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Must the UN stay in
Manhattan? |
Alexander Casella
International Herald Tribune
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2,
2005
| GENEVA Escape from New York
Is it necessary for a
cash-strapped organization whose mandate is to preserve world peace
and fight poverty to occupy one of the most expensive pieces of real
estate in one of the world's most costly cities?
This is the question
that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan failed to address when he
requested that the General Assembly approve a disbursement of $1.6
billion for the necessary refurbishment of the UN headquarters
building in New York. A subsidiary question, which has also not been
entertained is why imaginative and less onerous solutions have not
been investigated.
While the General
Assembly is to vote on Annan's proposal, its cost, if adopted, will
not be borne equally by the organization's 191 members. Currently,
15 of them, including the five permanent members of the Security
Council, contribute some 86 percent of the budget. Whatever the
General Assembly's vote, those 15 contributors are duty-bound to
their taxpayers to ensure the adoption of the most cost-effective
solution. That solution is not the one proposed by Annan.
There is nothing in the
UN charter that provides that the UN headquarters must imperatively
be in New York. Indeed, when a site was determined in 1946, the
preferred location was really Boston. New York was chosen only
because John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated the land for the building.
Moving UN headquarters
from New York should therefore be considered, provided that some
minimum requirements are met. These entail that the new site should
be in a developed, foreigner-friendly democracy with a good
infrastructure and communication network in an uncongested
environment where English is either spoken or commonly understood.
Such a site exists, less
than 400 miles from New York - I nominate Montreal.
With land both plentiful
and cheap, the government of Canada and the Province of Quebec could
donate a site where an ecologically friendly UN city could be built
from scratch. It would include meeting facilities, offices, housing,
schools, shopping malls and land plots for foreign missions, all an
easy commute from Montreal, its airport, its schools, universities
and hospitals.
The multicultural
environment of the city where the two working languages of the UN,
French and English, are spoken would facilitate the integration of
the international staff. As for the cost of the project, this would
easily be offset by selling the plot of land on the East River in
Manhattan where the current UN building is located. Foreign missions
that have acquired property in the city could also sell, reaping a
handsome profit in the process.
Such a solution, of
course, would require an offer from Canada and from Quebec. Were
such an offer forthcoming, it should be carefully considered by the
main donor governments and not only as a gesture to their own
taxpayers. In the wake of the UN's failed reform package and at a
time when it is facing the most serious crisis in its 60-year
history, that would send a powerful message to an organization where
waste is endemic: that business as usual is no longer an option.
(Alexander Casella,
who worked for 20 years with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees,
is a consultant on refugees, illegal migration and other
issues.)
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