Speeches

Remarks by Consul General Sharon A. Wiener at Robert College the Model UN Conference

Istanbul - April 9, 2008              

Good afternoon.  It gives me great pleasure to join you today for the opening ceremony of this Model UN Conference hosted by Robert Lisesi.  It is most appropriate that this conference is being held in one of the world’s great cities  --  a bridge between continents and place where the concept of “links between nations”  --  the theme of of this conference  --  has been relevant for millennia.  I’m sure those of you who live in Turkey are familiar with the Treaty of Kadesh, considered the oldest known peace treaty in the world.  It was signed in 1258 BC by the Ramses II of Egypt and Hattusilli III of the Hittite Empire, whose capital was not far from Ankara, the capital of the Turkish Republic.  The treaty tablet can be viewed in the Istanbul Archeology Museum, which I hope those of you who are visitors to Istanbul will be able to see while you’re here.   It’s also fitting that a reproduction of the Treaty of Kadesh is on display in the entrance of the UN Headquarters Building in New York.

It is a special honor for me to be asked to give this keynote address today, because I feel I have a personal tie to Model UN Conferences in Istanbul.  When my daughter was a high school student at the American School of Paris, she attended a model UN conference in Istanbul.  And, in coming to Istanbul as a student she was following in the footsteps of her mother:  I came here for the first time as a university student during my Junior Year Abroad program in Lebanon many decades ago.  One of the reasons that I always encourage students to take advantage of opportunities for foreign study is that I know what an impact it can have.  In my case, it led me to choose diplomacy as a career.  

In my almost 30 years as a diplomat I have had the opportunity to serve in very interesting countries and to deal with a broad range of issues --  including terrorism, non-proliferation, Middle East peace, Transatlantic security --- I could go on,  the list is long.  By chance I’ve lived through fairly historic developments:  When I started my assignment in Moscow in 1990, Moscow was the capital of the Soviet Union.  Halfway through my tour, the Soviet Union ceased to exist, and Moscow become the capital of the Russian Federation.  But, one constant over the years has been the importance of the United Nations.  This was particularly clear during my many years serving in countries that are Permanent members of the Security Council.  In those countries, a significant portion of our bilateral discussions are actually dealing with issues we are working together on as Permanent Members of the Security Council.  But, enough of my reminiscing.  What I would like to share with you today are some thoughts on the United States’ view of the United Nations.

The history of the United Nations and the history of American foreign policy in the 20th century are inextricably intertwined, and will continue to be in the 21st century, as long as the United Nations lives up to the ideals upon which it was founded:  freedom, democracy, peace, security, human rights, and prosperity for all people.

The concept of creating a global organization of member states dedicated to preserving international peace through collective security increased in popularity during World War I.  The bloodshed of the “Great War” persuaded President Woodrow Wilson, and a number of other American and international leaders, to seek the creation of an international forum in which conflicts could be resolved peacefully.  The 1919 Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I contained a framework for a League of Nations, intended to maintain peace and stability.  However, despite Wilson’s efforts to gain the domestic support of political leaders and the American public, he was unable to convince the United States Senate to approve U.S. membership in the League.  This was due to strong isolationist sentiment and partisan conflicts.  After considering membership in the League with reservations, the Senate ultimately prevented the United States from joining.  The absence of the United States weakened the League, as did its efforts to resolve disputes by the widespread economic crises of the 1930s, its inability to compel states to abide by its decisions, and its requirement that many decisions – including those involving a response to aggression – be decided unanimously. 

The League of Nations was unable to prevent the outbreak of the Second World War.  However, many international leaders remained committed to the League’s ideals.  Once World War II began, President Franklin D. Roosevelt determined that U.S. leadership was essential for the creation of another international organization aimed at preserving peace, and his administration engaged in international diplomacy in pursuit of that goal.  He also worked to build domestic support for the concept of the United Nations. 

At the first wartime meeting between British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt, the Atlantic Conference held off the coast of Newfoundland in August 1941, the United States joined Britain in issuing a joint declaration that became known as the Atlantic Charter.  This pronouncement outlined a vision for a postwar order supported by an effective international organization that would replace the struggling League of Nations.  It was during this meeting that Roosevelt privately suggested to Churchill the name of the future organization:  the United Nations.

The basic framework for the proposed United Nations rested on President Roosevelt’s vision that the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and China would provide leadership in the postwar international system.  It was these four states, with the addition of France, that would assume permanent seats in the otherwise rotating membership of the United Nations Security Council.  At the Yalta Conference, the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom agreed on veto power for the permanent members of the Security Council.  This crucial decision essentially required unanimity between the five permanent members on the pressing international decisions related to international security and use of force that would be brought before the Security Council. 
 
