Mondial, May 2011

In this issue: Europe needs fiscal union Climate change epiphany R2P in Ivory Coast Security without nukes

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Afghans opt to reconcile: Will Canada join them?

Ernie Regehr is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, Conrad Grebel University College, the University of Waterloo

“…without a robust diplomatic process in pursuit of a political settlement to the war, training becomes little more than a cynical exercise in setting Afghans up for war without end”

by Ernie Regehr US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has famously said the U.S. can’t get out of its wars by capturing and killing its way to victory, and in Afghanistan Canada and NATO will have to learn that you can’t train your way out of a war either.

Canada’s announced transition out of combat and into training has the potential to be a constructive shift, but on three conditions: • if it recognizes that military victory in Afghanistan is not an option; • if training builds a national security force that respects human rights and humanitarian law and demonstrates that the country is moving seriously toward the rule of law; and, above all, • if training is accompanied by a diplomatic surge to end the war.

When the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade considers any new peace support operation, it asks a series of questions to help it decide whether the mission is in fact feasible and worthy of support. One such question is, “will [the military mission] take place alongside a process aimed at a political settlement to the conflict?”

Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan On November 16, 2010, the Government of Canada announced a new role for Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan. Whereas Canada had been scheduled to end its contributions to NATO’S military operations in 2011, the November 16 announcement included a commitment by the Canadian Forces to provide up to 950 personnel to help train Afghanistan’s police and military forces from 2011 to 2014. Canadian development, diplomatic and humanitarian assistance is to continue through the 2014 period.

In several articles in this issue, Mondial presents a range of perspectives on Canada’s role in Afghanistan and, more broadly, the efficacy and prospects for the NATO mission in Afghanistan.

It is a key question for the planned training mission because without a robust diplomatic process in pursuit of a political settlement to the war, training becomes little more than a cynical exercise in setting Afghans up for war without end. That is particularly so since Prime Minister Harper has already insisted that “it has always been our position that [talks with insurgents are] part of an eventual solution, and that it’s not simply military action alone.”

Yet, there is little evidence that Canada is actively encouraging political contacts with the Taliban. A February story in the New Yorker did report that finally the U.S. administration has

begun engaging Taliban representatives to indicate U.S. support for a serious negotiation process between willing elements of the Taliban-led insurgency and the Karzai government.

There are also welcome signs that NATO, as well as the American administration, is shifting toward support for negotiations.

A major new report on “negotiating peace” in Afghanistan is aimed at an American audience and encourages increased administration support for reconciliation initiatives. Prepared by a taskforce chaired by Lakhdar Brahimi and Thomas R. Pickering, two distinguished diplomats, See “It’s time…” on page 2

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It’s time for U.S. to shift risk-taking to diplomacy Continued from page 1 _________

with Brahimi having been the coordinator of what he now admits was the flawed Bonn Process in 2001–2002, the report concludes that “the best moment to start a political process toward settlement and reconciliation is now.”

It adds that, “simply co-opting senior-level Taliban into joining the Kabul regime is unlikely to bring peace to Afghanistan.”

Instead, “reconciliation with the insurgents will eventually have to involve creating a broader political framework to end the war.”

A particularly fine report by Matt Waldman and Thomas Ruttig of the “Afghanistan Analysis Network” – both Waldman and Ruttig have extensive Afghan research records as well as experience with civil society in Afghanistan – acknowledges that while there is no panacea for ending the war in Afghanistan, there is a broad range of steps available to alleviate conflict and heighten the prospects for peace.

They point to measures like mili-

tary de-escalation, mediation, dialogue and confidence-building measures, and diplomatic efforts, all of which they say “could increase the prospects for a negotiated outcome.”

Steve Coll, author of the New Yorker piece, made the key point when he said “it is past time for the United States to shift some of its capacity for risk-taking in the war off the battlefield and into diplomacy aimed at reinforcing Afghan political unity, neutrality, civil rights, and social cohesion.”

The same goes for Canada which has, from the beginning of the Afghanistan mission, followed a strategy that subordinates political reconciliation to military operations. It turns out that Afghans also feel those priorities should be reversed. The 2010 survey of Afghans conducted by The Asia Foundation shows an extraordinary level of political sophistication inasmuch as Afghans say that they increasingly support the pursuit of negotiations with insurgent groups,

even as their sympathy for the insurgents and their aims and methods is in significant decline.

In 2010, 83 per cent of those questioned in a comprehensive survey “support the government’s attempts to address the security situation through negotiation and reconciliation with armed anti-government elements,” up from 71 per cent a year earlier.

In the same period, sympathy for the insurgents with whom negotiations are sought dropped by 16 percentage points, from 56 per cent in 2009 to 40 per cent in 2010. A population that is losing sympathy for the Taliban is increasingly interested in negotiating with them, suggesting that Afghans are comfortable with the notion that the pursuit of peace requires that you talk with your adversaries – those with whom you have the deepest, most fundamental differences. Indeed, they have the radical idea that prospects for peace are better at the negotiating table than on the battlefield. Ottawa should be paying attention.

International seminar on federalism for young activists The 28th International Seminar on Federalism will be held in Ventotene, Italy August 28 – September 2, 2011. This seminar gives young activists an opportunity to learn about the principles of federal systems of governance, the evolution of the European Union and the application of the principles of federalism to world affairs. Discussion topics include the definition of a federal state, the world economic crisis, the European Union and other regional unification processes, energy and environmental poli-

cies, and strategies and actions of federalist organizations.

Supporting Canadian participation at Ventotene is a project of the World Federalist Foundation and the Bob Hale Memorial Fund for Young Activists. The 2011 Bob Hale Award will enable a young activist to travel to Ventotene, Italy to attend the international seminar. The subsidy will be used to offset travel expenses.

A brochure outlining the 2011 Ventotene seminar, and including an application form, is avail-

able at www.worldfederalists canada.org. Applicants are asked to state why they wish to attend and why they should be considered for a scholarship. Young persons active with the various branches of the WFM–Canada are particularly encouraged to apply.

Please send in your applications by May 31, 2011 to: Istituto di Studi Federalisti Altiero Spinelli Email: mfe_to@bussola.it Fax: 011 39 4732843

“Afghans are comfortable with the notion that the pursuit of peace requires that you talk with your adversaries…”

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Afghanistan…

…if the UN had been in charge Published by the World Federalist Foundation (WFF) and the World Federalist Movement – Canada (WFMC). The World Federalist Foundation is a Revenue Canada registered charitable organization (reg. #:123998957RR0001). The World Federalist Movement – Canada is a national non-profit membership organization that advocates more just and effective global governance through the application of the principles of democratic federalism to world affairs. The WFMC President is the Hon. Warren Allmand. WFMC is a member organization of the international World Federalist Movement (WFM), which includes world federalist organizations in 24 countries around the world.

Articles that are the responsibility of the World Federalist Foundation are denoted by an

con-

cluding the article. These include, “International seminar on federalism for young activists,” “Blakeney was a strong voice for world federalist,” “Climate change – from agony to epiphany,” “Ivory Coast: lessons for responsibility to protect,” “The global promise of R2P in Libya,” “U.S. veto undermines international law,” “Security without nuclear weapons,” and “UN Women official launch.” come. Il nous fera plaisir de publier les articles

Material is not copyrighted. Submissions are wel-

présentés en français.

Mondial’s editorial working group: Leonard Angel David Blackwell Karen Hamilton Dieter Heinrich Donna Lindenberg Simon Rosenblum Elizabeth Snell Fergus Watt ISSN number: 1488-612X

Publications mail agreement No. 40011403 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: World Federalist Movement – Canada Suite 207, 145 Spruce Street Ottawa, ON K1R 6P1 E-mail: wfcnat@web.ca Web site: worldfederalistscanada.org

By Peggy Mason What would have been different if UN blue helmets, not NATO forces, had been sent to Afghanistan?

Recall that the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was initially Italian-led. NATO took over command under Canadian General Rick Hillier for ISAF V in 2003, when the force presence only extended to Kabul and environs but was authorized to expand further within means and capabilities.

The very first, and indeed the most essential, point to remember is that a UN peacekeeping force would only have deployed in the context of an overarching comprehensive, multidisciplinary UN mission, headed by a civilian – the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG).

