron.ca

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Preparing for peace Abstract

H. Peter Langille

Canadian contributions to peace have declined with the new emphasis on war-fighting. Yet to prevent armed conflict and protect civilians in an over-armed, interdependent world, we are likely to need an empowered United Nations, just as the Organization now needs better Canadian efforts. Two transformations are required. The Canadian Forces already have critically important assets and could promptly be re-directed to support UN peace operations.

Second, Canada could again lead in supporting the development of a UN Emergency Peace Service (UNEPS) – a standing ‘UN 911’ to ensure rapid and reliable responses to fast-breaking crises.

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For 50 years, successive Canadian governments accorded a high priority to the prevention of war. A cornerstone of Canada’s defence and foreign policy was a stronger, more effective United Nations.

Regrettably, Canada and the UN share a significant problem. Both still lack appropriate tools to prevent armed conflict and to protect civilians. UN officials continue to preface talks with a reminder that the UN has no force or service of its own for peace operations.

The organization relies on its member states to organize and provide national standby personnel and resources through a negotiated loan or user fee; an arrangement far slower and less reliable than a volunteer fire department.

It might appear things haven’t changed much since the 1950s. Then, Nobel laureate Lester Pearson warned “the grim fact is that we prepare for war like precocious giants, and for peace like retarded pygmies.” His message was echoed last summer when UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon cautioned of continuing with massive military spending amid austerity in an article entitled, “the world is over-armed and peace is under-funded.”

Of course, there are options. A UN report in 2004 suggested one means to address the problem: A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility repeatedly recommended that “the developed States should do more to transform their existing force capacities into suitable contingents for peace operations.”

The Canadian Forces could be transformed to make a useful contribution. As Canada has been largely absent from the new generation of increasingly complex UN operations since 1997, appropriate preparation will be needed. Yet Canada already has assets that the UN desperately needs, particularly in transport aircraft and utility helicopters, special-forces and a rapidly-deployable mission headquarters, as well as equipment for surveillance and monitoring of armed conflicts. As the UN has asked for multinational brigade-size partnerships, Canada might also help to re-establish our former Standby High Readiness Brigade (SHIRBRIG), a mechanism once considered the most advanced available for UN peacekeeping.

Oddly, despite the absence of a direct military threat to Canada, Stephen Harper’s government prefers to emphasize traditional war-fighting. Premised on fear of the future, their “Canada First Defence Strategy” offers a military-industrial wish-list of $490 billion for the latest weapons systems. At a cost of roughly $5,000 for every citizen, isn’t it time to consider more appropriate priorities and policy options to offset the sort of worst-case, war-prone world anticipated? We need a new agenda for peace.

To date, the international community has been reluctant to take the steps necessary to prevent armed conflict, to protect civilians and to curb massive military spending. It’s not that governments don’t know what’s needed. As early as 1961, officials in the U.S. State Department acknowledged:

“There is an inseparable relationship between the scaling down of national armaments on the one hand and the building up of international peacekeeping machinery and institutions on the other. Nations are unlikely to shed their means of self-protection in the absence of alternative ways to safeguard their legitimate interests. This can only be achieved through the progressive strengthening of international institutions under the United Nations and by creating a United Nations Peace Force to enforce the peace as the disarmament process proceeds.”

Former Canadian governments were supportive.

In the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, Canada informed the UN General Assembly that we would respond with an in-depth study to develop a permanent UN rapid reaction force. Although events caused them to scale back the plans, this study became the guiding document for a multinational group of 28 UN member states, the ‘Friends of Rapid Deployment’, which Canada co-chaired from 1995-1997. One uniquely promising idea with wider potential stemmed from the experience, i.e., a rapid reaction peacekeeping capacity for the UN. Currently referred to as a “United Nations Emergency Peace Service (UNEPS),” – effectively a ‘UN 911’ – the idea is to create a rapidly deployable first-responder designed to help prevent armed conflict, protect civilians, ensure the prompt start-up of demanding operations, and address human needs in areas of armed conflict.

The 10 core principles underlying the UNEPS proposal are that it be: a permanent standing, integrated UN formation; highly trained and well-equipped; ready for immediate deployment upon authorization of the UN

Security Council; multidimensional (civilians, police and military); multifunctional (capable of diverse assignments with specialized skills for security, humanitarian, health and environmental crises); composed of 16,000 dedicated personnel (recruited professionals, selected, trained and employed by the UN); developed to ensure regional and gender equitable representation; co-located at a designated UN base under an operational headquarters and two mobile mission headquarters; at sufficient strength to operate in high-threat environments; and complement existing UN and regional arrangements. Aside from providing a military formation to deter aggression and maintain security, there would be sufficient police to restore law and order, as well as an array of civilian teams to provide essential services.

Ten years back, several civil society organizations initiated wider discussions on UNEPS. A conference in Cuenca, Spain with representatives of various sectors from the South and the North generated a consensus that the UNEPS concept was more appealing than a force or army, the case more compelling than previous proposals, the model more appropriate for complex operations, and when combined, there was a better political prospect. Clearly, a UN emergency service would also convey more legitimacy world-wide than regional responses operating out of area.

Canada could again lead in developing more detailed plans for a UNEPS and help attract a global constituency of support. Ideas don’t work unless we do. And building a better, safer world is a worthy Canadian tradition.

Dr. H. Peter Langille is a senior research fellow in the Centre for Global Studies, University of Victoria. He was an early recipient of the Hanna Newcombe Lifetime Achievement Award from the World Federalist Movement - Canada for his numerous contributions in support of more effective UN peace operations.

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Canada’s self interest and the United Nations Abstract

Carolyn McAskie. O.C.

If one of a government’s primary responsibilities is to protect its interests in the world, the current Canadian government’s shunning of international institutions, particularly the United Nations, is difficult to understand. In a globalized world of trade, economic risk, political and security uncertainties, interlinked environmental and health effects along with emerging humanitarian crises and pressing development needs, it is virtually impossible for any one government to “go it alone.”

It is in the various UN bodies – political, security, environmental, development, and humanitarian – that the international community can best develop the interventions required to address the complex global problems of today. It is member states which run the show and pay the piper. When “the UN” can’t agree on a course of action, it is because UN member states cannot or will not agree. Canada must, therefore, take up its responsibility as a member state.

