2014 03 UNANZ newsletter

UNANZ NEWS MARCH 2014 ISSUE No 1

UNANZ NEWS

ISSN 1179-8009 (print) ISSN 1179-0817 (online)

2014 National Conference New Zealand at the UN and

Global Governance, Global Commons & Global Public Goods: The State of Play

Institute for Governance and Policy Studies, New Zealand Centre for Global Studies, and United Nations Association of New Zealand

Professor Inge Kaul, Conference keynote

speaker

2013 Secondary Schools Speech Contest finals 2013 Conference dinner at the Intercontinental

Dr Ngaire Adcock (1922-2012) and

Dr John Adcock, (1904-1987)


THE PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT FOR THE UNITED NATIONS 2 UNANZ.ORG.NZ

UNANZ News Contents In this issue:

3 2014 National Conference

5 Small Island Developing States Conference

7 President’s Column

10 Report by the Special Officer for Peace & Security, Helene McMullin

12 Vice –President, Robert Mackay, met with Representatives of the Maori King

12. UN Youth—President’s Report

13. Wellington Women Walk for Peace

14. Sir Brian Urquhart—part two

UN International Year of Small Island Developing States (SIDS)

UN International Year of Crystallography

UN International Year of Family Farming


N ew Ze alan d at the

Un it ed N atio ns

Date Friday 9 May

Venue Legislative Council Chamber

8–9am Registration

9–11:00am Welcome to Parliament Dr Kennedy Graham, MP 1—MFAT 2—NZDF—Col Martin Dransfield 3—Human Rights Commission Discussion & Questions

11–11:30 Morning break

11:30am–1:00pm 4—Statistics 5—Customs 6—”Member country roles in the UN system: balancing the pursuit of national interests with the production of global public goods” – Prof Inge Kaul, Hertic School of Governance, Berlin.

1–2pm Lunch break

2–4pm Secondary Schools Speech contest ‘Education for Peace: What is to be done’ Guest speaker: Ella Cavander

4–4:30pm Afternoon break

4:30–6pm UNANZ Special Officer round-table: Peace and Security Helena McMullin, Sustainability Dr Valentina Dinica, Human Rights John Morgan Chaired by Christopher Woodthorpe, Director, UNIC Canberra

7–9pm Adcock Memorial Dinner—The Grand Hall, Parliament Building After Dinner Marilyn Duckworth will speak about her father, Professor John Adcock.

Th e G lobal Commons ,

Pu bl ic Goo ds & Gove rnan ce

Date Saturday 10 May

Venue Rutherford House, Lecture Theatre 1

8–9am Registration

9–9:10am

9:10–10am

Welcome: Prof Jonathan Boston, Director IGPS

The Global Commons, Public Goods and Governance

Keynote: Prof Inge Kaul, Hertie School of Governance, Berlin. ANZSOG Visiting Scholar Program at Victoria University of Wellington

Respondent: Dr Geoff Bertram, VUW

10–11am Global Public Goods & Commons – The new idea of planetary boundaries

Presenter: Dr Adrian Macey, VUW, NZCGS

Respondent: Brian Fallow, NZH

11–11:30 Morning break

11:30am–12:30pm

The Global Commons: The Atmosphere

Presenter: Klaus Bosselmann, Environmental Law Centre, Auckland Univ.

Respondent: Prof David Frame, School of Geography, Environment & Earth Sciences VUW

12:30–12:45 Summary: Prof Jonathan Boston, IGPS, VUW

12:45–1:30pm Lunch break

1:30–2:30pm The Global Commons: The Oceans

Presenter: Prof Karen Scott, School of Law, Canterbury University

Respondent: Duncan Currie, NZCGS advisory trustee, ocean consultant

2:30–3:30

3:30–4pm

Global Governance for Global Public Goods and the Global Commons

Presenter: Assoc Prof Graham Hassall, School of Government, VUW

Respondent: Dr Oliver Hartwich, Director, NZ Initiative

Summary: Peter Kennedy – Director NZIIA. Dr Kennedy Graham – Canterbury University & Director NZCGS

Thanks: Adrian Macey – NZCGS

4–4:30pm Afternoon Break

4:30–6pm UNANZ AGM

7–9pm Conference Dinner—Intercontinental Hotel After dinner speaker: Prof Inge Kaul—working on the HDI and other global projects.

2014 National Conference UN at the United Nations – Friday 9 May,

Global Governance, Global Commons, & Global Public Goods: The State of Play – Saturday 10 May

Institute for Governance and Policy Studies, New Zealand Centre for Global Studies, United Nations Association of New Zealand

Up-to-date details and registration page available at unanz.org.nz/national/national_conference or email [email protected] for a brochure




UNANZ AGM—Call for nominations

The United Nations Association of New Zealand (UNANZ) 2014 AGM will be held on Saturday 10th May, 4.30pm – 6pm in Parliament. The AGM is taking place as part of the 2014 UNANZ National Conference, at Rutherford House, Victoria University of Wellington

Nominations are called for, for the following positions on National Council:

Executive President Vice President (1) Vice President (2) Treasurer Secretary Development and Communications Officer NC Rep (1) NC Rep (2)

Wider Council SO UN Renewal SO Humanitarian Affairs SO Peace and Security SO Human Rights SO WFUNA Liaison SO Model UN Program SO Sustainable Development Ordinary Member of the NC (1) Ordinary Member of the NC (2) Ordinary Member of the NC (3) Ordinary Member of the NC (4) Corporate Member Affiliate Member rep (1) Affiliate Member rep (2) Affiliate Member rep (3) Affiliate Member rep (4)

Note: Branch Presidents and Life members are not elected positions but permanent appointments to the council.

All financial members of the United Nations Association can be nominated for any of the positions above. If candidates exceed the positions available, elections will be held by a secret ballot at the Annual General Meeting, for which purpose a sufficient number of scrutineers shall be appointed by the meeting.

UNANZ 2014 Calendar

1 March UNANZ Newsletter

31 March All Branch AGMs to be completed

9–10 May 2014

Friday

Saturday

PLEASE NOTE

UNANZ National Conference

NZ at the UN

The Global Commons, Public Goods & Governance

See page 3 for the program.

Latest updates on our website at unanz.org.nz/national/national_conference

The Adcock memorial dinner is now on Friday evening The UNANZ AGM is on Saturday afternoon

1 June UNANZ Newsletter

1 September UNANZ Newsletter

Sun 21 September

International Day of Peace

Sat-Sun 27-28 September

National Council Meeting in Wellington

Mon 20 October United Nations Day reception at Government House

1 December UNANZ Newsletter

Wed 10 December

Human Rights Day - UNANZ

National Event

http://unanz.org.nz/national/national_conference




DESA News UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs Volume 18, No.02 - February 2014

Genuine and durable partnerships for Small Island Developing States

2014 will be a big year for Small Island Developing States

(SIDS). Both the United Nations Conference on SIDS

taking place in Apia, Samoa, from 1 to 4 September, and

the International Year of SIDS, which was launched on 24

February, will draw the world’s attention to these states

and promote actions aimed at achieving their

sustainable development.

The Third International Conference on Small Island

Developing States in Samoa will seek a renewed

political commitment to address the special needs

and vulnerabilities of SIDS by focusing on practical

actions. Building on assessments of previous

commitments (such as the Barbados Programme of

Action and the Mauritius Strategy for

Implementation), the Conference will aim to identify

and address new and emerging challenges and

opportunities for sustainable development of SIDS,

particularly through the strengthening of

partnerships between these islands and the

international community. Many issues that will be

addressed at the Conference are also central to the

post-2015 development agenda.

Why focus on SIDS?

“We need to bring more attention to the problems

that Small Island Developing States face,” UN

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said while

addressing SIDS leaders at an event in September

last year. “Many of your countries are isolated. Your

markets are too small to realize economies of scale.

All small island developing states are exposed to

high risks from environmental threats, especially

climate change,” said the Secretary-General. He

added that the world had not paid enough attention

to the issues that the people of small island States,

often on the frontlines, have had to face alone.

