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Robert M. Hutchins: Building on Earlier Foundations

In Being a World Citizen, Conflict Resolution, Democracy, Human Development, Human Rights, Social Rights, The Search for Peace, United Nations, World Law on January 17, 2016 at 5:16 PM

ROBERT M. HUTCHINS: BUILDING ON EARLIER FOUNDATIONS
By René Wadlow

Much of our current work for a more just and peaceful world builds on the thinking and efforts of earlier foundations. An important foundation is the leading role of Robert M. Hutchins, long-time President of the University of Chicago (1929-1951) whose birth anniversary we mark on January 17.

Hutchins’ father, William, was President of Berea, a small but important liberal arts college, so Robert Hutchins (1899-1977) was set to follow the family pattern. He went to Yale Law School and stayed on to teach. He quickly became the Dean of the Law School and was spotted as a rising star of United States (US) education. When he was 30 years old, he was asked to become President of the University of Chicago, a leading institution. Hutchins was then the youngest president of a US university.

In the first decade of his tenure, the 1930s, his ideas concerning undergraduate education − compulsory survey courses, early admission after two years of secondary school for bright and motivated students, a concentration on “Great Books” – an examination of seminal works of philosophy in particular Plato and Aristotle − divided the University of Chicago faculty. There were strong and outspoken pro- and anti-Hutchins faculty groups. Moreover, Hutchins’ abolition of varsity football and ending the University’s participation in the “Big Ten” university football league distressed some alumni whose link to the university was largely limited to attending football games. For Hutchins, a university was for learning and discussion, not for playing sports. As he famously said, “When I feel like exercising, I sit down until the feeling goes away.”

It is Hutchins’ creation and leadership of the Committee to Frame a World Constitution in 1945 which makes him one of the intellectual founders of the movement for world federation and world citizenship. After the coming to power of Hitler in Germany in 1933 and his quick decision to ban Jewish professors from teaching in German universities, many Jewish scientists and professors left Germany and came to the USA. Some of the leading natural scientists joined the University of Chicago. Thus began the “Metallurgy Project” as the work on atomic research was officially called. The University of Chicago team did much of the theoretical research which led to the Atom Bomb. While Hutchins was not directly involved in the atomic project, he understood quickly the nature of atomic energy and its military uses. He saw that the world would never return to a “pre-atomic” condition and that new forms of world organization were needed.

 

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Robert M. Hutchins

“The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.”

-Robert Maynard Hutchins.

 

On August 12, 1945, a few days after the use of the atom bombs, Hutchins made a radio address “Atomic Force: Its Meaning for Mankind” in which he outlined the need for strong world institutions, stronger than the United Nations (UN) Charter, whose drafters earlier in the year did not know of the destructive power of atomic energy.

Several professors of the University of Chicago were already active in peace work such as Mortimer Adler, G. A. Borgese, and Richard McKeon, Dean of the undergraduate college. The three approached Hutchins saying that as the University of Chicago had taken a lead in the development of atomic research, so likewise, the university should take the lead in research on adequate world institutions. By November 1945, a 12-person Committee to Frame a World Constitution was created under Hutchins’ chairmanship. The Committee drew largely on existing faculty of the University of Chicago − Wilber Katz, Dean of the Law School and Rexford Tugwell who taught political science but who had been a leading administrator of the Roosevelt New Deal and Governor of Puerto Rico. Two retired professors from outside Chicago were added − Charles McIlwain of Harvard, a specialist on constitutions, and Albert Guerard of Stanford, a French refugee who was concerned about the structure of post-war Europe.

From 1947 to 1951, the Committee published a monthly journal Common Cause many of whose articles still merit reading today as fundamental questions concerning the philosophical basis of government, human rights, distribution of power, and the role of regions are discussed. The Preliminary Draft of a World Constitution was published in 1948 and reprinted in the Saturday Review of Literature edited by Norman Cousins and in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists some of whom were in the original “Metallurgy Project”. The Preliminary Draft raised a good deal of discussion, reflected in the issues of Common Cause. There was no second draft. The Preliminary Draft was as G.A. Borgese said, quoting Dante “…of the True City at least the Tower.”

 

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In 1951, Hutchins retired from the presidency of the University of Chicago for the Ford Foundation and then created the Ford Foundation-funded Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions where he gathered together some of his co-workers from the University of Chicago.

Two ideas from The Preliminary Draft are still part of intellectual and political life for those concerned with a stronger UN. The first is the strong role of regional organizations. When The Preliminary Draft was written the European Union was still just an idea and most of the States now part of the African Union were European colonies. The Preliminary Draft saw that regional groups were institutions of the future and should be integrated as such in the world institution. Today, the representatives of States belonging to regional groupings meet together at the UN to try to reach a common position, but regional groups are not part of the official UN structure. However, they may be in the future.