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If one of a government’s primary responsibilities is to protect its interests in the world, the current Canadian government’s shunning of international institutions, particularly the United Nations, is difficult to understand. In a globalized world of economic risk, political and security uncertainties, interlinked environmental and health effects along with emerging humanitarian crises and pressing development needs, it has become virtually impossible for any one government to ‘go it alone.’ Canada’s international reputation (now shattered) was built on being a sound partner, keeping its eye on the big picture and seeking solutions for the greatest good of the greatest number. By recognizing that the global good was good in its own right and good for Canada, we were able to ensure that our own interests were understood and protected. Now Canadian representatives in international institutions receive instructions to protect only the narrowest definition of purely Canadian interests, while ignoring our wider interests and responsibilities as a UN member state.

The United Nations is a multi-faceted, hydra-headed entity which performs a variety of functions through its various parts, whether regulatory, humanitarian, developmental, human rights or the most high-profile political and security functions. In all cases, whether the UN Security Council, or the UN Development Programme, it is member states which run the show and pay the piper.

The UN is not an entity unto itself engaging or not

engaging in unilateral action. When ‘the UN’ can’t agree on a course of action, it is because UN member states cannot or will not agree. The out-dated Security Council veto compounds the problem but it is member states which have been unable to amend the formula.

It is in the field of peace and security where the greatest confusion arises, both in the minds of the public and in the deliberate posturing of the Harper Government.

While Canada hummed and hawed over sending one transport plane to support the French in Mali, most Canadian media ignored the UN Secretariat’s negotiations with all parties in the conflict, with regional bodies, potential troop contributors, while preparing for elections and other civilian tasks in anticipation of a peace operation. It is in the various UN bodies – political, security, environmental, development, and humanitarian – that the international community can best develop the interventions required to address the complex tinderbox of poverty, famine, drought, environmental degradation, poor governance, neglect and terrorist infiltration in the Sahel region of Africa.

In peacekeeping, Canada, still living with memories of Bosnia, refuses to recognize the turn-around in places such as Timor Leste, Kosovo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire, Burundi and Somalia under UN missions, or the efforts required to manage ongoing conflicts in Sudan and the DRC (which had fewer than 20,000 troops when Afghanistan had 140,000). The UN Secretariat which oversees all of this has a budget smaller than the City of Ottawa. It is starved for cash and personnel, and

depends on governments to provide guidance, a role Canada now refuses to play.

Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in 1835 about “self-interest properly understood.” The Canadian government preaches self-interest in a narrow ‘what’s good for Canada’ sense, but self-interest “properly understood” means appreciating that the self-interest of others, i.e., the global good, is in fact a precondition for one’s own ultimate well-being. This is not necessarily an idealistic view but a mark of pragmatism. It is in Canada’s interest, dependent as we are on trade and international mobility, to help create a peaceful, democratic, more equi-

table and sustainable world. The Harper government’s “principled foreign policy” which focuses narrowly on short term and mainly commercial or domestic political issues, actually works against Canada’s longer-term self-interest. Looking to organizations such as the G20 or NATO can be effective, but this does not mean that Canada can absolve itself of its responsibilities as a member of the United Nations. Otherwise, we not only abandon our allies, leaving them to carry the burden, but we lose the opportunity to influence world events in a way that will advance our own interests.

Carolyn McAskie is a Senior Fellow in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs of the University of Ottawa. She is an Officer of the Order of Canada and currently the vice-chair of the Board of the Pearson Centre.

Ms McAskie has had a career in the Canadian International Development Agency, as Assistant Deputy Minister (ADM) for Multilateral Affairs, and ADM for African Programs, followed by almost a decade in the United Nations, as Assistant Secretary General Humanitarian Affairs, as SRSG of the UN Mission in Burundi and ASG Peacebuilding (launching the UN’s new Peacebuilding Commission).

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The UN, UN Women and Canada Abstract

Marilou McPhedran

UN Women is still the new girl on the UN block of agencies – formed out of the international GEAR (Gender Equality Architecture Reform) campaign of women’s grass roots advocacy as the much-needed amalgam of four diffused (often disagreeing) UN bodies – promising genuine inclusion of women’s civil society organizations. Over 50 civil society leaders met UN Women in August to stress that women’s sexual and reproductive rights must be understood in the human rights framework. Why this emphasis on sexual and reproductive rights and why do women’s rights leaders look to the UN to make positive changes so that women’s human rights are actually “lived rights”?

The bodies of women and girls are the pages of the book on women’s rights; control and power are the central theme.

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UN Women is still the new girl on the block of United Nations agencies. It was formed in 2007 out of a campaign of women’s grass roots advocacy. It is an amalgam of four former diffused (often disagreeing) UN bodies.

She is still settling into her niche, waiting for some funding promises to come through.

Former UN ambassador Stephen Lewis strongly supported establishing UN Women, partly due to the promise of genuine inclusion of women’s civil society organizations (in Canada that would include Voice of Women for Peace, Federation of University Women, the YWCA, and many others). More than 50 civil society leaders met with the new executive director of UN Women at New York headquarters last August to stress that all women’s issues, including sexual and reproductive rights, must be understood in the human rights framework.

Why this emphasis on sexual and reproductive rights?

And why do women’s rights leaders look to the UN to make positive changes so that women’s human rights are actually “lived rights?” The bodies of women and girls are central to women’s rights; control is the major theme.

As a human rights lawyer and educator, I have been monitoring UN women’s rights sessions in New York and Geneva since 1997. I often take students with me to introduce them to the realpolitik of UN processes – because until one sees them firsthand, it is difficult to

appreciate the delays and complexities of multilateralism in pursuit of rights.

One example was the ‘Optional Protocol’ that allows individuals to make complaints of injustice beyond the borders of their countries. It was negotiated in 1998 as part of the major UN treaty on women’s rights – CEDAW (the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women). I was directing The First CEDAW Impact Study and sat in on closed drafting sessions for this controversial addendum. There I saw how the American diplomats (under President George W. Bush) usually sat with, and voted with, representatives who consistently opposed women’s reproductive rights such as Syria and the Vatican. I was proud to be a Canadian because much of the effective advocacy and pro-women amendments came from Canadian diplomats.

Fast forward to June of this year. At the 23rd session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, I was a speaker and observer at the negotiating sessions hosted by our accomplished Canadian women diplomats. They were carrying on Canada’s tradition of sponsoring resolutions addressing violence against women. But this time, I saw diplomats from the United States (under President Obama) propose a crucial amendment to the Canadian resolution on women’s reproductive rights. And this time, it was Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s people that said “no.”