The United Nations Conference on Sustainable

Development, or Rio+20, in June 2012 had also

acknowledged that SIDS remained a special case

for sustainable development. This is a consequence

of their unique and particular vulnerabilities,

including their small size, remoteness, narrow

resource and export base, and exposure to

global environmental challenges and external

economic shocks, including potentially more

frequent and intense natural disasters.

Countries also felt that SIDS have made less

progress than most other groupings, or even

regressed, in economic terms, especially in terms of

poverty reduction and debt sustainability.

The world can learn from SIDS

But, as reflected in the tagline of the Conference –

Island voices, global choices – the fortunes of SIDS

are not only a concern for these States themselves,

but for all States. And the world can learn from

SIDS’ experiences. Traditionally dependent on

expensive, shipped-in fossil fuels to meet energy

needs, and under duress from climate change

forces, island countries are pioneering sustainable

solutions such as wind farms and ocean

preserves. Periodically devastated by typhoons,

hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes, their people

show the capacity to bounce back, even though

each disaster might abruptly take away 100 per cent

of the annual GDP. These are just two of the areas

in which SIDS can provide valuable experience.




Partnerships at the heart of the Conference

Partnerships will be at the heart of the Conference,

as highlighted by the Conference theme:

‘Sustainable development of SIDS through genuine

and durable partnerships’. SIDS anticipate that the

Conference will be a springboard for meaningful

collaborations. UN DESA’s Under-Secretary-

General Wu Hongbo, who is also the Secretary-

General for the SIDS Conference, expressed his

hope that the Conference will serve to strengthen

ties between SIDS and traditional and non-

traditional partners, including through South-South

and SIDS-SIDS partnerships, as well as those

including the private sector. “While “partnership” is a

very popular word, the concept

needs to be fleshed out and

made real in order to be

meaningful for the SIDS. No one

wants the Conference to feature

words alone”, he said.

Calling on stakeholders to share

partnerships

In recent years, small island

developing States have identified

areas where they can take

leadership, work together, and

bring other partners on board for concrete actions

on sustainable development. In particular five

thematic areas for partnerships to benefit SIDS have

emerged for special attention: climate change and

energy, oceans and seas, waste management,

sustainable tourism and natural disaster resilience.

Partnerships in the area of health, especially

addressing non-communicable diseases, are also

being explored.

As the Conference is expected to see the launch of

new innovative partnerships to advance the

sustainable development of SIDS, a Partnerships

Platform has been set up to allow all Stakeholders

to announce new partnerships, or ideas for

partnerships, and to track implementation. This

Partnership Platform on the SIDS website is to

encourage everyone to share ideas for the

improvement of SIDS communities.

Global preparations start this month

After meetings on the national, regional and inter-

regional levels were held in 2013, the global

preparations for the Conference begin this month,

with the first meeting of the Preparatory Committee

(PrepCom) to take place from 24 to 27 February. At

the first meeting of the PrepCom, participants will

discuss the objectives and substantive theme of the

Conference and organizational and procedural

matters. An informal intersessional meeting will be

held from 21 to 25 April 2014, and the final meeting

of the PrepCom will take place from 23 to 27 June

2014, to finalize preparations for the Conference.

In addition to traditional

plenary sessions, the

Conference itself will feature

multi-stakeholder partnership

dialogues which will focus on

recognizing current successful

partnerships and initiatives,

launching new partnerships

and initiatives involving a wide

range of stakeholders, and

interactive discussions on key

priorities related to SIDS.

International Year of Small Island Developing States

2014 has been declared International Year of Small

Island Developing States, the first Year ever

dedicated to a group of countries. The Year and the

Conference preparations will be mutually

reinforcing, raising the profile of the SIDS and

calling attention to their challenges but also to their

unique cultural heritage and their contributions in the

arts, culture, innovation and natural resource

management among many other areas. The global

launch of the Year will take place on 24 February at

UN headquarters in New York and will be webcast

worldwide.

For more information visit the Website of the Third

International Conference on Small Island Developing

States Partnership Platform www.sidsnet.org

http://www.sidsnet.org/



United Nations Reform

Text of a presentation to the New Zealand Parliament’s Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Trade Select Committee by UNANZ National President Dr Graham Hassall on 20th March 2014

New Zealand and the United Nations Organization

I wish to thank the Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Trade Select Committee of the New Zealand Parliament for this opportunity to share some thoughts about United Nations reform, and about the potential role that various actors in New Zealand can play in this important endeavour. In this brief presentation I will outline the mission and work of the United Nations Association of New Zealand, and refer to some critical UN reform issues.

From the outset, New Zealand played an active and constructive role in the UN’s creation and articulation of its functions and powers, and across the years many New Zealanders have either represented their country in UN processes, or have worked for the UN. New Zealand is thus known as a dependable supporter of the United Nations system, and hopefully this this support will grow ever stronger in future years, as the challenges of UN reform become more pressing.

In brief, the United Nations was established for four basic purposes:

1. To maintain international peace and security;

2. To develop friendly relations among nations;

3. To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character; and

4. To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.

It set out to be, in other words, an international organization that not only established and maintained peace, and that not merely facilitated friendly relations between countries, but found collective solutions to the economic, social, cultural

and humanitarian challenges at their interface, and brought coordination and harmonisation of their inter-relations. It is an organization that assists with peace, development, law, policy, and governance on a global scale – an organization that has come to play a pivotal role in world affairs.

The United Nations Association of New Zealand

Although the UN is an inter-governmental organization comprising nation states, it has also contributed significantly to the emergence of organized civil society at both national and global levels, through providing consultative status in various forms to NGOs, including NGOs specifically established to contribute toward its evolution and effectiveness.

The United Nations Association of New Zealand (UNANZ) was established in 1946 as, in the words of its Constitution, “…a peoples' movement for the United Nations, through which the principles of the UN Charter can be shared widely and its vision realised.” Its fundamental purposes are to:

promote research, information, education and general public knowledge about the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the treaties, conventions and resolutions agreed in the UN General Assembly;

provide the Government and people of New Zealand with informed evaluations of UN policies and actions;

promote the contribution that the UN makes towards peace and prosperity; and

“…provide the means by which the public may influence development and perfecting of the United Nations as an instrument for the promotion of peace and the prevention of war, the safeguarding of human rights, and the promotion of the moral, cultural and material welfare of all peoples, and wherever changed circumstances warrant it, to promote the corresponding reform of the Charter and of the organisation, administration and operation of the United Nations and its different agencies.”

A significant number of eminent New Zealanders have associated themselves with UNANZ over the years. These include, for instance, James Thorn, Parliamentary Under-Secretary to Prime Minister Peter Fraser between 1943-46, and High Commissioner to Canada and New Zealand’s ambassador to the UN from 1947. In 1948-49 Thorn chaired the United Nations Economic and Social Council and also chaired a committee of an



International Labour Organization conference. Upon his return to New Zealand Thorn became President of UNANZ for the years 1951-54. Subsequent Presidents have included Sir John Walsh, Head of the Otago Dental School (1960-1964), Sir James Belich (1972-1974) who later became Major of Wellington; and John Adcock (1978-81), Professor of Psychology at Victoria University.

Gwen Ryan (d.2013), the first woman president of the Association (1975-78), who had a long career as secondary school teacher in both New Zealand and China, was one of many women who have driven UNANZ forward at both national and branch levels – others notably including Joan Morrell, Dame Grace Hollander, Dame Laurie Salas, Rhyl Lady Jansen, Kate Smith, and Robin Halliday.

Today UNANZ has seven branches across New Zealand: Northern, Wellington, Waikato, Tauranga, Wanganui, and Canterbury, plus UN Youth, which has members throughout the country. At national and branch levels this organization has striven to educate New Zealand society about the ideals and activities of the UN through very many “model UN” conferences for secondary and tertiary school students, through the “Secondary Schools Speech Contest”, through conferences and seminars, hosting of international speakers, production and dissemination of reports and newsletters, representations to political and government leaders, and through the passage of resolutions at its annual general meetings.