The other lasting aspect of The Preliminary Draft is the crucial role that nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) should play. The then recently drafted UN Charter had created a “consultative status” for NGOs, but few of the UN Charter drafters foresaw the important role that NGOs would play as the UN developed. The Preliminary Draft had envisaged a Syndical Senate to represent occupational associations on the lines of the International Labor Organization where trade unions and employer associations have equal standing with government delegates. In 1946, few people saw the important role that the NGOs would later play in UN activities. While there is no “Syndical Senate”, today NGOs represent an important part of the UN process.

Hutchins, however, was also a reflection of his time. There were no women as members of the Committee to Frame a World Constitution, and when he created the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions with a large number of “fellows”, consultants, and staff, women were also largely absent.

The effort to envisage the structures and processes among the different structures was an innovative contribution to global institution building at the time, and many of the debates and reflections are still crucial for today.

For an understanding of the thinking of those involved in writing The Preliminary Draft see:
Mortimor Adler, How to think about War and Peace (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1944)
Rexford Tugwell, Chronicle of Jeopardy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955)
G. A. Borgese, Foundations of the World Republic (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1953)
Scott Buchanan, Essay in Politics (New York: Philosophical Library, 1953)
For a life of Hutchins written by a co-worker in the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions:
Harry Ashmore, Unreasonable Truths: The Life of Robert Maynard Hutchins (Boston: Little, Brown and Co, 1989)

Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.

UN-Designated Day for Developing Awareness of Human Trafficking

In Being a World Citizen, Children's Rights, Current Events, Human Development, Human Rights, International Justice, Social Rights, Solidarity, United Nations, Women's Rights, World Law on January 11, 2016 at 11:23 PM

The World, Its Protection, Its Citizens

In Being a World Citizen, Conflict Resolution, Cultural Bridges, Democracy, Environmental protection, Human Development, Human Rights, International Justice, Solidarity, The Search for Peace, United Nations, World Law on December 30, 2015 at 12:13 PM

THE WORLD, ITS PROTECTION, ITS CITIZENS

By René Wadlow

-- AWC-UN Geneva Logo --
On behalf of the Association of World Citizens, I would like to send you our best wishes for 2016.

May it be a year that brings peace and harmony closer to our world. Progress in the world is based on the emergence of ideas, their acceptance, their transformation into ideals, and then into programs of action.

2015 has seen within the United Nations (UN) system two major frameworks of ideas and suggested plans of action. The first was the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals, and the second was the Paris COP 21 goals and treaty to deal with climate change.  These guidelines require close cooperation among national governments, the UN and other multilateral government institutions such as the European Union, and the wide range of non-governmental organizations including business and agriculture associations.  We need to move from fragmented efforts to strong partnerships.

However, these positive goals need to be seen against the background of current armed conflicts and violent extremism often rooted in a deadly mix of exclusion and marginalization, mismanagement of natural resources, oppression and the alienation arising from a lack of jobs and opportunities. The World is in need of protection, both of people and Nature.  As Citizens of the World, we have a sense of responsibility to participate fully in the emerging world society where disputes among States are settled within the framework of world law and through negotiations in good faith so that common interests may be found and developed.

As Citizens of the World, we have a sense of compassion for Nature, and thus we unite to safeguard the delicate balance of the natural environment and to develop the world’s resources for the common good.

Today, we all face a choice between those forces that would drive us apart, forces and attitudes such as racism, narrow nationalism and the aggressive pursuit of self-interest on the one hand, and on the other hand, those forces which promote an emerging world society that is equitable and harmonious. I am sure that you also will choose to work for wholeness, harmony and creativity.

Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.

International Day of Migrants: Need for a UN-led World Conference on Migration and Refugee Flows

In Being a World Citizen, Conflict Resolution, Current Events, Europe, Fighting Racism, Human Rights, Solidarity, The Search for Peace, United Nations, World Law on December 18, 2015 at 9:52 AM

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF MIGRANTS: NEED FOR A UN-LED WORLD CONFERENCE ON MIGRATION AND REFUGEE FLOWS

By René Wadlow

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December 18 was set by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly to call attention to the role of migrants in the world society. The date was chosen to mark the creation of the UN-negotiated International Convention on the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families. The aim of the Convention was to insure that migrants and their families would continue to be covered by the human rights standards set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Covenants, and other human rights treaties. In practice, migrants are often “between two chairs” − no longer of concern to the State they have left and not yet covered by the human rights laws of the State to which they have gone.

Ratifications of the Convention have been slow with a good number of governments making reservations that generally weaken the impact of the Convention. In 2004, a commission of independent experts was set up to study the reports to the UN of governments on the application of the Convention − a commission that is part of the Human Rights Treaty Body System. Reports from each government party to the Convention are to be filed once every four years. However, the discussions within the Migration Treaty Body and its subsequent report attract the attention of only a small number of people. However, the discussion deals with the report of only one government at a time while migration is always a multi-State issue and can have worldwide implications.

