President George Bush announced what amounted to a U-turn in his administration's previous hostility towards the United Nations yesterday, using his speech to the General Assembly to pledge a new spirit of co-operation. The president, who once boasted that the US was strong enough to go it alone, said: "The US is committed to a strong and vibrant United Nations."
Yesterday Mr Bush was adamant that the US needed the UN, and that the UN could make a difference, highlighting the importance of its Universal Declaration of Human Rights. "The standards of this declaration must guide our work in this world," he announced to wide applause. "The best way to defeat extremists is to defeat their dark ideology with a more hopeful vision, a vision of liberty."
This will come as music to the ears of UN officials who had resigned themselves to being marginalised by US distrust of multilateralism as a way of solving the world's problems.
Mr Bush said that, while critical of the UN's Human Rights Council, which he accused of pandering to dictatorships, he would support an effort for reform to give it more power to check abuses. His speech came amid a dramatically different policy already evident regarding international justice. Although refusing to join the International Criminal Court, the US has dropped its threat of economic penalties against states joining the organisation, and has supported the court's indictments against Sudanese officials charged with genocide in Darfur.
"It's [the White House] taking a much more positive stance on justice," said Sara Darehshori of New York-based Human Rights Watch. "Definitely a softening of its attitude."
This new attitude also saw Mr Bush support the idea of enlarging the number of permanent members on the Security Council with the inclusion of Japan, saying it would then work more effectively. The pledge will be taken as encouragement by other members hoping to win permanent seats, notably Brazil, Germany and India. |