Current projects

At the current time UNANZ continues public education initiatives in the fields of human development; peace and disarmament; human rights, and the post-2015 development agenda. In May 2014 UNANZ is partnering with the Institute of Governance and Policy Studies and the New Zealand Centre for Global Studies to convene a conference on the theme of Global Governance, Global Commons, and Global Public Goods”, with former UN official Professor Inge Kaul, of the Hertie School of Governance, as keynote speaker, together with a range of domestic speakers. Another day of the conference focuses on “New Zealand at the United Nations”.

We increasingly using social media and the internet to make UN-related activities more accessible to our members and to the public: in January, for instance, we organized a late night gathering to view online New Zealand’s presentation to the Human Rights

Council in Geneva.

We are engaging undergraduate and graduate interns to assist with research and with public education. In 2014 United Nations Day (October 24th) will be celebrated at Government House, Wellington, under UNANZ’ patron, the Governor General.

New Zealand and United Nations Reform

Given the broad purposes for which the UN was established, it is understandable that member countries approach it with diverse perspectives and intentions. Whereas some focus on the pursuit of national interests and national benefits, others focus on a quest for the global and collective good. But the two perspectives need not be mutually exclusive: member countries can participate in the United Nations with an attitude of “enlightened self-interest”.

New Zealand and UN Reform

A role for government

Of course, Government plays a preponderant role at the UN, as the legitimate representative of New Zealand’s positions and interests. It gives considerable support to a range of the UN’s organs and programmes, seeks to abide by internationally agreed standards across a wide spectrum of government activities, and clearly voices its views on UN reform (most notably at the current time in relation to reform of the Security Council). The activities of the Government at the UN could be brought to the attention of a wider audience by ensuring that New Zealand’s representatives to the UN give public presentations more systematically during their visits home.

A role for parliament

Members of the New Zealand Parliament can contribute to improvement of the UN system on an ongoing basis. Apart from valuable inquiries such as this present one by the Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Trade Select Committee, Members could consider forming a United Nations Interest Group to provide a cross-party platform. The current parliament includes a number of Members who have formerly worked with in the UN system, or represented the New Zealand government within it, and others may do so in the post-parliamentary careers. I should also acknowledge the assistance of many Members of Parliament in hosting UNANZ activities in the Parliamentary precinct – notably our National



Conference and Secondary Schools Speech Contest

Since the full range of NZ involvement in UN-related activities and processes has not been assessed in any recent study or survey, this committee might commission the Parliamentary Library to research the full extent of UN engagement by government departments and agencies.

A role for civil society

Any reform initiatives either proposed by the New Zealand Government or supported by it will be strengthened through the support of the New Zealand people, and this is best facilitated by education on the issues through the efforts of civil society. The involvement of media is vital to strengthening public awareness of UN debates, but at the current time significant UN processes and events are given very little attention, and consequently do not come to the attention of the general population.

UNANZ is addressing this deficit by offering sessions about the UN system to journalism students, as well as contributing to other civic education programmes. It is also encouraging Tertiary institutions to sign up to the UN’s Academic Impact programme.

A role for the private sector

The private sector’s interest in the UN, in UN reform, is another area that requires much development. Although the UN has dialogue with thousands of businesses through its “Global Compact”, few New Zealand business entities are involved. Alignment with the Compact’s principles on human rights, labour, environment, and anti-corruption, are conducive to improved “corporate social responsibility” which benefits all actors – government, business, and the general public.

Other reform issues

The origins of the Security Council in the aftermath of the Second World War are well understood. However, the evolution of the world system in the subsequent decades has rendered the UNSC mechanism anachronistic. The emergent nations of Africa, Asia and the Americas, and indeed the former combatant nations who are now amongst the world’s leading economies, do not see any justice in a security mechanism that purports to ensure world peace but which in reality prolongs conflicts through use of the veto power. The ongoing conflicts in Palestine and Syria, and the newer but rapidly

escalating conflict between Ukraine and Russia are but two instances of the current Security Council’s inability to act swiftly to preserve the peace. They sit beside the slow pace of disarmament processes (including the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons) and other critical and potentially critical scenarios (such as on the Korean peninsula, and in the South China/West Philippines Sea), as very clear evidence of the extremely high economic and human costs of conflict that are being borne by the global community as the price for the continued existence of the veto power.

In addition to Security Council reform, members of UNANZ have voiced concern over a range of other UN reform issues. These include strengthening the impact of the General Assembly, expanding the legal authority of the UN’s courts, particularly toward the ability to enforce court rulings, and strengthening the voice of individuals and communities in development planning (as in, eg, the post-2015 development agenda). Our members are also concerned at strengthening the legitimacy of the International Criminal Court, clarifying the status of the “right to protect” doctrine, and ensuring New Zealand’s continued adherence to a non-nuclear defence policy.

If there is a main message to this presentation, it is to encourage the notion that New Zealand’s interest in the future success of the United Nations should reach far beyond the bid for a seat on the Security Council, to more active education of the New Zealand public about New Zealand’s involvement in the UN, and to the encourage debate about any measures which might make the organization more effective not only in international society but in a world whose interests are increasingly global rather than merely interdependent. It is member countries, rather than civil society, which votes on reform matters, and New Zealand’s ability to assist with the refinement of the UN as an organization will be strengthened by greater public understanding of the issues involved.

UNANZ emerged through transformation of the League of Nations Union of New Zealand, which had been formed in the 1920s.

http://www.unanz.org.nz/

http://academicimpact.org/

http://www.unglobalcompact.org/

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http://academicimpact.org/

http://www.unglobalcompact.org/



February 2014

The Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, in his speech at the 50th Annual Munich Security Conference on 1 February, said he is concerned about “rising extremism, growing cybersecurity threats and the dangers still posed by nuclear weapons” and he called Syria “the most urgent security challenge in the world today”.

About making use of modern technology, the Secretary General said “the use of unmanned aerial vehicles [UAVs] – essentially, flying cameras – is helping to identify risks earlier and protect civilians.” He distinguished these from armed drones, saying the latter are weapons.

In terms of other major security risks, Ban Ki-moon noted the multitude of problems in Africa (specifically, Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan). He also said that “[t]he military drawdown in Afghanistan is likely to free up resources that can be deployed elsewhere.”

Ban Ki-moon said there are other security risks, such as climate change, high levels of youth unemployment and discrimination against minorities.

In summing up, the Secretary General said, “Every day around the world, resources are squandered on weapons that should never be used, and on conflicts that should never be fought.”

Syria

UNHCR and the Syria office of the UN Refugee Agency says in “A Year in Review 2013” that at the end of last year, 6.5 million people had been internally displaced in Syria, plus more than 42,000 refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and Somalia. The numbers are staggering and the UN continues its relief efforts, focused on protection, shelter, health and core relief items (CRIs), from diapers to sleeping mats. Sexual and gender based violence is on the rise, as is human trafficking.

Africa

Mozambique’s former President Joaquim Chissano’s open letter on 14 January in The Africa Report calls on Africa’s Leaders to unite for peace, talks about Africa’s strengths and problems, and is an inspiring call for African teamwork towards her freedom and prosperity.

Central African Republic

On 28 January, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the new Central African Republic Government and also the Security Council Resolution on the Central African Republic, which among other things authorises EU troop deployment and provides sanctions on individuals violating human rights.

Joseph Kony and the ICC

Increased UN focus on central Africa is encouraging, but mass murderer Kony remains at large. There have been rumours that he is tired, sick and willing to negotiate his surrender. There have been multiple reports on people killed in Kony related squirmishes, not just his crew, but innocent civilians in the process. There is a crowd-funded venture to catch him. The Kony 2012 campaign is in its second year, now on the ground in central Africa. The EU has committed troops for deployment. Perhaps Kony will be caught this year?

Ban Ki-Moon has in other speeches in the last year asked for UN nations support in Africa, for reasons including increasing security, capturing Kony and providing urgent humanitarian relief in the region. Can New Zealand do more?

Nuclear Disarmament

Abolishing nuclear weapons

IPPNW recently released a report titled Nuclear Famine: Two Billion at Risk. It is frightening reading. It makes the IPCC’s reports seem low risk. There is no doubt about the immense destruction that would be caused by the detonation of just one single atomic bomb.