Action Canada on Population and Development (ACPD) – one of our most effective civil society organiza-

tions in the UN system – had this to say about Canada’s resolution: “Due to Canada’s constant reluctance, the final text does not operationalize sexual and reproductive rights in the form of critical actions like providing sexuality education to adolescents, empowering girls, reducing gender-based violence, and reviewing laws that criminalize or restrict access to abortion. It asks governments to provide accessible health care services but does not list critical sexual and reproductive health services that survivors of sexual violence must have access to, such as emergency contraception, safe abortion, post-exposure prophylaxis for HIV, and screening and treatment for sexually transmitted infections.”

The weak version of the Canadian resolution was finally adopted by the UN Human Rights Council on June 14, 2013 with the title “Accelerating efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women: preventing and responding to rape and other forms of sexual violence.”

The United States officially stated its regret over Canada’s lack of reference to access to services required by survivors of sexual violence, such as those in the ‘Agreed Conclusions’ of the March 2013 UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). This means the government of Canada refused wording in its Geneva resolution that Canada had accepted in New York and that had already passed muster at the CSW, the largest UN body for women’s rights. No wonder one of my 21-year-old students recently spoke at a conference decrying the

slashing of gender equality architecture in Canada (more than 40 per cent reductions) and describing her frustration at ‘growing up’ in Harper’s Canada.

Regarding Canada and the UN… In 2005, my students and I were invited to give a strategy paper to Canada’s UN Reform Summit team through then-ambassador to the UN Allan Rock. In 2009, I was surprised to get a call asking me to write a strategy paper for a European country – surprised because a Canadian professor was being asked to prepare women’s rights strategy for another country. They explained that Canada’s reduced presence in support of women’s rights was opening a niche for other countries to make their mark and they wanted a Canadian mind on the project, knowing she would not be doing any women’s rights work for the Canadian government.

References: 1. UN Women, the United Nations Entity for gender equality and the advancement of women. http:// www.unwomen.org/.

2. A/HRC/RES/23/25, Resolution of the UN Human Rights Council, Accelerating efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women: preventing and responding to rape and other forms of sexual violence, June 25, 2013. http://www.refworld.org/docid/ 51d5665c4.html.

Marilou McPhedran is a human rights lawyer who served as the Principal (dean) of the University of Winnipeg’s Global College in its founding years from 2008-2012 and currently teaches human rights at the Global College.

In 1997, Marilou founded the International Women’s Rights Project (IWRP) when she was at York University, which is now based at the University of Victoria Centre for Global Studies and she currently directs the University of Winnipeg Institute for International Women’s Rights and teaches human rights courses at the Global College.

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Canada, its human rights record and the UN Abstract

Errol Mendes

Canada used to be regarded as a human rights and rule of law champion within Canada, at the UN and around the world. This allowed Canada to punch above its weight at the UN and in the international community.

This legacy led to historic accomplishments such as the Nobel Peace Prize for Peacekeeping, the Ottawa Land Mines Treaty, a Conservative Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney leading the fight against apartheid, the ‘responsibility to protect’ doctrine, and Canadian Philippe Kirsch being instrumental in the creation of the International Criminal Court.

Sadly in this 65th anniversary year of the Universal Declaration, the human rights and rule of law reputation of Canada is fast diminishing, in part because the world is getting to know how the Conservative government of Stephen Harper undermines those values at home, which brings repercussions at the UN and around the world. This article lists the most egregious examples of how the Conservatives have undermined Canada’s human rights reputation.

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In 2013, the Canadian government should have taken global leadership in celebrating the 65th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It should also have been the year that we celebrated that a Canadian law professor, John Humphrey, who as head of the UN Human Rights Division collaborated with Eleanor Roosevelt to produce the blueprint for the Universal Declaration which was termed by the American former First Lady as the “Magna Carta of the world.” Instead, there was total silence from the Harper government, similar to the total neglect of the 30th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms the same year. The Charter is supposed to be the ultimate demonstration of how we respect the rights in the Universal Declaration.

Canada used to be regarded as a human rights and ‘rule of law’ champion within Canada, at the UN and around the world. That legacy allowed Canada to punch above its weight in the international community. This legacy led to historic accomplishments, such as: the Nobel Peace Prize for Peacekeeping; the Ottawa Land Mines Treaty pioneered by Lloyd Axworthy; a Conservative Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney, leading the fight against apartheid along with his leadership in the creation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child; the creation of the G20 by former Prime Minister Paul Martin; the catalyst for the ‘responsibility to protect’ doctrine

led by Prime Minister Jean Chretien, Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy and shepherded through the UN at the 2005 World Summit by former Canadian Ambassador Allan Rock; and Canadian foreign affairs official, Philippe Kirsch, being instrumental in the creation of the International Criminal Court and later being the first presiding judge on the Court.

Sadly in this 65th anniversary year of the Universal Declaration, the human rights and ‘rule of law’ reputation of Canada is fast diminishing, in part because the world is getting to know how the Conservative government of Stephen Harper undermines those values at home and brings repercussions at the UN and around the world. These include the following: 1. Failure to protect, and complicity in abusing, the rights of Canadian Omar Khadr, captured as a 15-year-old child soldier, imprisoned without due process of law at Guantanamo Bay, complicity in the unlawful interrogation of Khadr, and stalling on his eventual transfer to Canada.

2. Vic Toews, then Public Security Minister, issuing directives to Canadian authorities that they can rely on information obtained by Canada or foreign agencies derived from torture and also share such information with other states. The interests in protecting life and property are supposed to justify this gross violation of the UN Convention Against Torture to which Canada is legally bound.

3. Failure to take effective action against widespread

4.

5.

6.

7.

violence against indigenous women and girls, with over 600 women and girls missing or found murdered.

Denial and avoidance of any accountability for the transfer of Afghan detainees by Canadian military officials into Afghan police and security agencies (revealed by the UN reports and others to engage in torture) in violation of international humanitarian law. The government prevented the Military Police Complaints Commission and a Parliamentary Committee from searching for evidence of knowledge, at the highest levels of the Canadian government, of the serious risk of torture.

Introduction of draconian refugee legislation (Bill C-31) concerning detention and discriminatory treatment of those arriving by irregular means, which will likely be determined to be a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the UN Refugee Convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child that Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney championed.

