Classical diplomacy of the future?
What I hope to be able to show is that there are multistakeholders
everywhere. Their insistence on a place at the diplomatic table
is matched by a growing realisation by governments that they
cannot achieve their own diplomatic objectives without the knowledge
and strength of those stakeholders.
There is a general presumption in writing on diplomacy that
it is a European preserve. This is a highly challengeable theory,
but it can be accepted for the purposes of this discussion because
so much of what we are looking at for the future is rooted in
European ways of doing business.
According to those traditions, the "classical age" of diplomacy
originated with the stabilisation of European borders and relationships
with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. This supposedly lifted
diplomacy out of the Macchiavellian web of espionage, conspiracy
and deceit, and paved the way for the work many diplomats still
do today.
Or do they?
The BBC made a TV documentary film in 1967 entitled "Our Man
in El Salvador" in which the Ambassador was depicted as an eccentric
middle-aged gentleman whose main responsibilities were to look
after the expatriate (namely British) community and spend no
more money than he had been allocated when he set out by ship
for his posting.
There was little in the film about any stakeholders, and little
to suggest that an Ambassador had evolved much since the time
when they were the personal representatives of kings to the
courts of other kings.
The same mystique pervaded early forms of multilateral diplomacy,
and it was not until the United States Senate refused consent
to the Covenant of the League of Nations in 1919 that the world
saw a clear assertion of parliamentary authority in this sphere
of international relations.
Paradoxically, this exercise of power also excluded the United
States from one of the lasting triumphs of the Covenant, the
provisions of Article 18 on the registration and publication
of treaties, and hence the true starting point for modern multi-stakeholder
diplomacy.
It also ended another dream of President Wilson, another precursor
of modern multi-stakeholder diplomacy, for it meant that the
links he envisaged between the two great post-war institutions
were never built. He wanted a world in which the political issues
were addressed by a League of Nations, and the humanitarian
ones by a League of Red Cross Societies.
As part of that, Article 25 of the Covenant of the League of
Nations embodies a commitment by States to "encourage and promote
the establishment and cooperation of duly authorised voluntary
national Red Cross organisations having as purposes the improvement
of health, the prevention of disease and the mitigation of suffering
throughout the world" [1].
This is the real starting point of multistakeholder involvement
in diplomacy, and it is from there that this treatise starts.
The modern environment for diplomacy, multilaterally as well
as bilaterally, necessarily involves a much wider range of stakeholders
than was either available or utilised in the past.
In the days of "Our man in El Salvador", an Ambassador and the
Embassy were very much the property of the Foreign Ministry.
The fact that the Ambassador (still now) technically represents
the head of state to the receiving head of state did then and
even more importantly now means that the Ambassador represents
the whole of the sending state.
This means that as the range of stakeholders in government increases
in countries everywhere in the world, so does the range of stakeholders
to whom an Ambassador might be deemed accountable.
This isn't accountability in the way it is understood in the
corporate or institutional world, but it does mean that there
is a vicarious relationship between Ambassadors and others in
the sending state which must be sustained through new forms
of contact with those stakeholders.
Governments began to be aware of this growing truth about 30
years ago. It was fostered by a combination of changes in the
way the public in different countries came to appreciate how
foreign policy could affect their own lives.
The largest example of this is probably in the area of trade
policy. The significance of trade issues is such that it affects
lives and livelihoods very directly. In turn, this produces
an array of what we would today call lobbyists, but the interest
groups they represent have for many years brought their priorities
to the top of governments and have influenced - some would say
controlled - the way trade issues are managed through diplomacy.
Trade ministries in different countries, and their counterparts
in ministries responsible for industry, business and the like,
have often stood separate from foreign ministries because they
believed that they could maintain a relationship with their
stakeholders on a much more direct basis than the stereotypical
foreign ministry and its environment.
Foreign ministries have however had an opportunity to build
their own stakeholder base in their communities through the
arrival of multilateral rule-making through the UN and other
institutions.
This had its liveliest expression in the preamble to the Charter
of the United Nations.
That starting phrase: "We the peoples ..." is the clearest demonstration
of how much the world had evolved since the adoption of the
Covenant of the League of Nations.
That instrument, despite its historic establishment of open
diplomacy, begins with the sonorous words "The High Contracting
Parties, in order to promote international cooperation and to
achieve international peace and security…".
