Wednesday, August 31, 2005

 

2005 World Summit - likely outcome?

The Economist reports on the US challenge to the United Nations.

"some of [the US amendments to the draft summit text] would change the declaration considerably, particularly regarding development efforts and intervention to stop human-rights catastrophes."

"The proposed American edits to the document remove nearly all references to the MDGs [Millennium Development Goals] . . . America wants to put more emphasis on the "Monterrey Consensus". . . which concluded that developing countries need to take more responsibility for their own growth by fighting corruption, improving their investment climates and making their countries generally more hospitable to economic activity."

"But developing countries, as well as many UN officials and rich-world governments, believe that substantial aid is required too. . . Thus the draft summit document included a call for rich countries to aim to give 0.7% of their GDP in assistance. It is this kind of language that America wants removed."

What are the chances of the US getting approval to its strict 'development' amendments? Most of the members of the UN General Assembly are developing nations - and they might vote instead for easier access to funding from the developed world.

As for military interventions in sovereign nations - this might eventually lead to the creation of a UN army. It could be formed from NATO, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and the Russian led Collective Security Organisation, if they were able to sort out their differences.

NB: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) groups China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSO) comprises Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Armenia.
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