August 22, 2012
Le Monde Diplomatique: Robert Wade upon The Stiglitz Commission
The Stiglitz (G192) Report
Among those who caring about a predestine of a United Nations it is widely insincere as well as regretted which a UN stood upon a sidelines during a begin of a tellurian monetary crisis, as well as let a G20, a International Monetary Fund as well as a World Bank take a lead in an general response. Jean-Pierre Bugada, arch of information exchnage for France as well as Monaco during a UN Regional Information Centre, pronounced a UN had "missed a boat"(1). The indictment is only partly true. More accurately, horse opera states, with a UK as well as US in a lead, attempted tough to safeguard which a UN did not spin a forum for contention upon a crisis, as well as a UN Secretary-General upheld them.
Soon after a pile-up in 2008, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, a (suspended) Nicaraguan priest as well as former Foreign Minister who was President of a 63rd event of a UN General Assembly, initiated a UN-sponsored study of immediate as well as longer-term measures to lessen a stroke of a crisis, as well as of a necessary reforms of a general monetary architecture. The inform was to be discussed during a specifically convened limit of universe leaders.
This was proba! bly an u nprecedented move: venerable chairman groups are shaped by a Secretariat, as well as routinely by a Secretary-General himself. Brockmann's beginning came from his incomparable agenda of revitalising a General Assembly, where building countries have a healthy infancy an agenda which he announced during a begin of his presidency as well as pursued to a end. When asked either he thought a G7, G8 or G20 would do a many to help residence a crisis, he responded: "I prefer a G192." In combining a group, his incomparable aim was to increase a power of a General Assembly by formulating a fashion of expert commissions, upon a model of a Intergovernmental Panel upon Climate Change.
Western Opposition
The horse opera states, led by a UK as well as US (most responsible for a crisis), against this UN initiative. They longed for a G20 as well as a IMF, in which they have many some-more influence, to take assign of a tellurian response. The UN was to have during many an observer role, as well as a Secretary-General's bureau agreed. Ban Ki-moon's responsiveness to horse opera wishes had been a single of his strongest recruitment assets, after a less-than-fully-compliant Kofi Annan. Nevertheless, Brockmann managed to recruit a high-powered elect chaired by a Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz(2), as well as it produced a report.
Brockmann accepted which a plan had to be kept during a stretch from both a Secretary-General's bureau as well as a Department of Economic as well as Social Affairs (DESA). These would direct which a inform be "balanced" in between neoliberal orthodoxy as well as a some-more heterodox views of a commission's members; they would try to mislay sensitive topics, such as monetary complement law as well as reform, as well as to prevent a inform from giving General Assembly members transpa! rent pri nciples as well as prescriptions for debate. But even Brockmann did not anticipate how aggressively a Secretary-General's bureau spurred upon by US advisers would try to obstruct a work of a commission. Without funding from a UN ubiquitous budget, a president's optional bill was not enough for even a single assembly of a Stiglitz elect (air fares, hotels as well as expenses). Raising a income was a headache: many of it came directly from member states whose names have not been done public.
The US Ambassador to a UN, Susan Rice (right), as well as her staff done it transparent which 
the US supervision thought a G20, not a General Assembly, should be a executive forum for debate, as well as insisted which a UN inform should not interfere. Behind a scenes, a US supervision additionally wished to boost a tellurian leadership purpose of a UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown prior to a April 2009 G20 limit in London.
The UK did many to restrict a commission's work. Its ambassador to a UN, John Sawers, was hostile to a project, as well as orchestrated phone calls from a British tactful service to nearly all members of a elect telling them they should quit to avoid personal as well as professional embarrassment. None quit; a little were amused.
US Strategy
The inform was still presented, as well as a vital UN discussion was hold in Jun 2009 to plead it, with a tiny series of heads of government. On a night before of a limit US President Barack Obama as well as his advisers debated either a US should determine to a document drafted as a discussion output. US Treasury Se! cretary Timothy Geithner (left) was adamantly opposed. Susan Rice was (tactically) ambivalent as well as argued which a US should not kill a primary vital UN discussion upon a new administration's watch. So they reached a compromise.
At a discussion a US voted to authorize a document; then a series dual in a US delegation, John Sammis, read out a statement of "clarification" which listed multiform substantive US disagreements with a document(3). The UN was, he concluded, a wrong venue for contention of many of a issues: "The strengths of a United Nations distortion in a extended growth charge as well as vast field presence. Our clever view is which a United Nations does not have a expertise or a charge to offer as a befitting forum or yield direction upon reserve systems, general monetary institutions, as well as a general monetary architecture."
The UK as well as US worked tough to safeguard which mainstream press coverage would be dismissive of a UN "farce", "circus" as well as "embarrassment" a terms Sawers used in his campaign to discredit a effort: they succeeded in removing those terms picked up across a media. The attacks occasionally referred to a substance of a issues or to a quality of a elect report.
The horse opera states, concurrent by a US as well as UK, fought to safeguard a UN could not do follow-up work, as well as deserted a offer which a elect inform back to a General Assembly a following year. The a single agreed follow-up routine was a vaguely worked commitment to settle an "open-ended operative group". The commission's organisers got a promise from Dr Ali Abdussalam Treki, a incoming President of a General Assembly, which he would go upon to await a project; but as shortly as he took bureau he dropped a idea, as well as his successors have not picked it up.