The principal teeth given to "We the peoples" are contained
in Article 71 of the Charter, through which the Economic and
Social Council "may make suitable arrangements for consultation
with non-governmental organisations which are concerned with
matters within its competence" [2].
The Cold War sent these openings to multistakeholder diplomacy
into hibernation. Debate about the transformation of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights into binding treaty instruments
was inhibited by requirements stemming from Article 2(7) of
the Charter and the impossibility of intervention in the domestic
jurisdiction of states.
Nevertheless, the International Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, adopted in 1965 [3],
entitles a State Party which considers that another State Party
is "not giving effect to the provisions" of the Convention to
"bring the matter" to the attention of the committee set up
by the Convention.
Analogous procedures exist in most of the other modern human
rights instruments, which have often been supplemented by protocols
expanding the ability of their committees to examine issues
brought forward by individuals as well as other States party.
The human rights instruments, when seen alongside the ability
of NGOs to work the UN system, provided a great example to other
legislative bodies in the international community to recognise
the demands of individuals and groups for meaningful contact
with the diplomatic world which manages that international community.
Not all elements in the UN system have successfully grappled
with this. But one good example is the treaty body system which
has developed in the environmental world.
For example, Article 6 of the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate
Change contains an undertaking by States to promote and facilitate
public access to information on climate change and its effects,
and public participation in addressing and responding to it.
Article 7(6) of the Convention provides quite liberal access
to conferences to NGOs, both national and international, and
sets the stage for expanded forms of public involvement in diplomatic
proceedings surrounding the treaty [4].
The next event which deserves to be described in this brief
and selective history of multistakeholder diplomacy is the Millennium
Declaration, adopted by heads of State and Government in New
York in September 2000.
Although the instrument itself is very top-down, this was necessary
in a context which saw the leaders of the world's nations commit
themselves to taking steps in conformity with the duty they
acknowledged at the outset "to all the world's people, especially
the most vulnerable, and, in particular, the children of the
world, to whom the future belongs" [5].
This led to a surge in diplomatic understanding of the need
for multilateral institutions to find new ways of communicating
with and responding to the needs identified by non-governmental
organisations in general and civil society in particular.
The 2005 World Summit Outcome, adopted by heads of government
at their 5 year review of the Millennium Declaration, is studded
with references to the relevance and importance of such interaction
[6].
But progress has been slow, and governments have moved at an
uneven pace towards the realisation that interaction between
them and their communities is critical to the advancements that
they all seek. Some governments began finding ways of including
representatives of the relevant non-governmental world in their
official delegations to UN and similar meetings over 30 years
ago. Some have yet to find ways of doing this even in 2007.
Some are more attentive to the need in areas where they know
that central governments simply cannot fully represent the needs
of their communities alone. One such is in the field of disaster
preparedness and response. The World Conference on Disaster
Reduction, held in Kobe in January 2005, was attended by over
160 government delegations and a huge number of observers and
NGOs.
Most importantly, however, ten of the government delegations
included a person from the country's Red Cross or Red Crescent
Society. The governments which made this choice to broaden the
stakeholder base of their delegation are diverse, including
Canada, Iran, Congo Republic, France and Mexico.
In addition, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red
Crescent Societies, which has a standing invitation to participate
in such conferences as an observer, had a delegation including
representatives of 20 of its member National Societies.
National Societies bring another dimension of multistakeholder
to these diplomatic events. They are not NGOs, technically not
part of civil society either. They are established by legislation,
but as members of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent
Movement they are required to be independent while functioning
as the auxiliaries to the public authorities of their country
in the humanitarian field [7].
In the context of the Kobe Conference, it is relevant to note
that governments have agreed to establish national disaster
management mechanisms, and to incorporate their Red Cross or
Red Crescent Society in it as a member on an equal basis with
the other agency or ministry members.
This gives them a special opportunity to act as a bridge linking
governments to the non-governmental world. It also gives their
International Federation the ability to form a similar bridge
at the international community level, for the International
Federation has the status of an international organisation observer
with the UN General Assembly.
