By Jeanne Jackson DeVoe

Video and audio of the entire event is available here.

Collective security is evolving in the 21st century as the international community and the United Nations grapple with a definition of security that goes beyond the security of nations to include the security of individuals. But there is widespread disagreement about whether the United Nations is equipped to meet those challenges, or whether it needs to be profoundly reformed.

Experts and high-level diplomats gave a variety of perspectives on those crucial questions during a conference titled “Facing 21st Century Global Threats: Collective Security at a Crossroads,” convened by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs on Oct. 13, held at the Princeton Club of New York.

The day-long conference was comprised of three panel sessions, consisting of senior diplomats, scholars, journalists, and other analysts. Audience members included press, U.N. staff, academics, and representatives from think-tanks and non-profits, as well as Princeton alumni.

“21st Century Threats: The End of Collective Security, or New Opportunities?”

The opening panel, titled “21st Century Threats: The End of Collective Security, or New Opportunities?”, was moderated by Raghida Dergham, senior diplomatic correspondent for the Arab daily Al-Hayat. Panelists included Anne-Marie Slaughter, Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School; Ambassador Thomas Matussek, the permanent representative of Germany to the U.N.; Robert Orr, U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Policy and Planning;  and Ambassador Francesc Vendrell, the former European Union Special Representative for Afghanistan and a visiting professor at the Woodrow Wilson School.

“We’ll try to see on one level whether the United Nations and other international institutions are capable of dealing with 21st century threats to global peace and security or whether those institutions, particularly the U.N., are broken and need significant reform in order to function properly as originally envisioned,” said Dergham.

Ambassador Thomas Matussek said that unlike the European Union, or NATO or the so-called “Coalition of the Willing” in Iraq, the U.N. confers legitimacy on global actions.  But like many speakers he noted that the world has changed a great deal since the United Nations was founded in 1945. “It’s quite obvious that the U.N. has to change and be reformed,” he said.

For 24 years, an open-ended working group at the U.N. has been undertaking efforts to reform the Security Council. But a major step has taken place that has moved those proposals, which rely on consensus, into intergovernmental negotiations scheduled to take place in November, Matussek said.

The 21st century global threats to collective security are dramatically different than those of the 20th century, said the U.N.’s Robert Orr. “It’s almost a mutually exclusive list,” he noted.

Orr detailed the threats to collective security in this century that the U.N. is working to address. He began with the financial crisis that he pointed out has cut across borders to affect everyone globally.

The world also faces threats from climate change that not only affects global economies but also affects society and security, Orr observed.  “We are in the middle of the world’s most complex negotiations ever,” to try to address the climate change problem, he said.

Global public health is another major challenge to global security as globalization makes it easier for diseases to spread throughout the world.

A huge worldwide threat is terrorism and the response to global terrorism must be multilateral, Orr explained. But the fact that 192 countries at the U.N. agreed to a global terrorism strategy means there is already a framework to begin that process, he said. He noted that many of these global threats, including global terrorism, come from non-state actors.

Another major threat is in the area of nuclear disarmament, Orr said, and this is an area in which the international community has made "very little progress," he noted.  “This is serious. This is grave, even,” Orr told the audience. “It always gets put on the back burner but these are the ultimate threats.”

There have been collective global responses to many of those crises but they have not always involved collective institutions, said Anne-Marie Slaughter. For example, the International Monetary Fund was not a central player in trying to solve the current global financial crisis but there was an international network of central bankers working on the problem.

Slaughter agreed with Orr regarding the U.N.'s response to terrorism, in that "we've seen a real sea-change" not only in "the scope of the U.N. response but also the nature of the U.N. response."  According to Slaughter, the U.N. did not merely pass a resolution, but "developed a framework with very specific measures that have to be taken by all the member states," regarding combating terrorism.

