Like William Blake's proverbial rose ("O Rose Thou Art Sick"), the term UN "reform" is now so freighted that it has come to mean everything and nothing.  Here's an effort to deconstruct the agreement reached last night in New York, and to decode the important debate taking place in the United States about the future of the United Nations.  

It would be tempting but wrong simply to dismiss the bland, 35-page "outcome document" on UN reform agreed last night.  It is tempting to deride the agreement for three reasons.  First the agreement is full of the usual UN speak, and reads like it was drafted by a committee of 191 which, of course, it was.  Second, it is tempting because UN Secretary General Kofi Annan made the mistake last March of portraying the September summit as a make or break opportunity for the United Nations - a second San Francisco moment.  For Annan this was surely true since his time as Secretary General runs out the end of this year.  But few UN members shared his sense of urgency, despite rhetoric in Washington and elsewhere about the imperative of UN reform, and the need for the organization to change or become irrelevant.  

Finally, it is tempting because of the considerable ferment around the issue of the UN's future that followed the Security Council rupture over Iraq in 2003.  That collapse generated many predictions of the UN's demise.  But it also stimulated a lot of creativity about how to adapt institutions like the UN to our world.  

Maybe most surprising is the seriousness of the efforts initiated by Kofi Annan, himself.  Institutions, like people, respond to crises in one of two ways.  They either respond neurotically, repeating the behaviors that drove them to crisis, or they take time to reflect.  To his and his institution's credit, Annan chose the course of self-criticism.  

In the fall of 2003, he established something called the "High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change" which issued a consensus report last December on a range of important reform proposals, ranging from genocide prevention to management reform.  Meanwhile, in the United States, Congressman Frank Wolf, a Republican from northern Virginia, asked Newt Gingrich and George Mitchell to co-chair an independent congressional panel on UN reform (on which AAers served as member or experts).  They issued their comprehensive report last June.

What these two reports have in common is the extensive terrain they cover and the broad political support they commanded.  The High-Level Panel report was endorsed by Qian Qichen, the former Chinese Foreign Minister, Yevgeny Primakov, his Soviet era counterpart, Amr Moussa, the former Egyptian foreing minister, and current head of the Islamic conference, and General Brent Scowcroft, the first President Bush's National Security Advisor.  The Gingrich-Mitchell task force brought together two formerly partisan leaders associated with different ends of the political spectrum, and marshaled the support of other leading American conservative and liberal voices.  

Unfortunately, this week's summit failed to take advantage of the consensus represented by these two commissions and the depth and detail of their recommendations. Yesterday's agreement, however, is a missed opportunity, not a lost one.  The New York agreement did five things well.

Human Rights.  The leaders "resolved to create a Human Rights Council," a proposal recommended by Kofi Annan and endorsed by Washington.  The effect of this decision should be to abolish the discredited Human Rights Commission, and replace it with a body composed of nations committed to human rights rather than of nations who have joined to shield themselves from international criticism.  The leaders also agreed to double the budget for the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights, ably led by Justice Louise Arbour.

Management.  The leaders agreed to strengthen the "Office of Internal Oversight Service," an internal UN watchdog, "as a matter of urgency."

Peacebuilding.  Peacebuilding is a polite term for nation building.  The leaders agreed to establish a "Peacebuilding Commission" in order to apply coherence and consistent financial support to the effort to build institutions and societies after a conflict ends.

Responsibility to Protect.  The leaders endorsement of something called a "Responsibility to Protect" may be the most significant "reform" of all.  Adapting international institutions to new challenges requires a much deeper conception of reform than shaking up the management.  Changing ideas about the sanctity of states' sovereignty have given rise to new expectations about governments' obligations to protect their citizens from grave harm, and about the responsibility of others to take action when state leaders fail to fulfill those obligations. The High-Level Panel described this developing international expectation as the "responsibility to protect," and the signers of today's agreement say "they accept that responsibility and will act in accordance with it."

Next:  More on the developing liberal-conservative consensus on the future of the UN.