Global institutions must be fully representative

The United Nations and other world bodies are dominated by western men, says Sholto Byrnes

One of the few women in a senior position at the UN is Wonder Woman. The comic-book character has been named Honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women and Girls. Bebeto Matthews / AP

The International Criminal Court, that brave attempt to build an international rule of law so that none could claim immunity for the most terrible of crimes – such as genocide – looks in danger of unravelling after a brief 14 years. With South Africa last week following Burundi in announcing that it will leave the ICC, many observers fear an exodus of other African countries driven by the suspicion that the organisation is not impartial.

All of those convicted so far have been from the continent, while other Africans, such as Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta, have suffered the humiliation of being summoned to the court in The Hague – a stigma that remains even when, as in that instance, the charges are eventually dropped.

Cases are being pursued in other countries, it will be said. No matter. The problem is of perception – just as it is with the United Nations, which has still not managed to choose a female secretary general in its 70-plus years of existence. A group of 56 countries said that it was a woman’s turn, as did the outgoing secretary general Ban Ki-moon, and several outstanding candidates put their names forward, including New Zealand’s former prime minister Helen Clark and the head of Unesco, Irina Bokova.

In the end, however, the UN Security Council decided not to break what Argentina’s foreign minister Susana Malcorra calls the “steel ceiling”, and voted in another chap, Antonio Guterres, the head of the UN’s refugee agency. Indicating just how tone deaf on equality the UN can be, it recently announced the superhero Wonder Woman as an honorary ambassador . So no female secretary general, but at least the gender balance was redressed by giving a meaningless title to a fictitious character known for her skimpy dress and implausible figure – a true role model for 21st century women indeed.

The insult had already been compounded by the original decision, however. For Mr Guterres is also the former prime minister of Portugal, and it was not western but eastern Europe’s “turn” to get the UN’s top job. The idea that the secretary generalship should be passed between the regions may not be defensible in the long term. Nevertheless, can anyone imagine long-developed and still powerful western Europe missing out on its turn, as opposed to the poorer and less influential east?

A similar opportunity was missed when the position of the International Monetary Fund’s managing director was last contested in 2011. By tradition, the post always goes to a European, as does that of the World Bank to an American. That time, however, many felt it was time that the rest of globe should be in contention.

Strong names from South Africa, Brazil, China and Mexico were touted, but the job ultimately went to France’s Christine Lagarde. A former Venezuelan trade minister complained: “The outcome is exactly the same as it was when it was done in a smoke-filled room without a lot of participation. That is, a European is going to be the next head of the IMF.”

Sooner or later, such “Buggins’ turns” for the boys of the global north-west are going to have to come to an end if world institutions are to retain the credibility of the many developing nations that have long seen them as American and European dominated clubs.

Other clubs are springing up now, many to be welcomed. We can be sure that the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Economic Community of West African States and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, to name but a few, are going to continue to be important, with some of the newer ones assuming ever larger roles and memberships in their respective regions.

But we need global institutions too, more than ever as we enter a multipolar world. So it is crucial that they stop giving the impression that they are still essentially tools of America and its allies and become, and be seen to become, genuinely inclusive. (One might point to the varied nationalities of the UN secretaries general as an example of that; although it is undermined by the way some were treated at times by US officials – notably Boutros Boutros-Ghali in the mid 1990s and his successor Kofi Annan. It may be coincidence, but in terms of perception it does not help that both were from Africa. Would a European have been so readily insulted, as Mr Annan was by then United States ambassador John Bolton?)

A Security Council dominated by the permanent five who were the victors of the Second World War is no longer justifiable. Neither is a World Bank-IMF duopoly of America and Europe. Indeed, those two regions might have done well to learn from and follow the examples of other parts of the world long ago.

After all, women were leading countries including Sri Lanka, Argentina, India, and the Central African Republic before Europe had its first female head of government, with Britain’s Margaret Thatcher in 1979 – and neither the UN nor the US has yet to do so (although that is, of course, likely to change very soon in America).

To return to the ICC: in its courts, justice may be done, but it is not seen to be done sufficiently. And in too many other global institutions, equality and diversity are much talked of – but appear to be more honoured in the breach than in the observance.

There is no automatic future for these organisations, whose histories would earn the briefest of paragraphs in the great book of human civilisation. If they are to extend to a page or two, they must be seen to represent all, the global south as well as the north, women as well as men. If they do not, future generations may pay them no more attention than we do today the Hanseatic League – of interest to medieval historians, but of virtually no rele­vance to the vast majority of the rest of us.

Sholto Byrnes is a senior fellow at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies, Malaysia