(CNSNews.com) – Controversial remarks by the president of the U.N. General Assembly once again raises questions about the way the world body’s second most prominent post is filled.
 
The tenure of Nicaraguan Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, a Sandinista foreign minister in the 1980s, has been marked by controversy from the start. This week he continued to make waves, using a press conference Tuesday to say Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been unfairly “demonized” by the United States, suggest that the International Criminal Court’s indictment of Sudan’s president was “racist,” liken President Bush to Al Capone, and defend his earlier comments equating Israel and apartheid South Africa.
 
D’Escoto presides over the 192-member General Assembly in New York City until September, when a Libyan has been lined up to succeed him for a next 12-month period.
 
In accordance with a principle of regional rotation that was established more than four decades ago, the Latin American and Caribbean group (GRULAC) – one of the five regional groups recognized by the U.N. – endorsed D’Escoto unanimously for the position.
 
The full General Assembly then formalized that decision on June 5, 2008: No vote was taken; he was simply declared to have been “elected by acclamation.”
 
Representatives of the five regional groups – Egypt (Africa), Kazakhstan (Asia), Armenia (Eastern Europe), Bahamas (GRULAC) and Spain (Western group) – then each took the floor to congratulate D’Escoto, as did Cuba, on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement.
 
The pattern is likely to be repeated in June this year. The African group, next in line to fill the post, has put forward Libyan diplomat Ali Triki for the Sept. 2009-Sept. 2010 session.
 
Multi-candidate contests are rare. An exception was 1991, when the Asian group put forward three candidates, a situation attributed to differences in the Arab world over the Gulf War. A secret ballot vote ended with a Saudi candidate elected.
 
In the absence of reforms, the likelihood of non-contests stretches far into the future. Belgium is expected to put forward the candidate for 2010-11, either Nepal or Qatar for 2011-12, and Lithuania for 2012-13.
 
The Eastern European group has lined up nominating countries for its five-yearly slot all the way up until 2042.
 
Though originally largely a ceremonial position, the president of the General Assembly does have considerable say during the annual session, ruling on matters of procedure, time limitations for speakers, and making decisions on extending, curtailing or adjourning debates. Assembly rules of procedure do not stipulate criteria for the appointment, but the president is expected to be neutral and promote consensus, hence the furor over D’Escoto’s statements over the past six months.
 
Among those calling for reforms to the process is the Institute for Global Policy (IGP), which has recommended that regional groups set up search committees, to ensure that the best possible candidates are put forward.
 
The IGP, which is affiliated to the World Federalist Movement, also wants regional groups to seek out candidates that meet specific criteria, including multilateral leadership experience, consensus-building skills and political independence.
 
Faye Leone, the organization’s program officer for international democratic governance, said the campaign to reform the system hoped “to get out in front of the advance decisions” being made for future nominations.
 
It was difficult to do so, however, when countries were lining up to fill the post so far into the future, she said, citing the Eastern European group as a case in point.
 
“To agree this far in advance clearly makes a mockery of the process – no one can say what kind of government each country will have in place by then, which country would have a highly qualified and available candidate that year, etc.”
 
Nonetheless, Leone said the number of governments that support the IGP initiative had grown in the past three years.
 
“They have also grown stronger in their commitment to make changes in their regional practices.”
 
Leone called the way General Assembly presidents are selected “a classic example of the deficiency of elections and appointments at the U.N. and in many international organizations.’
 
“Transparency and improved processes will not fix the problem,” she conceded, “but they can reduce the number of serious failures, which is not a minor achievement.”
 
‘Entrenched opposition’
 
D’Escoto’s remarks this week came during a press conference reporting back on a recent visit that took him to six countries, including Iran.
 
The president of the General Assembly had a duty to speak out against actions he felt were not right, he said. His only agenda was to fulfill his duty by holding up the letter and spirit of the U.N. Charter.
 
D’Escoto also claimed, in the context of his opposition to the “unfortunate” ICC warrant of arrest for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, that he was speaking on behalf of the “immense majority” of the General Assembly.
 
When D’Escoto was “elected” last June, Heritage Foundation scholar Nile Gardiner predicted that he would “abuse his status by turning the presidency into a platform for his anti-U.S. vitriol.”
 
This week, Gardiner wrote that the Nicaraguan would surely win an award for the worst General Assembly president in history, describing him as “a massive embarrassment, even by the extraordinarily low standards of the U.N.”
 
Gardiner, who is director of the foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, said Wednesday that reforming the way the post is filled would not be an easy task.
 
“It is extremely difficult to reform the way in which the General Assembly president is picked because of entrenched opposition from various regional blocs against any challenge to the system,” he said.
 
“Until this system is changed, we are going to continue seeing the election of highly-politicized, thoroughly unsuitable candidates like D’Escoto … who will continue to use the position as a bully pulpit to launch attacks on the United States and on the West.”
 
Gardiner said the U.S. in its dealings with the U.N. should pursue a two-pronged approach, aiming at “trying to reform the U.N. from the inside and limiting the damage that the U.N. can inflict on U.S. interests,” while concurrently seeking alternatives to the U.N. system, including its human rights mechanisms.
 
In the meantime, the U.S. should “continue to boycott the Human Rights Council and other U.N. entities that are dominated by dictatorships.”
 
Washington shunned the council in Geneva since its establishment in 2006, but the Obama administration recently returned as an observer and is widely expected to seek a seat in May.

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