Why Multilateral Organizations Are Important to the United StatesKim R. Holmes, Assistant Secretary for International Organization AffairsRemarks to Participants of the Senate Youth Program 2005 Loy Henderson Auditorium, Washington, DC March 1, 2005 I thank the staff of the Senate Youth Program, and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and Senator Daniel Akaka, for inviting me to participate in this excellent program. This is a very impressive group of young American leaders. I have heard a great deal about you and look forward to your questions and to our dialogue.
I am pleased to welcome you to the State Department. We have a full day in store for you, and I hope you will be inspired to come back, perhaps as a Foreign Service Officer. The State Department is a great place for leaders--aspiring leaders such as yourselves as well as accomplished leaders. We just bid farewell to one of the most well-known and respected leaders of our times, Colin Powell. A few days later, we welcomed his successor, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is already making quite an impression on the world scene. America always needs strong leaders like these on the front lines of diplomacy, because every new era comes with new challenges. Today’s turbulent times are no exception. America’s objectives are the same: preserving peace, promoting democracy and freedom, protecting the innocent, advancing economic and sustainable development. But 20 years ago, before most of you were born, we were waging a Cold War. Today, we are waging war against terrorists, HIV/AIDS, and human traffickers. It is hard to foresee the challenges your generation will face in the next 20 years. New threats are why foreign policy changes over time. We still nurture bilateral relations. We continue to rely on trusted security alliances, like NATO. And we engage in international organizations such as the United Nations. But we also nurture new partnerships to deal with new threats more rapidly and effectively. The war on terror is a good example. So too was our coordinated early response to the tsunami. In this age of new problems and partnerships, it is reasonable to ask why multilateral organizations are still important to the United States. It is challenging enough to maintain good relations with 191 individual countries. Try getting them together to reach consensus when national interests and national perceptions vary. Yet it is worth the effort. Let me give you four key reasons this is the case. First, global threats and global crises often need global solutions. Terrorism, proliferating nuclear weapons, HIV/AIDS, environmental disasters, narcotics trafficking--some threats know no borders. Bilateral and regional agreements are important steps in protecting people from them. But weaving a net wide enough to deal with such problems takes time. We need multilateral forums where all nations can discuss what’s needed and contribute to a common solution. Second, the best platforms for advancing our values of freedom, democracy, and prosperity are usually in fact the broadest ones. As President Bush says, freedom and democracy are the birthright of everyone, not just Americans. He understands that freedom, democracy, and security are mutually reinforcing. "The security of our world," he said at the UN last fall, is in "the advancing rights of mankind." With many people still oppressed by tyrants, with many people lacking basic human rights and suffering from extreme poverty, we need forums where we can make the case for freedom, democracy and human rights to the non-democracies of the world. In any number of international bodies, we are doing just that. Third, multilateral organizations can be the most efficient way to set international standards. There are international standards for behavior, and also for dealing with civil needs like delivering the mail. You rarely hear news, for example, about the Universal Postal Union. Yet it has been a key reason our letters and parcels arrive where we want them to, at a reasonable cost, and despite different national postal systems and different infrastructures that nations have to deliver the mail. Other good examples of such international cooperation are the International Maritime Organization and the International Civil Aviation Organization. They are key in getting all the nations to strengthen their security standards, so that we can travel the world’s seas and skies more safely in these days of terrorism. Fourth, multilateral organizations are effective ways to leverage our resources for the greatest good. The United States cannot do all things for all people, nor should we even try. We do not have limitless resources. In these challenging times, the government’s primary responsibility is to stand ready to respond quickly and effectively to each emerging threat. The stewardship of our resources, whether they are military, they are monetary, or they are technological, is vital. Let me give you some examples.