Ideologically motivated funding cuts or threats of loss of charitable status for organizations that were thought to be advocating protection of human rights or other issues against which the government was opposed.

Failure to establish an effective mechanism or oversight body to monitor allegations of complicity in human rights abuses by Canadian extractive industries operating around the world, following the serious allegations of such complicity in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

8. Proposed Canadian legislation (Bill S-10) to implement the international Cluster Munitions Treaty would undermine its core objectives. The legislation generates loopholes for joint military operations with non-state parties, which would allow Canadian forces to direct or authorize or even use cluster munitions.

Fortunately, Bill S-10 died on the order paper before the end of the last session of Parliament. However, this example alone demonstrates how far Canada has fallen as a human rights champion given its global leadership on land mines which lead to the Ottawa Land Mines Convention.

9. The downplaying and refusal to build on other landmark human rights legacies of Canada. These include the historic ‘responsibility to protect’ doctrine and the legacy of Canada’s military as peacekeepers.

When the Harper Conservatives attempt to show the world their support for human rights and the rule of law at the UN, there is almost always an instrumentalist strategy to reinforce electoral and other narrow and wedge political objectives. The world is not fooled, as demonstrated in the embarrassing loss in the vote for a seat at the UN Security Council.

A great legacy built over several generations of Canadians and governments of all political stripes must not be lost in such a short time and mostly during the period of just one government.

Professor Mendes is a lawyer, author, professor and has been an advisor to corporations, governments, civil society groups and the United Nations where he assisted in the development of the UN Global Compact. He has acted as a Human Rights Tribunal and Boards of Inquiry adjudicator in Canada, and on several occasions as an international arbitrator, served in the highest levels of the Canadian federal public service in the Privy Council Office of the Government of Canada and most recently served as a Visiting Professional at the International Criminal Court.

He was recently appointed as a Visiting Fellow at Harvard Law School for the fall of 2013.

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Canada’s role in banning nuclear weapons Abstract

Douglas Roche, O.C.

Canada should implement the motion adopted unanimously by both the Senate and House of Commons calling on the government to support UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Five Point Plan for Nuclear Disarmament, centering on a Nuclear Weapons Convention or framework of instruments to eliminate all nuclear weapons. The Middle Powers Initiative is ready to hold a meeting in Ottawa of like-minded states to work on preparations for a global ban. Many parliamentarians and nearly 700 members of the Order of Canada fully support this.

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When the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reported in its 2013 Yearbook that the nuclear weapons states “appear determined to retain their nuclear arsenals indefinitely,” the crisis of the non-proliferation regime was bluntly revealed. While the international spotlight has been on Iran’s nuclear program and North Korea’s testing of nuclear weapons, the heart of the nuclear weapons problem remains the intransigence of the five permanent members of the Security Council to enter into comprehensive negotiations to eliminate the 17,000 nuclear weapons still in existence.

Despite cuts to superfluous systems, nuclear arsenals have become normalized as an integral part of security systems. In the next decade, the chief nuclear weapons possessors – Russia, the US, the UK, France and China – will spend $1 trillion modernizing these nuclear systems. They are clearly planning for a future with nuclear weapons rather than their elimination. So serious is the stalemate in nuclear disarmament that the UN General Assembly has called an unprecedented High-Level Meeting on September 26 to unblock the impasse.

What will Canada’s position be at this extraordinary meeting?

For many years, the Canadian government has joined in the ‘step-by-step’ approach in which different components of non-proliferation are addressed, such as a ban on the production of fissile material and a comprehensive test ban treaty. Neither has been fulfilled. Five

years ago, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon presented a Five-Point Plan for Nuclear Weapons which called for work to start on a Nuclear Weapons Convention or a framework of instruments that would effectively ban all nuclear weapons. If the step-by-step approach or the Secretary-General’s plan were working, the extraordinary meeting on September 26 would surely not have been called.

Many states want to end the unproductive ‘businessas-usual’ approach to nuclear disarmament. They have issued a statement calling attention to the “catastrophic consequences” of the use of nuclear weapons. They have voted at the UN to start work leading to negotiation of a nuclear weapons convention. The Canadian government’s resistance to this forward-minded thinking is shocking.

Three years ago, the organization Canadians for a Nuclear Weapons Convention was established comprising members of the Order of Canada who have called on the Canadian government to support Ban Ki-Moon’s plan for comprehensive nuclear negotiations. The number of Order of Canada signers has now swelled to nearly 700. Their action led to a motion which passed unanimously in the Senate and then unanimously in the House of Commons. The motion called on the government to support the Secretary-General and launch a world-wide diplomatic initiative for nuclear disarmament.

Subsequently, two parliamentary forums were held on Parliament Hill at which members from all political

parties expressed a common desire for the Canadian government to host a meeting of like-minded governments to continue preparatory work for a global ban on nuclear weapons. It was recalled that just this kind of action by the Canadian government led to the 1997 Anti-Personnel Landmines Treaty. The Middle Powers Initiative, a consortium of eight civil society organizations specializing in nuclear disarmament issues, would like to hold such a meeting in Ottawa, as was done earlier this year in Berlin at a meeting hosted by the government of Germany.

What is standing in the way of Canadian action?

Two former Canadian prime ministers have told me that NATO is a principal obstacle to substantive work on nuclear disarmament. A double standard has deeply conflicted NATO which continues to claim that the possession of nuclear weapons provides the “supreme guarantee” of the security of its 26 member states. At

one and the same time, the NATO states reaffirm their commitment to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) goal of nuclear disarmament and to their NATO dependence on nuclear weapons. The policies are incoherent.

Canada should join with Germany and several other NATO states that want to change this adherence to Cold War policies. The Canadian voice standing up for meaningful progress in nuclear disarmament needs to be recovered. Bringing like-minded states to Parliament Hill would respond to the distinguished Canadians who want action and would send a message to the world community that nuclear weapons must be relegated to the ashbins of history.

It’s time for Canada to put into practice the statement it signed onto at the 2010 NPT Review Conference: “All states need to make special efforts to establish the necessary framework to achieve and maintain a world without nuclear weapons.”

The Hon. Douglas Roche is an author, parliamentarian and diplomat, who has specialized throughout his 40-year public career in peace and human security issues. Mr. Roche was a Senator, Member of Parliament, and Canadian Ambassador for Disarmament. He was elected Chairman of the United Nations Disarmament Committee at the 43rd General Assembly in 1988. In 2009, he received the Distinguished Service Award of the Canadian Association of Former Parliamentarians for his “promotion of human welfare, human rights and parliamentary democracy in Canada and abroad.” In 2011, the International Peace Bureau nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize.