Post-conflict reconstruction is extraordinarily complex. The UN, though far from perfect, has invested heavily in learning lessons from its many missions around the world, a process that has accelerated and become institutionalized in recent years with the advent of the UN Peacebuilding Commission. The starting point is an integrated or comprehensive approach, bringing together all elements of the UN mission, (military, police, human rights, development, governance and humanitarian assistance) to contribute in a coordinated fashion to the political end-state of a sustainable peace in Afghanistan.

A UN-led military force (the ISAF equivalent) would thus have been only one part, albeit a vital part, of a UN mission headed by a civilian and to whom the

UN Force Commander would report. The SRSG in turn would report through the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) directly up to Ban KiMoon and he, in turn, to the UN Security Council. Thus, the dayto-day control and management of the mission would have rested in the political head of that mission – the special representative backed up by peacekeeping operations. Ultimately, it would be the UN Security Council that would be responsible for ensuring high-level political oversight of, and support for, the mission, but this is something quite different from oversight of day-today activities.

This civilian-led command and control structure stands in direct contrast to the situation in Afghanistan where the NATOled military force, ISAF, has a command and control structure that is entirely separate from, and independent of, the civilian UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). The NATO forward force commander (the one actually in Afghanistan) reports through the NATO European command responsible for ISAF (Joint Force Command headquartered in Brunssum, Netherlands) to NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) who, in turn, reports up to the political oversight body for NATO, the North Atlantic Council. This body meets regularly at the ambassadorial level and at least twice a year at the level of foreign minister.

The result is a proliferation of military chiefs overseeing ISAF Continued on page 4

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Reconstruction has led to militarization of aid and no day-to-day political oversight at all to ensure that the military actions support, rather than undermine, the broader peace effort led by UNAMA. To be sure, ISAF is regularly called upon in the UN Security Council resolutions that renew its security assistance mandate, to “cooperate with” the UN mission. But let us be clear, when push comes to shove, the only thing that really matters is whether one has the power to give the orders, not merely make suggestions.

Of course, before a comprehensive UN-led peacekeeping mission would have been deployed, there would have had to be a real peace negotiation involving all relevant actors, including the Taliban. Quite aside from the command and control issues, the NATO mission was doomed from the outset and could never have succeeded in keeping the peace in the south, as there was none to keep. It was entirely foreseeable and indeed inevitable that the ISAF mission would descend into futile counterinsurgency operations in the absence of a viable peace process.

But this aspect is the focus of Ernie Regehr’s comments (see page 1–2). I raise it here only to show the essential connection between a UN-led force and a peace negotiation, this having also been one of the central lessons of the bitter experience on the UN Protection Force in Former Yugoslavia.

The next critical difference between a UN-led peacekeeping operation and a NATO one is that the vital rule of law reforms would have been UN-led, rather

than parceled out by the Bonn Agreement to so-called lead nations – Germany for police training, Italy for judicial reform, UK for drug policy and so on. It simply cannot be overstated how utterly incapable of taking on such enormous and complex tasks these individual nations were, no matter how well-intentioned they each might have been. The uniformly disastrous results led eventually to a completely different way of organizing these efforts, but not until the window of opportunity – to showcase some progress before the Taliban and other disaffected factions regrouped and went on the offensive – again had slammed shut.

Even more important, development assistance would have been led by the UN Development Program and not left to each individual military contingent in its area of operation, through one of the single most pernicious aspects of NATO and U.S.-led military operations in Afghanistan, the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT). This concept was originally devised by the Americans as both a way to gather militarily-useful information (i.e., intelligence) from locals (by bribing them with promises of aid inside a so-called bubble of security within which to carry on development) and a means of demonstrating to increasingly hostile publics back home that something was being done besides war fighting, bearing in mind that the mission had been sold to European and Canadian publics in particular as primarily a security-for-development and not a war-fighting exercise. The American sales pitch had not

soft-pedaled the need for a military campaign but had promised a quick transition to a security and development approach.

No single approach has contributed more to the militarization of aid and other civilian peacebuilding efforts than the PRT mechanism. When the concept was first developed by the Americans, the UN wrote a scathing critique, forecasting not only the fatal linking of civilian efforts with military objectives, but also the inequalities that would inevitably result from a patchwork of nation-led development efforts and the sidelining of the Afghanistan government itself in the development process. Despite its deep opposition, the UN was powerless to stop NATO countries from each adopting their own version of the PRT, determined as each nation was to showcase some modicum of progress for the people of Afghanistan.

With a UN comprehensive peacekeeping operation on the ground in Afghanistan, the Bonn Agreement and the subsequent London Compact, would have looked quite different, embracing well-known and comprehensive UN-led and nationally driven mechanisms for development, not a patchwork of international initiatives and most especially not the fatally flawed PRT concept.

The importance of peacebuilding strategies being nationally driven and nationally owned, in order that the international community’s work contribute to a broader national strategic plan is the second cardinal rule or lesson learned about UN post-conflict peacebuilding.

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Continued from page 3 _________

Peggy Mason is a member of WFM–Canada Council and a former Canadian Ambassador for Disarmament.

She currently participates in NATO Joint Command training simulations as a subject matter expert on the UN political/ diplomatic role in peace support operations.

‘development assistance would not have been left to one of the single most pernicious aspects of NATO and US-led military operations in Afghanistan, the Provincial Reconstruction Team.’

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Sweeping problems under Afghan rug

“…it seems that almost everyone is talking about a deal with the Taliban, with the possible exception of the Taliban leadership itself.”

UN-led Afghan mission?

In short, a UN-led peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan would have been fundamentally different from the ISAF debacle. One cannot say for certain that a UN-led mission would have succeeded in helping the Afghan people reach a sustainable peace, but at least it would have had a greater possibility of doing so.

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Simon Rosenblum is a member of WFMC Council.

by Simon Rosenblum Waking up early on a late March day, I find myself confronted with a number of recent statements pertaining to how the war in Afghanistan is progressing and what its end game might be.

General David Petraeus, the top commander in Afghanistan, lays out an upbeat assessment of military progress by the United States and its NATO allies and suggests that this year the Taliban insurgency will be tamed on the battlefield and then at the bargaining table The UN reports that 2,777 civilians were killed in Afghanistan in 2010, making it the country’s most lethal year in the current conflict.

Widely respected diplomats Lakhdar Brahimi and Thomas R. Pickering write in today’s New York Times op-ed: “Despite the American-lead counter-insurgency in Afghanistan, the Taliban resistance endures. It is not realistic to think it can be eradicated. Efforts by the Afghanistan government, the United States and their allies to win over insurgents and co-opt Taliban leaders into joining the Kabul regime are unlikely to end the conflict.”

So where do matters presently lie? Yes, without doubt, the Americans/NATO have enjoyed recent success in routing the Taliban from some of their strongholds. These gains, however, are quite reversible when the fighting seriously resumes after the opium harvest in April. Even the most optimistic now realize that the US/NATO forces are not going to defeat the Taliban militarily, that the Karzai administration is hopelessly corrupt and incompetent, and that the Afghan national army is far from ready to hold its own or take over major combat missions as the United States and its allies begin to pull out. Neither, for the foreseeable future at least, is the Taliban poised to win a decisive victory. Does the word “stalemate” come to mind?

Logically, this would lead all concerned to the negotiating table, ASAP. For the United States/NATO, the political strategy has, until now, played second fiddle to military operations. Surrender by the Taliban rather than negotiations with them have by and large characterized what has passed for a strategic plan. Thankfully, that is changing but it should not be necessary to add that it takes two to tango.

It is by no means clear which figures within the Taliban leadership, if any, are prepared to engage in formal peace negotiations and under what conditions.

Nick Grono, deputy president of the International Crisis Group, has recently pointed out to the European Parliament that, “When it comes to Afghanistan these days, it seems that almost

everyone is talking about a deal with the Taliban, with the possible exception of the Taliban leadership itself.” This is not to say that negotiations cannot happen but rather the process will be painfully slow and complicated.

The Taliban insurgency is not monolithic and that has both positive and negative consequences. The planned 2014 NATO troop withdrawal date does not exactly push the Taliban to the negotiating table, as there is a sense that time is on their side.

