July 14, 2003

On June 6, 2003, Mr. Shashi Tharoor, Undersecretary General for Communications and Public Information, the United Nations, addressed the Second International Conference of Mayors, held in conjunction with the 71st United States Conference of Mayors. His presence was made possible by the support of the United Nations Foundation and its sister organization, the Better World Fund. The Conference of Mayors is grateful to the United Nations Foundation/ Better World Fund for this support.

The United Nations Foundation (UNF) promotes a more peaceful, prosperous, and just world through support of the United Nations and its Charter. Through grantmaking and establishment of new and innovative public-private partnerships, the Foundation acts on pressing health, humanitarian, socioeconomic, and environmental challenges. In cooperation with its sister organization, the Better World Fund, UNF supports outreach efforts to educate the public about the UN's unique role in forging international cooperation and addressing key global issues.

Mr. Tharoor's address is presented in full below.

Thank you, Mr. Webb, for showing that American mayors care about the planet.

Today I would like to speak about the relevance of the U.N. in the aftermath of Iraq — Where the future of the U.N. is to go.

Recent History of the U.N.

The U.N. was founded during a period when the world had known almost nothing but war and strife, bookended between two savage world wars that began within twenty-five years of each other. In the first half of the twentieth century people scarcely had the luxury of deciding whether they were interested in politics. Politics took a thoroughly intrinsic interest in them. Horror succeeded horror until we reached the Holocaust and Hiroshima, and had we continued on like that, the future of the human race would have been bleak indeed. Happily they did not go on like that.

The second half of the twentieth century was far from perfect, but who could deny that it was a spectacular improvement on the first half. Oh, yes, there were terrible atrocities, such as the partition of India and the Cultural Revolution in China, and all too familiar at the end of the century, the ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia and genocide in Rwanda. Yes, there were many brutal colonial wars, followed all too often by civil wars and several very bloody international wars, notably in Indochina and South Asia and the Middle East, and, yes, we can't forget the precarious balance of nuclear terror. All of humanity could have perished at almost any moment if there had been a single serious miscalculation by the leaders of either one of the superpowers. Thank God that did not happen.

And there is much else to be thankful for, besides. The overall record of the second half of the twentieth century is actually one of great advances. The world economy recovered from the devastation in 1945 and expanded as never before with amazing technical and technological progress. However, as we were reminded by the two speakers before me, while many in the industrial world enjoy a level of prosperity and access to a range of experiences that your grandparents could scarcely have dreamed of, most of the developing world lags far behind. Billions of people still live in extreme and degrading poverty, but even there, there has been real change and there has even been spectacular growth. Child mortality has been reduced, literacy has spread, the peoples of the so-called third world threw off the yoke of colonialism. Those of the Soviet Bloc won political freedom. Democracy is not yet universal, but it is now more the norm than the exception.

Did all this happen by accident? No! It happened because in and after 1945 a group of farsighted leaders were determined to make the second half of the twentieth century different from the first. They saw that the human race had just one world to live in and that unless it managed its affairs better, the entire human race might suffer, indeed might all perish. So they drew up rules to govern international behavior, and they founded institutions in which different nations could cooperate for the common good.

The keystone of the arch, so to speak, charged with keeping the peace between all nations and bringing all of them together in the quest for freedom and prosperity was the United Nations itself. The U.N. was seen explicitly by visionaries like Franklin Delano Roosevelt as the only possible alternative to the disastrous experiences of the first half of the twentieth century.

The U.N. was created to stand for a world in which people of different nations and cultures looked on each other not as objects of fear and suspicion, but as potential partners able to exchange goods and ideas to their mutual benefit. It was a world of increasing openness, of imperial contraction making way for economic expansion, of growing mutual confidence, above all a world of hope.

Indispensability of the United Nations

But why, you may ask, am I speaking about that kind of world in the past tense? Let me tell you. It has more to do with mood than tense. Three months ago, in early March, at the height of the debates in the Security Council about whether or not to authorize war in Iraq, a BBC interviewer rather glibly asked me, "So how do you people at the U.N. feel about being seen as the -I- word, irrelevant?" He was about to go on when I interrupted him.