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Abstract In 2015, global leaders will meet at the United Nations to establish a new framework for global development that will succeed the Millennium Development Goals – one that will hopefully leave no one behind, be it in Canada or Cameroon. On September 25, governments will meet in New York to determine how to get there.

Crucial to the post-2015 framework is the establishment of a global partnership to manage the implementation of this international agenda – and one that puts equitable partnership, meaningful participation and shared responsibility at its heart. Governments alone are not up to this task.

Civil society must also be there, along with other development actors.

More inclusive global processes are possible. The UN is the key player in this process, and member states like Canada must provide their full support to ensure a new framework that is as ambitious as the challenges that the world still faces.

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Civil society, Canada and the United Nations: Partnering for the future Julia Sànchez In 2015, global leaders will meet at the United Nations to establish a new framework for global development to succeed the Millennium Development Goals – development that will hopefully leave no one behind, be they in Canada or Cameroon.

This September 25, governments will meet in New York at a high level forum to determine how to get there.

The post-2015 framework, as it is being called, promises to address some long-standing issues and challenges, including extreme poverty and hunger, inequality, peace and conflict, climate change adaptation, and global financial and economic stability. This is an ambitious agenda and hopefully it will also spur countries to generate the sort of open, effective and accountable institutions that are needed both domestically and globally for the post-2015 world to succeed.

This past year, the UN organized an extensive series of regional, global and thematic consultations to help shape and inform the post-2015 agenda. This has allowed for people most affected by poverty and exclusion to express their views and shape global solutions to ending poverty and reducing inequality.

It is a great start. But is consultation enough?

Crucial to the success of any post-2015 framework is the establishment of a global partnership that will man-

age its implementation. Governments alone are not up to this task. Leaving only UN member states to handle implementation will undermine the democratic vision that is essential to maintaining the kind of sustained support that the post-2015 agenda will need.

Civil society – all things not government or private sector – must also be there. A vibrant and independent civil society has always been an essential prerequisite to effective, stable and participatory democracies, and this is no less true at the global level.

More-inclusive global processes are possible.

A 2011 High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF4) in Busan, Korea, which led to the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC), provides a concrete example. The process that led to Busan, the informal Working Group on Aid Effectiveness, provided a meaningful and sustained space for multi-stakeholder dialogue and consensus-based decision making on the focus of the Busan agenda, the agreed outcomes of the meeting, and ongoing follow-up. Throughout the process, representatives from civil society, parliaments, municipalities and the private sector were at the table, negotiating alongside governments and international institutions. It was a model of effective global development co-operation. This lesson should not be lost on the post-2015 process. Clearly, the scale and scope of the challenges we face require a commensurate response from all development actors in society.

Looking ahead to 2015, there are three things that member states like Canada can advocate at the United Nations: • Promote an inclusive and sustained multi-stakeholder process for global development beyond 2015. This means advocating for the inclusion of civil society organizations in any future global partnership structure (following the precedent set in Busan). It also means advocating for space for organizations and people to voice their concerns and demands with respect to national development plans post-2015, to influence and shape policy, to participate in political processes and demand accountability. Representative democracy must yield to participatory democracy.

• Ensure that any future global partnership removes the conditions that obstruct civil society participation in national and global democratic processes. In many countries, the public domain is a contested, finite space over which governments feel they should have a monopoly, limiting the benefits that would result from greater inclusion. As agreed in Busan, Canada must promote a minimum set of rights and political freedoms (opinion, expression, association and assembly) that provide an enabling environment for civil society to realize its full potential; and work to ensure that national governments respect these.

• Finally, facilitate the conditions that enable greater partnerships and collaboration between other development actors, including government, at the global level. This requires opening up political space not just to the private sector but to other actors, in

particular civil society. After all, human development and progress are best achieved through policies that are democratically owned, not government-owned.

The world needs a truly transformative global agenda in 2015. And one that puts equitable partnership, meaningful participation and shared responsibility at its heart can be just that. At the UN, Canada must fully support a new framework that is as ambitious as the challenges the world currently faces.

For further reading: Tomlinson, Brian (June 2012) “CSOs on the Road from Accra to Busan – CSO Initiative to Strengthen Development Effectiveness”, BetterAid, Ibon Books: Phillippines. http://cso-effectiveness.org/IMG/pdf/csos_on_ the_road_from_accra_to_busan_final.pdf Forum for Democratic Global Governance (Spring 2013) “The Future We Need: Civil Society Democratizing the United Nations”, http://fimforum.org/ custom-content/uploads/2013/05/ Forum-proceeding-report.pdf Task Team on CSO Development Effectiveness and Enabling Environment (August 2013), “Enabling a Transformative Multi-stakeholder Post-2015 Development Agenda”, http://www.csopartnership.org/ index.php/task-team-on-cso-de-and-the-ee OECD (2012) “Partnering with Civil Society: 12 Lessons From DAC Peer Reviews”, OECD publications: Paris. http://www.oecd.org/dac/peerreviews/12%20Lessons%20Partnering%20 with%20Civil%20Society.pdf

Julia Sanchez is the PresidentCEO of CCIC (Canadian Council for International Cooperation). She came to this position in August 2011 with more than 18 years of experience in top-level international development management, including 13 years working in developing countries. Prior to joining CCIC, she served as Regional and National Campaigns Director for the Global Campaign for Climate Action and prior to that worked for 14 years at the Centre for International Studies and Cooperation (CECI), one of Canada’s oldest and largest international development agencies.

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The United Nations and humanitarian assistance Abstract

Ian Smillie

Globally, more than half of all emergency assistance is managed by UN agencies, primarily the World Food Program and UNHCR. Governments have little delivery capacity and the NGO contribution, while important, is patchy and uncoordinated. UN agencies act as a focal point for funders; they serve as coordinators, managers and front-line delivery agencies. They are often the first to arrive and the last to leave, and are frequently the only serious humanitarian delivery mechanism in some of the world’s toughest emergencies.

It is still insufficient. The challenge for UN member states, including Canada, is to find ways to build, strengthen and improve the UN’s herculean response to humanitarian need.

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When a humanitarian emergency occurs, donors look for the best and fastest ways of delivering assistance.