Depleted uranium (DU)

ICBUW reported on 30 January that two scientific studies in the UK have found DU particles from missiles remain in the environment for 30 years or longer. This confirms that short term studies cannot sufficiently predict the full consequences of buried missile penetrators. It also contradicts the UN Environment Programme’s earlier assessments in the Balkans that intact or fragmentary penetrators



in soils would corrode completely in 25 years. It is clear more research is needed in this area, ideally UN co-ordinated.

Regulating investment in nuclear weapons producers

In October 2013, ICAN together with IKV Pax Christi published ”Don’t Bank on the Bomb – A Global Report on the Financing of Nuclear Weapons Producers”. Its opening paragraph summarises the situation neatly: “Almost seventy years after the first use of nuclear weapons, about 17,000 still remain today. The few countries that keep these weapons of mass destruction are planning to spend more than USD $1,000,000,000,000 over the next decade to maintain, and modernize them.” Making nuclear weapons is a trillion dollar industry.

The report’s Hall of Shame lists 298 financial institutions in the world that invest in one or more of the world’s 27 nuclear weapons producing companies. They include two NZ banks. Bearing in mind our country’s stance on nuclear weapons, is it appropriate that NZ allows its banks to profit from what we have deemed is unacceptable? Do we need to amend our terms with them to reflect our rejection of nuclear weapons? Is lending money to make nuclear weapons any different to allowing nuclear submarines in our waters?

In Australia, five financial institutions invest in nuclear weapons producers, including ANZ and Westpac, both which operate in NZ. The report says ANZ is most heavily involved. Westpac has lent about $90 million to Boeing, $111 million to EADS and $50 million to Honeywell International. ANZ has lent and underwritten nearly a billion dollars to eight nuclear weapons producers, including BAE Systems, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Rolls-Royce and Thales. The report also cites 12 examples of institutions excluding nuclear weapons from its investment terms.

North Korea

Kim Jong-un remains a freak security risk. In the last year, he allegedly executed his uncle (and rumours say hundreds of other people), one of his former girlfriends and her dance group, and his aunt. He took the opportunity in his New Year’s speech on 1 January to threaten that aggression from the US or South Korea would result in “massive nuclear disaster”. Then, on 4 February, North Korea’s official news agency KCNA called Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe “an Asian Hitler” and a “militarist maniac” for trying to amend Japan’s

constitution, claiming Abe is intent on amassing military power under the guise of ensuring regional stability.

In December 2013, the Daily Mail provided a succinct summary: “In February 2013, Kim Jong-un's regime detonated a nuclear device underground, which the German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources estimated was a 40-kiloton bomb. And in October, amid reports that French and Austrian companies had refused contracts to build a ski lift at a mountain resort built for North Korea's elite, the dictator himself was quoted insisting that one could be built domestically. 'We can make nuclear weapons and rockets,' he said. 'We can build a ski lift.' North Korea's existing nuclear stockpile is believed to be plutonium-based, but recent reports published in North Korean scientific publications and news media suggest that Pyongyang is ready to produce its own weapons-grade uranium.”

Recently, Global Security Newswire reported that North Korea appears to have developed domestic capacity to build mobile missile launchers, with key parts for them allegedly sourced in China, to Chinese design.

He sounds like a scared lonely little boy. Scary, too. Who in the world is our best peace maker with this guy? Dennis Rodman? Really?

Saving our world for the kids’ sake

“The State of the World’s Children 2014 in Numbers Every Child Counts” shares the following three important statistics for national leaders to consider when making policy and law:

Fifteen per cent of the world’s children engage in child labour that compromises their right to protection from economic exploitation and infringes on their right to learn and play.

Eleven per cent of girls are married before they turn 15, jeopardizing their rights to health, education and protection.

Despite decades of commitments made and reaffirmed, some 57 million primary school-aged children were out of school in 2011, denied their right to a quality education. Only 64% of boys and 61% of girls of secondary school age are enrolled in secondary school worldwide, and 36% and 30%, respectively, in the least developed countries.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the most affected children live in Africa.



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In early March National Vice President Robert Mackay and

Waikato Branch President Mano Manoharan met with the Maori King’s representative and Maxine Moana Tuwhangai, Chairperson of the Tainui parliament (Waikato-Tainui Te Kauhanganui) to discuss how to build stronger ties between UNANZ and iwi across the country. Both Maxine and the deputy chair of the Tainui parliament attended our 2013 United Nations Day celebrations at Premier House.

A UNANZ plaque was presented to the Maori King’s representative for Te Arikinui Kiingi Tuheitia in recognition of the support the Kiingitanga movement has given towards New Zealand’s campaign for a UN Security council seat.

In return the King’s office bestowed upon UNANZ a mini Korowai, signed charters of the Kiingitanga movement and a book on the history of the Kiingitanga movement.

The discussions were fruitful and there was keen interest by the office in supporting New Zealand’s involvement at the United Nations and in supporting the promotion of the United Nations, relations and connections with Maori and other indigenous peoples . A formal meeting with Te Arikinui Kiingi Tuheitia is to follow.

King Tuheitia Paki. Photo: Wikimedia

New UN Youth National President, Sally Wu is 22 and a fifth-year student at the University of Auckland, majoring in Law and Biology. She was first inspired by UN Youth at a Model United conference in 2007. Since then, she has immersed herself in the learning and the network with amazing young people within the organisation. In 2012, Sally coordinated the Youth Declaration conference and served as president of the Auckland Regional Council. She directed the Pacific Project development trip in 2013. Sally loves going to markets, dancing and enjoying good food with friends and family.

UN Youth began the year with regional Model United Nations conferences for high school students in Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury and Otago. In April, the Youth Declaration conference will bring together the brightest young leaders in New Zealand for discussions on public policy.

New Zealand Model United Nations, the most prestigious Model UN conference for high school students will take place in July. We are developing an exciting programme involving workshops and diplomatic engagement for the event.

Planning for our flagship tertiary event, the New Zealand Model Security Council is also underway, due to be held in the beautiful city of Christchurch.

Collectively, volunteers are working on reaching out to more young people through travelling to conduct events outside the city centres, and through collaborating community leaders. In the long term, UN Youth hopes to be known as the place for civics education outside the school



Since its inception in 2012, the Wellington Women Walk for Peace, WWW4Peace for short, has been in the forefront in organising activities and events to celebrate International Women’s Day. In 2012, we started the Peace Walk from Parliament to the Civic Square and in 2013, we added the Peace Celebration at Te Papa Museum to our Peace Walk where we raised funds for our partner organisations - Women’s Refuge, Shakti of Wellington and Daya Trust.

This year, instead of organising a Peace Walk, we co-organised an event with the British High Commission, Ministry of Women’s Affairs and the Wellington City Council at Shed 6, Wellington on Saturday, 8 March. The event was attended by about 300 men and women (mostly women) from diverse groups, ethnicities and persuasions.

Speakers included HE Vicki Treadwell, British High Commission; Belinda Bonzon-Liu from Wellington Women Walk for Peace; Hon. Judith Collins – Minister of Justice, Her Worship Mayor Celia Wade-Brown and video messages from Hon Jo Goodhew – Minister of Women’s Affairs, Malala Yousafzai, Michele Bachelet, former Executive Director of UN Women and finally from the current Executive Director of UN Women - Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.

Katherine McIndoe, winner of the Union of Commonwealth Essay Competition, read “To Boldly Go: A Letter to the Lost Girls”, her heart felt composition about 100 million women who are missing due to trafficking, assault and violence and how everyone should act boldly to change the conditions for women. Their messages echoed the concerns of global and local problems of gender gap, violence against women and children, political participation, rape at war zones. As well as the need for action, participation, immersion and support for women from being a contributor, a donor, aware of issues, to becoming an advocate and a conscious consumer.

Awesome entertainment were performed by the GAMELAN (an Indonesian based performing group); Munting Tinig (a Filipino children’s choir and ukulele group); Poetry in Motion Wellington; Virtuoso Strings (a string orchestra that operates in lower decile schools in Wellington) and Tres Belle (a trio group of friends). An exhibit by a budding artist, Rosie Ralph, was also displayed and she promised that a certain percentage of any sold artwork will be donated to Shakti Wellington.

