The United Nations: Challenges

HL Deb 29 January 1992 vol 534 cc1348-85

5.29 p.m.

Lord Judd

rose to call attention to the case for a review of the economic, social and political challenges facing the newly appointed Secretary-General of the United Nations; and to move for Papers.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this, the first full month of the new Secretary-General's tenure, marks the first anniversary of the Gulf War which threw the importance of the United Nations into such sharp relief. It is UN investigators who discovered just how close Iraq then was to nuclear capability. Only three years ago, when the world was rocked by the Lockerbie disaster, it would have been hard to imagine the UN politically free enough by now to take its strong stand on international terrorism and censure Libya.

The year 1992 is to see the launching of the UN's unprecedented initiative on the environment and development. It is the first new year of Russia and the republics, heralding a major change in the make-up of the Security Council. In the case of Yugoslavia we all pray for an effective contribution by the UN. Less well known, but no less important, have been the recent significant UN initiatives in El Salvador and Cambodia.

I have been re-reading the report of the perceptive debate in this House in October 1985 which was made possible by the then Archbishop of Canterbury. The unquestioned relevance and resurgence of the United Nations in the 1990s bears testimony to the wisdom, sense of history and farsightedness of those who participated in that debate. Our debate tonight is especially timely because it comes just before the Prime Minister travels to New York to attend the Security Council summit which Britain has convened.

It is clear that the need for a sophisticated, well managed, responsive and streamlined system of international governance is more necessary than ever. Our world has changed almost beyond recognition in the decades since the UN's inception. It is more interdependent, more populous, more complex, more lethally armed, more environmentally vulnerable and more sharply divided between rich and poor. However, against that there is at last an exciting realisation that the UN must develop in response to those challenges. What has become especially evident is the massive increase in human vulnerability to disaster. That is primarily due to the lethal cocktail of conflict, poverty and rapid population growth in the poor world—something which can only get worse unless all the interlinked causes are addressed in an integrated manner. It is not convincing to attempt to tackle rapid population growth without also tackling the structurally uneven pattern of consumption and access to resources which is, after all, the North-South divide. Literacy and education levels, good health services, good survival prospects, parity for women and security are all factors which critically influence family size. Sadly, however, the naive notion still persists in some quarters that sanctimonious condom handouts from the West will of themselves solve the problem. Such ignorance is perhaps best corrected by a careful look at the social history of our own country over the last 100 years.

"Security" remains a much-used term but it no longer applies only to politico-military concerns. We now know that lasting peace requires the observance of human rights, the exercise of genuine self-determination within a democratic framework, consistent observance of the rules of national and international law, effective population policies and social justice with an economic stake for all. The imperatives of equity and justice become still more pressing as we face up to what could prove a terminal environmental crisis for the human species and as we face up to the squandering of finite resources and the absolute necessity of sustainable economic and social policies.

Even though we are daily reminded of our world's interdependence there is still an extraordinary Eurocentricity in the way we in Britain talk about war. It is too frequently said that we have preserved the peace since 1945. That is a mighty odd way to describe 135 often cruel wars which have ravaged communities since the Second World War, mostly in the third world. Conflict makes the poor poorer, as even a cursory glance at Africa's war-ravaged countries demonstrates. A particularly shocking fact is that it is ordinary civilians, usually peasant farming people, who are frequently the main targets in modern conflicts. During the Second World War, 52 per cent. of the recorded war-related deaths were civilians. Today, the UN estimates the percentage to be nearly 90.

Another appalling consequence of modern conflict is that of mass human displacement. There are 17 million refugees around the world and a further 24 million people displaced within the borders of their home countries without even the status of refugees. That must rank as one of humanity's biggest failures. An urgent, long overdue task for the new Secretary-General is to define clearly the locus of responsibility within the UN system for the internally displaced. It is totally unacceptable that while refugees fall within a UN agency mandate, the internally displaced do not. We should demand that the rights of the internally displaced are given equal priority.

Another inescapable challenge for the world's political leadership is not only to build and share a common understanding about genuine security and how to enhance it, arguably with new perceptions of the role and responsibilities of the Security Council —pre-emptive rather than reactive, and building on Article 43—but more generally to see it through by modernising the way in which key international organisations operate and co-operate.

If we believe that sound economic performance at national level demands accountable democratic governance, then why should that not apply equally at international level? The major international economic institutions and groupings—the Bretton Woods institutions, GATT, the London and Paris clubs and the enormously powerful trans-national companies, are not internationally democratic institutions. In effect they answer only to their leading members, the rich man's club. It is a nonsense to see the rich world insensitively and dogmatically applying text-book market economy reforms to fragile economies and then to witness the UN desperately mopping up the human casualties. That form of politically expedient separation undermines the world's security. The international financial institutions, not least G7 and the IMF, must work in harmony with the strategies of the UN system and a reinvigorated Security Council if real and lasting progress is to be secured.

I suggest that what I have argued is today grimly illustrated in at least two interlocking regions of the world. Let us consider the highly volatile Commonwealth of Independent States. We have witnessed the crumbling of a nuclear empire. Now we have Russia and the republics facing every sort of crisis imaginable. I single out just one. Nuclear weapons abound, as do some 2,000 specialist scientists and more technicians with recent hands-on experience of designing nuclear weapons. Those people face a very insecure economic future at home. Next door is another powder keg, the Middle East, where oil riches combine with unbridled, undemocratic militarism. It is hardly necessary to spell out the possibly disastrous consequences.

The point is that the West is not even serving its own interests, let alone anyone else's, when its own protectionist trading policies potentially undermine the very economic future on which the Commonwealth of Independent States and world security will depend. Food aid and help with internal economic liberalisation alone are not enough to avert disaster in the longterm. Likewise, in the Middle East, history is unveiling contradictions of frightening proportions. Deliberately or by default, the big powers armed Iraq in full knowledge of the nature of the regime. They then went to war with Iraq and in order to do so had to bolster up some highly undemocratic and militarised regimes in the region. Once again, the arms trade to the same region is immense.

It is the same members of the rich man's club governing both the Security Council and G7, who control, or fail to control, what happens. Surely, the new drive for disarmament and arms control by the United States is an inescapable challenge to us all. This is not the time obstinately to insist on our own narrow national preoccupations. It is the time to throw all our weight into a concerted international drive which, if successful, will without doubt prove the greatest possible contribution to security for our children and their children. It is the time too, once and for all, to get the irresponsible arms trade under control.

However, let me make two things clear. First, real security will be undermined if the world's most powerful states use the United Nations simply as their fief. The UN will lose the credibility on which it must depend if it is to address these vast challenges. The essential principles of political justice and international co-operation will be shot to ribbons.

Secondly, and equally important, the corrupt, undemocratic dictators of this world must not expect to seek refuge behind a shield of national sovereignty. Those who abuse power and whose behaviour, to use the words of Terry Waite when he described his terrorist captors, falls well below the norms of civilised society", should not expect protection under international law. To name just three cases in point: Iraq, Burma and the activities of Indonesia in East Timor currently deserve the searching spotlight of international censure.

There is a key weakness to our accustomed way of life. The United Nations is founded on the principle of the sovereignty of nation states. Yet that principle is proving increasingly inadequate. International human rights legislation, economic and political conditionality policies, the way in which the world's economy works with national borders dissolving and the growth of regional economic groupings, the unprecedented movement of people, goods, services and information, and the ripple effect of the "safe havens" initiative in Iraq which redefined the scope and potential of humanitarian action—all are evidence of a new de facto international reality.

As regards the immediate agenda, clearly the UN must enlarge its peacekeeping and arms control activities. Equally clearly, that will need more top-rate staff and resources. I cannot overstress the basic point that peacekeeping and peacemaking must be done thoroughly if they are to work. In many countries, the very peace which has recently been made is threatened because the detailed follow-through was inadequate. Take Ethiopia for example: an estimated 100,000 ex-combatants are still armed and at large. In a country of such poverty, a gun yields a living. The result is random banditry and terror instead of politically formalised conflict. Is that security? Had there been a thorough demobilisation process, with the supervised destruction of weapons and an orderly reintegration of soldiers into society, the long-suffering Ethiopian people could have had a lasting peace.

It is well known that the basic housekeeping cash is hard to raise, that some countries are badly in arrears and that others feel they are expected to give too much. We read dry articles about the pros and cons of voluntary and assessed contributions by governments and of the "ability to pay" principle. As a former director of Oxfam, I know only too well that so-called voluntary contributions by governments, on which vital agencies such as the High Commission for Refugees depend, are too often taken by governments as an opt-out clause. One result is that voluntary non-governmental agencies relying on the public's generosity often have to bail out official programmes at the expense of their work elsewhere. Another result is that vital, life-saving work is not done as thoroughly as the professional UN humanitarian staff would like.

Britain's contributions to the UN should surely be directed by a far-sighted, preventive approach. We should be investing in peace and the quality of life. We should contribute resources which would otherwise be burned up by expensive military, humanitarian and environmental rescue operations. The military costs of the Gulf War, added to the continuing humanitarian and environmental costs, dwarf the additional 500 million US dollars a year needed for UN peacekeeping.

Britain has a lot more than cash to offer. The Foreign Secretary's sustained and constructive work on international arms control and the Foreign Office's work on the recently agreed UN humanitarian response structure are good examples. Our place within G7, the Commonwealth, the European Community, NATO, CSCE, the Western European Union, the World Bank, IMF, GATT and the creditor clubs, as well as our seat on the Security Council, means that Britain is particularly well positioned to add quality as well as quantity to the UN's progressive development.

However, as I said, we cannot afford hypocrisy and double dealing. Our Government must work towards a United Nations which is enhanced, not emasculated and sidelined by the world's big powers and economic centres of gravity. The new Secretary-General must, above all, have the resources for building a United Nations which is equal to the challenges of today's world: the challenges of the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, Asia, Central America and the Horn, and of the huge needs ahead in building a strong, post-apartheid southern Africa.

My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.

5.45 p.m.

Baroness Park of Monmouth

My Lords, in reviewing the powers of the Secretary-General we have first to look at the UN. Sir Brian Urquhart, once the Under-Secretary-General at the UN who, with the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, played his part in founding the organisation over 45 years ago, said: For better or for worse, the UN is nothing like a government. It has no sovereignty or power of sovereign decision-making. It is an association of independent sovereign states which depends for its effectiveness on the capacity of its members to agree and to co-operate, and on the ingenuity and dedication with which the Secretariat interprets and carries out their wishes. The capacity of governments to agree and co-operate has proved to be quite limited". Sir Brian Urquhart also said: The effort to build a brave new world in some cases degenerated into fixed and parochial bureaucracies, repeating year by year in excruciatingly tedious inter-governmental meetings, ideas which had become almost meaningless clichés". We have all seen examples of elephantine bureaucracy and the waste of money and resources which is endemic in some UN agencies.