The lesson here is that it would be foolhardy to sweep these problems under the rug and to beware of wishful thinking. That has all too often dominated Afghanistan discussions. Why does the White Queen’s comment in Through The Looking Glass come to mind: “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

If this sounds less than optimistic, so be it. And I have not even mentioned the elephant in the room, i.e., Pakistan, without whose co-operation no end game is in sight.

A conclusion, you ask? All of this leads me to the position that the US/NATO forces may well have to push back their withdrawal date and that the equipment, training, and mentoring of the Afghanistan army should not be neglected. Will a little more time deliver the elusive settlement? It is, I believe, still worth the effort. Possibly, you are not convinced. That’s all right since, on many a morning, I’m not too sure either.

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Harper had it right first time on Afghan withdrawal For Western planners, counterinsurgency strategy focuses not only on hunting down guerrillas but on protecting the civilian population from insurgents, while creating the political and security circumstances that allow legitimate indigenous governance to develop. There is very little evidence of this taking place in Afghanistan. Instead, the socalled Taliban insurgency is widening the area of the country considered not secure.

The 2009 presidential election in Afghanistan was characterized by lack of security, widespread intimidation, ballot stuffing and low voter turnout. Subsequently, despite the widely acknowledged need for electoral reforms, President Karzai forged ahead with parliamentary elections in 2010, with predictable results – a repeat of the previous year’s election debacles.

In Canada, reporting on the detainees issue has revealed the persisting inability of the Afghan government and security system to mount a credible legal process for detaining and trying persons apprehended by Canadian troops. Bribery and bargaining, not judicial due process, seems to be the prevailing currency in much of Afghanistan’s justice and security system.

Transparency International’s 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index shows Afghanistan tied with Myanmar for being the world’s second-most corrupt country (behind Somalia).

According to a U.S. cable released by WikiLeaks, William Crosbie, Canada’s ambassador to Afghanistan, said last year that

the scale of corruption within the Karzai government makes his “blood boil.”

Not surprisingly, only 20 per cent of western development assistance is channeled through the Afghan government. Instead, donors must implement projects directly. In conflict-affected areas of the country, much of the reconstruction assistance is channeled through provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs), military-led reconstruction efforts that have been widely criticized by the UN and civil society organizations (see also page 3–4).

Third, the military surge diminishes prospects for a peaceful settlement. In a January 2011 article for the Afghanistan Analysts Network, Matt Waldman and Thomas Ruttig survey academic literature on conflict resolution and draw lessons for current prospects for peace in Afghanistan. They note that, “Efforts of the U.S.-led coalition to achieve a position of strength are not conducive to negotiations, as these are usually facilitated by a perceived ‘mutually hurting stalemate’, in which none of the parties believes it can escalate to victory.… Presently, escalation by both sides in Afghanistan only appears to be intensifying the conflict and increasing mistrust and enmity between the parties, thus reducing the prospects for a negotiated outcome.”

Unfortunately, many western officials believe that negotiations can only be attempted after a successful military surge. Yet escalation in Afghanistan is unlikely ever to yield condi-

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by Fergus Watt On November 16, 2010, a new outline of Canada’s post-2011 mission in Afghanistan was announced by the Ministers of National Defence, Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation.

Canada’s military commitment would entail providing nearly 1,000 military trainers for Afghan security forces, primarily the Afghan national army.

This commitment supported a much larger (and still evolving) U.S.-led NATO military surge. It also represented something of a policy U-turn for Canada. In September 2008, Stephen Harper had announced that “we’re planning for the withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan in 2011.”

Mr. Harper had it right the first time. The NATO military mission in Afghanistan has failed and should no longer be supported by Canada.

First, the NATO mission is simply not winnable. Numerous officials, including U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, have confirmed that the armed conflict in Afghanistan between NATO forces and ‘insurgents’ cannot be won militarily.

Taliban and other Afghan networks offering armed resistance to what they see as ‘occupying forces’ can disappear into the civilian population or retreat across the border into Pakistan.

Second, the military operation serves to prop up a hopelessly corrupt government. Any viable plan for Afghanistan must include a legitimate Afghan government, one that is supported by the Afghan population.

Fergus Watt is WFM–Canada’s Executive Director.

“…escalation by both sides in Afghanistan only appears to be intensifying the conflict and increasing mistrust and enmity between the parties, thus reducing the prospects for a negotiated outcome…”

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Military measures in need of political goals ▼

tions where Western governments will be able to dictate terms to a defeated Taliban insurgency. There is no clear purpose to NATO’s escalation, and no clear exit strategy.

It is not responsible policy for a government like Canada to simply walk away from major international commitments. But it is also not responsible policy to support military measures that are inconsistent with agreed political objectives.

Military actions must always serve legitimate political goals.

And when they do not, then that military strategy should change or be curtailed, by decision of the country’s elected political leadership.

Prime Minister Harper had it right in 2008 when he announced that Canada’s military engagement would end in 2011. (And, it should be noted, he took this difficult decision quicker and more decisively than the Liberals

would likely have done.)

The subsequent decision, to support the U.S.-led military operation by committing a large contingent of Canadian Forces in a military training role, followed intensive lobbying from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and NATO officials.

Against his better judgment, and mountains of readily available evidence, Mr. Harper acquiesced. And it’s too bad.

In memoriam

Blakeney was a strong voice for world federalism Allan Blakeney, who is recognized as not only a very successful premier of Saskatchewan but also one of Canada’s great nation-builders, was also a longtime member of the World Federalist Movement – Canada. He served as the organization’s national president from 1992 to 1996.

Allan Blakeney died April 16 after a battle with liver cancer.

According to WFM–Canada Executive Director Fergus Watt, “Allan recognized that the goals of the World Federalists were a generations-long project. But he also believed we needed to make progress now in applying the principles of democratic federalism to world affairs.”

Blakeney joined the World Federalists in 1976 while serving as Premier of Saskatchewan. His active involvement in the organization began in the 1990s and he maintained close contact with the organization’s progress for the rest of his life.

In 1993, Blakeney appeared on

behalf of the World Federalists at a meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade (SCFAIT). The committee was reviewing Canada’s engagement with the United Nations system prior to the UN’s anticipated 50th anniversary in 1995.

Blakeney presented a proposal for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, a consultative chamber that would bring parliamentarians into the work of the UN. The committee was chaired at the time by John Bosley, who would go on to become one of the longest serving Speakers of the House of Commons. The committee not only supported the idea; it recommended that Canada’s House of Commons host the UNPA’s founding meeting.

Although the government did not take action on the recommendation put forward by Blakeney and the SCFAIT, the UNPA idea is still popular among Canadian parliamentarians. Seventy mem-

bers of the most recent Canadian parliament have endorsed an “International Appeal for the Establishment of a Parliamentary Assembly at the United Nations.” (See www. worldfederalistscanada.org and www.unpacampaign.org).

“Allan had a very well developed understanding of the impact that the law, and especially human rights law, could have in bringing about social progress,” said Watt. “He followed closely the development of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the role the international section of the World Federalists played in mobilizing a civil society coalition for the ICC.” “Canadians will remember him as someone who strongly influenced law and politics, nationally as well as for the people of Saskatchewan. But he also had a global vision.”

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Europe: the need for a “fiscal union” cal solidarity. Large states cannot be expected to bail out weaker states indefinitely.

The European fiscal problem cannot be solved with the creation of a centralized institution, as was possible with the Monetary Union. The fiscal problem in the EU lies in finding the appropriate degree of revenues and expenses for all government levels – the national governments and the European government.

In theory, the federal model shows how to co-ordinate a set of independent governments.

In March 2011, the theme resolution of the Congress of the Union of European Federalists was, “European Federal Union: Time to Decide.” The meeting was held at the European Parliament in Brussels.

The remainder of this article is excerpted from the resolution: “…The banking crisis exposes the fundamental weakness of current financial rules. Faced with these and other challenges, the good governance of the international community needs a strong European Union.…

The Treaty of Lisbon has greatly strengthened the European Union: its full and rapid implementation is vital. However, the future of the Economic and Monetary Union is now at serious risk.…

Political solidarity benefits all.

There can be no solidarity without government people can trust.

Because trust is lacking today, several states are obstructing the necessary debate on federal options for the future of Europe and engaging the EU in a system of unproductive intergovernmental initiatives. At best, this situa-

tion negates the logic of the Lisbon treaty; at worst, it risks a return to nationalism and xenophobia.…

Europe's political leaders must move decisively now to prevent the disintegration of Europe.