"As far as we-re concerned," I retorted, "the 'I' word is 'indispensable'." It wasn-t just a debating point. Those of us who toil every day at the headquarters of the U.N., and, even more, our colleagues on the front lines in the field, have become a little exasperated at seeing our institutional obituaries in the press. On Iraq in fact we were hit on both sides.

Just a couple of days ago a new poll, a worldwide poll, has been announced, which shows the U.N.'s credibility has suffered in countries other than America because of the U.N.'s failure to prevent America going to war, whereas in America, we seem to have lost credibility because the U.N. didn't help America go to war. So I think, as politicians, you know what it's like to be at the receiving end of both sides. We all know the Security Council did not agree to the draft resolution placed before it, and the U.S. went to war anyway. Does that mean that the U.N. is finished? No, I would not say so. As Mark Twain put it when he saw his own obituary in the newspaper, reports of the U.N.'s demise are premature.

First of all, the U.S. is back at the U.N. on Iraq. The new resolution that was passed to the Security Council a fortnight ago lifted economic sanctions on Iraq and invited the Secretary General to appoint a special representative who is there now, contributing to a political process leading, we hope, to an internationally-recognized democratic government in Iraq. More important, its very submission by the U.S. to the Security Council was an acknowledgment by Washington that there is no substitute to the unique legitimacy provided by the United Nations. And let's not forget that when President Bush made his historic speech to the General Assembly last September, he didn't frame Iraq as an issue of unilateral U.S. wishes, but rather as an issue as to the implementation of United Nations Security Council resolutions, so the U.N. and early decisions of the Security Council remained at the heart of case against Iraq.

Second, the U.N.'s universality is what makes it indispensable. Every country on earth belongs to the United Nations, including the world's only superpower. Every newly-independent state seeks entry almost as its first order of governmental business. In fact, the United Nations is now seen as so essential to the future of the world that Switzerland, long a holdout because of its fierce neutrality, decided by referendum last year to end its isolation and joined the U.N. No club that attracts every eligible member can easily be described as irrelevant.

And of course disagreement on the Security Council on Iraq masks a great deal of agreement on everything else; in fact during the very same week that the Council was disagreeing on Iraq, the same ambassadors at the same time were agreeing on a host of vital issues around the world from Cypress to the Congo, from C™te D-Ivoire in western Africa to the challenges in Afghanistan. In other words, there is much more agreement in the United Nations than the newspaper headlines might suggest. And as the new resolution on Iraq suggests, exactly as happened a few years ago on Kosovo, this is not the first time that the United Nations has been deemed to be irrelevant for a war but considered essential to the ensuing peace.

Problems Without Passports

But let me go beyond that and say we should not forget that the relevance of the United Nations does not stand or fall based on its conduct on any one issue alone. Beyond Iraq, the world continues to face what Secretary General Kofi Annan calls problems without passports. Problems that cross all frontiers uninvited. Problems of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, of the degradation of our common environment, of contagious disease and chronic starvation, of human rights and human wrongs, of mass illiteracy and massive displacement. I think the presence of two African mayors here has reminded us that the tragic confluence of AIDS, drought and famine in parts of Africa has threatened and continues to threaten more human lives than anything that happened anywhere near Iraq. These are problems that no one country, however powerful, can solve on its own, and yet they are the shared responsibility of humankind. They cry out for solutions, that like the problems themselves, also cross frontiers.

The U.N. exists to find these solutions through the common endeavor of all states. I know it's not perfect but it is, after all, a mirror of the world. It reflects our divisions and disagreements as much as our hopes and convictions. It's folly to discredit an entire institution for the disagreements of its members. None of you would scrap your city councils because a bill failed to pass, though I am sure you would be tempted sometimes to do so. In fact, the U.N.'s record of success and failure is no worse than that of the most highly regarded governments. Yet somehow it seems that it's only the U.N. that is apparently expected to succeed all the time.