At this moment, when the former Soviet Union and the whole Eastern bloc appear to wish to abandon confrontation with the West in favour of collaboration, we have a chance to begin again in the UN. The automatic adversarial confrontation between the two super-powers and the power games which accompanied it need no longer dominate the UN's proceedings. Yet the signs are that the world remains a very unstable place, where there will be local emergencies which may well call for a UN presence and UN action.

The UN is only as strong as its parts and thus it is quite vital to ensure that we in particular retain a capacity to provide well-trained, well-equipped forces of men and women who are available to back up the political decisions taken in and by the UN. I do not think only of major operations, such as the Gulf War. The back-up may take the form of a trained group, able to manage a disaster (as in Armenia or the Kurdish crisis on Iraq's borders) or the establishment of order after disorder (as in Cambodia and Yugoslavia) or simply to hold the ring as in Cyprus. A second bad winter of chaos and volatile public order in the former USSR might well call for a task force working with the Russians, Ukrainians and others to create a proper flow of goods.

I dare to hope, turning to the growing problems of Africa, that we and the former Soviet bloc could work together there also to provide a sophisticated temporary infrastructure of trained international—UN—servants to build up through on-the-ground training the kind of executive experience without which a country like Zaire, even under a different regime, cannot hope to implement the requirements of the IMF and the World Bank, even if they were appropriate to its needs.

But for those things to be possible, some things must change in the UN. The bureaucracy there, like the nomenklatura in the former Soviet Union, will not easily abandon some of its shibboleths, nor perhaps respond well to demands for greater efficiency. I believe that the quota system which sometimes brings about less than good appointments because it is the turn of, say, Haiti or Namibia, must be revised. It inevitably means that there will be more of us—more Australians, more Americans, more Europeans—since many of the other countries still need their more limited numbers of highly qualified people at home. So be it. The UN must choose the best, whoever they are.

Equally, we must not endanger the peace dividend by leaving the UN with no teeth. We must retain sufficient disposable force to back up whatever the UN as a whole decides to do. It is quite wrong that for years now the UN, in the refugee camps on the Thai-Cambodian border, should have had to tolerate the Khmer Rouge carrying out a reign of terror against the inmates and murdering those who tried to run free. It is quite wrong that the UN inspection team in Iraq should be imprisoned for days, earlier last year, and jostled and threatened now as they go about their work of monitoring the nuclear and chemical weapons of a UN member already in breach of international law and a threat to other members.

I believe, therefore, that there must be a total review of the principle of non-interference in the affairs of member states. We must not do it lightly but there must be occasions when it is the considered view of the Security Council that such action is necessary; given such situations in, for instance, Burma where observers should be given really adequate protection, and refugees at risk should be given effective protection, if the political will is there. However, that will not be enough unless there is a task force to implement that will.

Of course, we must be wary of short-term actions which turn into long-term commitments. Cyprus is an example and Yugoslavia could be another, but we should have the power to act as necessary. That has implications for our defence strategy and must be faced now rather than later.

I believe, too, that we should review the way in which our aid is channelled through UN agencies and require to be satisfied that it is being at least as well spent as direct aid would be. We have all had experience of such idiocies as the UN commission sent to Zambia just before independence which was, I seem to remember, composed of a Haitian, a Yemeni, and a Venezuelan with no experience of Africa, whose task was to advise on the economic strategy of the country. That required some knowledge of the African system of land tenure. A local anthropologist had to explain it through a series of stickmen drawings. I doubt whether their economic advice was much use.

In the past there has been thoroughly wasteful spending on badly conceived projects with very high administrative overheads and plenty of danger money, where the same money applied to modest local enterprises such as wells and generators in cooperation with local people would have involved a much better use of resources. We need to take a long, hard look at the agencies—a scrutiny from which some will, of course, emerge with honour. There have been some great men in the UN. Sir Brian Urquhart was one. Robert Gardiner, the head of the Economic Commission for Africa and, before that, the only effective and respected head of the UN operation in what was the Congo, was another. If there were more of them the UN could be a potent force for good.

We now have an opportunity to help the new Secretary-General to streamline the bureaucracy, use the resources better and review the powers of the UN and the support needed. Our problem will, of course, be priorities of resources. I well recognise that that is a problem.

There will still be many explosive issues to resolve. I refer to those of the Arab world, both the Palestinian problem and the growing militant fundamentalism. Dangerous movements to threaten world peace, such as the resurgence of Fascism in Europe, could easily spread to a disaffected former Soviet Union. There will also be major problems of reconstruction in many African countries, not least Zaire where I was witness to some of the worst ineffectiveness as well as some of the best intentions of the UN when I served there in the year before and the year after independence. I was in Stanleyville on the day that the Gizenga regime dragged all Europeans out of their houses at dawn to stand in the sun all day, beaten and harassed, for a "document check". That was the day that the UN, present in strength as a peacekeeping force, did not intervene or attempt to intercede but sent a routine telegram to headquarters saying, "Nothing to report".

We have come a long way from that day to the concentrated and concerted efforts of the Gulf War and the steady presence of the blue helmets in Cyprus and, I hope, in Cambodia. However, there is a long way to go and we are about to play with a large number of new members of the team. One of our most important objectives must be to integrate them well and, equally important, to keep the UN fully committed. The Americans, despite their long love-hate and sometimes hate-hate relationship with the UN, are essential to it.

I conclude, again with Sir Brian Urquhart's words: The effort continues. It must be intensified".

5.55 p.m.

Lord Greenhill of Harrow

My Lords, the debate is conveniently sandwiched between a rather good programme on television last night and a summit meeting of the Security Council next week from which we all hope to hear new ideas which reflect the new situation in the world.

When the United Nations' role is debated, it is always wise to have a visionary at hand. On an occasion such as this, we sadly miss Lord Caradon. However, the noble Lord, Lord Judd, is a more than adequate successor and of course in the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, we have in reserve one of the founding fathers.

At the successful conclusion of the Gulf War most or us felt that there was at last an opportunity to make the United Nations Organisation fulfil more adequately the role for which it was originally designed. At the time of Saddam's aggression the Security Council was fully effective and for the first time the permanent members acted in harmony. The opportunity still exists to make the organisation work. But it will have to be able and willing to accept new responsibilities and to meet new challenges which are extending daily to every corner of the world. There is no need to enumerate them. They stare us in the face from newspapers every morning.

The noble Lord, Lord Judd, has made proposals which have a wide emotional appeal and must be addressed. I find myself very much in agreement with what he said. It is tempting to think that only a giant overhaul of the organisation can match the present situation. Is that in fact possible? I am reminded of a conversation in the 1960s between the late Lord Stewart and Mr. Gromyko at which I was present. Lord Stewart had suggested that a reform of the organisation was desirable. Gromyko smiled wearily and replied, "If you knew how hard it was to reach agreement in 1945 you would not be making such a suggestion now".

Many of the original difficulties remain and others have multiplied with the widening membership. It is true that the confrontation between the great powers has subsided. But who can be sure that the problems will not return in many new and dangerous guises? We must make the best of the organisation that we have inherited from the past. No fundamental redesign is practical in the short term. However, it is perfectly possible for important parts to be subject to redesign. Such redesign is likely to be best done from the outside and not from within. Some noble Lords may remember the attempt of the late Sir Robert Jackson to work from within. He was thwarted at every turn by the United Nations establishment clinging to its positions. One way forward towards reform would be for the Secretary-General, with the encouragement of powerful members, to set up small groups of independent outsiders who would propose ways in which improvements could be made in certain areas of the organisation. The United Kingdom could offer experienced people such as Sir Anthony Parsons and the veteran Sir Brian Urquhart. For example, as a priority they could examine conflict resolution and peace-keeping problems in the light of recent events. The Economist last week had several other useful suggestions for reform.

Many noble Lords, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, can, I am sure, think of other areas for scrutiny by such independent groups. Nor should the specialised agencies escape critical examination. Such independent groups could free the Secretary-General and his staff from current business. But the first and most important requirement is to put the organisation on a solid financial footing. Without adequate funding no secretary-general and no security council can play the role that we call upon them to fill.

The figures speak for themselves. In November of last year the organisation was owed 800 million dollars of unpaid subscriptions. United Nations' peace-keeping operations between 1948 and 1990 cost 4 billion dollars. But that is peanuts compared, for example, with the annual UK defence budget of £35 billion and worldwide expenditure on defence.

Countries will have to learn to pay more and to pay regularly. The UN has a strong and logical claim to a large share of the defence dividend arising from reduced military budgets. I hope that the Prime Minister will seek agreement on that at the summit Security Council this week.

This is a short debate but I wish to raise an important point which the Minister may wish to clarify. In my view we should give primacy to the United Nations Organisation in moving towards a safer world. Others should not be permitted to usurp its power. That means, for example, that the role of the CSCE of the Helsinki powers should be closely defined. As it is at present it is being built into a regional security council which could, for good or for evil, act as a local United Nations. Is that what the Government would like? We have the recent experience of Yugoslavia to guide us. It can be argued that an earlier involvement of the UN rather than of the European Community could have accelerated a settlement of that dispute. I hope that the Minister will have some observations to make on that matter.

6.1 p.m.

Lord Hatch of Lusby

My Lords, I have calculated that during the two-and-a-half hours of this debate some 3,750 children have died in some part of the world simply as a result of poverty. No one with any compassion or any concept of equity can rest content with that situation.

That situation, however, creates one even more desperately dangerous. I imagine we are all agreed that sustainable development must be promoted so that that death toll can be drastically reduced and eventually wiped out. How do we do that? There is the nub. How can sustainable development throughout the world be produced without at the same time risking a set of environmental disasters? It is no exaggeration to say that that is the major issue facing our generation in relation to the next 50 years.

We cannot expect developing countries to finance their development in an environmentally benign manner, in particular after the bad example that we have set them during the past 150 years. Furthermore, according to the latest recorded figures the developing world was paying in interest £34.3 billion whereas it was receiving in aid only £28.3 billion. In other words, the developing world was financing our standard of living.