The total plan for a UN General Assembly to take! a lead in a general plead about a tellurian monetary predicament stalled there. As a West wanted, a G20 did a preparatory work as well as a IMF reassumed a purpose of sole bona fide forum for negotiations.
Sawers left a UN in 2009 to spin arch of a UK comprehension service MI6. Treki failed to await a follow-on: he is from Libya, as well as seems to have done a personal case to US as well as UK comprehension to be spared a predestine of a rest of his government. A tiny series of building countries, as well as an EU delegation unwilling to take sincere responsibility for quashing a follow-up, kept a General Assembly routine upon life support. Debate continued in a Economic as well as Social Council (ECOSOC), to which a little topics had been referred for recommendations to a General Assembly. Some non-UN organisations additionally helped; a Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (German Social Democratic Foundation) sponsored expert dialogues upon applicable subjects. A couple of courageous building countries have solemnly rebuilt a case for a modest General Assembly purpose upon specific issues (commodity price volatility, extended mechanisms for emperor debt resolution).
Another Fight
Since there is a clever rule requiring formal follow-up to any vital UN
conference, a plan could not be abandoned. But there was another fight over a reporting back to a General Assembly. The US as well as UK longed for to make sure it was a one-off event, as well as be organized to guarantee which a conclusions would await horse opera arguments.
The General Assembly's European co-facilitator from San Marino was appointed to consult with member states and, with a help of a Secretary-General's office, planned a one-off two-day "high-level thematic plead upon a state of a universe economy" to showcase ! a heads of a IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organisation, OECD as well as alternative mainstream eminences. At a finish of this a co-facilitators would emanate a report, as well as which would thankfully be it.
It did not utterly spin out which way. The plead was hold this May, roughly three years after a primary conference. The co-sponsors (Ban Ki-moon as well as a current boss of a General Assembly) failed to attract a head of any vital non-UN organisation. With couple of exceptions, a heads of state as well as supervision who participated were from small, building countries. But however downgraded, a event did affirm which a conclusions should yield submit for further UN follow-up to a report, ensuring which a plead was not utterly a finish of a affair.
All this confirms a tendency of heading horse opera states to marginalise UN organisations over mercantile as well as monetary issues, tying them instead to monitoring technical issues, as well as soft issues such as interloper aid as well as poverty reduction. They react to assertiveness from building countries by forcing gridlock in multilateral organisations as well as finding, or creating, alternative venues in which they have clearer dominance. Given a stalemate, there is consequence in anticipating alternative institutions to handle tools of incomparable tellurian issues; but heading horse opera states lift a vast share of responsibility for formulating a stalemate.
The UN remains a bona fide tellurian governance organization as well as should be personification a executive coordinating purpose in monetary as well as mercantile issues. Western states might offer their own short-term interests by marginalising it as well as relying upon a G7, a G20, a IMF, a Financial Stability Board as well as a Basel Committee, where they are still dominant. They should recognise which it is in their longer-term interests to keep a UN going as a executive coordinating venue, issuing aspirational declarations, even if those statements are not what a! West wa nts to hear. The cost of a UN to a budgets of a main contributing states is really small; as well as repeated interaction helps taking flight powers to get used to tellurian responsibilities. Meanwhile, a story of a Stiglitz elect underlines a responsibility of horse opera media to commence some-more eccentric review rsther than than parrot a views of representatives of horse opera states as their own.
Robert H Wade is highbrow of domestic manage to buy as well as growth during a London School of Economics, author of Governing a Market, Princeton University Press, 2003, as well as winner of a Leontief Prize in Economics in 2008
(1) See Anne-Ccile Robert, "The alternative UN", Le Monde diplomatique, English edition, Jun 2012.
(2) Its full name was a Commission of Experts of a President of a United Nations General Assembly upon Reforms of a International Monetary as well as Financial System.
(3) Statement by John F Sammis, Alternate Head of Delegation, upon a embracing a cause of a outcome of a United Nations Conference upon a World Financial as well as Economic Crisis as well as a Impact upon Development, 26June 2009.
*Members of a Stiglitz Commission: Mr. Joseph E. Stiglitz (USA), Chairperson, Mr. Andrei Bongror (Russia), Mr. Yousef Boutros-Ghali (Egypt), Mr. Jean-Paul Fitoussi (France),Mr. Charles A. Goodhart (United Kingdom), Mr. Robert Johnson (USA), Mr.Jomo Kwame Sundaram (United Nations), Mr. Benno Ndulo (Tanzania), Mr. Jose Antonio Ocampo (Colombia), Mr. Pedro Paez (Ecuador), Mr.Yaya Venugopal Reddy (India), Mr. Avinash Persaud (Barbados), Mr. Rubens Ricupero (Brazil), Mr. Eisuke Sakakibara (Japan), Ms. Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul! (German y), Mr. Yu Yongding (China) as well as Ms. Zeti Aktar Aziz (Malaysia)
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