Dag Hammarskjold, the U.N.'s great second Secretary General said once "The United Nations was not created to take mankind to paradise, but merely to save humanity from hell." And that it has innumerable times. (Applause) Thank you, and, indeed, it has innumerable times. Yet how quickly we forget, like during the Cold War the United Nations played the indispensable role of preventing regional and local conflicts and crises from igniting a global superpower conflagration.

The U.N. Affects People at Every Level

But let me get beyond the big picture, to the little picture. Many of you may well ask, as mayors of your cities, well, how does this affect my ordinary citizens and voters? Maybe this is only something that people in New York and Washington need to worry about or agree on. Let me tell you how it does. I'm sure most of you in this room have taken an international flight. Well, the next time you take an international flight, think of the United Nations, because it's a U.N. body, the International Civil Aviation Organization that makes it possible for you to fly around the world. It's the U.N. that writes the rules that apply universally to ground staff, maintenance crews and air traffic controllers everywhere. For example it's a U.N. rule that all pilots and air traffic controllers everywhere in the world have to have a common language, English, even in Paris. But would you like to be in an American aircraft landing in Japan if we didn't have this rule?

And if while you-re on that flight, you don't encounter too much turbulence, think of the U.N. Because it's a U.N. body, the World Meteorological Organization, that actually studies the global climate patterns throughout the world. They maintain something called the VIGIL system that tracks areas of turbulence and lets the airline companies know.

And if there isn't too much turbulence and you sit down to a good meal on your plane, which, of course, I wouldn-t always recommend, depending on the airline you-re flying on, think of the U.N. Because the odds are better than two in three that some of the food in your plastic tray was actually grown by a farmer in a developing country, using expertise, advice and miracle seeds given to them by a U.N. body, the Food and Agricultural Organization. And then if you were to relax and watch a Hollywood movie on that flight, think of the United Nations. Because it's the U.N.'s World Intellectual Property Organization that manages the global regime of patents and copyrights that makes it possible for you to enjoy a film, a book, a CD, produced in one country in another.

And then if you land safely and, of course, if there was too much turbulence and if what you ate on the plane didn't exactly agree with you, you might have to go to a hospital. Think of the U.N. then too. Because it's the U.N. body, the World Health Organization, that eradicated smallpox, that is leading the current fight against SARS, the dangerous epidemic from China and Hong Kong. It's UNICEF that's inoculating kids against polio. It's U.N. AID that is coordinating the global battle against AIDS. But of course if you did have a good flight, and you don't have to go to the hospital, and you walk on to your hotel, and you turn on your TV set or your radio in the hotel, think of the United Nations. Because it's the U.N.'s International Telecommunications Union that manages that entire global system of satellite frequencies and bandwidths so that you don't have each country broadcasting on other countries' frequencies and you don't get a confused jumble of static when you turn on your TV. And then if you go off and visit a tourist site, think of the U.N., because the U.N.'s UNESCO preserves World Heritage Sites around the world. For that matter, if you send a postcard home to your family, think about the U.N. because it's the U.N.'s Universal Postal Union that makes it possible for a stamp issued in Switzerland to be honored here in America

The U.N. — Indispensable Global Institution

I could go on and give you twenty more examples, but I think you get the message. The idea is, the U.N. is present in your daily lives without your even realizing it. You are living the United Nations. Because, you see, the U.N. is merely the label we-ve put on the kinds of things we'd have to do together anyway in our increasingly interdependent world. It is the one indispensable global institution in our increasingly globalizing world.

And now today, whether you are a citizen of the United States or the United Arab Emirates, whether you are from Denver or Durban, it is simply not realistic to think only in terms of your own country. Global forces threaten from every conceivable direction. We-re all being influenced by the same tides of change. People, goods and ideas cross borders and cover vast distances with ever greater frequency, speed, and ease. We-re increasingly connected through travel, trade, the Internet, what we watch, what we eat, and even the games we play. In such a world, issues that once seemed so far away are very much in your backyard. What happens in South America or Southern Africa, from democratic advances to deforestation to the fight against AIDS, can affect your lives here in the United States. Your choices here, what you buy, how you vote, can resound far away. As someone once said about water pollution, "We all live downstream."