It is obvious that in order to face that massive task we require above all international co-operation. The only institution that we have which can even glimpse the possibility of that co-operation is the United Nations. We are preparing for the United Nations summit conference on the environment in Rio next June. In preparation an inter-governmental negotiating committee has been set up and has met three times. At its second meeting in Nairobi last September I welcomed the initiative of the EC which called for specific commitments from industrialised countries to stabilise their CO₂ emissions by the year 2000 in general at 1990 levels. Even that will be insufficient to stabilise greenhouse gases at a level which can be absorbed by the ecological state of the planet. At that conference the call came from the European Community.

British policy, I understand, still rests on conditionality. I hope that the Minister will address himself to that point. We are prepared to set targets only if everyone else does so too. Is that still the Government's position? If so it hardly gives a lead. At the same time we know that the United States is totally opposed to making commitments and setting targets, which appears to bring into question any value that the Rio conference may have.

I now wish to ask the Minister a question of which I have given him notice. Will he tell the House what was the state of play at the third meeting of the inter-governmental negotiating committee in Geneva last December? We can welcome the action and the initiative that were taken in setting up the global environment facility. I welcome the fact that the British Government have supported that facility. It is a three-year experiment. However, it is already suspect in many parts of the developing world because it has been grafted on to the World Bank, with its notorious reputation for so-called readjustment, which has distorted the economies of so many developing countries.

Within the United Nations there is obviously a desperate need for greater co-ordination between its various bodies. For example, surely it is essential that the United Nations development programme and environmental programme address themselves jointly to that task and work together. However, the United Nations' environmental programme is not even an implementing agency for the facility. It will not even be responsible for the distribution of the finances of that facility. A new approach and possibly a new institution is needed. Above all we need an approach that is answerable and in which there is the participation of the developing countries.

There is a danger—it is seen in particular in the United States and to some extent in this country—that the situation will be used as an excuse for us to continue, perhaps paying out to assist the developing countries to develop without risk to the environment. However, that is no excuse for us to continue to pollute the atmosphere. It is our task to reduce the wasteful use of energy in the developed world as an example and a lead to the developing world.

We need a stronger, more accountable and more co-ordinated United Nations effort if the task is ever to be approached with any seriousness. To those who have suggested that there should be a re-examination of the United Nations I, together with many of my colleagues who have worked within the United Nations framework, say that we can look at the work of Brian Urquhart and Erskine Childers. We can learn from that. I hope that, in learning from it, we shall devise a policy which will face with seriousness the grimmest of challenges to the international community.

6.10 p.m.

Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Judd for initiating this debate, which is, as has been pointed out, extremely timely.

Those of us who have spent our adult lives under the shadow of the coldwar probably did not think enough about what any post-cold war situation would be like. The intractable problem which we seemed to face was so great that we probably thought that, if the cold war ended, we should be entering elysian fields and a life of bliss thereafter. In fact, of course, we have only just begun to realise the existence of some of the problems now confronting the world. We shall solve those problems only through international action and an effective international United Nations presence.

I was interested in an article in the Daily Telegraph—I hope that my noble friends will forgive me for mentioning that publication—on 27th January describing a United Nations conference which was taking place in Dublin and which was concerned with the whole problem of water supply. One hundred and fifty-six countries and 24 United Nations agencies were taking part, trying to draw up a drinking water strategy for the world. It is ironic that in this developed country and a number of others, there is a great boom in the sale of bottled water. I am told that some of that bottled water is tap water. However, the business has now become so lucrative that we have reached that stage of what some might call "civilisation". Something like one third of the world's population lacks decent water supplies and sanitation. The director of the WHO told the conference that cases of cholera have risen to an unprecedented level. Your Lordships will know that cholera is a water-borne disease.

The world is faced with mass starvation and the environmental hazards of carbon dioxide emissions, as my noble friend Lord Hatch has just pointed out. Yet a country like China has an enormous coal consumption approaching 1,000 billion tonnes per year and reserves which will run for another 800 to 1,000 years at that rate of consumption. Therefore, we are not in any position to deal with those problems unless we do so through an international agency. If we try to act as individual nations, we shall be told, "You have developed a decent standard of living by causing all that pollution but you are telling us that we cannot approach the same levels because of the dangers".

The importance of adequate living conditions and environmental protection is so great that the United Nations must give a lead in that sphere. In the past the United Nations has been dominated to some extent by the permanent members of the Security Council. However, that circle must be widened now so that everybody believes that the organisation provides a reasonable forum for solving their problems.

Since I came to your Lordships' House I have taken a particular interest in the continent of Africa. There, in some sense, is the encapsulation of the worldwide problems which we now face. Conflicts are breaking out. We now have the European Community and any fighting between member states is unthinkable. However, when one looks back at the history of Western Europe over the past few hundred years, conflicts have swept across the Low Countries. There has been the Great War and the last war. Therefore, it is not surprising that, elsewhere, difficulties break out as they do. I believe that the EC can now be a great force in helping the United Nations. I hope that when we are faced with a situation such as the Gulf there will be cohesion and unity among the EC partners in their approach.

We in Western Europe must also realise that we are rather more responsible for Africa than some other parts of the world not simply because of the initial depredations of the slave trade which wrought such havoc among the indigenous communities which had their ablest and fittest members shipped ruthlessly and in abominable conditions to the Americas. We take responsibility also because of the record of the colonial powers in Western Europe in carving up Africa in the last century, imposing artificial frontiers and laying the foundations for some of the problems which the continent now faces.

My sphere of interest has been the Horn of Africa and East Africa. I have tried to draw your Lordships' attention to the problems of countries like the Sudan, which is racked by civil war. Potentially it is one of the most prosperous countries of Africa. It has large areas which could be cultivated to produce crops. There is great commercial potential. Sudan has indigenous raw materials, minerals and fuel resources. However, progress is being impeded by the civil war and we must find ways to stretch out the hand of partnership to solve the country's problems.

The Sudan has been independent for some 36 years and 25 of those years have been racked by the civil war. The persecution of peoples in the south—Christians or animists—has been particularly severe. The people resisting that do not ask for an imposition of their own beliefs on the rest of the country. On the contrary, they believe that there should be a free and democratic non-secular society for the whole country. At present they are faced with the threat of the imposition of Sharia law. It is to that sort of situation that the world community must bend its attention.

I welcome my noble friend's debate. I hope that we can move towards international solutions to these problems. As my noble friend said, we must look carefully at the question of sovereignty and how far that can be used as an excuse to prevent questioning or intervention in some of the appalling practices which are going on. However, the United Nations now takes on a role which some of us had hoped for over the years but which we can now envisage as becoming a reality if it is supported by people of goodwill on all sides.

6.17 p.m.

Lord Beloff

My Lords, we must all have listened with attention and admiration to the masterly survey which the noble Lord, Lord Judd, gave us of the problems at present afflicting mankind and his conclusion that, in a better and more internationally conscious world, they could be solved.

I listened to that speech with particular pleasure because it was also an occasion for nostalgia. I remember exactly those speeches made in my youth by Robert Cecil, Gilbert Murray and Philip Noel-Baker, all of them proclaiming that if the League of Nations, as it was then, was given due authority the problems of the world would look less menacing.

I had hoped that the noble Lord would address himself, as some noble Lords have, to the more precise point of what the new Secretary General can hope to do about that. To prepare myself, I went this morning to see the Mantegna exhibition at the Royal Academy, which has a wall covered with the engravings of that favourite Renaissance theme—the Labours of Hercules. That seemed to me most appropriate to Mr. Boutros Boutros Ghali. We might identify the problems he raises differently. Which is the hydra? Which is Antaeus? However, fundamentally, he confronts a series of particular problems most of which have been alluded to. Surely his first task must be to see which of them to tackle first.

The difficulty is that the more one discusses the great world problems the more one realises that neither the will to solve them internationally nor the resources are freely given for that purpose. One must face the disagreeable thought that, so far from international consciousness being a rising factor, at the moment it is diminishing. Above all, there is less internationalism in the United States and that is part of the problem, which has been referred to, of the finances of the United Nations.

When the United Nations headquarters were placed in New York—I hope the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, agrees—one of the reasons for the choice was that it was thought that the presence of that institution in the United States would mean a greater devotion to it on the part of the American people and consequently of their government, than had been the unfortunate experience with the League of Nations set up in Europe. For a time, intermittently, that has been true. But it is clear that that devotion, even in the ordinary sense of prompt payment of subscriptions, is lacking. There is no pressure on the American administration to pay its bills. Therefore, when we look at any of these problems, we must ask what can be done with the resources available.

As was suggested by my noble friend Lady Park and the noble Lord, Lord Greenhill, we can try to tighten up the administration and to get away from the assumption that jobs in the United Nations should be dealt with, as in some societies, on the basis of quotas for everyone rather than of the search for merit and capacity. However, part of the effort must surely be in the regulation of the number of tasks that are undertaken; that is, cultivating a sense of priorities. An enormous effort has been made and we see, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, reminded us, that it is insufficient to deal with one immediate menace—the prospect of Iraq retaining weapons of mass destruction.

Another immediate menace also referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, is one of the many consequences that may arise from the break up of the Soviet empire: that is, the threat of the distribution around the world not only of nuclear weapons but also of nuclear scientists. I believe that to be a relatively manageable affair financially; that is to say, it could be done as was suggested to me by (since it was a private occasion) "an eminent European statesman", by assisting in the setting up in the Soviet Union of a research institution, paid for by Western funds, in those fields of science. That would give employment to people who yesterday were among the best paid in the country and today earn the lowest possible incomes, something which places a heavy temptation on them to respond to offers from abroad.

At the same time, it is becoming increasingly clear that, if the accidental explosion of the weapons in question is to be avoided, there will be a requirement for technical help from those scientists and their Western compeers in disposing of them with the minimum danger.

Those are at least two of the immediate priorities. A third is again one which raises all the questions of principle mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and others—Yugoslavia. Is it really conceivable that we can now abandon, as has been suggested, the core of the United Nations charter; that is, nonintervention in internal affairs? Yugoslavia is the most conspicuous example; there are many others around the world. It increasingly looks as though the conflicts of the future and the wars to which reference has been made which make nonsense of the idea that we have enjoyed 40 or 50 years of peace are nearly all the product of tensions within rather than between states.

We shall not see many more Saddam Husseins conquering a small neighbouring country. What we fear, and rightly, is the external explosion of internal conflict. Under the United Nations charter we do not have the power to intervene: that has been one of the problems of peace-making and peace-keeping. Until we have that power, the best hope of a new Secretary-General is that he should look carefully at what can be done with the limited resources in manpower and money at his disposal rather than attempting, much as the idealists among us would like, to solve all the problems of the world.