Although the average Canadian might not know it – given the inevitable preening of the aid minister, the government’s disdain for the UN and the standard NGO fundraising blitz – the favoured channel by far for Canadian government humanitarian dollars is the United Nations. It is also the favoured channel for all major donor governments in the world.

Governments and private donors are the primary source of humanitarian funding. In a typical emergency, about 10 per cent of the money will be provided by or through the Red Cross, and 25 per cent through NGOs. But the bulk, usually more than half, goes through UN agencies, primarily the World Food Program and UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). There are several good reasons for this. The first is that, apart from the occasional use of military assets to deliver commodities, most donor governments, Canada included, have zero capacity for on-the-ground delivery themselves. Somebody else has to do it. Local governments can occasionally manage some of it but emergencies by their very nature stretch local capacities to the breaking point. NGOs can do some of it, and this is acknowledged in their governmental support but they have their limits as well. And somewhere in the mix, there has to be coordination.

Led by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitar-

ian Affairs (OCHA), UN agencies act as a focal point for funders; they serve as coordinators, as managers and as front-line delivery agencies. OCHA created ReliefWeb, the principal online source for reliable and timely information on global crises and disasters. And it created IRIN, a well-respected news agency specializing in humanitarian issues. UN agencies provide advance warning and the longer-term research needed to underpin good practice. They remind individual donors of ‘forgotten emergencies’ that are not on anyone’s radar; they are often the first to arrive and the last to leave, and they are frequently the only serious humanitarian delivery mechanism in some of the world’s toughest places.

The UN effort is massive. UNHCR this year is dealing with about 35 million uprooted people, providing them with shelter, protection, legal aid, health care and food.

To do this, it maintains 7,600 staff in 125 different countries. The World Food Program was providing assistance to nearly three million people in Darfur alone in 2013.

And other UN agencies play important roles: UNICEF, UNDP, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Health Organization and the UN Human Settlements Program.

In fast-onset emergencies – earthquakes, floods and hurricanes – government donors can be slow in stepping forward. For victims, however, every hour counts and even small delays can mean the difference between life and death for tens of thousands of people. The UN system has created general and specific pooled funding mechanisms that allow it move quickly while larger do-

nor resources are being mobilized. These funds are also useful in more extended, complex emergencies when an opportunity to cross rebel lines or to get assistance through a blockade opens on short notice. UN agencies have clout and credibility, and with the UN’s political offices and its peacekeeping operations, can go places and do things that nobody else can.

The UN is sometimes criticized for failures of coordination, as in Haiti, which became a nightmare of confusion after the 2010 earthquake. Coordination works best, however, when those on the ground want it, and when the political situation is clear. Haiti was confused by the US military presence and by the many hundreds of NGOs crowding in to do their own thing. Elsewhere, the UN has been the unsung humanitarian hero of a dozen disaster situations—East Timor and Sierra Leone, for example, and most notably today on the Syrian border.

“Unsung hero” of course, is not the right expression for

those who have to muddle through in situations fraught with chaos, starvation and violence, and who rarely have half the resources they need. In the summer of 2013, the UN appeal for Syrian refugee assistance was running at about 37 per cent of the need. There are now more than two million Syrians in refugee camps.

The UN, of course, is a creation of its member states, and it is as good or as bad as it is allowed to be by its funders, the boards of governors they inhabit, and the managers they contribute. The world’s humanitarian response may leave much to be desired in terms of speed, coordination and effectiveness, but the United Nations is what makes humanitarian assistance today better than it has ever been over the past half century. The challenge for UN member states, including Canada, is to find ways to strengthen and improve the UN’s herculean response to humanitarian need.

Ian Smillie has lived and worked in Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Bangladesh. He was a founder of the Canadian NGO, Inter Pares, was Executive Director of CUSO. He has worked at Tufts and Tulane Universities and as a development consultant with many Canadian, American and European organizations. He is the author of several books, including The Charity of Nations: Humanitarian Action in a Calculating World (2004, with Larry Minear), Freedom from Want (2009) and Blood on the Stone: Greed, Corruption and War in the Global Diamond Trade (2010). Ian Smillie participated in the creation of the Kimberley Process and he chairs the Diamond Development Initiative.

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Rethinking the United Nations Abstract

John E. Trent

Canada should help the world to rethink the United Nations, with the intention of creating legitimate and effective institutions for world governance. This should become a priority policy program of the Department of Foreign Affairs in coordination with like-minded countries. The policy program would have to be based on public input and the co-operation of civil society associations. The aim is to develop publicly supported policies for an improved set of international organizations capable of making authoritative decisions about global challenges ranging from climate change to terrorism and financial crises. Such institutions will conform to techniques of modern democratic statecraft including: constitutional federalism, elections, liberalism, rule of law, and decentralized governance.

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The Harper government says the United Nations is not effective enough. What should Canadian governments do about it? The response of the Conservatives has been to disparage the UN and withdraw from multilateral activities. Rather than pouting, Canada should help the world to rethink the United Nations.

Rethinking the United Nations ought to become a central program of the Department of Foreign Affairs.

But this cannot be done at the whim of a minister. The department would be initiating a quasi-constitutional process with the intention of encouraging other ‘likeminded’ countries to follow suit. We need a publicly supported process to provide legitimate policies to foreign affairs ministries. We can learn from ‘deliberative democracy’ exercises about how to be both effective and inclusive. This process of democratic assemblies was developed over the past two decades to be both educative and participative and to bring informed public input to policy making.

The task is to settle on a critical analysis of: world problems, a set of objectives and values for world governance, potential new global institutions, and a path for achieving them – accompanied by an outreach program of education and communications.

What is wrong with the world?

The world is challenged by climate change, the wealth-poverty gap, terrorism, pollution, global warming, the plight of women and children, mass migrations,

pandemics, financial crises and enfeebled states. But each one of these global challenges has one common denominator: the world is incapable of taking authoritative, legitimate decisions that will command respect and be adhered to. UN reform is the one common problem upon which we should all focus.

But why can’t the UN make the big, urgent decisions?

In one word, because of sovereignty – the belief that each state has the right to do as it wants without fear of foreign interference in its domestic affairs. Every other institutional problem flows from this concept of sovereignty, first elaborated in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. World affairs are still dominated by a European concept three and a half centuries old.