Moreover, many States consider that earlier International Labor Organization conventions deal adequately with migrant rights and see no need to sign a new convention.

Citizens of the world have stressed that the global aspects of migration flows have an impact on all countries. The changing nature of the world’s economies modify migration patterns, and there is a need to plan for migration as the result of possible environmental-climate changes.

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The current flow of migrants and refugees to Europe has become a high profile political issue. Many migrants come from areas caught up in armed conflict: Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia. The leaders of the European Union (EU) have been divided and unsure in their responses. Local solidarity networks that offer food, shelter, and medical care are overwhelmed. Political debates over how to deal with the refugees have become heated, usually with more heat than light. The immediacy of the refugee exodus requires our attention, our compassion, and our sense of organization.

EU officials have met frequently to discuss how to deal with the migrant-refugee flow, but a common policy has so far been impossible to establish. At a popular level, there have been expressions of fear of migrants, of possible terrorists among them, and a rejection of their cultures. These popular currents, often increased by right-wing political parties make decisions all the more difficult to take. An exaggerated sense of threat fuels anti-immigration sentiments and creases a climate of intolerance and xenophobia.

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Therefore, the Association of World Citizens, which is in consultative status with the UN, is calling for a UN-led world conference on migration and refugee issues, following earlier UN world conferences on the environment, food, housing, women, population, youth, human rights and other world issues. The pattern of such UN-led world conferences usually follows a common pattern: encouragement of research and data collection by UN agencies, national governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and academic institutions. Then regional meetings are held to study the regional dimensions of the issue. The regional conferences are followed by the world conference of government representatives with the participation of NGO delegates of organizations which hold consultative status. Usually there is also a parallel NGO conference with a wider range of NGOs present, especially those active at the local or national level. From such a world conference a plan of action is set to influence action by UN agencies, national governments, and NGOs.

Only a UN-led conference with adequate research and prior discussions can meet the challenges of worldwide migration and continuing refugee flows. There is a need to look at both short-term emergency humanitarian measures and at longer-range migration patterns, especially at potential climate modification impact. A UN-led world conference on migration can highlight possible trends and especially start to build networks of cooperation to meet this world challenge.

Prof. René Wadlow is President and a representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva of the Association of World Citizens.

The Genocide Convention: An Unused But Not Forgotten Standard of World Law

In Being a World Citizen, Current Events, Fighting Racism, Human Rights, International Justice, United Nations, War Crimes, World Law on December 9, 2015 at 7:58 PM

THE GENOCIDE CONVENTION: AN UNUSED BUT NOT FORGOTTEN STANDARD OF WORLD LAW

By René Wadlow

On the anniversary of the 1948 Convention on Genocide, it is imperative to identify a relevant existing body – such as the Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) – to strengthen in order to be able to deal with the first signs of tensions, especially “direct and public incitement to commit genocide.”

December 9 is the anniversary of the 1948 Convention on Genocide, signed at the UN General Assembly held in 1948 in Paris. The Genocide Convention was signed the day before the proclamation on December 10, 1948 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The two texts were much influenced by the Second World War. The crimes of Nazi Germany were uppermost in the minds of those who drafted the Genocide Convention in order to deal with a new aspect of international law and the laws of war. The cry was “Never again!”

The protection of civilians from deliberate mass murder was already in The Hague and Geneva Conventions of international humanitarian law. However, genocide is different from mass murder. Genocide is the most extreme consequences of racial discrimination and ethnic hatred. Genocide has as its aim the destruction, wholly or in part, of national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such. The term was proposed by the legal scholar Raphael Lemkin, drawing on the Greek genos (people or tribe) and the Latin cide (to kill) [1].

Genocide in the sense of a desire to eliminate a people has nearly always a metaphysical aspect as well as deep-seated racism. This was clear in the Nazi desire to eliminate Jews, first by forced emigration from Europe and, when emigration was not possible, by physical destruction.

The genocide of the Jewish people in Europe during World War II, carried out in such infamous places as the Auschwitz concentration camp pictured above, was the leading cause for the drafting and adoption of the UN Genocide Convention. The following day, the UN General Assembly also adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The genocide of the Jewish people in Europe during World War II, carried out in such infamous places as the Auschwitz concentration camp pictured above, was the leading cause for the drafting and adoption of the UN Genocide Convention. The following day, the UN General Assembly also adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We see a desire to destroy totally certain tribes in the Darfur conflict in Sudan that did not exist in the much longer and more deadly North-South Sudan Civil War (1956-1972, 1982-2005). Darfur tribes are usually defined by “blood lines” — marriage and thus procreation is limited to a certain population, either within the tribe or with certain other groups with which marriage relations have been created over a period of time. Thus children born of rape — considered ‘Janjaweed babies ‘— after the government-sponsored Janjaweed militias— are left to die or are abandoned. The raped women are often banished or ostracized. By attacking both the aged, holders of traditional knowledge, and the young of child-bearing age, the aim of the destruction of the continuity of a tribal group is clear.