I am sure many of you have heard of the World Food Program (WFP), which is based in Rome. The World Food Program delivers food aid to victims of conflicts, war, and natural disasters. It is one of the most efficient organizations in the entire UN system. In 2003, the WFP fed 104 million people in 81 countries, including most of the world’s refugees. The United States cannot do that work alone. It is also true that the World Food Program cannot do its work without the United States. We provided 57% of its funding in 2003. UNICEF is another agency doing important work to save the lives of children. In your lifetime, polio cases worldwide have fallen by 99%. Most of the remaining cases are in Africa, and UNICEF has begun a massive immunization drive there. Over 1 million health workers will go door to door in 22 countries, hoping to vaccinate 100 million children. In 2003, we contributed one-fourth of all governmental contributions to UNICEF. We also contributed 33% of the budget of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees. Today, its staff is working to help 17 million persons in more than 116 countries. Peacekeeping is another area that depends entirely on multilateral cooperation. We fund 27% of the UN’s assessed budget for peacekeeping. We also provide lift, logistics, and advisory support to these missions when they are needed. We also strive to make sure that, from the outset, these peacekeeping operations are right-sized, they have achievable mandates, they can deploy promptly, and that they are equipped to do what we ask of them. Overall, we participate in some 60 international organizations, but the United Nations is the one that consumes most of my time and that of my Bureau. The United States picks up the tab for 22% of the UN’s regular budget, which has been growing steadily in recent years. The UN is a large and very complex system. Truth be told, it is not always as effective as it should be. Its various bodies suffer from expanding agendas, overlapping programs, sometimes a lack of transparency, and sometimes too little accountability to the countries that bear the burden for much of its work. It does not always hold fast to its founding principles. And it has had to face embarrassing charges of fraud, sexual harassment by officials, and sexual abuse by peacekeepers. That is why there is so much talk today of UN reform. Indeed, it is why many Americans are asking whether the UN has outlived its purpose. But I can tell you that President Bush and Secretary Rice believe the United Nations is still an important and vital forum for dealing with major threats to peace and security. The UN may have been created 60 years ago, and it may well need reform. In fact, I believe there is international consensus that it is in need of some kind of reform. Yet no other organization today brings 191 countries together to address threats to peace and security. The UN Security Council can be effective when its members put aside narrow political interests and act in the interest of international peace and security. You probably heard about a draft resolution on Iraq we wanted two years ago that the Security Council did not approve. I wager you did not hear as much at all about the four subsequent unanimous resolutions passed by the Council that helped Iraq set the stage for its recent elections; nor about 150 other resolutions the Council has adopted in the past two years, a good number of which dealt with peacekeeping, primarily in Africa. There have been times when the Council has been too slow to deal with a crisis. Rwanda is one example. But so too is the recent genocide in Darfur, Sudan. We meet resistance in the Council on such issues for a variety of reasons. Sometimes member states have economic interests in a country under scrutiny. Other times, a regional grouping may not want one of its member states publicly criticized by the UN. The Security Council, like the UN General Assembly, is after all a political body. Yet overall, the Security Council has been a key multilateral instrument for dealing with serious threats to peace. Good examples are in fighting terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Last year, we also helped get a non-proliferation resolution through the Security Council. It calls for partnerships among nations to interdict illicit transport of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and their precursors. In this respect, it affirms the President’s Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), a growing international partnership for just this purpose. Already, PSI partners have stopped illicit shipments of dangerous materials. We are now working with the United Nations on steps that countries can take to shut down such supply networks. These examples demonstrate that multilateral organizations need more than just America’s financial commitment to be effective. They also need the leadership of the United States. So let me finish where I started, on the issue of leadership. Leadership means standing on principle, keeping to core values and purposes, and building strong partnerships. It means looking for common ground on practical solutions, so that our negotiations are more than just debates or interest statements. You may hear about differences in the United States and with our allies over policy. That need not surprise us. No nation is a carbon copy of another because of differing histories, people, and priorities. But very often, as the war on terror shows, our values and goals are the same. I think you saw a good example of this during Secretary Rice’s recent trip to Europe. I believe history will show that, in these turbulent times, the United States has provided consistent leadership. We are a beacon of hope for those who despair. We continue to advance the virtues of democracy and freedom with those leaders who may fear them. It is tough work. Sometimes we see our efforts bear fruit immediately. Other times, we have to wait a decade or more. Secretary Rice likes to make this point when she talks about the end of the Cold War. When the Soviet Union collapsed, she says, we were merely harvesting the fruits of decisions for freedom that had been made decades before by the United States and its democratic allies. I am struck by the quote from James Madison on the cover of last year’s program. It is one of my favorite quotes--and there are many--from America’s Founding Fathers. Madison wrote: "A popular government, without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to farce or tragedy or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance." You are tomorrow’s leaders, and more than any other generation, you have the power to gain knowledge in seconds. You are not dependent on the headlines and sound bytes of the day. You can inform yourself of all sides of an issue very rapidly, before you make decisions that can affect your life, and perhaps the course of history. So, be vigilant about the truth. Do not fall for the lie that freedom and democracy are "in the eyes of the beholder." You are proof that people can achieve what they aspire to, if they are given the chance, and the freedom, to do so. It is precisely because we believe this that we are advancing freedom and democracy, peace and development through multilateral organizations. Released on March 7, 2005 |
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