Now this interdependence generates a host of new and urgent demands. As you all know, towns and villages and cities have their planning boards, their fire departments, their recycling centers. Nations have their legislatures and judicial bodies. Our world too needs its institutions and standards, but I'm not talking about world government. I know most Americans are allergic to the concept, and such an idea is neither practical nor even desirable in today's world. What we-re talking about is laws and norms that countries negotiate together and agree to, what are called the rules of the road, and a forum where sovereign states can come together to share burdens, address common problems, and seize common opportunities. You are one such forum. The global forum is the United Nations.

Some people in the U.S. ask, "Why does the world's sole superpower need an organization like the U.N.?" And the answer is simple, "Global challenges demand global solutions." American jobs depend not only on local firms and factories, but on faraway markets for the goods they produce. The safety of America depends not only on local police forces, but on guarding against the global spread of pollution, disease, illegal drugs, and weapons of mass destruction. The problems without passports, which I referred to earlier, are those that no one country, however powerful, can solve on its own. When the tragic horror of 9/11 hit the United States, it was the U.N. Security Council that passed two vital resolutions, which provided the international framework of the global battle against terrorism. These two resolutions required nations, all the countries of the world, to interdict arms flows, to freeze financial transfers to suspected terrorist groups, to report on the movement of suspected terrorists, to update their national legislation. Without the legal authority that comes from an U.N. Security Council resolution, the U.S. would have been hard pressed to obtain such cooperation retail from 191 individual member countries. That's one example of how a global institution is in the direct security interest of the United States.

So, let me end by saying that we have reached the moment that we are going to rap up this session, and we are all like Egyptian mummies pressed for time. Let me just say that the fact is that the United Nations does help establish the norms that even you in the United States want to see the world live by. People in nations around the globe retain the hope of strengthening the foundation of hope and uniting around common values. The United Nations for all its imperfections, real or imagined, has built up real experience. It has brought humanitarian relief to millions in need. It has helped people rebuild their countries from the ruins of armed conflict. It has fought poverty, protected the rights of children, protected democracy, and raised the profile of environmental issues. In the name of our common humanity, we need to build on that experience.

And it's important to remember the distinction between the United Nations as stage and the United Nations as actor. At one level, we are simply a stage on which the member states play their parts. They have their agreements and their disagreements. But we are also the actor embodied by the Secretary General, by the peacekeeping operations, the agencies like UNICEF, by individuals on the staff like myself, who go out to execute what the world's governments agree upon in the name of all of us. That is something that we try to do in all sorts of domains everywhere, and that is why I am proud to use that other -I- word to affirm the U.N.'s indispensability as the only effective instrument the world has available to confront the challenges that will remain when Iraq has passed from the headlines.

Dag Hammarskjold once described the United Nations as a kind of adventure, a new Santa Maria, to use the name of Christopher Columbus's ship, battling its way through many a storm. But he said, on the shore, were people who blamed the storm on the ship. Five decades later his metaphor, sadly holds true. The U.N. is continuing to sail on uncharted waters, and we-re continually being blamed for the squalls that assail us.

But I think that if we are guided by the compass of our determination to live in a world governed by shared values and common rules and to steer together in the multilateral institutions that the enlightened leaders of the twentieth century gave the world, I think we can indeed fulfill those great hopes of making this century better than the last.

"Is There Someone Else?"

When I see the notorious bumper stickers that say, "Let's get the U.S. out of the U.N. and the U.N. out of the U.S.," I'm reminded of a dreadful old story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, where Adam finds that Eve is becoming a bit indifferent to him, so Adam says to Eve, "Eve, is there someone else?"

Now you think about that for a minute. Because you could say the same thing about the United Nations. Is there anyone else, any other institution that brings together all the countries of the world who dream the same dreams? There is not. And I believe this is the only United Nations that we have, and we need to count on the support of responsible leaders like all of you present in this room to ensure that we can make it work for the betterment of all of us. Thank you very much and have a good conference.