We find the same pattern in some of the fighting in the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo where not only are women raped but their sexual organs are destroyed so that they will not be able to reproduce.

As then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said at UNESCO in 1998,

“Many thought, no doubt, that the horrors of the Second World War − the camps, the cruelty, the exterminations, the Holocaust – could not happen again. And yet they have, in Cambodia, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Rwanda. Our time − this decade even − has shown us that man’s capacity for evil knows no limits. Genocide − the destruction of an entire people on the basis of ethnic or national origins − is now a word of our time too, a stark and haunting reminder of why our vigilance must be eternal.”

Mr. Nicodène Ruhashyankiko of the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination of Minorities wrote in his study of proposed mechanisms for the study of information on genocide and genocidal practices “A number of allegations of genocide have been made since the adoption of the 1948 Convention. In the absence of a prompt investigation of these allegations by an impartial body, it has not been possible to determine whether they were well founded. Either they have given rise to sterile controversy or, because of the political circumstances, nothing further has been heard about them.”

In a telegram sent from Paris in December 1948, Raphael Lemkin asked Ms. William Dick Sporberg, a member of the United States Committee for a United Nations (UN) Genocide Convention, to organize a cable campaign to persuade the United States Mission to the UN to support the adoption of the convention. Until the very last minute, no efforts were to be spared if the Genocide Convention was to come to existence and make the hopes of a whole generation traumatized by wide-scale extermination come true. (C) Google Cultural Institute/Center for Jewish History

In a telegram sent from Paris in December 1948, Raphael Lemkin asked Ms. William Dick Sporberg, a member of the United States Committee for a United Nations (UN) Genocide Convention, to organize a cable campaign to persuade the United States Mission to the UN to support the adoption of the convention. Until the very last minute, no efforts were to be spared if the Genocide Convention was to come to existence and make the hopes of a whole generation traumatized by wide-scale extermination come true. (C) Google Cultural Institute/Center for Jewish History

Article VIII of the Genocide Conventions provides that “Any Contracting Party may call upon the Competent Organs of the United Nations to take such action under the Charter of the UN as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III”. Unfortunately no State has ever done so.

Thus we need to heed the early warning signs of genocide. Officially-directed massacres of civilians of whatever number cannot be tolerated, for the organizers of genocide must not believe that more widespread killing will be ignored. Yet killing is not the only warning sign. The Convention drafters, recalling the radio addresses of Hitler and the constant flow of words and images, set out as punishable acts “direct and public incitement to commit genocide.” The Genocide Convention, in its provisions concerning public incitement, sets the limits of political discourse. It is well documented that public incitement − whether by Governments or certain non-governmental actors − including political movements − to discriminate against, to separate forcibly, to deport or physically eliminate large categories of the population of a given State because they belong to certain racial, ethnic or religious groups, sooner or later leads to war. Therefore, the Genocide Convention is also a constant reminder of the need to moderate political discourse, especially constant and repeated accusations against a religion, ethnic and social category of persons. Had this been done in Rwanda, with regard to the radio Mille Collines perhaps the premeditated and announced genocide could have been avoided or mitigated.

For the UN to be effective in the prevention of genocide, there needs to be an authoritative body which can investigate and monitor a situation well in advance of the outbreak of violence. As has been noted, any Party to the Genocide Convention (and most States are Parties) can bring evidence to the UN Security Council, but none has. In the light of repeated failures and due to pressure from non-governmental organizations, the UN Secretary-General has named an individual adviser on genocide to the UN Secretariat. However, he is one adviser among many, and there is no public access to the information that he may receive.

Therefore, a relevant existing body must be strengthened to be able to deal with the first signs of tensions, especially “direct and public incitement to commit genocide.” The CERD created to monitor the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination would be the appropriate body to strengthen, especially by increasing its resources and the number of UN Secretariat members which service CERD. Through its urgent procedures mechanisms, CERD has the possibility of taking early-warning measures aimed at preventing existing strife from escalating into conflicts, and to respond to problems requiring immediate attention. A stronger CERD more able to investigate fully situations should mark the world’s commitment to the high standards of world law set out in the Genocide Convention.

Prof. René Wadlow is President and a representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva of the Association of World Citizens (AWC) and editor of Transnational Perspectives.