Churchill and Roosevelt also made an important concession to Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s request that the Ukraine and Belarus – then part of the Soviet Union – be seated in the United Nations General Assembly, thus increasing the Soviet Union’s seats in that body to three.  At Yalta, the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom also drafted invitations to a conference beginning in April 1945 in San Francisco that would formally establish the United Nations.

President Roosevelt did not live to see his dream of the United Nations come true.  He died on April 12, 1945, less than two weeks before the San Francisco Conference was scheduled to open.  Vice President Harry S Truman became president and immediately announced that the Conference should go forward as planned.  President Truman called upon Americans “regardless of party, race, creed or color, to support our efforts to build a strong and lasting United Nations organization.” 

The San Francisco Conference opened on April 25, 1945, with delegations from fifty countries present.  Following the resolution of most outstanding issues, the UN Charter was signed on June 26.  In a show of support, Truman flew to San Francisco to attend the final session himself, and congratulated the delegates for creating a “solid structure upon which we can build a better world.” 

However, Truman still needed to secure Senate ratification of the Charter.  Plagued by memories of how the League of Nations had gone down to defeat in the Senate, he urged the Senate to ratify the Charter quickly.  Truman said, “I want to see the United States do it first.”  The Senate ratified Charter on July 28, 1945, (The U.S. ratification actually followed that of Nicaragua and El Salvador.)  The United Nations officially came into existence on October 24, 1945, after the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, China, and France, as well as a majority of the other signatories, had ratified the UN Charter.

At its first session, on February 14, 1946, the United Nations General Assembly voted to establish its permanent headquarters in New York City.  Following World War II, as the United Nations looked for a permanent headquarters in New York, John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated six blocks of midtown Manhattan real estate near the East River. His gift was worth $8.5 million. By agreement with the American government, the site was declared international territory.

As a side note – it didn’t take long for students like you to start Model UNs.  The Harvard University Model United Nations is the oldest running High School Model UN Conference in the United States, founded in 1951.  The popularity of Model U.N. continues to grow, and today more than 200,000 high school and university students worldwide participate every year.  Today there are more than 400 conferences that take place in 35 countries.  Many of today's leaders in law, government, business and the arts participated in Model UN during their academic careers – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer,  and former first daughter Chelsea Clinton are all Model UN veterans.

As this history shows, the United States and the United Nations are inseparable.  The United States is firmly committed to the United Nations.  We match this commitment with our financial contributions to the UN.  The United States has been the largest contributor to the United Nations every year since its creation in 1945.  The United States is currently assessed for 22 percent of the UN regular budget, significantly more than any other nation – Japan’s contribution is 16.6 percent.  We pay more than 25 percent of the UN peacekeeping budget.  In fiscal year 2006, the U.S. contributed over $5.3 billion to the United Nations system to support UN agencies and peacekeeping operations.  The U.S. contribution to UN peacekeeping alone totaled nearly $870 million.

In that same year, the United States contributed $1.12 billion – over 41 percent – of the budget of the World Food Program, which provides over 4 million tons of food to 87.8 million people in 78 countries each year.  We provided 24 percent, or $346 million, of the budget of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to protect and safeguard the rights and well-being of 20.8 million refugees, returnees, stateless persons, and internally displaced persons in 116 countries; and 9.4 percent, or $260 million, of the budget of the United Nations Children’s Fund to feed, educate, and protect children in 157 countries, including providing over 3 billion doses of vaccines to children.

These figures show that the United States remains committed to the UN today.  A strong United Nations is vital to the national security interests of the United States.  Some of our critics – including many in the U.S. – argue that the United States has taken a unilateral approach to foreign policy and left behind the United Nations.  Some say we are too involved.  Neither is true.  In place of this old multilateralism versus unilateralism debate, I’d like to offer a more nuanced view of how the United States views the United Nations as part of its foreign policy.

In solving the many challenges to the nations of the world today, the foreign policy “toolbox” contains an array of options.  To be perfectly frank, the formal multilateral approach – most aptly represented by the UN – is just one of these options.  Sometimes the UN is indeed the most appropriate option, but sometimes it’s not.  Other tools in this toolbox include:

• Traditional bilateral diplomacy; 
• Regional organizations like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Organization of American States;
• Ad-hoc multilateral solutions like the Six Party Talks; and
• Voluntary multilateral initiatives like the Proliferation Security Initiative, or PSI, in which countries around the world have agreed to cooperate and share information to prevent the illicit transport of proliferation-sensitive materials.