6.26 p.m.

Lord Monkswell

My Lords, we all thank my noble friend Lord Judd for introducing the debate on the United Nations at a time when a new world order has been declared. I want to touch on that specific aspect. I feel that the United Nations as the harbinger of a new world order is faced with instability.

The United Nations represent an embryonic world government. I say "embryonic" because it is in the early stages. Perhaps I can describe it like this. It is at the same stage that this country's government was at in 1831–32; that is to say, it is 160 years behind the times. As an aside, it is interesting that over the past year or so we have seen the fracturing of the agreement of Yalta, a product of the last war. There may be historical parallels in the changes in the government of the United Kingdom in the early 19th Century following the, effectively, period of stability after the Napoleonic wars, when the victors of those wars held sway.

Why do I raise the matter? The United Nations is 160 years behind the times and is unfair in representing people. Around 160 years ago Members of the House of Commons represented various sizes of constituency. We have the example of Old Sarum, about which we all learned in our school history lessons. It returned a Member of Parliament with only a handful of constituents, whereas whole towns and cities like Plymouth were without representation. I am proud that one of my ancestors was one of the first Members of Parliament for Plymouth, returned in 1832.

For 160 years or so we have had a United Kingdom House of Commons comprised of MPs representing roughly equal numbers of people. That has given us unprecedented internal peace and prosperity. If we look at the make-up of the United Nations we can see that there are two problems with representation—democracy and effective government. The first is that the General Assembly represents people unfairly. Countries with populations of less than 1 million people have a seat on the General Assembly; other seats in the United Nations represent over 1,000 million people. We must seek a reform of the United Nations General Assembly in such a way that it represents people fairly. My constituencies of about 50 million people would, interestingly, give the United Kingdom a seat in the United Nations, as they would other interesting groupings such as the state of California which would have at least one seat. The specific number is not important, but the principle is that every member of the United Nations General Assembly—I believe that we will have to change the name slightly because it would not necessarily be the United Nations as such, but a world assembly—should, broadly speaking, represent the same number of people.

The other problem is the make-up of the Security Council, which is effectively the executive of the United Nations. To have a membership which is determined really by who won a war 47 years ago is surely an anachronism. The executive of this world assembly should be democratically representative of people in the same way as the General Assembly would be. So far I have spoken about fairness. That would be reason enough for the changes in the United Nations that I have suggested, including the idea that every human being has equal value and rights at the ballot box. That is a very powerful argument and one which everyone in the United Kingdom, Europe and North America, and virtually around the world, would agree with.

However, an assembly of the kind I am speaking about would have tremendous potential for building a much better world for all of us. We should learn not just from our own experience, but from that of Europe and North America. The development of equality of representation in this country over the past 160 years has enabled our forefathers and ourselves to devise a set of laws which are accepted by all. There is a fair taxation regime, the blip of the poll tax excepted. We have a society where people work together to provide a comparatively high level of public services. It also provides a ready market for private producers of goods and services to sell their wares.

Effectively, it is people working together for the common good. I have put in my notes the words "our green and pleasant land". I believe that the greening of our political establishment is something that we all welcome. Let us use our experience to help not only ourselves but our fellow citizens around the world to make the whole world a better place for all of us to live in.

6.32 p.m.

Lord Kennet

My Lords, the world we face now is bewildering. Lift a great weight, and what had been under it will heave and shudder. However, if we think of what has happened as a return to normal, we may find our way. In an abnormal half century, Europe and the world were divided into two petrified camps. It is normal that the world should be multiple, disordered, shifting, opaque. We should prefer it that way. Anything is better than the waste and rigidity of the cold war. It is the waste of those years that we must now recoup. And if to draw on the experience of 100 years ago rather than that of our own youth is the price, it is not a high one.

What we did not have a hundred years ago was the United Nations, and that is the key from now on. I shall speak first about the political aspect of Mr. Boutros Boutros Ghali's new job: first, about the embers. I was doubtful about our Government's instant offer to Mr. Yeltsin to take up the Soviet Security Council seat. But, given the slowness of the West to realise the full implications of the disaster in what used to be the Soviet Union, I expect the Government were right to do so. At least it provides the new grouping with a public, high-level channel of communication with the outer world.

But Mr. Yeltsin cannot stop the ex-Soviet armed forces selling off their equipment, or the nuclear weapon specialists emigrating and taking service elsewhere. They must be paid to do otherwise. The noble Lord, Lord Beloff, spoke wisely about that. Who will pay them? They should not all go to the United States: they should go to the International Atomic Energy Authority. And so indeed should the quite large number of American nuclear specialists who are also losing their jobs. The United States is now making no nuclear weapons. If the United States wants to admit more people from the ex-Soviet Union, let them admit those Jews who do not want to go to Israel where settling them is causing the world so much trouble.

Perhaps I may amplify a suggestion I made recently. The Security Council should now make it possible for the IAEA to carry out its long-standing task to the full everywhere in the world by giving it enough money to hire all the nuclear weapons people as inspectors and get them where they are needed at once for nuclear weapon destruction, for nuclear weapon prevention and perhaps for improving the safety of the world's nuclear power stations as part of their function of promoting civil nuclear power.

Where is the money to come from? Some of it of course will come from the United States, which is already prepared to find large sums for a programme of unilateral action to buy these people away from employment in Iran and so on. The rest has to come from UN members in general. The need is not difficult to understand; nor is it difficult to present to domestic opinion. This is true defence expenditure.

I turn now to problems which were always there but which were covered over by the late cold war. The new Secretary-General can do nothing without minimum agreement among his members, and that we must strive for. They must agree that whatever their differences in economic strength and internal organisation, they are, as members of the UN, equals. They have equal rights to pursue their own interests in the United Nations and an equal duty not to seek to try to put it to new and unjustified usage.

The new world order, about which Mr. Bush enthused before "America first" hit the election campaign, was to be a world of law, with the United Nations at its centre. That means that the world court of justice must also be at its centre. Security Council resolutions have come to be divided into two kinds—those that are to be obeyed on pain of military coercion by forces approved by the Security Council, and those that may or may not be obeyed, according to choice. Iraq is indeed being forced into observance of Security Council resolutions; Israel is left free to make its own choice.

State terrorism also comes in two kinds; that committed by the governments we like and that committed by governments we do not like. To say that is not to suggest that we should like the governments that we do not like, only that in a world of law it is for the international court to decide who is in the wrong, not for the individual members of the UN, nor for the Security Council.

Security Council resolutions are now being devised against Libya because of the Lockerbie crime. But as they point out in Libya and in Iran, there were no resolutions against the United States when that Security Council member shot down an Iranian civil airliner, on its announced route, with loss of equally innocent life. Back home, the naval officer who was guilty of that attack was actually decorated by President Reagan.

One could go on noting the bias which perceived power is able to bring to the advantage of one or another UN member: the United States attack on Panama, the mining of Nicaraguan harbours which the international court of justice declared unlawful—a judgment which that Security Council member had declared in advance it would ignore.

The United States has in fact been seeking, rather successfully, to turn the Security Council into instant legislator, judge, jury, policeman, gaoler and executioner. For a new world order that will not do. It may be legislator, policeman and executioner, but it may not be judge and jury.

Today, we see an attempt being made not only by the United States but also by our own Government to reinterpret the Montreal Convention of 1971 for the suppression of unlawful acts against the safety of civil aviation and to claim a right of extradition over the two suspects now in Libya. In international law, that right doe not exist. Mr. Douglas Hogg says that it ought to exist because Libya is a tyranny. Libya is indeed a tyranny, but that does not change international law and create the right.

There will always be tyrannies. We have to live with them under the law, as we have to live with others. Article 14 of the convention clearly states that its interpretation is not for individual governments; it is first for arbitration, and then, if that fails, for the international court of justice. Do the British Government intend to go to the international court about Lockerbie? If not, why not? Gadaffi now seems to be trying to return to the international community, and his recent attitude to the Lockerbie affair has not been incorrect.

If we want the United Nations system to work, if we want a more law-abiding world, it is essential not only that he and his like recognise the law and abide by it, but that we do too. I have tried to discover if the Government have stated that they will not allow American forces in Britain to be used against Libya without a full Security Council mandate, and I have not yet had an answer. Is another such situation brewing in Iraq? I have in mind the recent stories that Saudi Arabia invited the Americans to arm the Kurds at Saudi Arabian expense. That does not really carry conviction. What is the Government's opinion? In conclusion, this country ought to impart some precision to the windbag catchphrase, "A new world order". Let us refine it to, "World order under world law".

6.42 p.m.

Lord Desai

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Judd has already admirably summed up the many challenges that the new Secretary-General of the United Nations will face. Let me supplement his remarks by concentrating more on the economic challenges that face the United Nations. There are opportunities created by the fact that not only has the cold war ended but another significant development has taken place in the last 10 years, and that is the globalisation of the world economy.

Trade has grown at a tremendous pace in the world, as have financial transactions. Indeed one would calculate that if one were to put no more than a 1 per cent. tax on the world's imports or exports it would yield something in the region of £40 billion, five times as much as the budget of the current United Nations system as a whole. If one were to tax financial transactions, a one-hundredth of 1 per cent. tax would yield an equal amount of money. That much money is sloshing around the world now thanks to the growth of deregulated financial markets and freer trade. On the opposite side of this great gain is the trade in drugs and armaments and of course the global effects of any environmental disaster that we may have to face.

The globalisation of the world economy creates opportunities and it creates costs. Thus far the United Nations has been only reluctantly and in a piecemeal fashion taking an interest in regulating, or intervening in, or reforming the economic side of world affairs. We have the various agencies in NEDO, FAO, UNCTAD, UNDP and so on, but what we need at this juncture of the world's development is some sort of a unified view on what it would take to construct a system of global governance created with the co-operation of the many nation states of the United Nations—a system of global governance which will protect the world against the adverse effects of the rampant trade in drugs and armaments and the many effects not only of environmental pollution but the likely effects of the global spread of diseases such as AIDS or the effects of terrorism.