Notes

  1. Raphael Lemkin. Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for World Peace, 1944)
  2. For good overviews see: Walliman and Dobkowski (Eds) Genocide and the Modern Age (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987), F. Chalk, K. Jonassohn. The History and Sociology of Genocide (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), G. J. Andreopoulos (Ed) Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), Samantha Power A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 2002), John Tirman, The Death of Others (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), William Schabas, Genocide in International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)

Crossing Cultural and Linguistic Boundaries: International Volunteer Day

In Being a World Citizen, Current Events, Environmental protection, Human Development, Solidarity, The Search for Peace, United Nations, World Law on December 5, 2015 at 5:45 PM

CROSSING CULTURAL AND LINGUISTIC BOUNDARIES: INTERNATIONAL VOLUNTEER DAY
By René Wadlow

Founded on the values of solidarity and mutual trust, volunteerism transcends all cultural, linguistic and geographic boundaries. By giving their time and skills without expectations of material reward, volunteers themselves are uplifted by a singular sense of purpose.
-Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations.

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December 5 was selected as the International Volunteer Day by a 1985 UN General Assembly resolution. This year, December 5 comes as government representatives and volunteers of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are meeting in Paris to develop a new international climate agreement, COP 21. The NGO representatives are fewer in number than originally planned due to the November 13 shootings in Paris and thus tightened security conditions. However, those that are present are doubly active as world media attention is focused on the conference and its outcome.

In practice, as with all major UN conferences, negotiations among governments have been going on for two years with a good deal of input from NGO representatives. At the Paris stage, there is a preliminary “Final Document and Action Plan” of some 30 pages with a good number of square brackets around words or sentences on which there is no agreement. Negotiations concern making the document shorter so that the main ideas will stand out better and to remove square brackets. If a suitable word is not found, often the whole sentence will be dropped.

Both government representatives and NGOs are discussing post-Paris action and coalition building. There is also a concerted effort to bring the business community, especially transnational corporations into the action. While the UN system has a structure of consultative status for NGOs through the Economic and Social Council, the world of business is largely not represented. Only the International Labor Organization with its headquarters in Geneva has a three-party membership: governments, trade unions and business associations from each of the member States. The business world is not really a “voluntary association” in the sense of NGOs. Material reward is an important element in business.

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COP 21 is a prime example of the need for cooperative action at the local, national and world level. As has been often said, the climate does not recognize national frontiers. The relations among ecologically-sound development, security, conflict resolution and respect for human rights have now assumed a more dynamic form than at any other time since the creation of the United Nations in 1945. To meet these strong challenges, NGOs, academic institutions, business and professional associations and the media must work together cooperatively. International Volunteer Day can serve as a time of reflection on capacity building and improved networking.

Prof. René Wadlow is President and a representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva of the Association of World Citizens.

Turkey & Russia: First Negotiate in Good Faith

In Conflict Resolution, Current Events, Middle East & North Africa, The Search for Peace, World Law on November 25, 2015 at 12:15 AM

TURKEY & RUSSIA: FIRST NEGOTIATE IN GOOD FAITH

By René Wadlow

“Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad” was an insight of the classic Greek period.

There is obviously a form of madness in the Turks destroying a Russian fighter-bomber which may have entered Turkish air space along the frontier with Syria.  The Turkish authorities knew that the Russians were going to bomb in Syria and not attack Turkey. “Air space” is a relative concept in a frontier area. When the Russian plane crashed, it crashed in Syria.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) said the downing of a Russian plane by the Turkish military felt like “a stab in the back” to him, while his Turkish counterpart Reçep Tayyip Erdogan (right) claimed the plane ignored a formal warning from Turkey. Who’s right or wrong doesn’t really matter; the real question is whether the leaders of the two countries concerned really think that kind of conduct can possibly help resolve the dispute and not fuel it instead.

During the First World War, the French Prime Minister, George Clemenceau, said “War is too important to be left only to Generals”. Today, for the moment, the generals at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are meeting and the Russian generals are meeting on their own side. The political leaders are in contact. However, peacemaking is too important to be left only to political leaders who created the violence in the first place.

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Under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, an attack on one Ally (NATO Member State) shall be considered an attack on all Allies. But in this very case, can Turkey prove beyond reasonable doubt that it was actually attacked by Russia?

There needs to be movements and efforts beyond and outside the governments in conflict to help bring about negotiations and a climate in which peace measures are possible.

As citizens of the world, we are particularly called to help create such a climate for negotiations in good faith. We know that violence can spread, and that mutual escalation can slip out of control. We need to use our worldwide links in a creative way to reduce tensions in the wider Middle East so that peace measures are possible.

Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.