They should concentrate on enhancing the EU's capacity to act effectively to deal with current and likely future challenges.

Guido Montani

Economic governance The EU's existing arrangement of Economic and Monetary Union has been tested and found wanting. The latest decision of the European Council to amend the treaty and install a permanent crisis mechanism for the eurozone is a short-term measure, which falls well short of a proper economic government in a federal union.

Over the medium term, other steps must be taken to ensure the euro area's cohesion and give the EU the capability to promote an effective, sustainable economic policy. The eventual features of EU economic government should include: • enhancement of the European Commission's facility to issue eurobonds for investment in innovative, sustainable projects with European added value; • introduction of automatic sanctions and penalties in the case of breach of agreed fiscal discipline; • review of the euro convergence criteria; • consolidation of the regulatory framework of the financial sector; • the completion of the single market action plan by 2012;

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Sovereign debt crises in Greece, Ireland and Portugal have focused renewed attention on the fiscal and monetary architecture of the European Union.

Jean-Claude Trichet, the current president of the European Central Bank (ECB), has recently said that since the Maastricht Treaty (1991), only the monetary side of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) has been carried out; the “E” is still an empty box. The euro is doomed to be a wobbly project until this box is filled.

According to Guido Montani, political economist and vice-president of the Union of European Federalists, “In Maastricht, the monetary skeleton of the EMU was laid on the solid pillar of the ECB. Indeed, the present EMU has the power to bring about an effective European monetary policy but not a European fiscal policy. The EU has a plethora of national fiscal policies, either badly co-ordinated or not at all co-ordinated. Now, the time has come to build the blood circulatory system of the EMU: the fiscal system.”

The reaction of the European Union to the financial crisis consisted mainly in unco-ordinated national plans. A real European recovery plan would have been more effective, but it was not possible because the EU has not a federal budget and a federal government. If the European Union cannot count on its own resources, the stronger States of the Union will be obliged to carry out the role of “lenders of last resort.” However, without a full fiscal and monetary union, Europe lacks the required politi-

“The EU has a plethora of national fiscal policies, either badly coordinated or not at all coordinated.…”

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Climate change – from agony to epiphany?

“The problem is that humankind has little chance of surviving ‘politics as usual’…”

protocol, which in 1997 was seen as nothing exceptional, is now seen as a panacea and few countries are willing to go beyond it.

The Cancun negotiations were unable to provide the minimum acceptable compromise: keeping global warming below a 2 degree Celsius increase over 1990 levels.

The agreed upon text could allow global temperatures to increase by more than 4 degrees, which could increase projected climate change related deaths to 1 million from the current 300,000. In the current format of intergovernmental negotiations, the world’s citizens are not present at the negotiation table, so it should be no surprise that they were the losers of both COP15 (Copenhagen) and COP16.

Should we be happy that UN-

European Union economic governance needs to have these features • creation of a common market for euro-denominated sovereign debt instruments; • statutory eurogroup representation at the IMF; • a buoyant EU budget financed largely by autonomous revenue streams; • strengthened Commission's leadership in economic and financial affairs.

Negotiations on the revision of the EU's multi-annual financial framework and reform of its own resources system need to be radical if the EU budget is to contribute effectively to fiscal stabilization and economic recovery. The financial burden on national budgets will diminish as

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Joan Marc Simon

by Joan Marc Simon “Cancun may have saved the process but it did not save the climate,” said a Greenpeace activist at the end of the last Cancun Conference of Parties (COP16) climate negotiations in December 2010.

What was agreed in Cancun was to continue working together, with more transparency, more co-operation in technology transfer, and more money on the table but without a commitment to reduce emissions sufficiently or to targets and rules on how to organise the global transition to a low-carbon economy.

Cancun simply succeeded in avoiding the end of multilateralism in climate negotiations. There were no commitments to replace the Kyoto protocol except for its financial mechanisms. The Kyoto

important items of expenditure are transferred to the EU level and large economies of scale are achieved.…

Democratic governance While the Lisbon treaty has consolidated the EU's statutory authority, its institutions still lack strong popular legitimacy.

Action is needed now to enhance democratic practice at the federal level. The European Citizens' Initiative is one welcome improvement. The next step must be to accelerate the development of federal political parties through the electoral reform of the European Parliament.

type multilateralism survived one more round? Arguably, this is the best system we have and, although it has not served the purpose of uniting the world against climate change, it is our only tool in a ‘politics as usual’ scenario. The problem is that humankind has little chance of surviving ‘politics as usual.’

International ‘politics as usual’ can’t be an option if we want to meet the minimum conditions for survival. What history teaches us is that UN-style multilateralism is insufficient to deliver systemic changes.

After the Second World War in Europe, a core of countries decided to move ahead with the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), a common project with common institutions, with limited but real power, to achieve a common goal.

Had the ECSC waited for the United Kingdom, the European Union (EU) would probably not exist today. A parallel can be drawn with global climate change action today, as some countries block progress.

There are three possibilities to move ahead. The first is the creation of a Global Community for the Environment (GCE) to manage emissions, the transfer of technology and other common actions in a democratic and accountable way. It would follow the model of the ECSC, composed of a communitarian body that takes care of the global common interest, including a bi-cameral legislative assembly composed of representatives of the people of the union, as well as a council Continued on page 10

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Three alternatives to move ahead on climate Continued from page 9 _________

representing the member-states and, finally, a judiciary to settle disputes. This would be the optimal approach to a global problem, using democratic institutions to take democratic and accountable decisions while minimizing the danger of blockage.

A second possibility is the creation of a World Environment Organization whose structure would resemble the current World Trade Organization. It could be created with a treaty and it could do the job if it managed to put in place a good system to settle disputes. This is an old proposal retaken by the German and French leaders, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy. The drawbacks are four. First, it includes the interests of the states but not those of citizens or the global interest. Second, if it follows the WTO system, the secretariat would be too weak to steer anything. Third, it would be a lost opportunity to engage citizens in the fight against climate change. And, finally, the WTO is perceived as distant and surrounded by demonstrators and riots. The fact is that although the procedures can be democratic, the decisions are taken in an intergovernmental limbo far away from citizens.

A third option is an International Court for the Environment (ICE) following the precedent of the International Criminal Court. A global judiciary on climate issues – ruling on the jurisdiction provided by conventions and protocols – is indispensable to avoid the current lack of enforcement. An ICE would be a first

step towards communitarianism from which it would be possible to evolve towards a democratic and accountable system of world relations.

None of the three options have a chance to succeed in the short term if all countries are expected to sign up. It is necessary that a group of countries move ahead, as happened 60 years ago with the creation of the ECSC, and develop institutions that are

“It is necessary that a group of countries move ahead… and develop institutions that are capable of dealing with global problems.” capable of dealing with global problems. If we study the impact of the ECSC, we see that building a communitarian approach to fight climate change would not only benefit those who are in the union, but also those who are outside.

A Global Climate Community would foster pooling of research and technologies. By bringing in the concept of supranational solidarity and allowing for economies of scale, it would allow rapid decarbonization of the world economy. From a competitive point of view, any country that continues to subsidize fossilfuels would be interested in ending this policy and joining the community because of the widening technological gap. A coherent and responsible communitarian management of the transition to a low-carbon economy would spark more innovation and productivity than an economy that subsidizes fossil fuels.

In order to solve the current challenges, it is important to leave intergovernmentalism behind and find ways for human beings to work together. For diplomats and politicians, climate negotiations are seen as a battlefield with winners and losers.

The truth is that in the current system, all the world’s citizens lose and, as we start to feel the effects of climate change, the faith in democratic institutions and politics in general as an instrument to solve citizens’ problems diminishes.

Let us not be blinded by the change of mood after COP16.

World emissions continue to increase and the rhetoric of world co-operation and leaving solutions to the carbon markets will not suffice. The current economic crisis proves that markets alone, be they financial or carbon, will not work; it is the combination of market tools with regulations, democratic control and political leadership that have the power to get us out of the current financial, economic and ecological crisis. This combination cannot happen without global institutions. Like 60 years ago, history is pushing humankind to “unite or perish.”

May we be wiser this time.