We have other worldwide problems such as famine. We need some sort of structure in the United Nations, some sort of reformed, expanded or rethought Security Council that would not only take upon itself the settlement of political quarrels and political problems but take a unified and co-ordinated view of the economic and environmental problems facing the world. Not so long ago the Prime Minister was suggesting that emergency relief should become a special concern of the United Nations Security Council. It is not only emergency relief but other questions that I have mentioned that need now to be put into a basket and made the responsibility of perhaps an expanded Security Council whose structure can be rethought. That should be the responsibility of the new Secretary-General, who arrives in his post at a crucial and important juncture.

If we could encourage the Secretary-General to think of the economics of global governance in an imaginative way, with expert advice from the many nations of the world which possess such expertise, then we would indeed have made a major contribution to perpetuating the United Nations as a strong and effective body.

6.46 p.m.

Lord Marlesford

My Lords, I was struck by something that the noble Lord, Lord Cocks, said about how we are going to view in retrospect the coming down of the Berlin wall. I wonder whether we shall see it as ushering in a period of great peace and prosperity or whether we shall see the world once again facing the uncertainties and dangers of the 1930s. The prime function of the United Nations is peace-keeping. This means that its main role is political rather than economic, social or environmental.

In many ways those issues are best left to separate bodies such as the GATT, the World Bank—which was referred to in rather an unfriendly way a few moments ago—or the IMF. The aspirations of world government to which the noble Lord, Lord Desai, has just referred are noble indeed, but I doubt whether even the latest potential arrival to your Lordships' House will see it in his lifetime.

I myself am a bit cynical about some of the United Nations agencies, or at any rate sceptical of them. Some years ago I had a certain amount to do with the FAO. While I had great esteem for the diligence, dedication and skill of the extension officers who worked in the field on the problems, a week at FAO headquarters in Rome drove me to the conclusion that many there are rather second-rate bureaucrats whose chief interest is in the duty frees.

That may be unkind, but what I want to do this evening for a few minutes is to focus on the United Nations' political role, and especially on the Security Council. I have no doubt that while the General Assembly is a talking shop—and it is none the worse for that— the heart of the United Nations is in fact the Security Council. Of course the most crucial component of the Security Council is the membership of five, with their power of veto. It is no accident that Britain is one of those five. After all, we were one of the five victors in a war against Fascism; a war that the old League of Nations had failed to prevent.

I suppose it had failed to prevent it for two reasons: first, the United States, which in those days was going through one of its isolationist phases—one hopes that it is not doing so again—was never a member of the league, and, secondly, the league had no teeth. It was to remedy that defect that the Security Council was created.

I realise that there are those who will increasingly question Britain's right to a permanent seat on the Security Council. We have just heard the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, do so. The same question will probably be asked about France. People will say, "Why not far bigger countries such as India, Nigeria or Brazil, or far wealthier countries such as Japan or Germany; or why not a single seat for the European Community, with a veto in the hand of M. Delors or his successor?" The question answers itself. One cannot have them all so let us hold fast to the present admittedly arbitrary selection.

There is of course no way under the Charter of the United Nations in which Britain, France or any of the other five can be involuntarily removed. Under Article 23, our own permanent seat, with its veto, enables us to remain there for as long as we wish, for the United Nations constitution, rather like the Treaty of Rome, can be amended, under Article 108, only with the agreement of all the permanent members.

There are perhaps three conditions for the best use of the Security Council. The first is that the five permanent members should agree on more than they disagree. During the cold war that was not so. At that time the almost Pavlovian use of the veto by the Soviet Union meant that many opportunities for world peace-keeping were missed. Indeed, I believe—I recognise that some noble Lords on the other side of the House will not agree with me—that had the nuclear weapons of NATO and the Warsaw Pact not enforced a sterile peace through bitter confrontation—we all remember Mr. Kruschev taking off his shoe in the General Assembly—there could have been a really large-scale disaster.

Secondly, the existence of the veto means that the Security Council is taken seriously. It matters that the permanent members have to agree before the formidable sanctions of international law can be invoked. This imposes a real responsibility for the careful use of the veto so as to reflect rather than defy world opinion. Britain has little to reproach itself with over the years on the use of the veto.

Thirdly, it is crucial that the permanent representatives of the permanent members have great diplomatic skills. This means that there should be professional diplomats and not politicians in the job, something which America has only recently begun to learn. Britain has had some outstanding representatives who have served British and world interests very well. I would single out three. One has already been mentioned. I refer to the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn. As a schoolboy my earliest recollection of the United Nations is Sir Gladwyn Jebb taking the odious Vyshinski, the tool of Stalin, to task. Another outstanding representative was Sir Anthony Parsons, whose skill obtained the Security Council mandate for us to liberate the Falklands from the Argentine invaders and, as a by-product, and much more important, to liberate the Argentine from an unpleasant military dictatorship. My third example would be Sir Crispin Tickell, who did so much behind the scenes to get the five permanent members to work rapidly together to get the United Nations into action in the Gulf. The Gulf War should be a model for how the UN can maintain peace.

The maintenance of peace has three components: making peace—UN diplomacy; keeping peace—the Blue Berets; enforcing peace—military action, when necessary, within international law against aggressors. I believe that in peace enforcement it is far better that the military operation is delegated by the UN to those countries that have the military capability rather than to have a rag-bag United Nations force. Britain has in this respect a considerable contribution to make. That will be one of the justifications for the maintenance of our Armed Forces at a high state of efficiency.

Our permanent seat on the Security Council, like our nuclear capability, gives Britain a disproportionate influence in the world. I am not ashamed of that. I wish to maximise my country's influence in world affairs because I believe that our historical, cultural, ethical and political traditions make it a benign influence.

6.55 p.m.

Lord Ennals

My Lords, I wish to follow the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, in only one respect. When he said that he was perhaps a little unfair to some of those who have served in the United Nations I agreed with him. In many of the agencies, and in the United Nations itself, I have met some fine people. It is not fair to pick out one or two who may have been duff characters. One finds them in any situation.

I should like to start by congratulating my noble friend Lord Judd. I do not think he will mind if I am slightly personal. He had a great father who made an important contribution to the work of both the League of Nations Union and the United Nations Association. I was proud to have been appointed some 47 years ago to serve under him when my noble friend was a little boy. At that stage I doubt whether either of us thought that he would ever open a debate in your Lordships' House, let alone that I would have the opportunity of being one of the last speakers in that debate.

My noble friend has already made a great contribution to the United Nations through his work in government and through his work for Voluntary Service Overseas and Oxfam. I am sure that he will continue to do so in your Lordships' House. If we are going to look at others who have nobly served the United Nations over the years, perhaps I may pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Richard on the Front Bench. He was a remarkably able representative of Her Majesty's Government during the period of a Labour Government and I had the privilege then of working with him.

We are welcoming Dr. Boutros Boutros Ghali as the new Secretary-General of the United Nations. In doing so we should also pay tribute to Dr. Javier Perez de Cuellar who served the United Nations in a remarkable way during a difficult period of 10 years. I am sure that the House would want to send him a message of goodwill saying "You deserve the best, but come back, as Sir Brian Urquhart has come back, to give us some of your wisdom".

What a remarkable change has taken place in the United Nations since the time 10 years ago when Dr. Perez de Cuellar became Secretary-General. Like my noble friend Lord Judd, I looked up the debate in your Lordships' House in 1985 initiated by the then Archbishop of Canterbury. Except for my noble friend Lord Cledwyn I am the only other noble Lord present today who spoke in that debate. We heard remarkable speeches from the Archbishop, from the late Lord Caradon, from the noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, from the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot, and many others. I appreciate the point made by my noble friend when, quoting Conor Cruise O'Brien, he said, "Hardly anyone has much time for the UN". That was the case just seven years ago.

Reading through that debate many of us sounded as though we were thinking up excuses for the limited successes of the United Nations. What a difference there is today when we see Blue Berets being asked to deal with situations in El Salvador, the Argentine, Lebanon, Namibia, West Sahara, Cambodia and now in Yugoslavia.

I wish to follow up a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Beloff. With the likelihood of United Nations involvement in Yugoslavia, we may be seeing, as my noble friend Lord Judd said, the beginning of a breakdown of the mythical boundary between internal and international affairs. That has been a great block to the service that the United Nations might have been able to perform. I am glad to see that this blurring of the edges may give to the UN an opportunity to help to deal with situations in many parts of the world.

I also welcome the fact that the Prime Minister has taken advantage of Britain's presidency of the Security Council to attend and preside over a Security Council summit which is to take place in just a few days' time. Years ago, on behalf of UNA, I remember on many occasions seeking to persuade Prime Ministers and Foreign Secretaries to do just that. But the UN was not popular at that time. I believe that the fact that the Prime Minister has decided that it is a jolly good time to appear on the world stage, presiding at a meeting of the Security Council, shows how popular the United Nations has become.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Greenhill. It is important that some reference should be made to the funding problems at this particular Security Council meeting. We must judge countries by the way in which they fulfil their obligations to the UN. I say that in a number of other respects. The people of the world are not just influenced by speeches; they are influenced by actions. The speech that the Prime Minister will give at the Security Council will be of great importance. We shall hear what he has to say about global security, peace-keeping, the arms trade, the problem of the Kurds, the Middle East talks, Eastern Europe, the old Soviet Union and many other issues.

In reality, actions speak louder than words. Many of us will be watching government action on issues which are very relevant to the United Nations. Perhaps I may give your Lordships one or two examples. I refer, first, to the size of our aid programme. In 1979 the United Kingdom gave more of its GDP—0.52 per cent.—than any of the other G7 countries. However, the figure has now slipped to less than 0.3 per cent. and we are now in sixth place. That is not good enough.

Secondly, there is the Government's performance on green issues. My noble friend Lord Hatch of Lusby referred to the UNCED conference, and I shall return to that subject if there is sufficient time. In terms of our performance at home, we are lagging behind many of our European partners. There is not much point in thinking that by making speeches on international platforms we can give a great lead and then not fulfil our obligations in the home situation. Indeed, we are again before the European Parliament for being in breech of our obligations.

Thirdly, I turn to the question of arms supplies. We talk a great deal about disarmament, but we seem to be grubbing around for arms sales. We have a recent example of that in the case of Indonesia, with its oppressive measures against East Timor. Fourthly, I turn to to the question of refugees. In my view, the Asylum Bill which is now before the House conflicts with the commitments made in the 1951 refugee convention. I should also add that our support for the right of self-determination in international law needs to be looked at again. I welcome the fact that the Prime Minister saw the Dalai Lama on his recent visit to London; but there is, as yet, no sign of Britain arguing the Tibetan case for self-determination with the Chinese.