Women as Peacemakers: An October 31 Anniversary

In Being a World Citizen, Conflict Resolution, Human Development, Human Rights, Solidarity, United Nations, World Law on October 31, 2015 at 12:22 PM

WOMEN AS PEACEMAKERS: AN OCTOBER 31 ANNIVERSARY

By René Wadlow

“Seeing with eyes that are gender aware, women tend to make connections between the oppression that is the ostensible cause of conflict (ethnic or national oppression) in the light of another crosscutting one: that of gender regime. Feminist work tends to represent war as a continuum of violence from the bedroom to the battlefield, traversing our bodies and our sense of self. We glimpse this more readily because as women we have seen that ‘the home’ itself is not the haven it is cracked up to be. Why, if it is a refuge, do so many women have to escape it to ‘refuges’? And we recognize, with Virginia Woolf, that ‘the public and private worlds are inseparably connected: that the tyrannies and servilities of one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other.”

Cynthia Cockburn, Negotiating Gender and National Identities.

 

October 31 is the anniversary of the United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 1325 which calls for full and equal participation of women in conflict prevention, peace processes, and peace-building, thus creating opportunities for women to become fully involved in governance and leadership. This historic Security Council Resolution 1325 of October 31, 2000 provides a mandate to incorporate gender perspectives in all areas of peace support. Its adoption is part of a process within the UN system through its World Conferences on Women in Mexico City (1975), in Copenhagen (1980), in Nairobi (1985), in Beijing (1995), and at a special session of the U.N. General Assembly to study progress five years after Beijing (2000).

Since 2000, there have been no radical changes as a result of Resolution 1325, but the goal has been articulated and accepted. Now women must learn to take hold of and generate political power if they are to gain an equal role in peace-making. They must be willing to try new avenues and new approaches as symbolized by the actions of Lysistrata.

Lysistrata, immortalized by Aristophanes, mobilized women on both sides of the Athenian-Spartan War for a sexual strike in order to force men to end hostilities and avert mutual annihilation. In this, Lysistrata and her co-strikers were forerunners of the American humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow who proposed a hierarchy of needs: water, food, shelter, and sexual relations being the foundation. (See Abraham Maslow, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature) Maslow is important for conflict resolution work because he stresses dealing directly with identifiable needs in ways that are clearly understood by all parties and with which they are willing to deal at the same time.

Addressing each person’s underlying needs means you move toward solutions that acknowledge and value those needs rather than denying them. To probe below the surface requires redirecting the energy towards asking ‘what are your real needs here? What interests need to be serviced in this situation?’ The answers to such questions significantly alter the agenda and provide a real point of entry into the negotiation process.

It is always difficult to find a point of entry into a conflict, that is, a subject on which people are willing to discuss because they sense the importance of the subject and all sides feel that ‘the time is ripe’ to deal with the issue. The art of conflict resolution is highly dependent on the ability to get to the right depth of understanding and intervention into the conflict. All conflicts have many layers. If one starts off too deeply, one can get bogged down in philosophical discussions about the meaning of life.

However, one can also get thrown off track by focusing on too superficial an issue on which there is relatively quick agreement. When such relatively quick agreement is followed by blockage on more essential questions, there can be a feeling of betrayal.

Since Lysistrata, women, individually and in groups, have played a critical role in the struggle for justice and peace in all societies. However, when real negotiations begin, women are often relegated to the sidelines. However, a gender perspective on peace, disarmament, and conflict resolution entails a conscious and open process of examining how women and men participate in and are affected by conflict differently. It requires ensuring that the perspectives, experiences and needs of both women and men are addressed and met in peace-building activities. Today, conflicts reach everywhere. How do these conflicts affect people in the society — women and men, girls and boys, the elderly and the young, the rich and poor, the urban and the rural?

In the 1990s a young French singer, Olivier Villa, son of the famous French comic impersonator and TV show host Patrick Sébastien, released a first single entitled “Debout les Femmes” (Stand Up Women) in which, along the lines of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, he called on women worldwide to deny any sexual intercourse until men have renounced war and violence for good.

“Only you, mothers, only you, women, can stop war.

Close your hearts until all men have laid down their weapons.”

There has been a growing awareness that women and children are not just victims of violent conflict and wars −’collateral damage’ − but they are chosen targets. Conflicts such as those in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia have served to bring the issue of rape and other sexual atrocities as deliberate tools of war to the forefront of international attention. Such violations must be properly documented, the perpetrators brought to justice, and victims provided with criminal and civil redress.

I would stress three elements which seem to me to be the ‘gender’ contribution to conflict transformation efforts:

  1. The first is in the domain of analysis, the contribution of the knowledge of gender relations as indicators of power. Uncovering gender differences in a given society will lead to an understanding of power relations in general in that society, and to the illumination of contradictions and injustices inherent in those relations.
  2. The second contribution is to make us more fully aware of the role of women in specific conflict situations. Women should not only be seen as victims of war: they are often significantly involved in taking initiatives to promote peace. Some writers have stressed that there is an essential link between women, motherhood and non-violence, arguing that those engaged in mothering work have distinct motives for rejecting war which run in tandem with their ability to resolve conflicts non-violently. Others reject this position of a gender bias toward peace and stress rather that the same continuum of non-violence to violence is found among women as among men. In practice, it is never all women nor all men who are involved in peace-making efforts. Sometimes, it is only a few, especially at the start of peace-making efforts. The basic question is how best to use the talents, energies, and networks of both women and men for efforts at conflict resolution.
  3. The third contribution of a gender approach with its emphasis on the social construction of roles is to draw our attention to a detailed analysis of the socialization process in a given society. Transforming gender relations requires an understanding of the socialization process of boys and girls, of the constraints and motivations which create gender relations. Thus, there is a need to look at patterns of socialization, potential incitements to violence in childhood training patterns, and socially-approved ways of dealing with violence.