UN blockages are rooted in outdated notions of sovereignty and nationalism. The existence of the Security Council and the veto are founded on the bully principle that the most powerful – not the community – should call the shots. Regional caucuses of sovereign states demand equal representation in all UN affairs including human rights. The bureaucracy of the UN is still corrupted by hiring on the basis of national quotas. National foreign policies are still determined by presidents, prime ministers and cabinets acting just like monarchs. There are few democratic controls. We still have a long way to go from sovereignty to co-operation.

What would effective global institutions look like?

First, we should democratize international organizations by including popular assemblies beside their state, decision-making bodies. We can work to limit and even-

tually eliminate use of the veto. Much greater use can be made of the International Court of Justice and their decisions should become binding on governments. Hiring in the UN should be done on the basis of competence and integrity. Criteria for the use of the ‘responsibility to protect’ policy need to be established.

Second, we should learn from the European Union’s step-by-step model of gradually building common functional institutions, creating supranational law, rights and institutions, assuring viability by creating weighted voting according to population, particular interests, economic weight and sovereign participation. A first step would be opening up our foreign policy to democratic participation and controls. These are all techniques for slowly weaning us away from strict adherence to sovereign, national authority.

Third, principles and values are fundamental. Fears of creating a global governmental bully must be replaced by the certainty that not one of us would move toward world governance that did not include all the techniques of democratic state-craft we have developed over the last 200 years. These include concepts for dividing and controlling power and promoting rights and equality via constitutional democratic institutions, elections, federalism, liberalism, rule of law, local police and decentralized governance.

How Canada can move the world ahead?

Canada can help develop a constituency and a community of practice that values co-operation and global governance. If we put our heads together as suggested at the outset, we will come up with a plan. Reform will not be easy. It will be opposed by those who have an in-

terest in war rather than peace; who feel more secure in their narrow national vision; those who are opposed to “rule by the ignorant mob.” I am convinced they will be outweighed by those everywhere who are wise enough to recognize that the world will learn to govern itself or it will self-destruct.

Further Reading: Jacques Attali (2011). Demain, qui gouvernera le monde?

Paris, Fayard Paul Heinbecker & Patricia Goff (2005). Irrelevant or Indispensable: the United Nations in the 21st Century, Waterloo, Ontario, Wildrid Laurier University Press.

W. Andy Knight (ed.)(2005). Adapting the United Nations to a Postmodern Era: Lessons Learned, Houndmills U.K, Palgrave MacMillan Ross Smyth (2006). One World or None: How Canadians Can Take the Lead to Abolish War and Democratize the UN, Montreal, Price-Patterson John E. Trent (2013). “The need for rethinking the United Nations: modernizing through civil society”, in Bob Reinalda ed., Routledge Handbook of International Organization, Abingdon, Routledge.

Thomas G Weiss (2013) Global Governance: A “Philadelphia Moment”, www.oneearthfoundation.org and Global Governance: Why? What? Whither? Cambridge, Policy Press.

James A. Yunker (2011). The Idea of World Government: From Ancient Times to the Twenty-First Century, Abingdon, Routledge.

John E. Trent is a Fellow of the Centre on Governance at the University of Ottawa, where he was formerly a professor and chair of the University’s Department of Political Science. Publications include (among many) Modernization of the United Nations System: Civil Society’s Role in Moving from International Relations to Global Governance (Barbara Budrich Publishers, Upladen, Germany, 2007). Professor Trent is the former Secretary General of the International Political Science Association (IPSA), Executive Director of the Social Science Federation of Canada and a founding VicePresident of the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS).

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Abstract This is a critical juncture as the world looks to formulate a post-2015 development agenda that will succeed the UN’s Millennium Development Goals of 2000. As in the past, the government of Canada can engage in this global conversation, providing leadership and investment in the global decision-making process.

To add a strategic contribution, Canada should 1) recognize the power of the UN for this important dialogue leading to global change – and abandon language casting the UN as merely a ‘talk shop’; 2) lead on Canada’s innovation on private/public partnerships in development; 3) lead on addressing climate change mitigation and adaptation – as many of our provinces have – in order to change the channel and showcase innovation; and 4) in collaboration with civil society leaders and academics, invest in a ‘whole of government’ approach to the development and implementation of the new development agenda.

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Where is Canada in helping set the international development agenda for the next two decades?

Kathryn White When they were formulated almost 15 years ago, the main ideals underpinning the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were to provide a set of concrete, measurable objectives to guide UN agencies and others in a global effort to eradicate poverty, promote gender equality and ensure sustainable development.

The world is now at a critical juncture, with the ability to influence the international development agenda for the next two decades in what is being referred to as the post-2015 development agenda.

This is a moment where the government of Canada can step up, as in the past, to engage in this global conversation and to provide leadership and investment in the global decision-making process. Investment in this context means investment of intellectual capital and in an initiative to build a better world and contribute to the United Nations at its best. It includes financial investment as part of this commitment.

Beginning with a report of a High Level Panel (HLP) established by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the recent and coming months will have a focused flurry of reports and activities to establish the development ‘way forward.’ The HLP’s objective was to reflect on and formulate a new vision for sustainable growth and prosperity, along with mechanisms for achieving it.

The very solid, ambitious report, delivered to the

UN Secretary General at the end of May, describes ‘five transformative shifts’ as its priorities for development post-2015: – Leave no one behind – Put sustainable development at the core – Transform economies for jobs and inclusive growth – Build peace and effective, open and accountable public institutions – Forge a new global partnership There has been a parallel Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) Working Group of members of the United Nations General Assembly. There has been a cynical (or perhaps reasonable) concern that these dual tracks would clash in the race to be the arbiter of development’s future. In fact, there has been strong unifying overlap in the first report by the SDG’s Working Group and the HLP report. The latter group is due to issue its final recommendations next year.

Backing both these up is a robust online survey/dialogue organized by the Millennium Campaign of the United Nations Development Program. This MyWorld initiative is providing remarkably consistent input, with an emphasis on the global south’s views and bringing great data to the on-going global conversation.

There is wide support for a single post-2015 UN development framework containing a single set of goals – goals that are universally applicable to all countries but adaptable to different national realities and priorities.

So where is the government of Canada in this ambitious and crucial initiative and, importantly, where might Canada add unique muscle and strategic contribution?

First, the government needs to abandon language that casts the United Nations as merely a ‘talk shop’. As those in the diplomatic trenches over the long haul know, it is dialogue that leads to norms, norms to practice, and practice to prosperity and peace. Part of this norm-setting is an opportunity for Canada to lead the way on how developed countries address, achieve and report on goals. There will be resistance among developed countries to see a need to plan to achieve goals.