All that said, it’s often true that the formal multilateral approach represented by the United Nations is the best choice.  The United Nations has five inherent advantages from which the United States and all UN member nations can benefit when working through the multilateral process:

First, the UN brings the full weight of the international community to foreign policy initiatives/

Second, working through the UN serves as a force multiplier.  We benefit from the peace and stability that UN peacekeeping missions bring to ungoverned spaces, and one UN peacekeeper costs U.S. taxpayers only a fraction of the cost of one U.S. soldier.

Third, the UN has built up expertise in areas like peacekeeping, reconstruction, and humanitarian assistance throughout the years, and can provide needed coordination in those areas.  As I mentioned earlier, the United States is the largest single supporter of the World Food Program because we’ve seen that few other organizations are as effective in delivering food aid.

Fourth, the UN has the advantage of being able to talk to people who won’t talk to us.  For example, in Iraq, Muqtada al-Sadr will talk to the UN representatives on the ground, even when he won’t talk to the Americans.  The UN provides a conduit of information we might not have otherwise.

Finally, the UN has the legal authority to set international norms.  For example, think of the simple postage stamp.  For those of you visiting from other countries, think of this – while traveling in Istanbul you can put a Turkish stamp on a letter to your parents in Riyadh, Baku, Berlin or Moscow, and that letter will make its way to them –thanks to agreements negotiated across countries by the UN’s United Postal Union. 

Obviously the UN is important to the United States.  As former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke said, “The UN is not the center of American foreign policy.  It’s just part of it.  But the closer it gets to its original intent, the more valuable it will be to us.”

It is precisely because the UN and organizations like it have the capacity and the potential to do so much good that the United States actively engages and demands that the UN perform to a level that all Member States (as dues-payers)  and the world’s neediest populations (as beneficiaries of vital UN services) expect and deserve.  We are constantly working to ensure that it operates as efficiently and transparently as possible.  We continue to call for UN reform so that UN resources to go to projects that benefit the world’s neediest populations, rather than to duplicative or ineffective programs.  We think this is so important that the United States actually has an ambassador to the United Nations just for management and reform issues.

In 2005, the United States, along with more than 170 heads of state and governments expressed a global consensus that wide-ranging UN reform is imperative. 

U.S. priorities for UN reform include first, institutionalizing a system-wide approach to enforcing ethical conduct.  UN employees around the world must abide by the highest standards of ethical conduct.  With the number of peacekeeping operations at an all-time high and growing, it is all the more essential for the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations to consistently and comprehensively enforce its zero-tolerance policy on sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers of the vulnerable citizens they are entrusted with protecting.  The establishment of an independent Ethics Office and enhanced “whistleblower” protections for UN staff who report wrongdoing were also positive steps.  Now, the Secretary-General should ensure the office’s jurisdiction over all UN funds and programs, and guarantee full protection for whistleblowers.  The Secretary-General has led the way in publicly disclosing his finances, and all senior UN officials should follow his example.

Our second priority is strengthening the UN’s internal oversight body to better identify, obtain, and deploy the resources to accomplish its mandate.  Accountability and transparency are at the heart of any well-run, effective organization.  The UN must enhance accountability and transparency through a stronger, more independent Office of Internal Oversight Services with adequate and flexible funding and improved reporting practices.

Third, we advocate enhancing transparency and accountability through procurement reform. 

And finally, we believe in increasing the UN’s effectiveness and efficiency through results-based management.  Member States and United Nations officials should ensure careful stewardship of the UN’s limited resources.  Effective, results-based management will maximize resources available to improve the lives of the world’s neediest people, who have the most to gain from reform.  The General Assembly’s biennial budget process is a powerful reform tool and should be used to reward programs that achieve desired results, while terminating low priority, poorly performing, or unnecessary programs.  This approach requires measurable standards for success and regular performance assessments.

Since this reform initiative in 2005, the UN has made some significant advances including, as I have mentioned, the creation of an independent Ethics Office, an expanded financial disclosure program, and additional support for a mechanism to adjudicate staff grievances.  But more remains to be done.  I assure you that the United States, as the United Nations biggest supporter, will continue to press for reform, even if it may be unpopular. 