Not all the panelists believe the U.N. needs major reform. Ambassador Francesc Vendrell said the U.N. is undergoing a difficult period in part because of the U.S. invasion of Iraq “really discarded the U.N., but also because many third-world countries see the U.N., oddly enough, as too pro-U.S. and too influenced by the U.S.”

But Vendrell said that doesn’t mean the U.N. needs a new mechanism to deal with collective security threats.  The U.N. already has those powers through Chapter Seven of the Charter giving the Security Council the authority and power to maintain peace and security. While that power has rarely been invoked in the first 40 years of the U.N.’s existence, it has since been invoked in more than 25 resolutions of the Security Council against member states such as Iran, East Timor, Afghanistan, Haiti and Bosnia, and against non-member states such as Afghanistan under the Taliban, he noted.

“What we need, however, is to use it better and also to try to keep, if not encourage, as much of a consensus as possible in the Security Council among the members,” Vendrell said. That consensus was endangered by the international support of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, whom Vendrell described as “as much of an authoritarian in Georgia as Putin is in Russia.”

Moderator Dergham asked panelists at the start of the Q&A session if the Security Council creates “a danger of falling into the trap of falling into the necessity of consensus at the expense of regional issues.”  Dean Slaughter, Dergham observed, “pointed out [during the panel] that the greatest threat is not necessarily the veto power of the Security Council members but, as Slaughter said, “the very threat of a veto is enough [for some member states to] not to bring the vote to the floor.”

But on some major security issues, especially those involving massive human rights abuses such as the situation in Darfur, Slaughter asserted, “I don’t think Russia or the United States wants to be vetoing resolutions if the way the issue is framed makes them look bad.”

One problem in tackling global collective security threats is that different regions of the world perceive those threats differently, commented Stewart Patrick, a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, in the audience during the opening panel’s Q&A session. “It would seem to me that when it comes to terrorism or WMDs [weapons of mass destruction], there are quite divergent perceptions between the U.S. and other western nations and non-western nations,” he said.

“Responsibility to Protect: Theory Versus Reality in Responding to Genocide and Crimes against Humanity.”

During the second panel, titled “Responsibility to Protect: Theory Versus Reality in Responding To Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity,” panelists discussed how the U.N. could implement the so-called “Responsibility to Protect”  (R2P) doctrine, which states that while nations are sovereign entities they still have a responsibility to protect their citizens. When states fail to protect their citizens from genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity, R2P proponents argue, then it becomes the responsibility of the international community to step in.

Moderator Colum Lynch, U.N. correspondent for the Washington Post, questioned the relevance of the doctrine after it was initially invoked by Russia in its recent military action in Georgia; invoked as a reason to invade Burma after the government’s inadequate response to Cyclone Nargis; as well as invoked by those seeking to address ongoing human rights abuses in Darfur.

Panelist Stewart Patrick noted that the doctrine was in part a response to the genocide in Rwanda and in Srebenica and Kosovo in the 1990s. “In my view, R2P represents a profound normative evolution within the context of the U.N.," Patrick said.

R2P makes individual states responsible to protect their citizens but it also makes the international community responsible “to take collective action in a timely manner: to protect civilians if governments fail to do that,” he asserted.

While many in the international community have called for expanding those responsibilities to extend to protecting citizens from hunger, climate change, disease, natural disasters or human rights abuses, that could undermine the “fragile” consensus” behind R2P, Patrick told the audience.

The challenge in implementing R2P is to keep the consensus particularly among “southern states” that might see it as a challenge to their own sovereignty.     But “the thorniest issue” is what action the U.N. can take if there is genocide and the Security Council cannot agree on what action to take, Patrick said.

Ilya Rogachev, Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia to the U.N., said of R2P that from a legal perspective, “perhaps it can be viewed as a regional norm of international law,” and while some member states will accept it, others will not. For example, he pointed out, it could be applied in Africa, Western Europe, or North America as a “regional norm.” But more specifically, Rogachev asserted, R2P “can only be applied in relationship among states which do recognize it as such.”

