The UN secretary-general and norm entrepreneurship: Boutros Boutros-Ghali and democracy promotion

Global Governance

Volumn 14, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 95-110

  Rushton, Simon ^a  

^a ABERYSTWYTH UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Boutros boutros ghali; Democracy; Norm entrepreneur; Secretary general; United Nations

Indexed keywords

EID: 41449092739     PISSN: 10752846     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/19426720-01401007     Document Type: Article

References (62)

1. Kofi Annan, "Transcript of Press Conference by Secretary-General Kofi Annan at United Nations Headquarters, 21 December 2004," SG/SM/9655.
2. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Unvanquished: A U.S.-U.N. Saga (London: I. B. Tauris, 1999), p. 275.
3. Boutros-Ghali, Unvanquished, pp. 318-319.
4. Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore, Rules for the World: International Organisations in Global Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004), chap. 2.
5. What limited disagreement there was largely concerned how the secretary-general would be elected and whether or not his deputies should also be elected. See Ruth B. Russell, A History of the United Nations Charter (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1958), pp. 854-860.
6. Kille and Scully's analysis of "expansionist leadership style" rates Hammarskjöld at the top, followed by Boutros-Ghali, with Lie in third place. Kent J. Kille and Roger M. Scully, "Executive Heads and the Role of Intergovernmental Organizations: Expansionist Leadership in the United Nations and the European Union," Political Psychology 24, no. 1 (2003): 186.
7. For example, Ian Johnstone, "The Role of the UN Secretary-General: The Power of Persuasion Based on Law," Global Governance 9, no. 3 (2003): 442.
8. Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, Cyril Foster Lecture, Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, 30 May 1986. Reprinted as Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, "The Role of the UN Secretary-General," in Adam Roberts and Benedict Kingsbury, eds., United Nations, Divided World, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).
9. Trygve Lie, In The Cause of Peace (New York: Macmillan, 1954), p. 83.
10. See also Thomas M. Franck, Nation Against Nation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 123.
11. Trygve Lie, "Implied Powers Under Article 99 - Statement in the Security Council, September 20, 1946," reprinted in Andrew W. Cordier and Wilder Foote, eds., Public Papers of the Secretaries-General of the United Nations, vol. 1 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), pp. 46-47. A similar right has also been established vis-à-vis the General Assembly.
12. Indeed, the political nature of the secretary-general's powers under Article 99 were fully recognized by the Preparatory Commission. See Report of the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations, Section 2.16.
13. Notable occasions when the article has been invoked include the cases of Korea (1950), the Congo (1960), India-Pakistan (1971), the US Embassy hostage crisis in Iran (1979), and Lebanon (1989).
14. Kofi Annan, "Dag Hammarskjöld and the 21st Century," Fourth Dag Hammarskjöld Lecture, Uppsala, 6 September 2001.
15. T. M. Franck and G. Nolte, "The Good Offices Function of the UN Secretary-General," in Roberts and Kingsbury, United Nations, Divided World.
16. For example, Hisako Shimura, "The Role of the UN Secretariat in Organizing Peacekeeping," in Ramesh Thakur and Albrecht Schnabel, eds., United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Ad Hoc Missions, Permanent Engagement (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2001).
17. Barnett and Finnemore, Rules for the World, p. 22.
18. Ibid., p. 23.
19. Kurt Waldheim, In the Eye of the Storm (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1985), p. 38.
20. See Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, "International Norm Dynamics and Political Change," International Organization 52, no. 4 (1998).
21. Ibid., p. 896.
22. For example, Ethan A. Nadelmann, "Global Prohibition Regimes: The Evolution of Norms in International Society," International Organization 44, no. 4 (1990).
23. Finnemore and Sikkink, "International Norm Dynamics and Political Change," pp. 899-900.
24. Ibid.
25. Boutros-Ghali, Unvanquished, p. 319.
26. Rodger A. Payne, "Persuasion, Frames and Norm Construction," European Journal of International Relations 7, no. 1 (2001).
27. See also Finnemore and Sikkink, "International Norm Dynamics and Political Change," p. 897.
28. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, "Democracy: A Newly Recognized Imperative," Global Governance 1, no. 1 (1995);
29. emphasis in original. Precisely the same argument is put forward in Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Democratization (New York: United Nations, 1996).
30. Russell, A History of the United Nations Charter, p. 915.
31. Thomas M. Franck, "The Emerging Right to Democratic Governance," American Journal of International Law 86, no. 1 (1992): 54;
32. Nigel D. White, "The United Nations and Democracy Assistance: Developing Practice Within a Constitutional Framework," in Peter Burnell, ed., Democracy Assistance: International Co-operation for Democratization (London: Frank Cass, 2000), p. 70;