Joan Marc Simon is president of Democracia Global in Spain, a member of the Federal Committee of the Union of European Federalists, and Council Member of the World Federalist Movement. This article is based on a longer paper, “Changing the Current Institutional Setting of the Climate Change negotiations – from Intergovernamentalism to Communitarism.”

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Ivory Coast: lessons for responsibility to protect

“…there is a desire to intervene before war crimes or ethnic cleansing can take place.”

by Fergus Watt On April 5, while Ivory Coast’s former president Laurent Gbagbo and his generals were still under siege at the presidential palace in Abidjan, Stéphane Crouzat, a spokesman for the French mission to the United Nations confidently pronounced that “There is a new trend in the Security Council in which the responsibility to protect principle is gaining a new hold.… There is a desire to intervene before war crimes or ethnic cleansing can take place.”

The outcome of the crisis in Ivory Coast has been hailed as an instance of the UN “getting it right” on the responsibility to protect (R2P). While there are, indeed, many positive lessons to draw from the outcome of the recent conflict, perhaps what is most clearly illustrated is just how far the international community has to go to effectively implement this important new norm.

The uniquely important factor to keep in mind regarding the responsibility to protect and intervention in Ivory Coast is the role played by the UN’s peacekeeping mission, UNOCI (United Nations Operation in Cote D’Ivoire). UNOCI has been deployed in Ivory Coast since 2004 to monitor and help implement a peace treaty and transition to democratic civilian rule.

Ivory Coast descended into political and ethnic violence late last year following the November elections that saw long-term president Laurent Gbagbo voted out in favour of Alassane Ouattara.

Gbagbo, who controlled the nation's 60,000-strong armed forces, refused to step down

despite recognition of Ouattara as the legitimate winner by the UN, African Union, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the European Union.

From the onset of the crisis, UNOCI shielded Ouattara and his entourage in an Abidjan hotel complex. This not only prevented attacks from Gbagbo’s armed forces. It also provided time and political space for international diplomacy to put increasing pressure on Gbagbo’s administration.

Targeted sanctions were put in place. The West African Economic and Monetary Union put limits on the government’s access to the Ivorian currency, affecting Gbagbo’s ability to pay the armed forces. The UN Security Council authorized the deployment of an additional 2,000 peacekeepers, boosting the UNOCI mission to 11,000 troops. An African Union delegation led efforts to negotiate an end to the crisis.

Thus, the UN ‘intervention’ was in large measure facilitated by peacekeepers who were already on the ground in the first place, with a mandate that included taking “all necessary measures” to protect civilians.

Diplomatic efforts between November 2010 and early March were not on their own sufficient to persuade Gbagbo to relinquish power. But they undoubtedly diminished his political authority both inside and outside the country.

Amid warnings of impending widespread atrocities from UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay, the UN Special Advisor for Genocide Prevention Francis Deng, and NGOs, diplomatic efforts eventually broke

down and civil conflict broke out.

Although the regional organization ECOWAS had by March 24 asked the UN Security Council to “strengthen the mandate of UNOCI,” enabling the mission to “facilitate the immediate transfer of power to Mr. Alassane Ouattara,” the Security Council did very little.

In the armed conflict that ensued, there were reports of war crimes committed by forces loyal to both Gbagbo and Ouattara. The UN estimates that more than 2,000 Ivorians were killed and more than a million were displaced. The International Criminal Court’s Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, has begun a preliminary examination of reported widespread killings.

As horrible as these events were, things could have been much worse. Ouattara’s forces reportedly met little resistance before reaching Abidjan. UNOCI forces, and later French troops including helicopter gunships, were given the green light by the UN to take out Gbagbo’s military bases and storage depots.

There are two important lessons here for the UN and R2P. The first is the importance of post-conflict rebuilding. Ivory Coast has experienced significant economic decline and growing social tensions over the past two decades. A legacy of ethnic strife, partition of the country, elections postponed six times before finally taking place in 2010, displaced populations, and loss of economic infrastructure will not be remedied anytime soon.

With numerous armed militias still at large, an immediate priorSee “Peacekeeping…” on page 12

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The global promise of R2P in Libya responsibility to protect (R2P) has been a hallmark of Ban’s first term as Secretary-General.

Nevertheless, since 2005 when R2P was formally affirmed as part of a package of measures at the UN Reform World Summit, wider acceptance of the new political norm has been slow in coming. Clearly, Secretary-General Ban hopes that resolution 1973 will change the terms of debate.

The R2P doctrine rests on

three pillars: (1) the primary responsibility of states to protect their own populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity; (2) the international community’s responsibility to assist a state to fulfill its protection obligations; and (3) the international community’s responsibility to take timely and decisive action, in accordance with the UN Charter, in cases where the state has manifest-

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by Fergus Watt United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has described the wider implications of the UN’s involvement in Libya in the following terms: “Security Council Resolution 1973 affirms, clearly and unequivocally, the international community’s determination to fulfill its responsibility to protect civilians from violence perpetrated upon them by their own government.”

Determined advocacy of the

Peacekeeping role of troops was crucial Continued from page 11 ________

ity will be immediate disarmament, demobilization and security sector reform. UNOCI’s mandate is due to be renewed in June. The Security Council may take action sooner, adjusting the operation’s mandate, possibly in line with engagement in Cote D’Ivoire by the UN Peacebuilding Commission.

Alassane Ouattara must demonstrate that he will be a president for all Ivorians. The international donor community, including Canada, should signal a willingness to help.

The second important lesson is the crucially important role played by the peacekeeping troops in supporting R2P diplomacy in recent months. Immediately after the November election, UNOCI troops undoubtedly prevented a rapid descent into violence and renewed civil war.

The capacity to deploy UNmandated peacekeepers quickly, often before the onset of hostilities, is clearly of benefit to further efforts to implement R2P.

Yet, UN peace operations routinely take months to deploy.

It was former Secretary-General Kofi Annan who famously recalled UN peacekeeping’s frequent comparisons to a volunteer fire department. “But that comparison is too generous,” he said.

“Every time there is a fire, the UN must first find fire engines, and the funds to run them before we can start dousing any flames.”

The remedy of course is the proposal for a UN Emergency Peace Service (UNEPS), a standing individually recruited force that would be available to the UN at short notice when mandated by the UN Security Council.

The idea of a UN rapid reaction capacity is not new. But, given the growing interest in R2P by member states and the positive contributions made by UNOCI, governments are taking another look at ways to allow the UN to deploy rapidly, preferably to prevent hostilities and mass atrocity crimes.

While it is encouraging that R2P is gaining so much political

interest, we should recall that, while there is a large and growing body of academic literature, as well as international civil society interest, there is very little in the way of agreed international law to provide a shared understanding of what R2P means and what constitutes a legitimate basis for future action. There is no R2P ‘treaty.’ The most authoritative international legal expression of R2P is still two paragraphs in the 2005 UN Leaders Summit Outcome Document.

What we don’t need is for R2P operational norms and practice to be decided by the UN Security Council, making it up on the fly as a crisis unfolds.

What we do need is recognition that R2P is not just a nice idea, but one that requires political investment in making the UN operate more effectively. In Ivory Coast, we learned the value of early deployment of peacekeepers in a crisis. One hopes that the lesson generates greater interest in developing, finally, a UN Emergency Peace Service.

“Governments are taking another look at ways to allow the UN to deploy rapidly, preferably to prevent hostilities and mass atrocity crimes.”

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Idea of sovereignty changes with Libya ▼

ly failed to protect its population from one or more of the four crimes.

Prior to Libya, the international community had taken a few limited ‘R2P actions,’ in response to other instances of mass atrocity crimes, for example, economic sanctions, such as those imposed on the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe; or referring the Darfur situation to the International Criminal Court. However, Libya and resolution 1973 marks the first time that the Council has authorized coercive military force to protect civilians. It’s a new benchmark for utilizing R2P doctrine.

The transformative significance of R2P is its impact on traditional notions of national sovereignty. The ability of sovereign governments to take whatever actions they like, up to and including committing mass atrocity crimes on their own citizens, is constrained under R2P doctrine. The international community takes on new responsibility to assist states in preventing these crimes, and to protect civilians when protection measures fail.

A decade ago, the Canadiansponsored International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty elaborated the idea of a global responsibility to protect and spelled out six criteria for deciding whether military action is justified: right authority, just cause, right intention, last resort, proportional means and reasonable prospects. The last, “reasonable prospects,” is perhaps the most difficult to assess.