Before R2P can be fully implemented, he said, “It has to go through a process of intergovernmental negotiations. It has to be discussed by the general U.N. membership - it has not been discussed so far. This is a major stage in its development that cannot be skipped.”

Rogachev said he interprets the doctrine to mean that the U.N. can use “diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means” to protect civilians, but he added that force should be used “on a case-by-case basis,” authorized by the Security Council.

Lee Feinstein, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, disagreed. He argued that the international community through the U.N. must have the capacity to take military action in order to carry out R2P.  That would mean having a peacekeeping force “at the ready,” and having nations commit to contributing to that force.

“Countries aren’t dumb, they know what it’s about when you talk about capacity-building,” Feinstein said.

During the panel’s Q&A session audience member James Traub, a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and Director of Policy for the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect, questioned Rogachev about his remarks regarding the need to bring R2P before the General Assembly and his description of R2P as a regional norm. “Does that mean it only has standing among countries that somehow agreed that they have a shared understanding of it?” Traub asked.

Rogachev replied that believes R2P should be implemented “through a regular process of negotiations.”  He said that there is a responsibility to protect citizens from genocide or war crimes but that there should be limits on what response the U.N. can take, and negotiations should focus on that question.

Stewart said he was also “struck by Ilya Rogachev’s invocation of a regional norm.  At first glance it strikes one as deeply problematic because it raises the specter of a challenge to universalism, and the specter of spheres of influence and the specter of ‘bloc-ism,’ if you will,” he said.

Slaughter asked Rogachev whether Russia would support an international fact-finding commission regarding the Georgia-Russia conflict, in light of initial assertions that Russia was invoking R2P as a reason for military intervention.  “That would at least let everyone know that whatever happens, it’s going to be subject to international scrutiny,” she said.

Rogachev replied that the invasion of Georgia was prompted by attacks on Russian peacekeepers and “the media kept silent about a Georgian attack.” Given that “bias,” he said, “we don’t oppose” a fact-finding mission. “But we have to make up our minds. It’s a difficult choice.”

Audience member Salman Ahmed, on leave this year from the U.N.’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations as a visiting professor and research scholar at the Woodrow Wilson School, during the Q&A session said he spent a year researching the massacre at Srebrenica. “I care deeply about this issue,” he said.

Ahmed noted that several panelists had described a “fragile consensus” around R2P.  “I don’t think that’s stating it starkly enough,” he said.  In the General Assembly, he explained, many member states appear to resent being presented with “a choice between states’ rights and individual rights,” and that needs to change - it cannot be a zero-sum equation.

In addition, the failure of the international community to yet find an effective solution to the crisis in Darfur has deeply tarnished the perception of R2P, Ahmed said. And while member states might agree that there is a responsibility to protect citizens, they are “deeply divided” over the strengths and limits of military means, and confused about the difference between war-fighting and peacekeeping.

“If you put the emphasis back on the suffering of the individuals concerned, rather than on the context in which international intervention takes place,” there will be a greater likelihood to “gain agreement” about the responsibility of states to protect their own citizens, he asserted.

“U.N. Security Council Reform: A Solution to the World’s Security Problems, Or Just More of a Problem?”

In the final panel, titled “U.N. Security Council Reform: A Solution to the World’s Security Problems, Or Just More of a Problem?” panelists took on the issue of whether the Security Council should be reformed and how that reform could be implemented.

Panel moderator Anne-Marie Slaughter noted that the issue of Security Council reform has been discussed for decades, but is becoming increasingly important to nations from Asia and Latin America who feel the Security Council does not represent them. Without reform “they will say it is the United Nations of 1945, it is not the United Nations of the 21st century,” she warned.

Jonas von Freiesleben, a senior research analyst at the Center for U.N. Reform Education, said his organization has been researching and disseminating reform proposals since 1978. But reforming the Security Council is complicated by the fact that it must be approved by two-thirds of the General Assembly, he said.

