UNITED NATIONS, 14 September 2005 — Negotiators watered down ambitious proposals on human rights, terrorism, global security and development yesterday in a push to draft a document for world leaders at the UN’s anniversary summit.
The meeting, starting today, is being billed as one of the largest summits in history with some 170 kings, presidents and prime ministers converging on the Manhattan headquarters of the United Nations to mark its 60 years of existence.
Crown Prince Sultan arrived in New York on Monday at the head of a high-level delegation to attend the General Assembly meeting. He was accompanied by top officials including Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal, Saudi Ambassador to the United States Prince Turki Al-Faisal and Finance Minister Dr. Ibrahim Al-Assaf.
About 4,000 New York and counterterrorism teams will be on patrol and have orders to seal off streets, set up no-fly zones around the city, boost security on subways and search vehicles around the UN complex on the city’s East Side. Negotiations on a blueprint for tackling the key issues of the 21st century continued through the day, though Australian Prime Minister John Howard called the pace “slower than glacial.”
Developing nations were frustrated in their bid for better trade deals and the United States and Europe fell short on human rights and reform of the UN’s management system.
Fresh initiatives in the document include the intention to form a new human rights body, create a Peacebuilding Commission to help nations emerging from war and introduce an obligation to intervene when civilians face genocide and war crimes.
The draft document cuts disarmament proposals almost entirely and enlargement of the 15-member Security Council is dormant.
US Ambassador John Bolton said he was pleased with the potential results of the document. “This is not the alpha and omega and we never thought it would be,” he told reporters.
The US as well as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan are pressing hard for an overhaul of UN management structures that would move control of the UN secretariat away from the 191-member General Assembly. Annan and his successors would have more power to set priorities on spending and on mandates, but be subject to oversight and auditors, following a yearlong investigation of mismanagement and corruption in the oil-for-food program for Iraq.
