Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - December 1, 2004
Evelyn Leopold

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan had asked the panel of 16 veteran foreign ministers and diplomats from around the world, including former U.S. national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, to spell out how the world body should reform itself and identify the main dangers to mankind in the 21st century.

The 95-page report gave 101 proposals to combat poverty, AIDS, social upheavals, the threat of nuclear proliferation, terrorism and organized crime. It criticized U.N. bodies, from the Security Council to the Human Rights Commission and proposed the world body offer buy-outs to its aging staff.

The U.N. Charter allows a nation to respond immediately in self-defense to an actual or imminent attack.

But the report, spurred by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq last year that divided world leaders, said "preventive action" when a threat was not imminent needed Security Council consent. This was denied to the Bush administration before the war.

"If there are good arguments for preventive military action, with good evidence to support them, they should be put to the Security Council, which can authorize such action," the report said.

"For those impatient with such a response the answer must be that in a world full of perceived potential threats, the risk to the global order...is simply too great for the legality of unilateral preventive action," it added.

But the report also widens the definition of threats that could be a cause for military action by endorsing the concept of protecting civilians from atrocities by their government.

And it recommends that the Security Council stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear proliferation, by taking "collective action" against any state that even threatens a nuclear attack.

The panel of wise men and women recommended nations stop building highly enriched uranium facilities, which have no civilian purpose.

"We are approaching a point at which the erosion of the nuclear regime could become irreversible, and result in a cascade of proliferation," said the panel, chaired by former Thai foreign minister, Anand Panyarachun.

TERRORISM DEFINED

The panel also took a big step in defining terrorism as "any action that is intended to cause death or seriously bodily harm to civilian or noncombatants," something that has eluded the U.N. General Assembly for years in devising a treaty.

Arab nations argue for exemptions in the case of "foreign occupation," which could exclude Palestinian suicide bombers.

But the panel, which included Amr Moussa, head of the Arab League, said "there is nothing in the fact of occupation that justifies the targeting and killing of civilians."

Annan wants to use the report as a basis for one he will present to the General Assembly of world leaders in September that will mainly focus on sharply reducing abject poverty.

The report also gives two previously released proposals for increasing from 15 to 24 members the Security Council, created nearly 60 years ago and heavily weighted toward the industrial northern hemisphere.

Any change has to be approved by a two-thirds vote in the 191-member General Assembly and no veto from the five permanent members: the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China.

While Britain, France and Russia have supported a quest by Germany, Japan, Brazil and India for permanent seats, the United States has been silent, an indication that any major change may fail.

U.S. Ambassador John Danforth said Washington wanted to evaluate whether expansion "would make the council be more effective or less, than it is now."

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