Today, there are several interest groups of nations calling for reform, he said.  There is the G4 group made up of Germany, India, Brazil, and Japan, who want permanent membership for themselves and would agree not to have veto power for 10 to 15 years.

There is also a group made up of Italy, Pakistan, Argentina, South Korea, Spain and Mexico opposed to having permanent states on the Security Council and favors a rotating regional model.  A group of African states, meanwhile, wants two permanent seats with the right to veto on so-called “sovereign” issues, von Freiesleben explained.

Some have also put forth an interim proposal aimed at breaking the deadlock over Security Council reform that would reform the system now and then review the reforms in 10 to 15 years. But that has the danger of “spilling into a permanent solution” and creates a dangerous precedent, he said.

Jeffrey Laurenti, Director of Foreign Policy Programs at the Century Foundation, said the size of the Security Council is not the problem.  The heart of the problem is that the power of the permanent five members is “frozen in amber” regardless of whether or not they contribute soldiers to peacekeeping operations, he said.

The Princeton Project on National Security of which Slaughter was a co-director, recommended that the veto power be replaced with a “more flexible system of power-weighted voting,” Laurenti pointed out.  (Slaughter noted later that the recommendation applied only to resolutions concerning direct action).

The size of the Security Council does matter, he said, because the Security Council is “often called upon to act quickly in a crisis,” and a larger Council would make quick action more difficult.

Some reforms have been aimed at linking membership status on the Security Council to “measurable contributions to peace and security,” Laurenti explained. That, he argued, could address the problem of having permanent members who are unwilling to contribute to peacekeeping operations.

Ambassador Nirupam Sen, the Permanent Representative of India to the U.N., gave a passionate plea for a “proactive” effort to reform the Security Council or risk making the U.N. “irrelevant.”

Reforming the Security Council, Sen said, is particularly urgent in light of R2P, because the current Charter does not allow the Security Council to take actions to protect human rights or enforce R2P. Under the Charter, the Security Council “ is not a judge, it is a policeman,” he asserted.

Adding more members to the Security Council would add to the international peacekeeping force and make that force more legitimate in the eyes of the world, Sen argued.  If other nations perceive that “the deployment comes from the agents of World War II, then the basic objective which is to have maximum enforcement strength with the minimal of force cannot be achieved.”

Sen disagreed with Laurenti on the question of whether adding to the size of the Security Council would potentially make it less efficient. “Size is only the mechanism, the machinery of a decision, the substances is what’s really important,” he said.

The General Assembly will meet for the first time to negotiate over reform proposals on Nov. 15, Sen said.  “This will be the first time the negotiations are actually held,” he said.

However, reform is difficult because there is little motivation for the five permanent members to agree on reform measures, von Freiesleben said, in answer to an audience member’s question. “Unfortunately, I think the permanent members of today don’t really see any new permanent members able to offer anything new.  There’s only so much of the power ‘cake’ and by adding new permanent members there’ll just be less to eat,” he said.

Sen said that adding members would just be “reform for reform’s sake.”  The only path to true reform, he noted, would be to expand permanent members and have those permanent members be elected from the General Assembly, and be held accountable through a review conference. That would make both new and old members of the Security Council more accountable for their actions.

Dean Slaughter summed up by stating that revising the U.N. Charter is difficult but necessary to “herald the ability of the U.N. to adapt to many different circumstances.”  The future of the U.N. gives the world “two divergent paths for the collective security of the 21st century,” she told the audience.

Given current threats, from the global economy to terrorism, global epidemics, climate change and other issues, the U.N. has an obligation to respond with some type of reform even if it is an imperfect solution, she said. If it does not, the nations of the world in the remainder of the 21st century will become much more fragmented and the potential for collective security will diminish, she warned.

“Speaking personally,” she concluded. “I very much hope that we can find a way to improve the collective security ideals that were embodied first in the League of Nations and then in the United Nations and take them forward into the 21st century."