Even with these criteria, there

The task ahead is… to ensure that the resolution is not distorted or used for purposes other than the civilian protection objectives for which it was created.

can be differing interpretations of just how this doctrine should be applied. In the case of Libya, there are those who would have invoked an ‘R2P analysis,’ and yet prescribed a different course of action. For some, diplomacy should have been given more time. For others, the extent of the alleged crimes against humanity prior to resolution 1973 had not yet risen to a level that warranted military intervention.

In Libya, it was the imminent threat of slaughter in Benghazi that led to such swift action by the Security Council.

If resolution 1973 brings renewed attention to R2P, a great deal of the credit should also be given to U.S. President Obama. The U.S. administration has incorporated R2P in the new National Security Strategy and developed a whole-of-government approach to implementing R2P across the range of government agencies and departments. In Libya, protecting civilians trumped traditional geo-strategic analysis.

While this is a promising development, UN-sanctioned civilian protection operations such as we are seeing in Libya are still the exception, not the rule.

For the foreseeable future, military intervention for humanitarian purposes will be selective, depending on a range of factors including political will, international legitimacy (often conditioned by the role of regional organizations) military capability, and other practical constraints on the ground.

Nevertheless, the international community’s failure to intervene

effectively in all instances should not lead us to condemn intervention in circumstances where it is possible. The task ahead is to build on the consensus that Libya and Resolution 1973 surely represents; to ensure that the resolution is not distorted or used for purposes other than the civilian protection objectives for which it was created.

At the UN, governments should recognize the promise that this decisive step means for global governance, for the organization’s capacity to implement this emerging norm. There is a range of legal, administrative and political measures that would provide the UN with a more robust R2P toolkit in the years ahead. These include: • putting in place the crisis early-warning commitments agreed to in 2005; • developing the ability to deploy peacekeepers rapidly, particularly in the early stages of conflict; • expanding and strengthening the UN’s corps of mediators; • diminishing the recourse of the Security Council’s permanent members to use their veto to block action when mass atrocity crimes are being committed.

In short, the UN’s Resolution 1973 represents a crucial measure to save lives and help the Libyan people transform their country from an authoritarian to a democratic state. If implemented effectively, it reinforces a standard that can and should evolve to responsibly protect the security of citizens elsewhere when mass atrocities are threatened.

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Mideast peace talks

U.S. veto undermines international law Council’s position and international law seem very clear… if Israel wishes to retain some of the territory it now occupies, this can only be achieved by consent as an outcome of the negotiating process. And it seems likely that that can only be achieved – if at all – by offering significant and generous compensation provisions in the agreement.”

The problem of course is that Israel has ignored the Security Council resolutions and, as a result, some 500,000 Israelis currently reside in the occupied territories and the expansion of settlements continues apace.

The same report recognizes that there has been relatively little Security Council action on the Palestinian question and that silence on the part of Council "seems to have given rise to concerns amongst many UN member states that the Council is not living up to its responsibilities” and that the "reputation of the Security Council has suffered” as a consequence.

The Security Council has understandably been silent throughout the recent round of negotiations following the 2007 Annapolis Conference to allow the parties to work out an agreement, as contemplated by resolution 242. But it has become clear the present government in Israel has deliberately undermined the peace process by its decision to continue with its illegal construction of settlements in the occupied territories and its lack of any response to the detailed plans put forward on the core issues by the Palestinians.

Furthermore, recently leaked diplomatic papers have demon-

strated that the Palestinians were more than reasonable in making concessions on all core issues when negotiating with previous Israeli administrations.

It is now clear that Israel is in breach of international law and Security Council resolutions by its failure to bargain in good faith and its continued illegal annexation of land in the occupied territories.

The most recent negotiation process is dead as a doornail.

Without strong action on the part of the United States or the Security Council to pressure Israel, a peaceful resolution to the conflict is not possible.

The rule of law is the ethical cornerstone of every free society.

Respect for it is as essential for global law as it is for domestic law. Lack of enforcement on the part of the Security Council not only erodes international law but also will cause great harm to the reputation of the United Nations.

Continued settlements in the occupied territories will also soon reach a point of no return when a two-state solution will become impossible, with consequences that are all too predictable.

February’s Palestinian-sponsored resolution had put the U.S. in a difficult position, as official U.S. policy opposes the settlements. U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice was at pains to point out after the vote that the veto “should not be misunderstood to mean we support settlement activity.” Clearly, the U.S. veto reflected intense pressure by the pro-Israel lobby in Washington.

The pro-democracy movements in the Arab world are changing the calculations of many

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by Bill Pearce Amid a rapidly changing regional political dynamic in North Africa and the Middle East, a February 2011 debate at the UN Security Council raised hopes for renewed Israeli-Palestine peace talks and an end to illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.

Alas, on February 18, the United States vetoed a draft resolution that was before the UN Security Council calling upon Israel to end illegal policies that promote settlements in the occupied territories. The 14 other Council members voted for the resolution.

The International Court of Justice in a 2004 advisory opinion noted the Geneva Conventions prohibits “any measures taken by an occupying power… to organize or encourage transfers of parts of its own population into the occupied territory.” As part of its decision to declare the security wall to be illegal, it found that settlements within the “occupied territories,” including East Jerusalem, violated international law.

The Security Council passed Resolution 242 in November 1967, following the six-day war, affirming that a negotiated, just and lasting peace should include the principle of the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces "from territories occupied in the recent conflict."

According to an independent and highly-regarded watchdog organization, Security Council Report, in a December 2007 publication entitled Middle East 1947-2007: Sixty Years of Security Council Engagement on the Israel/Palestine Question, "The

Bill Pearce is a member of WMFC Council.

“…Palestinians were more than reasonable in making concessions on all core issues when negotiating with previous Israeli administrations”

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Palestine statehood alone will not bring peace ▼

governments. The ‘Arab street’ is making its presence felt. Among the possible longterm consequences is a renewed determination to reach a settlement in the Israeli-Palestine conflict among governments (like Egypt) that had formerly been fairly passive. And even many Israelis who had supported the status quo will now want to be on the right side of history.

Speaking in Uruguay at the UN Latin American and Caribbean meeting in support of IsraeliPalestinian peace on March 29, UN Secretary General Ban Kimoon said "Time is of the essence in realizing a two-state solution… the occupation that started in 1967 is morally and politically unsustainable, and must end. The Palestinians have

a legitimate right to the establishment of an independent and viable state of their own… The target dates for reaching an Israeli-Palestinian agreement on the final status issues and completing the Palestinian Authority’s two-year state-building program are fast approaching…

We must intensify efforts to break the deadlock" When peace talks stalled last fall, President Abbas began a campaign to win international support for a resolution which would be put before the General Assembly in September 2011, formally recognizing the state of Palestine based upon the 1967 borders. In the meantime on March 29, President Abbas met with former Knesset member Yossi Beilin in Ramallah and

told him that the Palestinian Authority would not engage in further negotiations with Israel after September but if negotiations are resumed before September and progress is made, the Palestinians would be prepared to defer efforts to gain UN recognition of statehood.

If the resolution to recognize the Palestinian state is put before the General Assembly, there is a strong likelihood of its success but that will not bring about peace in the Middle East.

The prospects for a negotiated peace in the Middle East are not good. There is more that the United Nations Security Council can and should do. Sadly, the U.S. by its veto undermined international law and the prospects for peace.

Global parliament urged at World Social Forum The establishment of a world parliament elected by the world’s population was proposed at an event at the World Social Forum in Dakar, Senegal. “A democratic and representative world parliament would be an institution with unprecedented political legitimacy. It is needed to bring globalization under democratic control,” explained Jo Leinen, one of the speakers at the event and a Member of the European Parliament from Germany who co-chairs the advisory board of the international Campaign for a UN Parliamentary Assembly. “It is neither possible nor desirable to reverse globalization. But those institutions that control the process to a large degree, such as the World Trade Organization or the international financial institutions, exclude the

citizens of the world from their decision-making. This is no longer acceptable,” Mr. Leinen continued.

“The people of the world want to have a say in the affairs that affect them. As more and more important decisions are taken at the global level, this aspiration cannot stop at national borders.