However, if we are to achieve a level playing field globally, being upfront about reducing poverty, increasing the representation of women and pursuing sustainable development at home are going to be key to building trust in the global commons.

Second, the government has a unique opportunity to draw on its commitment as an innovator on private/ public partnerships in development. Since an integral part of the next set of goals will be transparency, innovation and sustainable financing, the Canadian government could invest in providing leading indicators, monitoring and evaluation on these partnerships and potential risks to private sector engagement in true development. Canada can mobilize its recent experiences with the private sector and development to lead in consultations to develop the checks and balances

and the levers of co-ordination that the international community can implement going forward.

Thirdly, the government has received many ‘fossil of the year’ awards from climate change activists at UN conferences on climate change. Meanwhile, at the provincial level across the country, there is real leadership on carbon pricing; on the recognition of the costs of the effects of climate change and on innovation. Let us step away from ‘fossilized’ thinking and put us on the global development map, showcasing how a country that may actually benefit from climate change can share those benefits with the countries that will be irredeemably harmed by those same effects.

Finally, Canada has a great team of diplomats, of legal minds, of environment and finance public servants.

Canada also has committed civil society leaders and academics whose life in service to a better world has given them great experience and insight. Let us put them all to good use – marking Canada’s engagement in the development and implementation of the post2015 global development agenda through a whole-ofgovernment contribution – ensuring the coordination, discipline and leadership they deserve.

Canada has much to offer as we recognize our great good fortune in a world wracked by poverty, inequalities and injustice. The setting of the global development agenda for the coming decades is a time for the government to make its mark: to show that the ideology of equality is universal. The time to be all in: now.

Kathryn White is the President and CEO of the United Nations Association in Canada. For the previous 25 years, she had been the head of Black and White Inc. an Ottawa-based international consultancy specializing in policy research, education and citizen engagement, integrating risk management and risk perception into initiatives and solutions. She has been recognized nationally and internationally for her leadership in issues ranging from youth-at-risk, climate change, disaster and crisis response and mitigation, corporate social responsibility, international peacebuilding and conflict resolution. She currently serves as the Chair of the Board of the World Federation of UN Associations (WFUNA).

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The United Nations System Programmes and Funds

UN Principal Organs General Assembly

UNCTAD United Nations Conference on Trade and Development

Subsidiary Bodies Main and other sessional committees

Security Council

Economic and Social Council

Disarmament Commission

�� UNV United Nations Volunteers

Standing committees and ad hoc bodies

Counter-terrorism committees International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)

UNU United Nations University

Peacekeeping operations and political missions

UN Peacebuilding Commission

Sanctions committees (ad hoc) Standing committees and ad hoc bodies

Other Bodies

Regional Commissions

Functional Commissions

NOTES:

Population and Development

1 UNRWA and UNIDIR report only to

Science and Technology for Development

ECLAC Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean

Committee of Experts on Public Administration

Social Development Statistics Status of Women Sustainable Development United Nations Forum on Forests

4 Specialized agencies are autono-

mous organizations working with the UN and each other through the coordinating machinery of ECOSOC at the intergovernmental level, and through the Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB) at the inter-secretariat level. This section is listed in order of establishment of these organizations as specialized agencies of the United Nations.

5 The Trusteeship Council suspended operation on 1 November 1994 with the independence of Palau, the last remaining United Nations Trust Territory, on 1 October 1994.

This is not an official document of the United Nations, nor is it intended to be all-inclusive.

Specialized Agencies4

IMF International Monetary Fund

ILO International Labour Organization

ICAO International Civil Aviation Organization

UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

ECE Economic Commission for Europe

to the General Assembly (GA) but contributes on an ad-hoc basis to GA and ECOSOC work inter alia on finance and developmental issues.

WTO3 World Trade Organization

FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Narcotic Drugs

3 WTO has no reporting obligation

Related Organizations CTBTO PrepCom Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization IAEA2 International Atomic Energy Agency

Advisory Subsidiary Body

Military Staff Committee

Committee for Development Policy

and the General Assembly.

UNOPS United Nations Office for Project Services

UNIDIR1 United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research

ECA Economic Commission for Africa

the General Assembly.

UNISDR United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction

UNICRI United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute

Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice

2 IAEA reports to the Security Council

Other Entities UNAIDS Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS

ESCAP Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific ESCWA Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia

Departments and Offices

Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations

WHO World Health Organization World Bank Group �� IBRD International Bank for Reconstruction and Development �� IDA International Development Association

IMO International Maritime Organization ITU International Telecommunication Union UPU Universal Postal Union WMO World Meteorological Organization WIPO World Intellectual Property Organization

Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

�� IFC International Finance Corporation

United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names

IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development

�� MIGA Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency

UNIDO United Nations Industrial Development Organization

�� ICSID International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes

UNWTO World Tourism Organization

Other sessional and standing committees and expert, ad hoc and related bodies

DM Department of Management

EOSG Executive Office of the Secretary-General

DPA Department of Political Affairs

DESA Department of Economic and Social Affairs

DPKO Department of Peacekeeping Operations

DFS Department of Field Support

DSS Department of Safety and Security

DGACM Department for General Assembly and Conference Management

OCHA Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

DPI Department of Public Information

OHCHR Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights OIOS Office of Internal Oversight Services OLA Office of Legal Affairs OSAA Office of the Special Adviser on Africa OSRSG/CAAC Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict

UNODA Office for Disarmament Affairs UNOG United Nations Office at Geneva UN-OHRLLS Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States UNON United Nations Office at Nairobi UNOV United Nations Office at Vienna

Published by the United Nations Department of Public Information DPI/2470 rev.2—11-36429—October 2011

International Court of Justice

40

UNSSC United Nations System Staff College

UNODC United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

OPCW Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

Trusteeship Council 5

UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund

Research and Training Institutes

UNFPA United Nations Population Fund

Subsidiary Bodies

Secretariat

UNRISD United Nations Research Institute for Social Development

WFP World Food Programme

�� UNCDF United Nations Capital Development Fund UNEP United Nations Environment Programme

UNHCR Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

UN-Women United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women

UNDP United Nations Development Programme

International Law Commission

UNITAR United Nations Institute for Training and Research

UNRWA1 United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East

�� ITC International Trade Centre (UNCTAD/WTO)

Human Rights Council

UN-HABITAT United Nations Human Settlements Programme