The place of National Societies as auxiliaries to their public
authorities is specifically recognised in UN General Assembly
resolution 49/2 [8]. It is this resolution that gives the International
Federation its status as an Observer at sessions of the Assembly,
but its first preambular paragraph recalls their auxiliary function.
The International Federation has seen its role evolve alongside
the much greater emphasis given to the need for community views
to be incorporated into economic and social development actions
at all levels. As said, these were given direct expression by
heads of government in the Millennium Declaration.
But it was not just another declaration. It was delivered in
an atmosphere of reform and reinvigoration throughout the world.
The United Nations reform processes, still running, have seen
substantial changes made to the way humanitarian work is done.
The recently retired Emergency Relief Coordinator, Jan Egeland,
launched very significant reforms to the way stakeholders make
their inputs into debate as well as at operational levels.
One such is the beginnings of a global humanitarian platform,
which is still in development. It is based on a concept of partnership
between the intergovernmental world, represented by the UN and
other agencies, the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, and
the NGO world.
While it is too early to say how it will work, it comes at a
time when there is general agreement that without such partnerships
it will be even more difficult to achieve the goals set from
the Millennium Declaration.
The task now is to link all this, and bring all the multistakeholders
to the table to confront the challenges posed by poverty and
despair, and by the insecurity which they breed.
One way forward yet to receive real debate from governments
is the report by the group of eminent persons appointed by UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan. The report itself [9] offers radical
change to the way civil society is able to participate in the
workings of the UN, and Annan's response indicated a welcome
willingness to work with the essence of the recommendations
[10].
This is where debate is now among governments. Many governments
have difficulty imagining the international governance these
documents offer. Cardozo's report carries a title which brings
to this decade the language of the Charter of the UN itself:
"We the peoples: civil society, the United Nations and global
governance".
That says it all.
But it does not say how governments might or should accommodate
these international developments at the national level. For
multistakeholders to have real impact at the international level,
they must change the way national positions are defined.
One illustration of the way this can work at national and international
levels is available from the International Conference of the
Red Cross and Red Crescent. The 30th such conference will be
held in Geneva in November 2007, and will as usual bring together
into one room equally empowered delegations from governments
and national Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies [11].
The International Conference sits astride the International
Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. It makes decisions which
in some cases bind both governments and National Societies,
but in general its conclusions have a similar moral force to
the decisions of the United Nations General Assembly.
It would take too long to describe its dynamic today, but the
presence together of these equally empowered delegations has
its own impact on the way governments consider their own positions
and deliver their commitments. It is not at all the same as
the traditional closed intergovernmental shop common in UN fora.
At the national level, some aspects of frameworks for multistakeholder
impact are more or less in place, although they operate fitfully
and are still often tolerated by governments rather than welcomed.
Parliaments, which are the epitome of the multistakeholderism
in governance, are usually tightly controlled by political party
discipline and unable to play the part expected of them. Parliamentary
committees and other mechanisms for the scrutiny of legislation
and enquiry into practices provide some opportunities, but this
only works well if the other national groupings are able to
play their role.
This is why it is so important, in any discussion of what is
possible at the top of the rule-making tree, to nurture the
roots. These roots, at the community level, are fragile and
susceptible of narrow pressures.
The International Federation has worked hard in the UN and elsewhere
to bring attention to the priority of capacity-building at the
community level so that those roots can be a foundation for
strong national governance and strong humanitarian delivery,
meeting the needs of the most vulnerable at all times.
An example of this work and the willingness of governments to
recognise the challenge is ECOSOC resolution 2006/5, adopted
on 18 July last year. In it, the Council encourages governments
to "create an enabling environment for capacity-building of
local authorities and local and national non-governmental and
community-based organisations" [12].
Once stripped of its impenetrable language, the resolution serves
as a sign that at the top of the UN, at least, governments are
now ready to acknowledge that the involvement of these stakeholders
is essential to the delivery of humanitarian assistance.
This is not only an issue for developing countries. The Millennium
Development Goals apply to all countries, and none are immune
from poverty and despair. In many developed countries government
has become distant from the poor and the dispossessed, and it
is the community organisations, including the Red Cross and
Red Crescent Societies which provide the real resource for communities.
It is also not only an issue for multilateral relations. Although
it is convenient to use short-hand terms like "Global Village",
this village comprises a large number of communities which need
to build and strengthen their own intercommunity relationships.