I believe that enormous problems lie before the United Nations. The UNCED conference is perhaps the most important conference which will be held during the year. It will deal with issues of poverty, the environment, global warming and, by diversity, with the problems of debt, forestry and trade. All those issues are absolutely fundamental to the future of the world in which we live. Ultimately, however, the success of the United Nations depends upon the commitment of nations and that, in turn, depends upon the commitment of individuals. As we move towards the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, I hope that Peers on all sides of the House will use their influence and power to strengthen the United Nations and, in this country, the United Nations Association of which my noble friend Lord Richard has for some years been a very distinguished chairman.

7.4 p.m.

Lord Rea

My Lords, I shall be the fifth speaker this evening to mention the name of Sir Brian Urquhart, who probably knows more about the United Nations than any other noble Lord present in the Chamber. However, perhaps I should except the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, from that observation. Sir Brian was interviewed in the Observer last week. In that interview he compared the United Nations to his mother's refrigerator. He said that he and his brother gave the fridge to his mother, who until then had relied on bowls of water to keep things cold. After a while he asked his mother how she liked it. "It's useless", she said, "It doesn't work". He then found that it had not been plugged in. As well as comparing the United Nations to a fridge, Sir Brian also compared it to a sheriff's posse, which gets together when the horse has already left the stable, to go charging off into the night to try to do something". He feels that the United Nations should change its stance from being reactive to being preventive. Here I fully endorse the words of my noble friend Lord Judd, who emphasised the same need. I think that that also applies to the disasters to which my noble friend Lord Desai referred; in other words, there is a need to anticipate them.

Even now, as noble Lords are aware, there are long-standing Security Council resolutions which were passed in the 1960s and 1970s requiring nations that have illegally and forcibly occupied the territory of other nations to withdraw. I am thinking especially of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. In both places the resident population is being flooded with settlers and human rights abuses are a constant occurrence. But we have to ask whether the Security Council, even now when there is no automatic veto, has the courage to act. As my noble friend has pointed out, there are powerful vested interests which are preventing the proper functioning of the Security Council.

But apart from peace-keeping, the United Nations has many other roles in a very imperfect world. It has many associated and specialised agencies, as other noble Lords pointed out. They could be playing a more effective role in decreasing poverty and assisting development than they are at present. Of course the best financed of them is the IMF and its associated World Bank. While they exist to help set up sustainable and profitable development which should assist developing countries and enable them to climb out of poverty, all too often, as my noble friend Lord Hatch said, the reverse is the effect as readjustment of economies results in decreased expenditure on education, health and food subsidies. The increased export of cash crops may require land that has formerly been used for food production, thus resulting in an increased need for food imports as we have seen in Africa.

Too often the exports which the IMF programmes encourage result in little or no gain, as debt service swallows up export earnings; for example, in the 1980s Latin America exported more than ever before and had a very favourable trade balance which should have led to increased wealth and economic prosperity. But it did not generate enough income to service even the foreign debt. In fact, as noble Lords may be aware, the debt increased during that decade.

I hope that Dr. Boutros Boutros Ghali—I shall refer to him as BBG and I think that he will be referred to in that way in the future just as was the case with JFK in the 1960s-will be able to take enough time off from peace-keeping to look seriously at all these issues. I refer especially to debt and the alleviation of poverty. Ways of dealing with debt must be devised so that debt service does not cancel out the ability of developing countries to buy non-military industrial and technical goods—I use the phrase "non-military" advisedly—from the factories of the North which need to sell them.

I hope that BBG will look seriously at the suggestions put forward by Susan George in her book entitled A Fate Worse than Debt. Her ideas were backed up by my noble friend Lord Judd in a Fabian Society article published a few months ago. Her idea is that developing countries should be required to pay external debts in local currency into a development fund, to be used inside the country concerned so as to develop local agriculture and industry for the benefit of its population. In that way politicians and others in those countries who squandered loans in the 1970s and 1980s, while building vast personal fortunes, would not be able to get clean away with it as they would if the debts were simply cancelled.

Last but not least, I hope that the new Secretary-General will not forget WHO, UNICEF and the United Nations Population Fund, all of which play a small but vital part in reducing infant and child malnutrition and mortality and encouraging a lower birthrate.

During the debate I briefly attended a reception in the Cholmondeley Room for the launch of the Little Foundation, which will fund research into the causes of cerebral palsy and brain damage in children. One of the main points at which it will look is the effect of nutrition on the mother while the child is in utero and the nutrition of the child in early childhood. It is now thought that the malnutrition affecting many mothers and children in the developing world is having a permanent effect on the ability of those children to develop their full intellectual potential. It is a vast problem. It is a human tragedy that many of the world's children will never be able to develop their full intellectual capacity.

Later this week the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population and Development is hosting a conference, with government support, on "A European Agenda for Action on World Population" to be addressed by speakers from the UNPF and the IPPF which will underline the urgency of the problem.

From conflict control, through poverty control, to conception control, the new Secretary-General will have his work cut out. I hope that the Minister will be able to ensure that the United Kingdom gives him full diplomatic and, as other noble Lords have suggested, increasingly generous financial support to enable him to carry out his tasks.

7.12 p.m.

Lord Bonham-Carter

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for having given us an opportunity, no matter how brief, to discuss the huge, manifold and various problems that face the new Secretary-General in his new, daunting and important task. There has been, with the marginal exception of some scepticism on the part of the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, general agreement that after 45 years of confrontation between two nuclear super powers, the prospects today for international co-operation are probably brighter than they have been at any time during those past 45 years when my noble friend Lord Gladwyn laid the foundations of the United Nations.

The chief instrument for encouraging that co-operation and for enabling it to happen and flourish is the United Nations. I suppose that its ability to do that will depend, above all, on its leadership—the new Secretary-General—on the effectiveness of its organisation, and, perhaps more than anything else, on the support and political will of the international community. Some of your Lordships have ascribed the outbreak of the Second World War to the deficiencies of the League of Nations. It seems to me that most of those deficiencies can be ascribed to the lack of will of the great powers who had the responsibility to support it.

The absence of the United States was a misfortune. The lack of will displayed by successive leaders of this country at that time in the case of Abyssinia, the Rhineland and Czechoslovakia is something the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, might care to remember. The United Nations' vast responsibilities are such that, as has also been widely agreed, if it is to carry out those responsibilities, it must be reformed. Although some have expressed scepticism as to the possibility of effective reform taking place, anyone who read the words of the much-quoted Sir Brian Urquhart would learn some of the steps which could be taken to improve its effectiveness.

For one thing, some of your Lordships have criticised the way appointments are made within the United Nations. There is one appointment—the way in which it is made could well be improved—which has nothing to do with the internal politics of the United Nations, but has a great deal to do with the great powers. That is the way in which the Secretary-General is appointed. Sir Brian, together with Erskine Childers, makes constructive proposals as to how that might be improved.

It is also suggested that the Secretary-General's relationships with the agencies, which have been criticised by some of your Lordships, could also be put on a stronger and direct footing, and that he should be provided with deputies, which he requires, and some kind of cabinet for consultation. Last but not least, there is no reason, it is suggested, why we should not look at the composition of the Security Council, much as it would horrify the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, who takes an attitude towards it that some Conservatives took to rotten boroughs in 1832. It is my view that we need to look at the composition of the Security Council. We need to ask, incidentally, why the British Government so precipitately recognised Russia as a member of the Security Council the other day. I should like an explanation of that action. The Minister may be able to give us good reasons. It may have been prudent; it may have been for reasons about which we do not know. It seemed strange that such a country, which was hardly established and which was in an extremely unstable condition, should immediately be put on the Security Council and given the veto. I look forward to hearing the Minister's explanation.

We must ask ourselves whether the Security Council is strengthened by the absence of Japan. We must ask ourselves, if that is so, whether Germany is not in the same position. And, if the European Community is developing a common security and common foreign policy, we must ask ourselves whether it would not be better that it was represented on the Security Council rather than Britain, France or Germany. Those are questions which we should address.

A number of other issues have arisen during the debate, not least that of the proper financing of the operations of the United Nations, in particular of its peacekeeping operations in which the behaviour of the great powers, many of them members of the Security Council, is nothing short of disgraceful. One of the first tests of the new Secretary-General will be whether he forces the United States to pay up the subscription which it owes the United Nations' regular budget and its peacekeeping operations.

There is one topic I should like to raise which was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Park, and the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, and that is our attitude towards interference in the internal affairs of other nations. We must ask ourselves whether we any longer believe that it is wrong to interfere in the internal affairs of so-called sovereign states. I should have thought that it is now widely accepted that respect for human rights and the way in which minorities are treated are matters of international concern. They were brought into the international arena, not necessarily for the first time, but publicly, at Helsinki in Basket 3. They are matters in which the Council of Europe interests itself daily and monthly. They are a condition of becoming a member of the European Community.

Thus, in all those ways, essentially internal matters have become matters in which we are prepared to interfere. But we have gone far beyond that; for example, in our attitude to Serbia and Croatia recently. Compare our attitude to those countries with our attitude in the case of the Nigerian civil war some years ago. It is also true that the treatment of minorities and respect for human rights have international implications. As has been said, we are debating the Asylum Bill next week which concerns refugees. It is clear that the refugee problem, which has escalated in the past few years, cannot be solved individually, country by country. It is an international problem with international implications in which, in my view, the United Nations must be involved.

If we believe that we should interfere in the internal affairs of other nations, we must decide what the rules of interference are. I believe that Europe is a good place in which to examine the problem—possibly through the CSCE, in conjunction with the United Nations—and to work out how, when and by what means, interference in the affairs of other nations is a legitimate and constructive role for the international community to play in the cause of better international relations.

7.21 p.m.

Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos

My Lords, we are all grateful to my noble friend Lord Judd for his powerful speech and for the Motion, which enables us to look at the United Nations and its prospects at a moment when it has reached a watershed in its short history. I join my noble friend Lord Ennals in paying a warm tribute to Senor Perez de Cuellar for his work during his tenure as Secretary-General. He served through a remarkable period in history which included the Gulf War. While it is too soon to make judgments about him, we can say he was a Secretary-General of integrity who was a patient, assiduous negotiator who never sought the limelight.

The new Secretary-General, Dr. Boutros Boutros Ghali, is highly respected in his own country. He played a major role in achieving the Camp David agreement. He is well versed in international law and is an experienced administrator. I believe that Dr. Ghali must be given the opportunity to settle down and he must be supported by those who appointed him. We wish him well.