There is growing recognition that it is important to have women in politics, in decision-making processes and in leadership positions. The strategies women have adapted to get to the negotiating table are testimony to their ingenuity, patience and determination. Solidarity and organization are crucial elements. The path may yet be long but the direction is set.

Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.

Korea: Challenge and Response

In Asia, Being a World Citizen, Conflict Resolution, Human Rights, The Search for Peace, United Nations, World Law on October 28, 2015 at 10:39 AM

KOREA: CHALLENGE AND RESPONSE

By René Wadlow

As the professor of economics Milton Friedman wrote “Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When the crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, and to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.”

The current tension around the two Korean States, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Republic of Korea (ROK), is such a crisis. For the moment, it is not clear that Governments are willing to take the diplomatic measures necessary to reverse the tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Thus it is important that non-governmental voices be raised and that their proposals are taken seriously. Nongovernmental organizations can present policy choices that can help to resolve the multidimensional Korean security challenge.

Therefore, the Association of World Citizens (AWC) has proposed a two-track approach to the current Korean tensions. In a message to the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, AWC President René Wadlow stressed that a crisis can also be an opportunity for strong initiatives and action. The UN with historic responsibility for Korea should take the lead in organizing an UN-sponsored Korean Peace Settlement Conference, now that all the States which participated in the 1950-1953 Korean War are members of the UN. The UN-led Korean Peace Settlement Conference should be organized to lead to a North-east Asia Security and Nuclear-weapon Free Zone.

Such a Peace Settlement Conference is of concern not only to Governments but is one in which the voices of civil society are legitimate and should be heard.

From 1950 to 1953 the first major international conflict to have taken place after the end of World War II saw the United Nations join the pro-Western South Korean military in its fight against the Communist North Korea. Neither side really won the war but since the 1953 armistice the Korean Peninsula has been divided in two along the horizontal border represented by the 38th Parallel.

From 1950 to 1953 the first major international conflict to have taken place after the end of World War II saw the United Nations join the pro-Western South Korean military in its fight against the Communist North Korea. Neither side really won the war but since the 1953 armistice the Korean Peninsula has been divided in two along the horizontal border represented by the 38th Parallel.

In the past, there have been a series of dangerous but ultimately resolvable crises concerning the two Korean States. However, there are always dangers of miscalculations and unnecessary escalations of threats. Past crises have led to partial measures of threat reduction.

Partial measures of cooperation between the two Korean States, the Six-Party talks on nuclear issues and a number of Track II-civil society diplomatic efforts have shown the possibilities but also the limits of partial measures.

In the past decade, world attention has been focused on two Korean issues:

1) how to resolve the nuclear weapons-ballistic missiles issues;
2) how to help the DPRK to become food secure and to overcome a sharp inadequacy in food production. The food deficit points to broader structural obstacles, production and supply bottlenecks, and a generalized vulnerability of the economy.

Northeast Asia’s highly sensitive interlocking security issues are of great significance to the future of the region which includes China, Russia, Japan, the two Korean States and by extension the USA.

During the Cold War, Korea was to Asia what Germany was to Europe and Yemen to the Middle East – once a single people now divided along the ideological border of the rival blocs. Unlike Germany and Yemen, though, a quarter of the century after the Cold War has ended, Korea remains firmly divided. In the North, the world’s last Stalinist regime ruled by the Kim family continues to pose a serious threat to the pro-Western, democratic South Korea. (C) AP Photo/Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service & Park Ji-Hwan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

During the Cold War, Korea was to Asia what Germany was to Europe and Yemen to the Middle East – once a single people now divided along the ideological border of the rival blocs. Unlike Germany and Yemen, though, a quarter of the century after the Cold War has ended, Korea remains firmly divided. In the North, the world’s last Stalinist regime ruled by the Kim family continues to pose a serious threat to the pro-Western, democratic South Korea. (C) AP Photo/Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service & Park Ji-Hwan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Changing security perceptions and policies, unresolved conflicts and grievances, and concerns about nuclear and missiles proliferation are all elements that affect the stability of the region as a whole — and which also have global impacts.