It might seem easier to do this than to work at the global level,
but that would overlook the tensions which are generated by
migration between the communities and the need for new approaches
to integration for economic and social growth.
Multistakeholders capable of understanding how people can be
convinced of the value of confidence and trust in as their nations
become more and more multicultural are now in great demand.
We are moving into a period in which nations will link more
and more at the global level while experiencing more and more
tensions at the local level. Multistakeholder diplomats from
the community levels will have a great role to play in helping
make this work.
When doing this work, they should keep in mind a human rights
dictum which is important to all aspects of growth and development.
It is that human rights and fundamental freedoms are indivisible
and interdependent, and that this truth lies at the heart of
any program which seeks to develop human potential to the full.
This is an essential element in the 2005 World Summit Outcome,
and as an indication of how the world has moved in recent years,
it was adopted unanimously be heads of government. Yet, when
the concept of indivisibility and interdependence was first
introduced in the UN, the resolution promoting it was taken
to the vote [13].
"Multistakeholder" is a new word for most people these days.
It is certainly a word which could not have been comprehended
by our man in El Salvador. It is, however, a natural product
of the hastened evolution being rushed forward by the internet,
and it will be commonly used a few years from now.
It will bring to life a dream cherished by many seasoned diplomats
who have seen the shortcomings of aspects of their own profession,
and who anxiously wait for the day when they will be able to
say that their representative work is done for the benefit of
all their national stakeholders.
In this respect, I can't resist quoting a reference to Eduard
Kukan, former Foreign Minister of the Slovak Republic and a
very distinguished diplomat. As Minister, he is said to have
lunched every day in the Ministry's cafeteria contemplating
ways of removing privilege as the basis for diplomatic appointment
and bring new talent to work for his country. Removing, in his
words, "diplomatic fossils" [14].
Mr Kukan inherited a diplomatic service with a tradition dating
back to the Austro-Hungarian empire. Its diplomatic elite a
century ago has been described as dominated not just by aristocrats
but by court aristocrats and not those who had emerged more
recently from industry and business [15].
We are well beyond that now, and multistakeholderism is about
extending access to diplomacy to all those stakeholders who
are basic to the good governance of their worlds and the prosperity,
lives and livelihoods of their people. I am very glad to have
had the chance to speak a little about it here, and to say that
what was classical in the past won't be so classical in the
future, and it will sound even better if it is able to escape
from the chains which bind it because of outmoded and (nowadays
irrelevant) nationalist concepts. But that's a subject for another
conference.
________________________________
ENDNOTES
[1] The full text of the Covenant, including amendments adopted
in 1924 is conveniently available at http://fletcher.tufts.edu/multi/www/league-covenant.html
[2] The full text of the Charter is at http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/
[3] Full text at http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/d_icerd.htm
[4] Full text at http://unfccc.int/essential_background/convention/background/items/1349.php
[5] Full text at http://unfccc.int/essential_background/convention/background/items/1349.php
[6] The 2005 World Summit Outcome is contained in UN General
Assembly resolution 60/1, and is at http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N05/487/60/PDF/N0548760.pdf?OpenElement
[7] Independence is an essential attribute of all components
of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. It
is a requirement of both national and international law, and
was described as a “purpose of special concern”
in General Assembly resolution 55(I) of 19 November 1946 (text
at http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/033/06/IMG/NR003306.pdf?OpenElement)
[8] Text at http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N94/600/09/PDF/N9460009.pdf?OpenElement
[9] UN document A/58/817, at http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N04/376/41/PDF/N0437641.pdf?OpenElement
[10] The SG’s response to the report is in UN document
A/59/354, at http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N04/507/26/PDF/N0450726.pdf?OpenElement
[11] Information about and documentation for the Conference
is posted at www.rcstandcom.info
[12] http://www.un.org/docs/ecosoc/documents/2006/resolutions/Resolution%202006-5.pdf
[13] General Assembly resolution 32/130, adopted on 16 December
1977. At http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/32/ares32r130.pdf
[14] Referred to in “The Slovak Spectator” of 21
December 1998
[15] For more on this, see "Aristocratic Redoubt: the Austro-Hungarian
Foreign Office on the Eve of the First World War, by William
D. Godsey Jr (Purdue University Press 1998)”
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