BUILDING A MORE DEMOCRATIC UNITED NATIONS
Building A
More Democratic
UNITED NATIONS
Proceedings of CAMDUN-1
Edited by FRANK BARNABY
First published in 1991 by FRANK CASS & CO. LTD.
Published 2019 by Routledge
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
CAMDUN-1 (1990 : New York, N.Y.)
Building a more democratic United Nations.
I. Title II. Barnaby, Frank
341.23
Typeset by Regent Typesetting, London
ISBN 13: 978-0-7146-3442-5 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-7146-4080-8 (pbk)
Contents
Jeffrey J. Segall and Harry H. Lerner
Frank Barnaby
Keith D. Suter
Thrse Paquet-Svigny
Harry H. Lerner
Lucile W. Green
Jeffrey J. Segall
Harold E. Stassen
Douglas Mattern
Walter Hoffmann
Frank Barnaby
Stella Cornelius
Ramses Nassif
Gillian M. Sorensen
Hanna Newcombe
Jeffrey J. Segall
Harry H. Lerner
Rosemary Sullivan
Alanna Hartzok
Genevieve Marcus
Elizabeth R. Dana
David Chapman
Jack Yost
Matt Shermer
Shyama G. Tampoe
and Janet Creery
Farouk Mawlawi
Sylvan M. Barnet Jr.
Lisinka Ulatowska
Stephen Collett
Grigory Morozov,
Ivan Kovalenko,
Oleg Pavlov and
Yuri Goriachev
Yuri Goriachev
Gregory E. Temkin
Serge I. Perkins
S. K. Banerjee
Ruth Steinkraus Cohen
Laurie Salas
Mercy Edgedale
F. Richard Schneider
Genevieve Marcus
Carol Heil Chase
Humphrey Tonkin
Joyce A. Kovelman
Alison M. Williams
George Howatt and
Alison M. Williams
Alison M. Williams
Benjamin B. Ferencz
Hanna Newcornbe
Elizabeth R. Dana
Richard Hudson
Hans Koechler
Andr Gunder Frank
Mary Brennan
Myron W. Kronisch
David Chapman
John Pozzi
Feng Ping-Chung
Mary Brennan
Dietrich Fischer and
Johan Galtung
Brian Urquhart
PART I
Background
JEFFREY J. SEGALL and HARRY H. LERNER
Co-Founder of CAMDUN
In July 1988, during the UN General Assemblys Third Special Session on Disarmament, four of the Convenors of the International Network for a UN Second Assembly (INFUSA) Gunnar Ekegard (Sweden), Keith Suter (Australia) and ourselves met at H.L.s office, 301 East 45th Street, NYC. There is an inspiring view of the United Nations from there, and we also had other sources of inspiration INFUSAs annual Appeal/Proposal to the General Assembly had again been distributed to all the member-states Missions to the UN; we had held a meeting at the UN on the proposal for a UN Second Assembly, which was well-attended by representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who were at the Special Session; and other initiatives for a popular voice in the UN were moving closer to INFUSAs position. Finally, there was the more favourable international climate.
The question we discussed was, Where do we go from here? INFUSA and its proposal for a UN Second (we the peoples) Assembly, which would be a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly, had become quite well known in UN and NGO circles. There were now about 100 organizations and institutions in the Network. We felt that this progress called for a positive response, and that the best option was outreach by INFUSA to link its proposal with other initiatives for UN reform. We agreed that INFUSA should do this by promoting an international conference which would take the form of an open forum on the subject of enhancing popular influence in the functioning of the United Nations. With this consensus, the four Convenors separated to continue the work in our respective countries; but before proceeding with the work, J.S. of the UK and H.L. of the USA proposed this new approach to the eight INFUSA Convenors who had not been at the New York meeting, and none dissented.
On 7 December 1988, INFUSAs Convenors received a great encouragement President Mikhail Gorbachevs words in his address to the 43 rd Regular Session of the UN General Assembly:
Democratizing the entire world order has become a powerful political force The idea of convening on a regular basis, under the auspices of the United Nations, an assembly of public organizations deserves attention.
During the next few months, J.S. explored the possibility of the proposed conference being held in London, but without success. H.L. was a member of the Organizing Council of the World Citizens Assembly (WCA), and we agreed that a proposal should be made to the WCA to be held in October 1989 in New York City that a conference on democratizing the UN should be linked to the 1990 WCA. We were confident that this lead would be followed by a second such conference in Europe in 1991. Keith Best (a well-known World Federalist and Director of a UK humanitarian organization) suggested that a third should be held in India, to which we added the suggestion for a fourth in Australia or elsewhere in the Pacific area.
The 1989 WCA included a Commission on Global Structures, addressing the UN Second Assembly and related proposals, and resolved in the final Plenary Session that the 1990 WCA in New York should be followed immediately and at the same venue by a conference to be entitled Building A More Democratic United Nations; that we (H.L. and J.S.) should be its co-convenors; and that further annual conferences in 199193 should be planned for Europe, India and Australia. WCA and INFUSA were joined by Concerned Citizens Speak and WorldCOPE as the founding sponsoring organizations of the 1990 Conference; and, soon after, the Medical Association for Prevention of War and the UKs Association of World Federalists (AWF) became additional core sponsors when J.S., on returning to London, informed MAPWs Executive Committee and Keith Best (Chair of AWFs Executive Committee) of the successful launch of the project at the 1989 WCA.
The project for the four conferences was given the name Conferences On A More Democratic United Nations (CAMDUN).
CAMDUN-1
CAMDUN-1, Building A More Democratic United Nations now also the title of this book was convened at the Penta Hotel in New York City in October 1990, from midday on Saturday 13 October to the evening of 15 October. The preceding WCA, which took place from 11 October to midday on 13 October, had considered, in Commissions, the subjects of Global Security, Sustainable Environment and Development, Global Education, and Global Structures for Peace and Human Rights.
