UN: Nobel laureate for ninth time

By Thalif Deen at the united nations

Austria's Renate Christ, Secretary of the U. N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), seated center, poses with some of her coworkers in Geneva on Friday. U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore have won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, it was announced in Oslo, Norway, on Friday, Oct. 12, 2007. The committee recognized their efforts to build up and spread knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures to fight it. AP

NEW YORK - To the outside world, the United Nations is mostly a political animal: the endless resolutions by the General Assembly and selective vetoes and crippling sanctions by the Security Council, the only international body with the legitimate power to declare war and peace.

As a result, the world body's political failings — whether in Iraq, Myanmar, Sudan, Kosovo, Palestine or Zimbabwe — have given the organisation a tarnished image. All talk and little or no play. The primary reasons for these failings are the political double standards by the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council: the US, Britain, France, China and Russia.

All of them protect their allies, some described as the world's worst violators of human rights or repressive regimes where the rule of law has ceased to exist. A UN report last week accused the Iraqi government of a rash of "serious and widespread" human rights abuses, including extra judicial killings, torture of detainees, violations of the rule of law, ineffectiveness of the judiciary and irregularities in trial procedures.

An indictment of that nature would usually warrant condemnation by the Security Council. But since the US, a permanent member of the Council, is for all intents and purposes in military occupation of Iraq, the sins committed by the government in Baghdad escape the political radar in the world body. As co-conspirators, both Britain and France toe the American line in the Security Council.

At the same time, China continues to protect both Myanmar and Sudan because of its economic and military interests in the two countries while Russia stands by the Serbs and threatens to veto any resolution declaring Kosovo a new nation state thereby forcing it to move towards a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI).

But as a result of these unresolved and festering squabbles — from the Far East to the Middle East — the UN's achievements go mostly unrecognised, particularly in the non-political fields: health, peacekeeping, disarmament, human rights, the environment and social and economic development.

Nobel prize

As if to disprove the myth that the UN is essentially political, the Nobel Peace prize was awarded last week to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) which shared the accolade with former US Vice President Al Gore. The UN, which is crucified for its political shortcomings, has redeemed itself once again — as a Nobel laureate for the ninth time.

The IPCC joins the UN Nobel laureate family in the company of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), UN peacekeeping operations and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) — along with Ralph Bunche, Dag Hammarskjold, Kofi Annan and the United Nations itself.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in a statement released Friday, paid tribute both to Gore and to IPCC. He also rejoiced with the IPCC, and its co-sponsors, the UN Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization. While Gore projected a high political profile for global environmental issues, the IPCC established beyond doubt that climate change is not only a threat to our very existence but also caused mostly by human activity.

The result: an unprecedented momentum for action on climate change around the world, and recognition of the UN as the forum for reaching agreement on it. The Nobel awards come at a time when the UN is preparing for a critical international conference on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bali in December when governments will begin negotiations on the extension of the Kyoto Protocol's legally-binding limits on greenhouse pollution.

While commending the IPCC's meticulous scientific work on climate change, Stephanie Tunmore of the environmental organisation Greenpeace International, said IPCC reports have established a global scientific consensus on climate change and been "a clarion call for international efforts to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stop climate change from spiraling out of control."

Gore's efforts have been described as a wake up call to policy makers and the public alike to the global warming crisis throughout the world. Meanwhile, there is also a political perspective to the Gore award, which will trigger speculation, once again, that he would be a candidate for the US presidential elections next year. Although the race is still open, it will be a long shot for a Gore nomination for the presidency.

But the Democratic campaign is in full swing with Senator Hillary Clinton as the front runner among the party's candidates. Whether Gore can make a successful entry so late in the day remains to be seen.