This year’s theme was “Equality for Women is Progress for all” and all the speeches and performances were programmed around three themes:

Educating the Girl Child, Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict and Women in Leadership.

The United Nations Association of New Zealand has been a founding endorser and supporter of the initiative with various members of the national council active participants in the initiative.

Photos by Clark Figuracion and Eve Kapriensky.

Photos from the Parliamentary Breakfast and from the British High Commission's evening

event – UN Women Aotearoa 2014



This is the second instalment of a two-part feature, the UN News Centre spotlights the experiences and views of Sir Brian leading up to the creation of the United Nations.

Sir Brian’s parachuting came to end in August 1942, when his parachute failed to open properly during a training jump. His plummet to the ground left him with broken bones, compacted vertebrae and internal injuries. Asides from agonizing pain, his recuperation included being found to have no pulse following three separate, unrecorded and maximum doses of morphine during a hospital transfer; and, being immobile, except for his head and arms, during months spent on his back and head down in a traction bed positioned at a 30 degree angle. After months spent convalescing, he returned to the Airborne Forces in April 1943.

UN News Centre: Your extensive injuries didn’t make you want to reconsider returning to the Airborne Forces?

Sir Brian Urquhart: It made me want to go back! I was absolutely heartbroken because I thought I was going to miss one of the main events, which was actually the Dieppe Raid [a 1942 Allied forces attack on the German-occupied port of Dieppe in northern France], which was one of England’s best and most total disasters. I was quite lucky to miss that. But no, I was interested in getting back to it.

As a junior officer, Sir Brian was involved in helping plan Operation Market Garden – one of the largest airborne battles in history. Taking place in September 1944, the operation involved British and American airborne troops capturing key bridges at Arnhem, Nijmegen and Grave in the Netherlands, as part of a push to bring the war in Europe to a quick

end. Sir Brian considered the plan to be “strategically unsound,” with the landscape where the parachutists landing in intersected by canals and causeways which would make support from relieving ground forces difficult to obtain. His views led to his being left out of the operation’s execution on medical grounds.

In his autobiography, Sir Brian wrote how the operation ended up with “more than 17,000 Allied soldiers killed, wounded or missing in nine days of fighting, no possible reckoning of civilian casualties, and all for nothing or worse than nothing.”

Since the end of World War II, there has been some controversy over the battle and its failure to succeed in its objectives.

Sir Brian was portrayed in the well-known 1977 film 'A Bridge Too Far,' based on the operation, although his name was changed to Major Fuller in order to prevent viewer confusion due to another personage with the same name of Urquhart.

UN News Centre: How did Operation Market Garden affect you personally?

Sir Brian Urquhart: This was a hugely ambitious proposition. It had the most number of aircraft ever put into the air at one time, dealing with parachute tugs, fighter escorts and bombing sorties. It was, I forget, five or six thousand aircraft – it was enormous, it had never been done before.

The Germans had learnt not to do it in Crete. The Germans thought Crete was a disaster, even though they won, because they killed so many of their own people. And this was exactly what we did. I was certainly mindful of Crete when we were planning that operation.

Well, I’m sorry to say… before Market Garden, I was fairly arrogant, fairly opinionated and had great confidence in the higher authorities. After that, I lost all of these feelings. I thought I had not handled it very well, in persuading them to change the plan, which I failed to do. I certainly was not impressed by the British generals involved, mostly General (Bernard) Montgomery, who came into this plan out of the blue to finish the war in one fell swoop.

Any fool could see that it wouldn’t work – but we won’t go into that now, it’s very long. I just felt very badly that I had not managed… I was 26 years old and it was extremely unlikely that I was going to turn over a plan which had been approved by Churchill and (US President Franklin Delano) Roosevelt and everybody else.



Sir Brian speaks about the mood of delegates at the creation of the world body at the meetings of the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations, held in London in 1945. Credit: UNTV Archives

Given his stance on Operation Market Garden, Sir Brian was shortly afterwards posted out of the Airborne Corps – at his request – and joined the chemical warfare branch of 21 Army Group Headquarters, then located in Brussels.

There, he was assigned to the newly established 'T' Force, set up to accompany advancing Allied troops into Germany and secure strategic intelligence assets such as industrial plants, laboratories and eminent German scientists. In this role, Sir Brian happened to be one of the first Allied troops to liberate the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in north-western Germany.

Towards the end of combat operations in Europe, Sir Brian discovered that because of his young age but long service, he could not be transferred to the theatre of operations in Asia and faced little chance of being demobilized soon.

Thanks to renowned historian Professor Arnold J. Toynbee – whom Sir Brian knew after having attended Oxford University with his son Philip – Sir Brian managed to secure a transfer to the Foreign Office Research Branch in London, which Professor Toynbee headed during the war.

Professor Toynbee recalled that Sir Brian had once spoken of his pre-war ambition to work for the League of Nations and told him that a friend of his – Gladwyn Jebb, a British civil servant and diplomat –

had been appointed the Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations and was now recruiting.

Sir Brian lost no time in visiting Mr. Jebb, who soon appointed him as his private secretary – in the process becoming the United Nations’ second recruit.

Meeting in London between 16 August – 24 November 1945, the Preparatory Commission was charged with setting up the new body in accordance with the UN Charter, which was signed on 26 June 1945 in San Francisco, and came into force on 24 October that year.

Following his service on the commission, Gladwyn Jebb went on to serve as Acting UN Secretary-General from October 1945 to February 1946, until the appointment of the first Secretary-General, Trygve Lie.

UN News Centre: As a child, you had dreamed about working for the League of Nations. You managed to become one of the first staff members of its successor, the United Nations. How did you feel about that?

Sir Brian Urquhart: I felt fantastically lucky. In the first place, it was literally three weeks after I got out of the army, thanks to Arnold Toynbee. I was working for a superb person to learn from: Gladwyn Jebb of the British Foreign Office, who was the Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission. He was really the first Secretary-General and he was absolutely outstanding. So I simply sat back for six months and learned. I was lucky – incredibly lucky.

UN News Centre: What was the atmosphere like during those early days of the United Nations’ birth?

Sir Brian Urquhart: This is what most of us had been waiting for, for six years, and suddenly one was lucky enough to be working for this new world organization.

A lot of people there had been much worse off than I was during the war. They’d been in the resistance in their own countries, had lost people in the war. It was a sort of bitter-sweet occasion in some ways. London was a mess. It was a very grey, dismal, bashed-about city – food rationing and all that. It was very un-cheerful physical surroundings, [but] the atmosphere at the UN was very upbeat. I mean, [the Soviet Union’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Andrei Andreyevich] Gromyko was the life and soul of the party; he made these wonderful jokes all the time. He was 37 years old. We had an outstanding group of people. I mean, we had Adlai Stevenson from the United States, [and Edwin

The first session of the United Nations General Assembly opened on 10 January 1946 at Central Hall in London. Here, Secretary-General Trygve, speaks at his installation ceremony. (2 February 1946) UN Photo/Marcel Bolomey - See more at: http://www.un.org/apps/news/newsmakers.asp?NewsID=70#sthash.YZGxWIDa.dpuf

http://www.un.org/apps/news/newsmakers.asp?NewsID=70#sthash.YZGxWIDa.dpuf

http://www.un.org/apps/news/newsmakers.asp?NewsID=70#sthash.YZGxWIDa.dpuf



R.] Stettinius, we had Ernest Bevin from the United Kingdom, we had Gromyko from the Soviet Union… a very distinguished group and there were still more or less under the spell of San Francisco – more or less.

Soon after the end of World War II, the Cold War set in, affecting the United Nations. Here, Sir Brian speaks about its impact on staff in the late 1940s. Credit: UNTV Archives

The euphoria of the early days soon changed as the rivalries of the Cold War started to make themselves felt. In his autobiography, Sir Brian wrote that “the statesmanlike attitudes of the early meetings soon gave way to competitive point-scoring, and on many critical issues the level of debate sank to name-calling, polemics, and abuse, rendering a positive outcome precarious if not impossible. In 1946 these depressing tendencies were only just becoming to become apparent.”