In addition to the broadly based UN-led Korean Peace Settlement Conference, the AWC has stressed the need for regional cooperation and confidence-building measures which would improve the daily life of individuals and create the framework for greater future cooperation.

The AWC has highlighted that the Tumen River Development Project (TRADP), now often called the Greater Tuman Initiative (GTI), is probably the best framework for rapid cooperative development. The planning for a Tuman River economic zone at the mouth of the river had been drawn up in the early 1990s by the UN Development Program (UNDP – a vast free – economic zone which would involve parts of Mongolia, China, Russia and the two Korean States as well as Japan as a logical regional development partner. However, development has fallen far short of initial expectations for reasons both internal and external to the participating States.

As Milton Friedman pointed out, ideas can be dormant until a crisis occurs and then new steps must be taken. The AWC believes that the Tuman River economic zone is a real opportunity for cooperation among the States for the benefit of the people of the area.

Citizens of the World call for speedy and creative action to meet the challenge of Korean tensions with a response of cooperation and reconciliation.

Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.

Peacebuilding: A Focus for UN Day

In Being a World Citizen, Conflict Resolution, Human Development, United Nations, World Law on October 24, 2015 at 11:37 AM

PEACEBUILDING: A FOCUS FOR UN DAY

By René Wadlow

UN Flags 

As we mark United Nations (UN) Day this October 24, we are reminded that the UN remains the only universally representative and comprehensively empowered body the world has to deal with threats to international peace and security. As Brian Urquhart, one of the early UN civil servants said, “In the great uncertainties and disorders that lie ahead, the UN, for all its shortcomings, will be called on again and again because there is no other global institution, because there is a severe limit to what even the strongest powers wish to take on themselves, and because inaction and apathy toward human misery or about the future of the human race are unacceptable.” However, the nature of the threats to international security is ever changing. The UN, just as the national governments which make it up, have difficulties meeting new challenges.

“From the outset of my mandate”, said in 1993 then Secretary General of the UN Boutros Boutros-Ghali, “I have been convinced that the structure of the Organization must mirror, as closely as possible, the tasks it is assigned to undertake. An institution must reflect the objectives it pursues … The UN therefore faces the difficult task of relating our aims to our means, of updating and reforming institutions set up at different times and with different imperatives.” Boutros-Ghali proposed measures to promote coordination and decentralization within the UN system, greater cooperation with non-governmental organizations and regional bodies, and creating more effective UN financing and budget-making mechanisms.

He went on to stress the vast challenges of famine, drought, AIDS, civil wars, uprooted and displaced populations and deepening human misery in many parts of the world. These situations make dramatic demands on the UN system and require a better field presence and operational capabilities. The UN system is called upon to respond to much diversified requirements, often involving the provisions of crucial and direct aid to peoples in deep distress and involving sensitive new fields of social, economic and political transformations. However, the crisis we face is not about the administration of UN bodies, but about a tragically broken world where poverty and violence are ever more visible and where there is an ever-diminishing willingness to help those in need.

Over a decade later, Kofi Annan made many of the same observations as he set out his own proposals for structural reforms “In Larger Freedom”. However, the current structures of the UN for government representatives work “just well enough” that they do not want to take the risk of making changes. Increasingly, it is the representatives of nongovernmental organizations who are pushing for change and are organizing to undertake tasks which some governments are unwilling to do.  We see this with the current flow of migrants-refugees to Europe where some non-governmental groups have stepped in to help refugees even when their governments have an unwelcoming and negative policy.

UN Day

One potentially important innovation is the creation within the UN of the Peacebuilding Commission. Hopefully this Commission will be more than a name change for the same functional relief efforts in post-conflict situations. The Peacebuilding Commission was created as a response to the observation that conflicts are rarely settled, and they often take on new forms of violence as we saw in the Afghanistan case after the end of the Soviet intervention, in Kosovo after the other ex-Yugoslav conflicts had died down, in Somalia despite repeated ceasefires and the creation of “unity governments”.

We all have limited attention spans for crisis situations in which we are not directly involved or do not have strong emotional links. We are constantly asked to pay attention to a new crisis, to new tensions, to new difficulties. Political leaders have even shorter attention spans unless there are strong domestic reasons for remaining involved. Therefore, there is a need both within the UN system and within national governments for a group of persons will a long-range holistic vision, who are able to see trends and the links between situations. Such a body needs to be able to organize long-term cooperation drawing upon the knowledge and resources of universities, religious groups, NGOs and government services at all levels. There needs to be greater public awareness and the ability to organize to articulate values and the implementation of goals.

Just as ecological concerns require actions by a multitude of actors who do not always see the relationship between their actions, so peacebuilding has material, intellectual and spiritual dimensions. Finding the way these fit together in a manner understandable to policy makers is not easy. However, this is the challenge before us. The process will take time and vision. Peacebuilding can be a major focus as we mark UN Day on October 24.

Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.