Global democratic representation is needed. The goal is to create a directly elected assembly,” said Manuel Manonelles, director of UBUNTU - World Forum of Civil Society Networks.

The Senegalese representative of the Campaign for a UN Parliamentary Assembly, Mamadou Ibrahimia Fall, elaborated on the campaign’s proposal. “We suggest a gradual approach. Initially, the assembly could be composed of representatives from national

and regional parliaments. Over time, a transition to direct elections could take place. Its powers in the international system could be extended gradually as well. At the beginning, the function could be largely consultative.”

Coura Ndiaye, an advisor at the Economic and Social Council of the Consultative Assembly of Senegal expressed how important the activities of civil society are to initiatives but that a Parliament is necessary to take decisions.

Several participants from Uganda, Sierra Leone, Benin, Great Britain, and Norway stressed the importance of building up democratic representation at a global level. It was felt that See “World forum…” on page 17

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Security without nuclear weapons able. Security Without Nuclear Deterrence includes useful history about several global conflicts, including the India-Pakistan face-off. These are rivals, Green writes, that “desperately need to co-exist… (instead of) diverting crucial resources from the basic needs of their impoverished citizens.” Israel’s existing nuclear deterrent of 200 missiles, too, offers “a clear pretext and incitement for Iraq and Iran to acquire their own nuclear arsenals.”

Similarly, nuclear weapons are attractive to, but no deterrent against, terrorists, who operate on an entirely different plane of irrationality. The only way to deal with them is “by negotiation, while trying to neutralize the blackmailers using exhaustion, disorientation, etc., and if necessary, Special Forces armed with sophisticated and precise conventional weapons…”

Safer Security Commander Green has a concise chapter dealing with safer security strategies. Here we find the mainstays from the abolition campaign, including: lowering the state of launch readiness, taking missiles off “high alert,” expansion of nuclear weapon-free zones (NWFZ), and the promotion of a nuclear weapons treaty.

Getting to permanent abolition may require the Ottawa Process approach that proved successful in the Anti-personnel Landmines Campaign. Just as a consensusbased stalemate using traditional negotiation channels confounded anti-landmine campaigners, the Conference on Disarmament stalls progress towards a nuclear weapon convention.

Robert Green was UK Chair of the World Court Project and part of an international effort leading the International Court of Justice, in 1996, to conclude that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is generally illegal. A Model Nuclear Weapons Convention was offered to the United Nations a year later. (Abolitionists want a friendly government, perhaps Canada, to host a preparatory meeting in advance of a hoped-for Convention summit in 2014.) Green believes “the very act of starting negotiations, regardless of how long they take, would restore the needed political impetus.”

We also have to look at new doctrine and safer strategies because relying only on nonnuclear weapon replacements could lead to an arms race, and even right back to nuclear weapons. A reconfiguration of security priorities should shift to peacekeeping training and mediation, and “initiatives to strengthen international law such as through the establishment of the International Criminal Court.”

A new security order should be based on principles of non-provocative defence. That means preventing war while retaining enough “capacity to deny an aggressor the prospects of a cheap victory, but only a limited capacity to mount offensive operations in an opponent’s territory.”

World Federalists might add to that: a UN Emergency Peace Service, and the ‘responsibility to protect’ framework. But it is refreshing to read a navy commander advocating cooperative global security and reductions

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by Robin Collins We seem closer than ever to a nuclear weapons ban. U.S. President Obama is no lover of the nuclear option. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has brought abolition near the top of his agenda. With Security Without Nuclear Deterrence, retired British Royal Navy Commander Robert Green offers us a timely critique of nuclear doctrine and a look at safer security options.

Green begins Security Without Nuclear Deterrence with his own story. As a bombardier-navigator, he once flew in Buccaneer nuclear strike aircraft. We follow his personal journey out of an indoctrination that justified what he now calls an instrument of terror.

The largest segment of the book dissects the illogic of nuclear deterrence. Did nuclear deterrence ever prevent war between the U.S. and Soviet Union? It’s impossible to prove a counterfactual conclusively, Green admits.

But he quotes former U.S. Ambassador to the USSR George Keenan, who doubted the Soviets – with or without nuclear weapons – would have “overrun Western Europe militarily, or that they would have launched an attack.” U.S. Air Force General Lee Butler, like Green and former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, renounced nuclear arms later in life. Butler pointed to newly opened Soviet archives that show it was “NATO’s soft power (and not its nuclear threat) that bested its adversary.”

Keeping nuclear weapons in the hands of a few favored states is hypocritical and unsustain-

Robin Collins is a member of the Executive Committee of WFM– Canada.

“…the very act of starting negotiations, regardless of how long they take, would restore the needed political impetus.”

Robert Green

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Experts urge nuclear weapons ban The Canadian government should join a new international effort to construct a global legal ban on all nuclear weapons, disarmament experts concluded at a meeting April 11–12 in Ottawa.

The idea of a new negotiations track for nuclear weapons builds on a 2009 proposal from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon that was subsequently incorporated in the outcome document from the 2010 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The NPT outcome document calls for negotiations on “a Nuclear Weapons Convention or agreement on a framework of separate mutually reinforcing instruments backed by a strong system of verification.”

“Canada should host a meeting

of governments and civil society experts to prepare for negotiations for universal, verifiable and irreversible nuclear disarmament as called for by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon,” said former Senator Douglas Roche, Canada’s former UN Ambassador for Disarmament.

The expert seminar was attended by diplomats from 20 embassies, parliamentarians, and government officials to consider the threat posed to Canadians and all global citizens by the 22,000 nuclear weapons still in existence. Sponsors included the Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Canadian Pugwash, Physicians for Global Survival, Project Ploughshares, and World Federalist Movement – Canada. These five Canadian

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UK could start move away from nukes in armaments, instead of an indefinite arms race.

A Non-Nuclear NATO

Security Without Nuclear Deterrence, by Commander Robert Green.

Co-published by Astron Media & the Disarmament Security Centre, Christchurch, New Zealand.

The book is available from WFM–Canada for $25 (includes shipping).

Security Without Nuclear Deterrence suggests that the United Kingdom could be a good candidate to upset the nuclear applecart within NATO. The governing UK coalition is wondering what to do with its aging fleet of nuclear submarines. They could scrap them. Decoupling nuclear weapons from Permanent Five status at the UN would be heroic, Green argues, and could bolster Britain’s prospects for permanent membership in any future reconfigured Security Council. Indeed, there may also be a day when it seems feasible to merge NATO with the Organization for Security and Coopera-

tion in Europe (OSCE). Decades out of the Cold War, transformation is now realistic. It should be possible to create a new common security organism that stretches from “Vancouver to Vladivostok” -- in a west-to-east direction!

For years, Robert Green has faced the heat for challenging what many defence advisors still call the “ultimate deterrent”. The most recent annual op-ed penned by former cold warriors Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, Sam Nunn and William Perry takes nuclear deterrence replacement very seriously for the first time.

If their foresight is any indication, Commander Robert Green’s persistence and vision may have already contributed to a welcome historic shift.

civil society organizations also urged the Canadian government to act on motions recently adopted by both the Senate and the House of Commons calling on the government “to deploy a major worldwide Canadian diplomatic initiative” for nuclear disarmament.

Calling for commencement of negotiations to start on a legal ban on all nuclear weapons, Sergio Duarte, High Representative for Disarmament at the UN, said use of any nuclear weapon would be “an egregious violation of the most fundamental tenets of international humanitarian law and the laws of war.”

Richard Butler, chairman of the Middle Powers Initiative and See “Canada…” on page 18

World forum cheers idea for a UNPA Continued from page 17 ________

a more direct connection between the world’s peoples and global institutions is needed. The proposal of a UNPA received much applause and support.

The World Social Forum is a major global meeting place of social activists and movements that promote solidarity, democracy and a fairer world. It is considered a grassroots counter-event to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, at which the global elite of the political, financial and economic world come together on an annual basis.

– report by Andreas Bummel, UNPA campaign secretariat, Berlin

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Canada has ‘special role’ on disarmament Continued from page 17 ________

former Australian Disarmament Ambassador, said Canada has a special role to play because it has the standing to stimulate informal discussions on the legal, technical and political requisites for a nuclear-weapons-free world that can set the stage for major international negotiations later on.

