Multilateralism and the International Organizations - Essay Example

Multilateralism and the International Organizations Multilateralism according to en-wikipedia is a term in international relations that refers to multiple countries working in concert on a given issue. Most international organizations, such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organization, OSCE are multilateral in nature. The main proponents of multilateralism have traditionally been the middle powers such as Canada, Australia and the Nordic countries. Larger states often act unilaterally, while the smaller ones may have little direct power at all in international affairs aside from participation in the United Nations (by consolidating their U.N. vote in a voting bloc with other nations, for example). Moreover, multilateralism involves all nations acting together as in the UN and does not involve regional or military alliances, pacts or groupings The first modern instances of multilateralism occurred in the nineteenth century in Europe after the end of the Napoleonic Wars where the great powers met to redraw the map of Europe at the Congress of Vienna. The Concert of Europe, as it became known, was a group of great and lesser powers that would meet to resolve issues peacefully. Conferences such as the Conference of Berlin in 1884 helped reduce great power conflicts during this period, and the nineteenth century was one of Europe's most peaceful. This system however was destroyed by the First World War and consequently the League of Nations was created by the conflict world leaders in order to try to prevent any other form of conflict. Still after the Second World War the leaders saw the League of Nations failure and decided to create the United Nations in 1945 with a structure intended to address the weaknesses of the previous body. Unlike the League, the UN had the active participation of the United States and the Soviet Union, the world's two greatest contemporary powers. Along with the political institutions of the UN the post-war years a wide array of other multilateral organizations such as the GATT (now the World Trade Organization), the World Bank and the World Health Organization developed. The collective multilateral framework played an important role in maintaining world peace in the Cold War. Moreover, United Nations peacekeepers stationed around the world became one of the most visible symbols of multilateralism in recent decades. Today there are so many multilateral institutions of varying scope and subject matter, ranging from the International Telecommunication Unit (ITU) to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and Organisation For the Prohibition Of Chemical Weapons(OPCW); although many such organizations were founded or are supported by the UN, they are by no means maintained within the UN system. In the case of the Middle East crisis, multilateralism has played a very great role in the resolution of the several ongoing conflicts in the region. Let us study the impact or role of multilateralism on the nuclear energy conflict in Iran. According to Jan De Pauw a lecturer in cultural history and media at the Erasmus Hogeschool, Brussels, the status and intentions of Iran's nuclear-energy plans are again at the top of the international agenda, and in a dramatic and unexpected way. He goes further to say the first rumours about Iran's nuclear military ambitions emerged in 2002. By June 2003, he quotes from the IAEA webpage, the International Atomic Energy Agency, after inspections at Natanz and Arak, confirmed Iran's fissile activities and recommended that Iran sign the additional protocol to the 1970 nuclear non-proliferation treaty (to which the country was and is a signatory). By October 2003 - lightning-speed in diplomatic terms - the EU signed an agreement with Tehran through the joint efforts of Britain, France, and Germany. In this document he says, what came to be known as the Tehran agreement - Iran consented to suspending all enrichment activities and promised to sign the additional protocol; the quid pro quo for Tehran was further negotiations. This was considered a major diplomatic achievement for Europe. The agreement effectively positioned the EU/E3 between the two main contenders - Iran and the United States - as well as strengthened the role of the IAEA. By spring 2004, however, both the US and the IAEA independently denounced Iran's erratic behaviour with regard to the Tehran agreement. In September, Iran itself followed up its initial threats by effectively and publicly resuming its uranium-conversion activities. It is not improbable that pressure over the forthcoming (June 2005) general elections in Iran hardened then-president Mohammad Khatami's stance on his country's nuclear rights. Meanwhile, the US, under the spell of a highly divisive presidential election campaign, was becoming increasingly impatient about Iran's behaviour. When the US demanded that Iran be referred to the Security Council, the EU/E3 rose to the challenge: again, it secured a deal with Iran in November 2004 that promised broader negotiations, economic benefits and technological assistance for Iran's civilian nuclear programme. But the pattern was repeated: by May 2005, this deal - the Paris agreement - was coming The publication of the latest United States national-intelligence estimate (NIE) on 3 December 2007 - in the declassified digest released to the public - contained the striking assessment that Iran halted its nuclear-weapons programme in 2003 "in response to international pressure"; a judgment, moreover, backed with "high confidence". Quoting from the British Telegraph, he says the report which gathers material from the US's sixteen leading intelligence agencies, does admit: “they do not know whether (Iran) currently intends to develop nuclear