UN News Centre: Given the excitement of those early days, how did it feel to see this change come over the still-forming organization?

Sir Brian Urquhart: It was a terrible shock, actually. I have to say that I and my contemporaries were on the whole rather naïve. We really thought that – since we’d had no civilian experience in our adult life at all – that if governments said they were going to change and to do things differently in the future, then they would. Of course they didn’t. We went right back to square one. In fact, worse than square one because we were in a nuclear arms race by 1948, which was extremely dangerous.

The UN was a very cynical organization by that time. The Russians had “excommunicated” Trygve Lie over Korea. They wouldn’t talk to him. The McCarthy people [investigators looking into claims of Communist spies and sympathizers in the US federal government and elsewhere, as voiced by people such as US Senator Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy] were running around the [UN] Secretariat trying to nail all the American members of the Secretariat as communists, which was very depressing, because people were frightened of them. A lot of people simply lost their jobs for no reason whatsoever. And I was disgusted by that. I thought it was terrible. And it was all very well for me to be supporting them, but it didn’t help very much – well, we could go into that at great length, but we won’t.

I actually became very sceptical about the UN at that point and then I, unfortunately, had a rather considerable disagreement with the first Secretary-General, whose personal assistant I was – we had a temperamental disconnect, we didn’t fit well together. And I left him in 1948 over various disagreements, including about the Middle East. I really was in limbo for three or four years and was seriously thinking about leaving and then, miraculously, out of the blue, this young Swede arrived. [Go here for more on Sir Brian's experience and views on working with Dag Hammarskjöld, the second UN Secretary-General.]

The then-Belgian Congo became an independent state on 30 June 1960, under the name of Republic of the Congo. Post-independence chaos, including an attempt at secession by the mineral-rich province of Katanga, led to a request for UN intervention, which the Security Council authorized over 13-14 July 1960.

“The violent interaction between the Belgian troops and the Congolese destroyed all hope of restoring calm and normality… We also had to help the new and totally inexperienced Congolese administration to take hold of the reins of government in a chaotic situation,” Sir Brian wrote of this period in his autobiography.

Service in the Republic of the Congo was a hazardous assignment for UN staff. During the life of the United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC), there were 250 civilian and military fatalities.

Sir Brian’s first service in the African country was in 1960 as an assistant to Ralph Bunche, who was then serving as the Secretary-General's Special Representative in the Congo.

Ireland’s Conor Cruise O’Brien was then serving as

The New York City Building, at the old World's Fair grounds in Flushing Meadows, served temporarily as the location for the General Assembly between 1946 and 1950, until the completion of the UN Headquarters complex in Manhattan. UN Photo



the UN Representative in Katanga, but eventually left, partly due to threats against his life. In late 1961, Sir Brian replaced Mr. Cruise O’Brien in the sensitive position in the secessionist province.

Soon after his arrival in Elizabethville, as the capital of Katanga province was then known, Sir Brian was kidnapped and beaten by disaffected Katangese troops, coming close to being killed.

Thousands of soldiers from more than ten countries served with the UN Force in the Republic of the Congo, helping to restore order and calm in the country in relation to the breakaway province of Katanga. Here, a Swedish Army carrier crosses a bridge built by UN peacekeepers. (3 September 1963) UN Photo/BZ

UN News Centre: In the wake of Conor Cruise O’Brien’s departure from the post of UN Representative in Katanga, you said that it was a job that no one in their right mind would have wanted. Yet you took it. Why?

Sir Brian Urquhart: Well, there wasn’t any way that I wouldn’t take it! I was asked to take it by Ralph Bunche, who was my boss and in whom I had enormous confidence. We were in a hopeless mess at that time. The morale of that whole force had completely gone to bits. And we’d had to take Conor Cruise O’Brien out because he was in physical danger of being seriously damaged – and there wasn’t any way that you could say no. I wouldn’t have dreamt of saying no. I got kidnapped the second night I was there, actually, which was unfortunate.

UN News Centre: In your kidnapping, you were alone and far from any help. How did you save yourself? Did that experience shake your faith and dedication to the UN?

Sir Brian Urquhart: Not at all! On the contrary, it made me anxious to get back and try to fix the situation. I was lucky because the colonel of the Gurkhas [serving as UN peacekeepers], S.S. Maitra,

who was my great friend, was a fantastic soldier. The Gurkhas had this unbelievable reputation in Katanga. They were supposed to be able to cut people’s limbs off in mid-air with their kukris [a machete-like knife used by the Gurkhas], this kind of thing, but they were wonderful soldiers. So I really survived by saying, “You can kill me – but don’t think the Gurkhas will not come and get you if you do it.” Actually, since nobody had the foggiest idea where I was, it wasn’t true, but nonetheless it worked. And I really think it’s what saved me.

As a result of the fighting and general unrest in the Republic of Congo's Katanga province, tens of thousands of people sought shelter and assistance from UN peacekeepers until they were able to return to their homes. Here, a view of some of the refugees and the make-shift living quarters outside the city Elizabethville. (8 September 1961) UN Photo/BZ

Throughout the first decades of the UN’s existence, Sir Brian worked very closely with Ralph Bunche, an academic who had been active in the US civil rights movement and had been working in the US State Department when Secretary-General Trygve Lie had him come to the UN to oversee the Department of Trusteeship. He was awarded the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for his mediation work in the Middle East. The two colleagues became close friends over the years. In addition to penning a biography of the UN’s second Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjöld, Sir Brian also wrote a biography of Mr. Bunche.

UN News Centre: Your link to Dag Hammarskjöld is quite well known, perhaps more so than your ties to Ralph Bunche. Can you tell us about Mr. Bunche and his impact on the UN?

Sir Brian Urquhart: I first met Ralph Bunche just when I got into the Preparatory Commission in London in 1945. I was still in uniform because I didn’t



have any civilian clothes. I remember my wife and I took him to the London Zoo on a Sunday because he didn’t have anything to do. I didn’t know it, but he was already a famous figure in the United States.

He was the original writer for what is now the civil rights movement. He had conducted, along with a few other people, a number of very successful, original civil rights demonstrations. He had written the first draft of An American Dilemma [full title: An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy] which is still the classic work on the problem of the negro in the United States. He was very modest, so he would never tell you he’d done anything. He was incapable of blowing his own horn, which is terrible. So I didn’t know any of this. And then, time

went by and when [the UN’s second Secretary-General Dag] Hammarskjöld arrived, he took Ralph into his own office.

When I joined Ralph, I became his chief assistant. He was what was called the Under-Secretary-General for Special Political Affairs [one of two officials in that role]. At that time, he had just got the Nobel Peace Prize for the armistice agreements in Israel and the

five Arab states.

He was a very, very famous person and he didn’t like it. He wanted to go back to Harvard where he was a professor and kept on saying he was going to do it, but had just one more thing to do. And then Israel declared statehood and he was immediately sent to the Middle East to try to umpire the 1948 war between the

Arabs and Israel. He became – when [Swedish UN mediator Count Folke] Bernadotte was assassinated – the mediator and produced this fantastic result. Ralph was a really, absolutely remarkable person, and he became my closest friend, as a matter of fact. That is the difference between him and Hammarskjöld… It took Ralph three years to get used to anybody and those three years were spent in testing you, by giving you really impossible things to do and then tearing up whatever you wrote or said or suggested as a result, and starting all over again. And if you got through that, you were in! And I realized this, fortunately, so I enjoyed it.

And I must say that we had a wonderful 20 years. Ralph, after Hammarskjöld, probably deserves more than anyone else for establishing a standard of international [civil] service. He minded passionately about [the role of] an international civil servant, to the extent that the United States said that Ralph was always much more resistant to anything they suggested, more than that from any other country. And it was probably true.

