Global Policy Forum

Tribute to Erskine Childers

GPF participated in a commemorative publication on the life and work of Erskine Childers - one of the main founders of GPF - released by the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation and available on the internet as well as in print form. Childers worked for much of his career at the UN and he embodied the organization at its very best. He was an innovative thinker, a great orator, a believer in peace and social justice, and always one of the UN's most devoted friends and critics. For the commemorative publication, Jim Paul wrote a commentary on a speech by Erskine expressing alarm at the UN's financial crisis. The speech was presented in Rotterdam in 1995, and during the following two years, Jim and Erskine worked together to build a worldwide movement demanding adequate funding for the UN. Erskine liked to point out that the UN's regular budget is less than that of the Tokyo Fire Department. Jim's commentary highlights how the UN's finances still remain precarious and builds on Erskine's critical assessment of the richest countries' inexcusable failure to provide funding, then and now.

Security Council/ Peacekeeping 

GPF organized six meetings of the NGO Working Group on the Security Council, including a luncheon with South African Ambassador Baso Sangqu. There were also meetings with Ambassador Jose Filipe Moraes Cabral of Portugal, Ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo of the United States and Colonel Joaquim Santana of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. The meeting with Colonel Santana was a first of its kind, enabling NGO participants to get an insight in the operational side of peacekeeping from a military officer with great experience in the field and direct knowledge of peace operations in Africa, Haiti and the Balkans. The UN has more than a hundred thousand troops participating in various operations worldwide. But peacekeeping suffers from many operational difficulties, including the problem of bringing together enough troops and equipment to fulfill the mandates given (sometimes unwisely) by the Security Council.

European Union gets New Powers in the General Assembly

GPF has long been interested in regionalism at the United Nations and we have organized several meetings since late 2009 with the new European Union Ambassador, Pedro Serrano. With the Lisbon Treaty, the EU has taken on considerable new powers and has set up its own foreign affairs ministry (known as the External Action Service). GPF has been closely following the EU bid to gain increased powers to speak and introduce texts in the General Assembly. An EU draft resolution to this effect encountered serious opposition when first introduced in September 2010. Finally, after intense negotiations over many months, the GA adopted a resolution on May 3. The GPF team was in the gallery to observe the final, historic vote. Other regional groups will almost certainly follow suit.

Ombudsperson

GPF organized an NGO Working Group meeting in late May with Ombudsperson Kimberly Prost, a Canadian judge and international law expert who has been occupying a very important new post at the UN since June of last year. Courts in Europe and Canada have challenged the legality of the Security Council's sanction regime targetting members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, on the basis that listed individuals are denied due process. These cases, notably the Kadi case in the European Court of Justice, have forced the Council to set up a new process of review through the office of the Ombudsperson - the first step towards a kind of judicial oversight of the Council. The powers of the Ombudsperson remain weak, but Prost is doing her best to build up her authority and to construct a real form of legal accountability that will stand the test of the Courts. As the mandate of the Ombudsperson is coming up for review in June, GPF will be publishing a policy paper highlighting necessary changes.

Conference in Brussels

GPF has long been interested in regionalism at the United Nations and we have organized several meetings since late 2009 with the new European Union Ambassador, Pedro Serrano. With the Lisbon Treaty, the EU has taken on considerable new powers and has set up its own foreign affairs ministry (known as the External Action Service). GPF has been closely following the EU bid to gain increased powers to speak and introduce texts in the General Assembly. An EU draft resolution to this effect encountered serious opposition when first introduced in September 2010. Finally, after intense negotiations over many months, the GA adopted a resolution on May 3. The GPF team was in the gallery to observe the final, historic vote. Other regional groups will almost certainly follow suit.

One of the visitors to the GPF office during May was our longtime friend, Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury, Ambassador of Bangladesh to the UN from 1996 to 2001 and later High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States. Over lunch, he recalled his role in the founding of his country's diplomatic service at the time of independence from Pakistan. He also recalled some of the highlights of his term on the Security Council, notably his sponsorship of the NGO effort that led to Resolution 1325 on "Women and Peace and Security." It was clear from his narrative that a committed and skilled diplomat can accomplish much, even against the wishes of powerful delegations. GPF is taping an interview with him that will be available on the website in a few weeks' time.

Past Events

On May 19, the NGO Working Group on Food & Hunger organized a book launch and discussion led by Rami Zurayk, Professor of Ecosystem Management at the American University of Beirut. Zuriak's latest book, Food, Farming, and Freedom: Sowing the Arab Spring, examines the link between agricultural policies and the recent democratic uprising in the Middle-East. Decades of trade and economic policies imposed on Arab governments by aid donors have led to the evisceration of rural communities and the large-scale migration of displaced farmers to urban centers. The Arab World now imports 80% of the food it consumes and is extremely vulnerable to price spikes and widening hunger.