The sound of gunfire and detonating bombs was still echoing around the White Mountains of Afghanistan where Northern Alliance and US forces sought out the remnants of the Al-Qaeda network, while Kofi Annan stepped forward in Oslo, to receive the Nobel Peace prize. It was a useful reminder that, throughout history, peace has always been a relative term. It is nevertheless fitting that the United Nations secretary-general should receive the 100th Nobel Peace Prize.
It was typical of Annan that when the presentation was made Monday, he chose to view it as an award to the United Nations as a whole and not to just himself. The truth is, however, that the UN still has much to prove. On disaster relief it has a reasonable record. In terms of supervising the transition from conflict to peace, often via an internationally monitored election or referendum, the UN was once the subject of regular humiliation. Who, for instance, will forget the way in which UN monitors were gunned down and swept aside during Israeli incursions into the Lebanon? However, in an often-overlooked triumph, the UN successfully oversaw the elections in Cambodia, which saw that traumatized country return to peace. It has since worked hard to help the Cambodians rebuild their shattered society.
The UN’s military weakness — the inability of disparate national contingents to work together successfully, with an effective international command structure, operating to clear political mandates — was exposed sharply in Bosnia. It was, therefore, the highly integrated NATO, acting under a vague UN umbrella, which saw an end to Serbian aggression both in Bosnia and later in Kosovo. As a result of the Balkans debacle, the need for a standing international force, trained to cooperate efficiently in any international theater was urged by some. However, at the moment, such a force seems a step too far, especially for the Americans, who anyway are the prime source of the high-technology surveillance systems which have underpinned all recent international military interventions, from the Gulf War to the campaign in Afghanistan.
A better development, which this paper has urged several times before, would be the creation of highly trained and integrated international disaster-relief forces. Such units, which could comprise military as well as civilian elements, would act as an adjunct to UN aid programs, which are now an established, if not always immediately successful, part of the organization’s activities. When the United Nations was created in October 1945, it gave the international community the chance to air and settle differences between members in a forum where that settlement would be underwritten by all other states. The procedure is hardly yet established and the UN remains largely a reactive rather than a pro-active body. It has taken half a century for the beginnings of an international justice system to emerge, in the teeth of objections from America, the UN’s most powerful member.
But the UN and the world’s perception of it, are still evolving. The Nobel Peace Prize represents a timely recognition of its achievements so far, and of the fine work of Kofi Annan, but there is still a long way to go.