He was determined to be independent. He was, like Hammarskjöld, an intellectual with a fantastic capacity for seeing round corners into the future, for

Sir Brian Urquhart. (16 September 2011) UN Photo/Mark Garten

Senior UN official Ralph J. Bunche. A colleague and close friend of Sir Brian, Mr. Bunche was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950 for his mediation activities in the Middle East. UN Photo/Marvin Bolotsky



having alternative courses of action, for never being caught flat-footed. And he was also totally honest. He would never, ever tell anyone something that wasn’t true, which annoyed people at first but then they discovered that it was quite good, because it worked both ways.

I would say that, in his own way, Ralph was one of the most extraordinary people I have ever met and he taught me everything I know about politics and international affairs. He was absolutely remarkable and I wish that he was more remembered than he is. But that was hopeless. For example, Ralph wouldn’t allow anybody to publish that he’d written the first draft of An American Dilemma.

He tried to turn down the Nobel Peace Prize, which upset the Norwegians, but then they got Trgve Lie to order him to take it. I mean, he thought this all interfered with doing the job – the job was it. It wasn’t you. And everything you had went into that and anything that distracted was out, like good public relations or flattery or anything like that. He was a very remarkable person and also, personally, one of the most delightful, funny… he was a marvellous fellow.

Sir Brian was instrumental to the development of UN peacekeeping. As the Suez crisis of 1956 unfolded, the idea of a UN force was discussed by Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld and Lester Pearson of Canada, who headed the Canadian delegation to the UN from 1946 to 1956, and served as President of the General Assembly’s seventh session.

Mr Pearson proposed and sponsored a resolution which created the United Nations Emergency Force – the UN’s first deployment of peacekeepers – to police the area involved. Sir Brian, one of the few people with extensive military experience within the UN Secretariat’s political offices, was heavily involved in assembling this first ever UN peacekeeping deployment and its subsequent development as a tool in international relations.

In his autobiography, he wrote that “the real strength of a UN peacekeeping operation lies not in its capacity to use force, but precisely in its not using force and thereby remaining above the conflict and preserving its unique position and prestige. The moment a peacekeeping force starts killing people it becomes a part of the conflict it is supposed to be controlling, and therefore, part of the problem. It loses the one quality which distinguishes it from, and sets it above, the people it is dealing with.” In 1988, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 1988 Nobel Peace Prize to UN Peacekeeping Forces,

noting that through their efforts they have made important contributions towards the realization of one of the fundamental tenets of the United Nations.

In addition, peacekeeping was the part of his job that Sir Brian loved more than any other and he felt a strong rapport with the 'blue helmets,' as UN peacekeepers became popularly known.

“Although, as their civilian chief, I had often had to prod or to restrain them, we had had, on the whole, the happiest of relationships, and I was very sad to leave them,” he wrote in his autobiography.

UN News Centre: You were there for the birth and later development of UN peacekeeping operations in various locations. Some of those – like in Lebanon and Cyprus – are still there, decades after they started. What do you say to criticism that these are examples of how peacekeeping is not bringing about a peaceful conclusion to conflict?

Sir Brian Urquhart: Peacekeeping was never...a peaceful conclusion, it was for making the conditions for a peaceful conclusion. And if you had something like Cyprus, where the Cyprus problem is sort of national industry and sport by now, on both sides, it’s very difficult to do.

The question is whether it’s better to have Cyprus held in a state of more or less equilibrium but not solve the problem, or just getting out of there and letting the two sides fight it out, in which case the Greeks will lose. And I think that it’s no question, we have to stay there. The most amazing example of this is the [UN] observers in Kashmir, who the Indians would like to get rid of, [and] the Pakistanis will never allow to, because they indicate the problem is not settled.

UN News Centre: You have described a UN peacekeeping force “like a family friend who has moved into a household stricken by disaster. It must conciliate, console and discreetly run the household without ever appearing to dominate or usurp the natural rights of those it is helping.” Do you think peacekeeping has maintained that incarnation today?

Sir Brian Urquhart: This is what it was like in the Cold War, when we would try to stop regional conflicts from setting fire to the east-west nuclear conflict, which was very important, particularly in places like the Middle East and Africa.

It is changing now because the UN now does much more complicated civilian-military operations inside countries. We used to be on the borders, stopping conflicts between nations. They were mostly border



conflicts from the period of decolonization .

Now we’re inside countries dealing with political, human rights, humanitarian problems of all kinds, including… I mean in the Congo, we were virtually running the government of the Congo in 1960; something we’d never done before. And I think that this is the form that peacekeeping is taking. Kofi Annan once said that the United Nations is the only fire brigade in the world which only buys a fire engine after the fire has stared. Think about it. It’s a good point.

UN News Centre: Like many who have followed in your steps, you have experienced violence during your service as a UN civilian peacekeeper. What do you make of the growing targeting of UN peacekeepers whereas once they were widely considered neutral players in a conflict?

The issue of Cyprus was and is of major concern to the United Nations. In this footage from the 1970s, Sir Brian, then serving as Under-Secretary-General for Special Political Affairs, accompanies Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim on a mission to the divided Mediterranean island. Credit: UNTV Archives

Sir Brian Urquhart: This is very serious. You used to get shot at quite bit, but at least you weren’t officially targeted by a highly effective terrorist organization. I think this is a disastrous thing – I don’t know what can be done about that…

If you fortify all the UN headquarters, the UN people have less and less contact with the people they’re trying to help and then their performance will go down. For what it’s worth, our great good fortune was that you could walk out the door, wander down the street and talk to people. You can’t do that now and that, I think, is a very, very serious problem for anyone trying to help.

On the Security Council, Sir Brian wrote that “… as one who had watched the Security Council from the beginning I sometimes felt that only an invasion from outer space would be a sufficiently non-controversial disaster to bring the Council back to the great power unanimity that the Charter required in order to make the United Nations effective.”

UN News Centre: What is your view on calls to reform the Security Council, on the grounds that it no longer represents the world we live in?

Sir Brian Urquhart: I think it’s terrible, but this is the problem of regional identity, isn’t it? Because if you’re going to have the Security Council more

representative, you’re going to have to possibly have a permanent regional representative for each region, but who is the top [one] in each region? Nobody knows. Not in Latin America, not in Africa. For Asia, they’ve already got China but then there’s Japan. It’s a very complicated problem and unless they make it much, much larger, which I think would be probably very inefficient… I don’t know who is going to solve that. I don’t know what the solution to that is. People have suggested all sorts of complicated solutions, but they’re too complicated.

What you have to hang on to is the Council’s feeling that it has a serious mission which is over and above what nationality you are. If you can only get that – and I think to some extent it does have that now – I think a lot of the give or take on these recent so-called Arab Spring problems and problems in Cote d’Ivoire have had the makings of a kind of corporate responsibility in the Council itself, for actually trying to do something. That’s good. You couldn’t do that in the Cold War. It was impossible.

UN News Centre: What role do you see for the UN in the 21st century, especially compared to when it first began in the late 1940s?

Sir Brian Urquhart: I would like to see it as a much more international organization than it is now. I mean, I think it’s nice for governments to be taking the initiative in the Security Council, for example, that’s fine. And they’re actually doing some very interesting stuff now with the responsibility to protect and everything.

I would like to see a much more solid international leadership, which would really look at problems which are going to affect the future completely. I already mentioned the so-called global problems like climate change and global warming, and certainly some of the effects of the population and communications revolution. I think the UN does have a huge role to play there, quite apart from its role in peace and security which I think it is making progress on.

I still think that the UN needs to have a standing establishment to do emergency things – at least a core establishment for peacekeeping, a core establishment for humanitarian rescue and so on. It’s beginning to get there but hasn’t gotten there and until it does that, it’s going to be regarded as second-rate, which is bad.

I think that it’s absolutely essential to have at the top of the organization – and after all, the Secretary-



General is the only person chosen by all the members – you really need to have someone who is not only a leader, but an intellectual leader. And if governments don’t like that, they’ll get used to it. I mean, to look back to Hammarskjöld: Hammarskjöld’s first objection was to the American CIA coup in Guatemala – that was the first brush he had with a great power when he came to the office. The United States was furious. John Foster Dulles and Eisenhower: they were livid. But then they discovered that if you had somebody independent like that, he could go to China – with which they had no relations with – and negotiate 17 American airmen out of captivity because people in China knew the guy was independent!