weapons." But the tenor of the report is - as has been instantly understood around the world - to challenge the narrative of an Iranian nuclear danger that the George W Bush administration and its supporters has assiduously been building, and to make more difficult the argument for armed confrontation with Iran as a way of resolving the perceived problem. Talking about Europe he says until this point, their interaction with Iran closely resembled her 1990s policy of "critical dialogue" with Iran: an inclusive and comprehensive strategy of relationship-building and economic engagement that might give Europe leverage over contentious issues such as human rights, freedom, torture, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. But in June 2005, the neo-conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the presidential election and inherited office from the more moderate but disappointing Khatami. The surprise victory of the relatively unknown ex-mayor of Tehran was followed by a swift change of tone. Iran's interaction both with the EU/E3, and with the IAEA and the US, became more confrontational. The EU/E3 he says, offered Ahmadinejad a framework for a long-term agreement that - amongst other things - proposed specific security guarantees, areas of cooperation, and long-term support for Iran's civil nuclear programme. The offer was promptly rejected and the talks between Iran and the EU broke down. Europe's lack of success, however, was compensated to some degree by its ability to convince Russia and China to refrain from using their veto to block an IAEA resolution on Iran's non-compliance with the IAEA safeguards agreement. But by this time, another threat was looming: multilateral sanctions, this time endorsed by the UN Security Council. Unfortunately for the negotiators according to De Pauw, Iran had again resumed enrichment by January 2006 and by February the country was effectively referred to the UN Security Council. By 29 March, Iran was given another deadline one month hence; this it ignored. A phase of clever manoeuvring all around briefly raised hopes of direct talks between Iran and the US in a multilateral setting; in large part, that too was an EU/E3 accomplishment, as was the extensive package of incentives put together by the EU/E3, China, Russia and the US offered to Iran in June 2006 by Europe's foreign-policy supremo, Javier Solana. Events took another twist when the July-August 2006 war in Lebanon and the contested victory of the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement left the regime in Tehran feeling sufficiently bolstered to dismiss Solana's proposals. In the feverish months of August-September 2006, the EU/E3 were granted the privilege of keeping up the appearance of a constructive dialogue and by October, even Solana acknowledged he quoted, "four months of intensive talks have brought no agreement on suspension" and that one "can't go on talking forever". The EU/E3 then submitted a draft resolution to the UN to curtail Iran by means of sanctions. Quoting from the UN committee report, he says after prolonged debate, and Russian and Chinese amendments, Resolution 1737 was unanimously adopted by the UN Security Council on 23 December 2006. Looking at the turn of events on the side of the United Sates, De Pauw says, the twin electoral victories of Democrats and reformers in Iran did not soften positions on either side. Indeed, by March 2007, a second round of UN sanctions was unanimously accepted; the rhetoric of war resounded ever louder; and the middle ground occupied by the EU/E3 tilted toward stronger (and by late 2007, possibly even unilateral) sanctions. With the above he goes further to say and I quote “In this sense there has been a definite shift of approach in Europe's policy towards Iran. The stance of the "critical dialogue" period seems to have been exchanged for the second leg of its non-proliferation strategy: namely the implementation of coercive measures in the context of Chapter VII of the UN charter”. He goes further to say, Europe may have been consistent in relation to its own policy recommendations of diplomacy first, coercion later (or last); but with regard to another of its strategy's basic principles - the implementation and universalisation of existing disarmament and non-proliferation norms - it has been wholly unsuccessful. Yet, the implication of this is that, diplomatic advances or signs of progress in the long-running dispute between Iran and the west - especially the United States - are so often followed by severe setbacks. According to DE Pauw,the best-case result may be that the intelligence assessment may reduce America's taste for war, fortify the next American president's conviction to stay on the diplomatic track, and re-establish Europe's locomotive role in designing a deal with Iran that - this time - will last. While the worst-case result may be that the objective alliance between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Saeed Jalili and the Iranian neo-conservatives with their United States counterparts proves too strong and addictive to break. In either case, the diplomatic story of Iran, the United States, and Europe over Iran's nuclear plans has a long way to go. In conclusion, Jan De Pauw’s above analysis of the Iran/Us/Europe nuclear talks is a clear indication or example of multilateralism at work.But it is evident that at almost every phase it meets with setbacks as such the powers are resorting to unilateralism. I strongly agree with De Pauw that Iran’s Nuclear Crisis still has a long way to go. MAIN REFERENCES: De Pauw, Jan. “Iran, the United States and Europe: the nuclear complex”15-Dec-2007 http//www.acronym.org.uk http//www.iaea.org/newscenter www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/multilateralism(May 2007)/2008-04-12 Read More