One of his major tasks will be, as the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, suggested, to propose much needed reforms of the United Nations organisation to meet the needs of the post-cold war era. It implies reforming his own secretariat, which is said by many to be too cumbersome. It means trying to make the General Assembly more effective. One senior member of the secretariat has said that there were too many agenda items, a large proportion of which are stupid, trivial and self-serving.

Then there is the question of the Security Council itself. Can it continue indefinitely with the Permanent Five in charge? Who are the largest contributors to the United Nations after the United States? I leave Russia out of the reckoning for the moment. They are Germany and Japan. One doubts that they can be excluded indefinitely from the council. These are matters for the future, although they will obviously have important implications for this country.

As the noble Lord, Lord Greenhill, reminded us, the Security Council meets next week in what could and should be an important meeting not least for the new Secretary-General. Sir Brian Urquhart, a senior member of the UN Secretariat for over 40 years, argued last week that a more reliable international system is needed. He said: If you are looking for a calmer world, you have to make the international system not so much reactive—as it has been up to now—as preventative of unnecessary and unexpected crises". He makes a reasonable point and one which Dr. Boutros Boutros Ghali will note—namely, that the time has at last come to consider operating Article 43 of the United Nations Charter. This article provides that the United Nations can make armed forces and other assistance available to the Security Council for maintaining peace and security. I think this is a point with which the noble Baroness, Lady Park, would agree. It would give the Security Council the authority to deploy an international force quickly in a situation where the cycle of violence could not be broken except by firm intervention. It could save hundreds of thousands of lives in certain situations.

Sir Brian argues that the military staff committee of the United Nations is under-used, and that seems to me to make sense. But his main theme is that new initiatives are at last possible now that the cold war is over. In my opinion, no one is better qualified to give advice than Sir Brian Urquhart and his words should be heeded.

Another problem which has been mentioned by noble Lords during the debate is the shortage of money. We are told that there is a constant shortfall and, if the United Nations is to send peace-keeping forces to Yugoslavia and elsewhere, the money must be found to pay for them. Perhaps the noble Earl will inform us of the current financial position. My noble friend referred to the break up of the Soviet Union, which again will inevitably create new financial and political problems for the world.

To return to finance, the United Nations is virtually bankrupt and one of the main debtors at the moment is the United States of America, whose arrears were £344 million last November. This puzzles me, as a friend and supporter of the United States, because that country is the moving force behind the organisation. The United Nations depends upon the United States especially at the moment. Eighty-four other countries are so far behind in their contributions that the United Nations is currently owed 1.8 billion dollars. We are informed that Dr. Boutros Boutros Ghali has set himself the task of reforming the organisation in the next 60 days. That is ambitious and I hope he succeeds. The first action he might take is to summon the debtors to appear in a Welsh county court. That would create problems! He will certainly need the cash if the peace-keeping forces and other obligations are to be met.

My noble friend Lord Judd speaks with acknowledged authority on the problems of the third world and I know that the noble Earl will take note of what he has said. The end of the cold war, the Gulf War and the dismantling of the Soviet Union have completely changed the balance of influences in the United Nations. Third world countries exercised more influence when the Soviet Union and the West confronted each other in a power struggle in the United Nations. They sought support from both sides, they played one side against the other. It has been said that the non-aligned movement has had its day. I should like to ponder that for some time.

This scene needs careful analysis and I am sure that the noble Earl's department is carrying that out at present. Third world countries are very sensibly abandoning the shibboleths of Soviet socialism and seeking to put their houses in order. For doing this, they hope to receive more aid and new loans. The question is: will they? That is something upon which the noble Earl can perhaps enlighten the House this evening. But the urgent problems will not be resolved by well-meaning long-term reorganisation.

The United Nations needs to deal with starvation in the Horn of Africa, Albania and elsewhere. In the debate on arms sales in this House last June I quoted Mr. James Grant, the director of UNICEF. He stated: The Governments of the developing world as a whole now devote half of their total annual expenditure to the maintenance of the military and the servicing of debt … or more than 400 dollars a year for each family in the developing world". That is indefensible. My noble friend Lord Judd dealt with it and these are some of the problems with which the new Secretary-General will have to grapple. But he can only do so if countries like our own support and sustain him.

Like my noble friend, while I recognise the significance of the political role of the United Nations, I believe that the infrastructure is of equal importance. Economic collapse, starvation and disease and the desperation of refugees—17 million of them, as my noble friend said in his speech—can all lead to civil unrest and to war. One distinguished reformer summed it up when he said: The strength of the United Nations lies in the areas where interdependence matters— Countries have to understand that there are some problems that cannot be resolved without a global mechanism". That point was made by my noble friends Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe and Lord Hatch.

The new Secretary-General will need to look at this infrastructure whose activities span the world. He and his colleagues will need to satisfy themselves that the machinery is working and that the resources are adequate. I am, of course, talking about UNESCO, UNICEF, the World Health Organisation, the International Labour Office, FAO, UNHCR, all of which have been mentioned by noble Lords during the debate.

The noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, in his most interesting and thoughtful speech, expressed doubts about those agencies. They may have their flaws but they are of crucial importance nevertheless. Some flaws do not justify dismantling organisations which, in my view, are absolutely essential to humanity now and in the future.

We note, of course, that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund do not come under the aegis of the United Nations although they are an essential part of the scene at this time. We wish the new Secretary-General, Dr. Boutros Boutros Ghali, every success in his crucial tasks. Britain has a good record as a supporter of the League of Nations and, since its founding, the United Nations. Let us do all we can to sustain the United Nations at this historic moment.

7.31 p.m.

The Earl of Caithness

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for initiating this debate about the United Nations. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate which comes two days before the high level meeting of the UN Security Council convened at the personal initiative of my right honourable friend the Prime Minister.

One of our aims in convening this meeting has been to reaffirm at the highest level our commitment to the United Nations and to the principles of its Charter. It has been gratifying to hear that commitment echoed throughout the House this evening. We hope that the meeting will help generate a debate and fresh thinking about the central role of the UN. It will, in short, help to initiate the kind of wide-ranging review called for in this evening's Motion and endorsed by many speakers in this debate.

It might be helpful if I refer in outline to the hopes we have of that occasion which will be the first meeting in the history of the council at the level of heads of state and government. We wish to see it mark the arrival of Dr. Boutros Boutros Ghali in his post of Secretary-General and assure him of the council's support. Further, we wish the council to reaffirm its commitment to the principle of collective security as embodied in the UN Charter. We also hope to stimulate discussion of new and better ways of preserving international peace and security. Finally, we hope the meeting will seek to build on the progress made in the control and reduction of armaments and on the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Those are just the kind of areas that noble Lords have referred to this evening. The noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, stressed the importance of those areas.

We are confident that Dr. Boutros Boutros Ghali will fill his important post with distinction. We are glad to have had the chance to talk to him in his new capacity already when he visited London on 13th January. We look forward to continuing the close co-operation with him which characterised the relations between the five permanent members of the Security Council and his distinguished predecessor.

At this point I wish to join with the noble Lords, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos and Lord Ennals, in thanking Senor Perez de Cuellar for the work he did when he was Secretary-General. As noble Lords have said, there are many problems facing the Secretary-General. Reform of the organisation as a whole will be one of his many responsibilities. If the Secretary-General is to succeed in this, he must have the necessary tools. He will have our support and I believe the support of the entire international community in taking steps to rationalise the sprawling structure of the UN Secretariat and in developing priorities. As my noble friends Lord Beloff and Lady Park of Monmouth have said, the UN needs to put its own house in order if it is to be fully effective. Dr Boutros Boutros Ghali has stated his commitment to secretariat reform. We wish him every success, but it was the noble Lord, Lord Greenhill of Harrow, who reminded us of the difficulties of such action. I noted the noble Lord's remarks.

The noble Lord, Lord Judd, mentioned a wide range of issues which cause all of us concern. He mentioned the nub of the problem, and this was referred to by many other speakers. None of the UN's work and no reform will be effective without the resources needed by the UN to perform its tasks. It is a regrettable fact that a great number of member states fail to pay their assessed contributions in full or on time. I am glad to say that the United Kingdom does not fall in that category. Our record of prompt and full payment is second to none. That applies as much to our share of the regular budget as to the costs of peace-keeping. It also applies to humanitarian relief and development assistance.

In the matter of voluntary contributions, here, too, we are proud of our record. One can always do more, but it is equally important that our funds are used effectively by the UN and its agencies. We as member states have a duty and responsibility to ensure the success of the UN. We take seriously the need to support its efforts by ensuring that it has the necessary resources to do the job. We look to other member states, and in particular those whose wealth gives no excuse for non-payment, to do the same.

The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, reminded us of the dismal state of financial affairs that exists throughout the UN system, including the main UN regular budget. The financial crisis, as it has come to be known, will be discussed at the forthcoming resumed session of the General Assembly. We shall take an active part in that to try to ensure that the outcome of the discussions results in a more workable financial situation for the UN.

I wish to comment on the peace-keeping role of the UN. That role is at the centre of the popular concept of what the UN does and what it should be doing. Indeed my noble friend Lord Marlesford said it was the raison d'être of the UN. The success and value of its peace-keeping operations have been widely acknowledged, not least by the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988. The success of UN peace-keeping is proven by the huge increase in the number of operations since the end of the cold war. It is salutary to pause and think about that. Whereas only 13 operations were established in its first 40 years, since 1988, 10 new operations have begun. For the first time all five permanent members were asked to contribute to UNIKOM in 1991, thereby breaking an old taboo.

It is important to remember that UN peace-keeping is not a panacea for all ills. To keep a peace, there must be a peace to keep. The usefulness and success of UN peace-keepers depend heavily upon the willingness of parties to enter into dialogue and compromise. A viable cease-fire and full co-operation of the parties involved are necessary prerequisites for the deployment of any force. Nor is deployment the end of the story. We have no wish to see any UN peace-keeping operation become a permanent fixture. That is not a solution to a problem but the artificial extension of one. Alongside such operations we must also make every effort to bring the different parties together and help them work out a relationship that will ensure a lasting and unsupervised peace. That leads me naturally to comment upon a matter raised by the noble Lords, Lord Judd, Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe and Lord Bonham-Carter, and by my noble friend Lady Park of Monmouth which concerns Article 2.7 of the charter and the right of intervention.

