UN reform confronts 'irrelevancy'

Fending off critics who claim it has grown "irrelevant," the United Nations this week released "the most comprehensive blueprint for change" in its six decades.

The report outlines expansion of UN Security Council membership from 15 to 24, and suggests that the "nightmare scenarios" that mix terrorists with weapons of mass destruction may justify preventive action "before a latent threat becomes imminent."

In a world body badly bruised by failure to fully enforce 12 years of resolutions against Saddam Hussein and the US decision to invade Iraq without Council approval, this will spur needed debate, analysts say.

"There's recognition the world security situation has changed," says Terence Taylor, director of the US office of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Yet the obstacle to real reform remains unchanged, say Taylor and others: the decisive veto that the five permanent Council members - the United States, Great Britain, France, Russia, and China - will neither relinquish nor share.

"You're not going to have a major power acting in contravention of its national interest," says Mr. Taylor.

That self-interest, embodied by the veto, will determine if the Security Council acts or doesn't act when the next crisis emerges.

Nevertheless, the recommendations produced by a blue-ribbon panel of former diplomats and world leaders may represent a stride forward.

The report endorses Council proactivity in the face of global terrorism, genocide and ethnic cleansing, and "soft threats" like poverty, HIV/AIDS and environmental degradation. It seeks to define "terrorism," a traditional source of UN disharmony. And from Washington's perspective, the reference to "latent" threats comes close to the "grave and gathering threat" the Bush administration applied to Iraq.

The UN Charter has always allowed for self-defense against "imminent" attack, but not against a suspected "threat." This report lays out five "criteria of legitimacy" for using force: seriousness of the threat, proper purpose, last resort, proportional means, and balance of consequences. But it reaffirms the need for Council authorization, which carries the weight of international law.

Some critics are already pouring cold water on the report.

For example, they say, all five criteria are open to partisan interpretation. Consider the statement: "Force, if it needs to be used, should be deployed as a last resort." Who determines whether all means have been exhausted? Any of five veto-wielding nations may decide otherwise.

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