Diplomats from the UK, Switzerland, Mexico and Austria responded to Mr. Duarte. Nicolas Brühl, Deputy Head of Mission, Embassy of Switzerland stated that nuclear weapons “are funda-

mentally immoral because they cause massive and indiscriminate destruction in terms of human lives, material resources and consequences for the environment. They are illegal by their very nature with regard to international humanitarian law.”

WFM–Canada’s Simon Rosenblum, described how, “Getting nuclear weapons states to sign a ‘no first-use’ declaration is both highly significant in its own right and also a major step along the road to nuclear weapons abolition.”

Dr. John Burroughs of the

Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy made note of the recent Vancouver Declaration which clarifies that both the use, and threat of use, of nuclear weapons breach international humanitarian law.

According to Beverley Delong of Lawyers for Social Responsibility, “A practical and singlefocused process leading to a global legal ban on nuclear weapons provides the best way to rid the world of all nuclear weapons in a safe and secure manner.”

The conference report is to be published this June.

In Memoriam

Hanna Newcombe’s commitment to peace Hanna Newcombe, an active member of the World Federalists for nearly four decades, died April 10 after a short illness. She served twice as national president of the organization.

Although she received her PhD in chemistry, she will be remembered as a pioneer in the field of peace research. In the mid-1960s, after meeting Norman Alcock, a physicist who had founded the Canadian Peace Research Institute (CPRI), Hanna realized that she had found her calling: the use of science to better understand the path to peace.

With her husband Alan, she worked at CPRI and then cofounded the Peace Research Institute – Dundas (PRI-D). The Newcombes published numerous Peace Research Review monographs as well as the Peace Research Abstracts Journal. During the Cold War years, peace research and peace studies was

not widely accepted by mainstream academia. Selling the peace research abstracts to libraries across North America was what maintained a modest revenue flow to the PRI-D. A quote at the bottom of the PRI-D letterhead (adapted from Epictetus, the Discourses) summed up Hanna Newcombe’s broad-based scholarly approach: “Observe, this is the beginning of philosophy - a recognition of the conflicts among men, an inquiry into their causes, the discovery of a standard of judgment, and a condemnation of mere opinion.”

It was the problem of peace that brought her to world federalism, a recognition of the need not only for institutions of law and world order to avert war and promote international security, but also as mechanisms for providing justice and welfare for the world’s citizens.

Her views became more widely

recognized in the 1980s with the rise of a broadbased peace and disarmament movement. She was also actively involved with the Quakers and Canadian Voice of Women for Peace and helped establish the Canadian Peace Research and Education Association.

She received the Pearson Hanna Newcombe Peace Medal in 1997 and was awarded the Order of Canada in 2007. In 2006, WFM–Canada inaugurated an award in her honour, the “Hanna Newcombe Lifetime Achievement Award,” recognizing the outstanding contributions made by individuals from within the movement.

With modesty, considerable intellect and a genuine intellectual curiosity, and with a strong belief in humanity and the power of ideas, Hanna Newcombe set a fine example, and made a difference. – FW

MAY 2011

mondial 19

Branch News

Alyn Ware (left) and Sen. Doug Roche at Ottawa event.

Vancouver – November's meeting featured Reilly Yeo of OpenMedia.ca who discussed principles of access, choice, diversity, and innovation in Canada's media communications system.

In December, UBC professor Michael Byers led a discussion on global citizenship. At a meeting on January 20, Stephanie Gatto from the Climate Justice Project of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives led a discussion on Preparing B.C. for Climate Migration. The Vancouver Branch annual general meeting was held on February 17 and included a presentation by Jean Béliveau, a peace pilgrim who has spent 11 years walking across five continents to promote and support UNESCO’s International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-violence for the Children of the World (see http://wwwalk.org). In March, Vancouver Save Article 9 (VSA9) along with the Vancouver World Federalists, held a screening of the film Standing Army, about the global network of US military bases, their impacts on the local

population, and the militaryindustrial complex behind it. And on April 20 Dr. David Gordon Duke, musicologist spoke on the role of music in creating an international culture.

Victoria – In January, WFM– Canada Executive Director Fergus Watt spoke at a public meeting on the topic National and Global Politics to Build World Peace. On February 25, Branch president Bill Pearce presented a talk on Road Map for a NWFZ in the Middle East.

International law professor Michael McGonigle presented a talk March 25 on Climate Change and the Problem of the State. On April 29, Ben Isitt, an associate history professor at UBC discussed Revolution and Intervention in the Middle East.

The branch’s annual general meeting was scheduled for May 14 at Pearson College when Corey Levine, former advisor to the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Afghanistan, presents a talk on International Engagement in Afghanistan: Rethinking Strategies of Intervention.

Ottawa – In collaboration with the Group of 78, WFM–Canada cohosted a February 16 talk by Dr Robert Zuber on The United Nations and the Responsibility to Protect: The Current State of Play and Options for Expanding the R2P ‘Toolkit’.

Dr. Zuber is director of UN-based Global Action to Prevent War and the Project for a UN Emergency Peace

Service. On February 22, there was a talk and book launch by Errol Mendes on Peace and Justice at the International Criminal Court, A Court of Last Resort.

Mendes’ book focuses on perhaps the biggest challenge facing this historic new global court, which is whether peace and justice are always reconcilable or whether the court’s pursuit of justice impedes the search for peace.

On March 1, Commander Robert Green (Royal Navy, Ret'd) was scheduled to give a lecture on the topic of his book, Security Without Nuclear Deterrence, but had to abruptly return to his home in Christchurch, New Zealand following the February earthquake.

Instead, the public event, held at the downtown library auditorium featured two prominent international disarmament activists – author, parliamentarian and diplomat Hon. Douglas Roche, O.C., and Alyn Ware, a peace educator based in New Zealand who coordinates the global Parliamentary Network for Nuclear Disarmament.

Montreal - The annual New Year’s branch social took place January 23. Sheila McLeod Arnopoulos was the guest speaker, discussing Attacking Poverty Through Microcredit: Challenges in India. Meetings of the MarieBerthe Dion Issues Action Group are ongoing on the third Wednesday of each month. On May 9, Pierre Jasmin, president of Artistes pour la Paix, and Robin Collins, from WFM–Canada were to be the guest speakers at an event at UQAM, Salle Jacques Hétu, discussing “Nuclear weapons and alternatives to deterrence.”

20 mondial

MAY 2011

UN Women official launch

The New York office of the World Federalist Movement – Institute for Global Policy has played an active role in the Gender Equality Architecture Reform (GEAR) Campaign, the civil society coalition that has advocated successfully for creation of a new agency at the UN known as ‘UN Women.’ Here is an account of the launch of UN Women from Rosa Lizarde, Global Coordinator, Feminist Task Force of the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP).

The official launch of UN Women took place February 24, 2011 in the great General Assembly hall at the United Nations.

“Honouring the Past: Envisioning the Future for Women and Girls,” was an historic occasion, marking a new era for women not only at the UN but around the world. “Now is the time to give women equal power and rights in every respect!” proclaimed the GA President Joseph Deiss of Switzerland, opening a polished production of a ceremony that included royal and Hollywood celebrities. “Now is the time to get serious on gender equality,” President Deiss continued, challenging every memberstate to make this the turning point to advance the status of women and girls.”

The General Assembly hall was uncharacteristically done up,

with dimmed lights, spotlights and vibrant reds and glowing whites highlighting the great seal of the UN, giving this historic occasion the gravitas it truly deserved. In the dimmed spotlight, ABC television anchor JuJu Chang welcomed UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon as the “the man behind UN Women.”

“The birth of UN Women could not be better timed. This year marks the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day. We have come a long way in a century but we still have far to go. UN Women takes us an important step in the right direction,” proclaimed Ban. “Thanks to the governments who acted with courage. Negotiations were tough but we prevailed. I’m especially proud we got Michelle Bachelet to serve as executive director.”

Ms. Bachelet said “the decision to establish UN Women reflects global concern with the slow pace of change,” she said. “It is no longer acceptable to live in a world where young girls are taken out of school and forced into early marriage, where women’s employment opportunities are limited, and where the threat of gender-based violence is a daily reality — at home, in the street, at school and at work.”

The ceremony reflected diverse support that included actors, pop stars and a princess.

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