Some nations have called for expansion of the UN Security Council.  The United States has consistently stated our openness to a modest expansion of the Security Council if it would strengthen its effectiveness.  Membership in the UN has grown from 51 members in 1945 to 192 members today.  The world is a different place than it was in 1945.  Non-state actors and transnational threats such as terrorism and failed states increasingly threaten international peace and security.  We believe that it is appropriate to reform the Council to respond to these new realities.  This is an important issue and the United States fully recognizes that expansion should occur.  We support the ongoing discussions in the General Assembly on this topic, but any plan must have consensus support.

Reform of the Council should be designed to increase the Council’s effectiveness in responding to global challenges to peace and security – any reform must ensure that the Council is able to respond with agility, credibility, and efficacy to these kinds of threats.

Many developing world countries feel that the current make-up of the Security Council is unfair and have been lobbying aggressively for expansion.  Most of these plans make the Security Council significantly larger, and all lack the consensus support that would be needed to get any proposal through the General Assembly.  The only country we have publicly supported for a seat on the Council is Japan, which by all accounts has proven its qualifications. 

We have thus far not endorsed a specific plan, but instead have focused on the qualities we would like to see in any “reformed” Security Council and in any new members:

• The Security Council functions efficiently in part because its size permits useful and manageable discussions and debates.  Expansion to a larger membership must not undermine efficiency in reaching consensus.
• New permanent members of the UNSC must be supremely qualified to undertake the significant duties and responsibilities they will assume.  Criteria we have mentioned in the past include commitment to democratic values and demonstrated support for UN peacekeeping operations in both money and troops.

The United Nations also needs to change to better address human rights issues.  In March 2006, the UN General Assembly created the Human Rights Council to replace the discredited and ineffective Commission on Human Rights.  The United States voted against the resolution that brought the Human Rights Council into being because we felt that it lacked the necessary precautions to ensure that the membership of the Human Rights Council would be better than that of its predecessor. 

Unfortunately, our fears have largely been realized.  Membership requirements are not strict enough to keep human rights abusers off of the Council.     Abusers are less likely to themselves take on other governments committing grave human rights abuses, as we’ve seen in the Council’s reluctance to act, and its eventual toothless resolutions, on Sudan.  Although the Council did call a special session on Burma, it has failed to focus on grave human rights abuses occurring in Zimbabwe, North Korea, Cuba, Belarus, or Iran.   

Our continued concerns led us to again decide not to run for a seat on the Council when the most recent elections took place in March 2007.  And, as our Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs announced during Congressional testimony on April 2, the United States will this year be withholding the portion of our UN dues payment that would go to the fund the Human Rights Council. 

The United Nations was created almost 65 years ago to advance freedom, democracy, peace, security, human rights, and prosperity for all people.  Its ability to carry out this noble mission is only possible if the UN is strong, efficient and flexible.  The founders of the UN could scarcely have imagined the challenges it might face in the 20th century.  Its first true test came in June 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea.  It has played a role in the dispute over Cyprus and the Cuban Missile Crisis.  When issues pertaining to international security remained deadlocked in the Security Council during the Cold War , the increasingly active General Assembly expanded the focus of the United Nations to include economic development, famine relief, women’s rights, and environmental protection, among other issues. 

With the end of the Cold War, the United Nations has taken on increasing security responsibilities, negotiated peaceful resolutions to conflict, and deployed peacekeeping forces around the world.  It faces challenges of transnational terrorism, crime and trafficking in humans and narcotics that would have been unimaginable in 1945. 

But while the challenges of 1945 are different then the challenges of today, the ideals remain the same:  freedom, democracy, peace, security, human rights, and prosperity for all.  The challenges are big, but not insurmountable if we work together.  You will have the opportunity to discuss many of these challenges while you are here at Robert College.

But this conference is the beginning, not the end.  I echo what UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in his address to the U.S. National Model United Nations Conference in New York on March 18:  “Young delegates, it is when your conference is over that the real work begins.  With this experience, you become representatives of the United Nations; student ambassadors charged with building a better understanding of the Organization –what it is, what it does and what it can do.  And you assume this responsibility at a crucial period in the life of the United Nations.”
 
And on a broader scale, whatever each of you decides to do with your lives, I know this experience will help prepare you for an increasingly globalized and complex world.  When I look at how much the world changed between 1945 and when I started my diplomatic career in 1978 and at how much the world has changed during my 30 year diplomatic career, I can’t begin to imagine the changes and challenges you will be dealing with.  But, I know that because of your experiences this week, you will be better prepared for those challenges. 

We are counting on you to succeed. 

Meanwhile, I wish you all the best for a wonderful Model UN conference. 

Please see the photo gallery for photos.