Much attention is being given to the question of intervention, and in particular humanitarian intervention. It is difficult and probably undesirable to lay down rules concerning a right to intervene. Each case has its peculiar characteristics. The way Article 2.7 of the UN Charter is interpreted will continue to evolve. However, this is more likely to happen in the light of experience gained in tackling individual crises than by the formulation of a general right of intervention.

Many noble Lords tonight, including the noble Lord, Lord Judd, have focused on the development challenges facing the UN. I welcome that. I agree with the noble Lord that in an increasingly interdependent world, more and more issues facing developing countries need to be resolved within the framework of multilateral co-operation. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Desai, that nowhere is this more critical than in the economic and social activities of the United Nations and its agencies.

The UN's development system, despite many of its successes, has considerable weaknesses. If we were starting from scratch today we should more than probably design the system differently so that it became a more coherent and co-ordinated vehicle for development assistance. Our starting point would be that the UN should focus primarily on economic and social issues that are global, urgent and vital—poverty alleviation, the environment and good government are just three obvious examples—and on issues which it has the resources and instruments to address.

In the agencies themselves we want to see more effective administration and governance, a better prioritisation of resources and stricter adherence to areas of specialisation and competence. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Rea, will agree that we want no overlap, no competition, but each agency doing what it does best. We are pressing for such reforms.

In no area has the UN faced greater challenges over the past year than in the delivery of emergency humanitarian relief. The catastrophe facing the Kurds was unfortunately only one of many. We thus greatly welcome the approval by the General Assembly on 18th December of a resolution to create the post of a senior UN disaster relief co-ordinator or "supremo" as part of a package to strengthen the UN's disaster relief systems. I was very surprised that none of your Lordships mentioned that in view of the debate we had not so long ago in which it was a common theme.

That post was originally an Anglo-German initiative arising from the clear lesson of the Iraqi crisis that the international community must be able to respond quickly and effectively to emergencies. Where better to start than with improving the UN's ability to co-ordinate both its own agencies and the international response.

But more than co-ordination, our proposal also envisaged a package including a standing committee on which all the representatives of humanitarian agencies should be represented to provide a central revolving fund of 50 million dollars. We were pleased that our proposals were welcomed by the NGOs and indeed that our full package was reflected in the UN resolution. It is important now to ensure that the Secretary-General receives the necessary funds to appoint someone to do the job.

We have already pledged 5 million dollars to the 50 million dollar revolving fund he will control. We were the first donor to make such a pledge. I am glad to note that some others have begun to follow suit and hope others will also soon follow. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Judd, has himself consistently called for such a co-ordinator.

The successful climax to our efforts only underlines—particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Ennals—what we are already doing in practical terms to support humanitarian aid through the UN and similar bodies such as the International Red Cross movement. In this financial year we have provided them with £61 million for humanitarian aid—some 44 per cent. of our total humanitarian aid of nearly £40 million. As long as the agencies continue to prove their effectiveness in delivering that aid, as we can expect with the co-ordinator's guidance, we shall continue to support them financially in their vital work. But we cannot do that alone. Other countries must also play their part.

I have mentioned that we see one purpose of the Security Council meeting in two days' time as reaffirming the UN's role in arms control and non-proliferation, another subject which was of great concern to the noble Lord, Lord Judd. Without arms control, international peace and security cannot be assured.

Britain actively supports the UN in its roles in that field. At this year's General Assembly, the highlight of the first committee's work was the adoption, by a massive majority, of a resolution tabled by the EC countries and Japan aimed at establishing a register of conventional arms transfers at the UN. That was a direct result of an initiative of my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and implemented one of the main conclusions of a UN study, chaired by a British expert, on promoting transparency in conventional arms transfers.

We attach the highest importance to an effective role for the UN in promoting respect for human rights. We shall be playing a full and active part in the work of the Commission on Human Rights, which begins its annual session this week. Our expectations, however, go far beyond the traditional functions of the commission. We look to the UN as a whole to set human rights, including the right to free and fair elections, at the centre of its aims and activities.

Environmental issues will be high on the UN's agenda this year. The 1992 UN Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED) is to take place in Rio de Janeiro from 1st to 12th June. It is intended to address the complex relationship between environmental degradation and development and to draw up a comprehensive action programme for international activity into the next century. The UK is firmly committed to a successful UNCED and will be working to achieve that goal throughout the preparatory process.

The Geneva meeting mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, is but one step on the road. I have nothing new to tell the noble Lord, but we took forward the commitment made by the Commonwealth heads of government in Harare and G7 leaders at the London summit to make a success of the final meeting in Rio de Janeiro.

The noble Lord, Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe, mentioned water supplies in the world. With the world's present population, that in itself is a problem, but when one considers the growth in population which the world faces it is even more of a problem. I sometimes think that we take for granted how lucky we are to have a potable water supply from our taps here. After travelling in the Far East it is a pleasure to return to what we take for granted here but those in the Far East do not take for granted.

The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, besides riding his usual hobby-horse of USA-bashing, mentioned Libya, and in particular the relevance of the Montreal Convention in relation to the Libyan bombing of Pan Am flight 103. We are studying with great care a letter we have just received from the Libyans. I am sure that the noble Lord will agree that it is important that we ensure that those responsible are brought to justice and that such tragedies do not happen again.

I should like to spend a little time dealing with a point raised by many noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, concerning the reform of the Security Council. The Security Council is performing more effectively than it ever has. Reforming the council would inevitably mean making it bigger since there are a number of countries which would wish to press their case for joining if the opportunity arose. The result would be an expanded, and, in our view, more cumbersome and inefficient council, less able to meet the demands placed on it than the present arrangement. We have discussed just how many demands there are.

Moreover, reform of the council would entail reform of the charter itself, and that would be extraordinarily difficult. Many proposals have been made since 1945 to revise the charter but the only changes made have been those introduced in the early 1960s to give the newly independent countries of Africa and Asia more voting power. At that time four new non-permanent seats were created in the Security Council, increasing its membership from 11 to 15, and nine extra seats were created on the Economic and Social Council. The expansion of ECOSOC took, moreover, seven years to negotiate —an indication of how lengthy and divisive the question of reform can be.

Generally, the commitment of UN members to the principles of the charter as originally drafted has kept changes to a minimum. We believe that that is right. Under Article 109 of the charter a two-thirds majority of all United Nations members is required for charter amendment. Any alternation of the charter must also be ratified in accordance with the respective constitutional processes by two-thirds of the members of the United Nations, including all the permanent members of the Security Council. That is clearly very difficult. Our view, as stated by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, is that reform of the charter is neither necessary nor desirable.

Also on the subject of the Security Council, the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, raised the question of Russia taking over the seat of the former USSR. Russia has been unanimously accepted by the members of the Security Council as the continuing state of the former Soviet Union. I am sure that the noble Lord will agree that to have done otherwise would have left a grave and irresponsible legal vacuum in terms of the Soviet Union's existing responsibilities. As Russia has taken over those responsibilities, as was mentioned earlier, I believe that we have done the right thing.

The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, raised the subject of aid to the former Soviet Union. Perhaps he will allow me to deal with the subject more fully next week in his very important debate on the issue.

The collapse of the cold war order has presented the United Nations with a host of unfamiliar challenges. But it has also given it the power to achieve results in dealing with them. The arrival of a new Secretary-General is a good moment to take stock and to look at ways in which the energies of the organisation can best be channelled in the future. We are determined not to let that moment slip. When the Members of the Security Council meet in New York in two days' time at the invitation of my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, they will have the chance to set a course for the council and the organisation as a whole for the coming years. The contributions to this evening's debate have furnished ample evidence why it is worth our every effort to give the organisation the support and commitment it needs.

7.50 p.m.

Lord Judd

My Lords, I should first like to thank all those who participated in the debate. It has been a very constructive and serious debate which has illustrated very well the wealth of talent and experience that exist in this House among people who have grappled with these problems from different angles over many years. I am sure we should all like to underline how good it has been, in the sense of continuity and the contribution that has been made over the years, to have had the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, present during the debate. It was sad that he was not able to participate in the discussion but his presence added importance and poignance to the occasion. It was good too to have my noble friend Lord Richard on these Benches for much of the debate. When I was a Minister of State at the Foreign Office I was able to see at close quarters the important and effective contribution that he made at a difficult time in the organisation's history.

I should also like to thank the noble Earl for the courteous, full and thoughtful way in which he responded to the debate. That augurs well for Britain's foreign policy. I should like to pick out one point which struck me as particularly significant. He dwelt on the issue of peace-keeping compared with conflict resolution. He was right to make that point. Obviously, the strength of the UN is measured in its effectiveness in peace-keeping; but that will never solve the underlying issues. There has to be a will and commitment to conflict resolution. I am sure that the previous Secretary-General worked very hard in that respect. We wish his successor well in all that lies before him. Indeed, I am glad that tonight we have sent that message of good will to Perez de Cuellar in that his has been a distinguished and effective contribution. It is a big pair of shoes for his successor to fill. We wish him well in taking up his post.

It came across more clearly than anything else in this debate—I found it very reassuring—that in this House there is a recognition that the first reality of existence is the knowledge that we live inseparably in an interdependent world. That is true strategically and environmentally and it is true on the issues of migration which preoccupy us at the moment. Therefore, the test of government—it is perhaps good to remember this as we come up to a general election —is not simply what they say that they will do within the geographical area which for historical reasons happens to be called the United Kingdom; the test is what they contribute to the viability and effectiveness of managing our interdependent—inseparably interdependent —world. The debate tonight has shown that there is a great deal of good will toward that objective as a priority in government.

I note that the Prime Minister is about to go to the United Nations. It has struck me in my political life that will is always central to results. If we want to get the Argentinians out of the Falklands, however extraordinary and daunting that task may seem, and if we are determined to do it, we do it. If we want to get the Iraqis out of Kuwait, however difficult, expensive and complicated it may be, if we establish the will and want to do it, we do it.

I should like to encourage the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, to cheer up. If there is the same degree of will brought to bear on this task about which there is so much agreement on the strategy, I am sure that we can bring about amazing results there too. Whatever our political differences, I am sure that we wish the Prime Minister well in his important mission to the UN.

I conclude by quoting one of the greatest international servants. He was controversial. Some may have approved of his approach and some may not. But there can be no doubt of his commitment to turning into effective government ideas about international co-operation. After all, he died in the front line in service to that cause. I quote Dag Hammarskjold: Never look down to test the ground before taking your next step: only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find the right road. Life yields only to the conqueror. Never accept what can be gained by giving in. You will be living off stolen goods, and your muscles will atrophy". I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers. Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.