33. Patrick Thornberry, "The Principle of Self-determination," in Vaughan Lowe and Colin Warbrick, eds., The United Nations and the Principles of International Law (London: Routledge, 1994), p. 184.
34. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 21.
35. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace: Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peacekeeping (New York: United Nations, 1992).
36. It has been noted - and is evident from discussions with several officials who worked closely with Boutros-Ghali during his term in office - that he was convinced of an inextricable link between peace, development, and democracy to the extent that his staff referred to these three concepts by the acronym PDD. See Caroline E. Lombardo, "The Making of An Agenda for Democratization: A Speechwriter's View," Chicago Journal of International Law 2, no. 1 (2001): 255.
37. Boutros-Ghali, "Democracy: A Newly Recognized Imperative," p. 3.
38. Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace, par. 59.
39. Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Democratization.
40. Christopher C. Joyner, "The United Nations and Democracy," Global Governance 5, no. 3 (1996): 335.
41. Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Democratization.
42. Over time this link between democracy and development has become far less controversial. UNDP now includes democratic governance as one of its organizational priorities and in 2001 founded the Democratic Governance Thematic Trust Fund.
43. Boutros-Ghali, Unvanquished, p. 319.
44. In An Agenda for Democratization, for example, Boutros-Ghali states that "it is not for the United Nations to offer a model of democratization or democracy."
45. Lombardo, "The Making of An Agenda for Democratization," pp. 253-268.
46. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, "The United Nations and Democracy: The Gauer Distinguished Lecture in Law and Public Policy" (Washington, DC: National Legal Center for the Public Interest, 1995).
47. Lombardo, "The Making of An Agenda for Democratization," p. 257.
48. This was also the case with the earlier Supplement to An Agenda for Peace, which was unsolicited by the other organs and which "provoked disgruntlement among certain Member States." Sydney D. Bailey and Sam Daws, The Procedure of the UN Security Council, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), p. 124.
49. Lombardo, "The Making of An Agenda for Democratization," pp. 262-263.
50. Boutros-Ghali, Unvanquished, p. 320
51. Steven Erlanger, "U.S. Will Oppose Move to Re-Elect Top U.N. Official," New York Times, 20 June 1996, p. 1.
52. For example, Stanley Meisler, UN correspondent for the Los Angeles Times during the 1990s, notes that "Albright did not veto Boutros-Ghali because he was weak on reform. She could not abide Boutros-Ghali because of his independence, arrogance and stubbornness."
53. Stanley Meisler, "It Works Well. Tweak It," Los Angeles Times, 6 November 2005.
54. UN Doc A/51/761.
55. Boutros-Ghali, Unvanquished, p. 334.
56. John Gerard Ruggie has described Kofi Annan as a norm entrepreneur. Quoted in James Traub, The Best Intentions: Kofi Annan and the UN in the Era of American World Power (London: Bloomsbury, 2006), p. 102.
57. Traub, The Best Intentions, p. 61.
58. Timothy D. Sisk, "Global Networks for Democracy Promotion: Enhancing Local Governance," Case Study for the UN Vision Project on Global Public Policy Networks, available at www.globalpublicpolicy.net/fileadmin/gppi/ Sisk_Local_Governance.pdf, p. 12.
59. In fact, the first moves toward the creation of this unit had begun under Pérez de Cuellar, although at that time, electoral assistance was carried out only in exceptional cases with a clear international peace and security dimension (see Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization, A/45/1, 16 September 1990). Under Boutros-Ghali, the work of the EAD moved away from the restrictive criteria imposed by his predecessor toward a model in which a request for assistance from a member state was deemed sufficient to justify UN action.
60. Russia, for example, lobbied the EAD strongly to verify its December 1993 assembly elections. As it turned out, the EAD agreed to a minimal presence. In fact, this "presence" amounted to two observers in a so-called follow-and-report mission, hardly a meaningful deployment given the size of the country. In his 1994 report on the organization's electoral assistance activities, the secretary-general stated that "based on experience to date, this form of assistance has been found to be of negligible benefit and will therefore be authorized only in special cases." Boutros Boutros-Ghali, "Enhancing the Effectiveness of the Principle of Periodic and Genuine Elections: Report of the Secretary-General," 17 November 1994.
61. Kofi Annan, "Support by The United Nations System of the Efforts of Governments to Promote and Consolidate New or Restored Democracies: Report of the Secretary-General," A/52/513, 21 October 1997.
62. Kofi Annan, Nobel Lecture, Oslo, 10 December 2001, available at http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2001/annan-lecture.html.