This is what I would like to see … but we’re in different times now. And I think it would be a very great pity if the UN doesn’t play a much more active role in really getting after these long-term problems which governments often can’t face because they’re so busy with the short-term rigmarole that they don’t get ‘round to it.

Sir Brian was appointed Under-Secretary-General for Special Political Affairs in 1974. The post had been vacant since the death of its previous holder – Sir Brian’s close friend and colleague, Dr. Ralph Bunche – in 1971.

“It meant a great deal to me to follow in Bunche’s footsteps, and I was also proud to have got to the top in the Secretariat under my own steam, instead of being a political appointee as most of my senior colleagues had been,” Sir Brian wrote in his autobiography. "What followed were busy years, particularly with events in Lebanon, Cyprus, the Middle East and Namibia."

In the wake of the UN’s 40th anniversary in 1985, Sir Brian decided it was time to retire. “Much as I loved the work and was dedicated to the organization, I had 40 years of fairly continuous pressure and enforced discretion, and I wanted a little freedom of action and speech before I got too old to enjoy it. I was also anxious to hand over in an orderly fashion to a properly designated successor,” he wrote.

UN News Centre: You have had a very unique position in being able to observe Secretaries-General, from up close and afar, for all of the United Nations’ 66 years. In brief, your thoughts on Trgve Lie, the UN’s first Secretary-General?

Trygve Lie. UN Photo

Sir Brian Urquhart: Well, Trygve Lie, you know, actually says in his memoirs, “Why has this horrible job fallen to a labour lawyer from Oslo?” He was absolutely right. He didn’t want to be Secretary-General. He didn’t run for it. He wanted to be President of the General Assembly.

I liked Trygve very much. He was a very decent guy and if you think he did nothing, you’re now sitting in something he did do, which was to get the Headquarters. I mean, we were like the Flying Dutchman when we got to the United States; we were always moving from the gym in Hunter College to the gyroscope plant at Lake Success on Long Island, it was terrible. He got the UN settled in New York, which was absolutely essential. If we had gone and settled in some of those resort places that were offered, this organization would be dead. This is very important place to be. It’s a very abrasive hub of world affairs and that’s good for everybody.

Dag Hammarskjöld. UN Photo/ES

UN News Centre: Your thoughts on Dag Hammarskjöld?

Sir Brian Urquhart: I think Hammarskjöld was the most impressive international leader so far anywhere. He was quite remarkable and he was genuinely international and I think he was a person of some genius which has created this flame which is still running, more or less.



U Thant. UN Photo/Yutaka Nagata

UN News Centre: Your thoughts on U Thant?

Sir Brian Urquhart: U Thant was, in one way, the opposite to Hammarskjöld, but in a funny way, he was very courageous. It was U Thant who, during the India-Pakistan war – which was extremely serious because you had China, Russia and the United States involved – went there, and got it sort of put on hold. He took a very important initiative in the Cuban missile crisis, which I think greatly helped in the resolution of it. He never told anybody about it. But he also did something which nobody else did in the Cuban missile crisis, which was actually go to Cuba and sit on Castro’s head before Castro got something going, which really would have got the thing off to a nuclear start. I had a huge regard for U Thant. He was a Buddhist. He was a very highly moral person. He believed that it was more important than politics, which didn’t go down too well with diplomats. He was excellent. A good man.

Kurt Waldheim. UN Photo/D. Burnett

UN News Centre: Your thoughts on Kurt Waldheim?

Sir Brian Urquhart: Not my favourite Secretary-General, I have to say, but I also have to say that he was a dedicated worker – he worked like hell. I was running the peacekeeping business then and I must say that he was very supportive of what we did, and if you suggested a good idea to him, he would do his level-best to carry it out. And I think he got a very bad rap for all this business of denying he was in the German Army. It was a great pity. It did nobody any good. It was ridiculous. He didn’t need to do it.

Javier Perez de Cuellar. UN Photo/Backrach

UN News Centre: Your thoughts on Javier Perez de Cuellar?

Sir Brian Urquhart: Javier, I think was much more effective than people ever realized. Like U Thant, he was a very quiet man at a very key period – after all, this was the end of the Cold War. It was very tricky. He was a cerebral person, he had very good people working for him. He was very, very good in dealing with the nightmare situation going on in the late 80s, and I think he will, in history, come out extremely well.

Boutros Boutros-Ghali. UN Photo/Milton Grant

UN News Centre: Your thoughts on Boutros Boutros-Ghali?

Sir Brian Urquhart: You know, Boutros Boutros-Ghali is somebody I knew very well before [he became the UN’s sixth Secretary-General]. He’s a brilliant, extremely likable, brilliant man – perhaps too brilliant for his own good in this kind of job. I don’t know how it was that he managed to become a factor in American electoral politics, but he did. They were determined to get rid of him. I think it was a shame, but I think he was a little too much of a prima donna to do this kind of job – and I say that as somebody who likes him very much. If you were going in to a competition on who you’d like to spend an evening talking with, then Boutros-Ghali would be right at the very top.



Kofi Annan. UN Photo/John Isaac

UN News Centre: Your thoughts on Kofi Annan?

Sir Brian Urquhart: Kofi, you know, came from the Secretariat, like me. I think he did a remarkable job and he became quite an important public personality – which was important. He was very articulate. He had very, very good people working for him. He started quite a few ideas, notably the responsibility to protect, which he actually introduced in a speech in the General Assembly long before it became a sort of a fashionable thing. And that led to all these people studying it and it actually being endorsed by the Millennium Summit. I think he did a wonderful job. I think he had a terrible time over Iraq, where he was honest. That was very difficult and he managed to run right into Washington, DC.

Ban Ki-moon. UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

UN News Centre: Your thoughts on Ban Ki-moon?

Sir Brian Urquhart: I’ve always made a principle of never publicly commenting on the serving Secretary-General. The serving Secretary-General has enough to do anyway without jokers like me making neat remarks about them, so I’m not going to do that!

Following his retirement, Sir Brian has devoted himself to writing on international affairs, including the United Nations. In an editorial earlier this year, The Guardian newspaper described Sir Brian as “one whose life is an allegory of international co-operation…He was the anti-bureaucrat: plain-speaking and even once criticised for keeping too small a staff... He is a rare argument for the unity of the virtues and a mark of what the UN could and should be. He says sovereignty needs to be reconciled ‘with the demands of human survival and decency in the astonishingly dangerous world we have absentmindedly created.’ Governments

should listen.”

UN News Centre: In years to come, how would you like to be remembered?

Sir Brian briefing journalists at UN Headquarters following an official mission to the Middle East in 1978. UN Photo

Sir Brian Urquhart: I think I’d like to be remembered as an exemplary international civil

servant – if there is such a thing. No, take out exemplary. As a good international civil servant, because I think it’s very important. Sooner or later, we’re going to have to develop it.

UN News Centre: Looking back at your time at the UN, do you have any regrets about things that could have been done better?

Sir Brian Urquhart: If you were brought up as a Unitarian like me, you always have regrets! Of course, I think we could have done things better. But I’m not sure one needs to dwell on that too much. I think one has to dwell, when one gets old, first of all, on trying to leave something behind that’s of some use to other people. And I’ve tried to do that in by writing about Hammarskjöld, Bunche and indeed about myself, and also in a whole number of books on trying to reform the UN – which nobody has ever read, but that’s alright. I think one needs to do that. It’s like what you say to people; you always think [afterwards] of something you might have said which was infinitely smarter. It’s the same in life. After the fuss has died [down] and you’ve somehow managed to muddle your way through some problem; you think, “God damn it, if only I’d thought of… !” or “If I’d just thought of so and so, he would have been just the person.” But it doesn’t happen like that.

UN News Centre: What’s it like to be considered a living legend in international affairs and a link to a different time, or so many different times, in the UN’s history?

Sir Brian Urquhart: Well, in the first place, I’m very sceptical of remarks like this “living legend” business. Everybody’s a living legend to somebody! I mean, come on! I don’t want to



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