Surveying the world on August 19, 2014, the UN’s
Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon, claimed that the greatest humanitarian crises
in the history of the United Nations were outstripping any solutions coming
from the organization’s members. World leaders, he said, “have to sit down
together with an open heart to negotiate in the interests of their people,” Ban
said.[1]
Yet there’s the rub, for even though the Secretary-General avoided the point
(perhaps because it implies structural reform at the UN), national officials
acting in the interest of their respective
citizens do not necessarily have an interest in coming together with other
such officials to take care of the mammoth human external costs of countries at
war with themselves.
By the day of Ban’s astonishing declaration that the world
faces the greatest humanitarian crises in the history of the UN, 6.5 million
people had been displaced in the three years of civil war in Syria. The Russian-aided
separatist movement in Ukraine had claimed 2,000 lives since the beginning of
2014. Fighting in Iraq and Israel were also among the humanitarian disasters in
progress. In 2013, at least 33 million people had been displaced by such
conflict—the highest figure ever recorded, according to the U.S. Agency for
International Development.[2]
Even though Ban complained about the lack of political will
in the international community to resolve the ongoing conflicts or at least
provide sufficient humanitarian aid to the displaced, the problem lies deeper.
That is to say, it is no accident that national officials around the world were
not leading on these global problems. Rather than merely being a question of
leadership, thus idiosyncratic to particular officials, a disjunction naturally
severs their political interests from their international “responsibilities;”
for is it even fair to an elected official to say that he or she has an ethical
duty to work toward solutions to problems outside the actual or best interests
of his or her constituents? Similarly, would it be ethical for a corporation’s
board of directors to disregard their fiduciary duty to the stockholders in
committing funds needed in the company to societal problems that only vaguely
negatively impact the company’s short- or long-term profitability? Certainly,
global and societal problems cry out for help, and it is only human to want to
respond, but what if the incentives and disincentives built into the system
work tacitly against rather than for such a response?
In his statement, Ban Ki Moon admits both that national officials
work in the interests of their respective peoples and that he himself cannot
solve the crises or attend to their humanitarian external costs. “I can bring
world leaders to the river,” he explained, “but I cannot force them to drink
water.”[3]
What lies only implicit, unfortunately, in relating these two points is the
lack of any governmental sovereignty on Ban’s level, on which resolving
humanitarian crises is not an externality. Depending on government officials on
another level to respond as if this were so on their level too is foolish, not
to mention erroneous. In fact, it may even be unethical, given the fiduciary
duty of elected national officials to represent their respective constituents.
That Ban backed off from mention of this structural flaw in the global fabric
is telling, particularly given the conflict of interest that exists for any
national official in deciding whether to cede some sovereignty to the UN or
retain the authority. Ban wants to keep his job, and he knows where the true
power lies in the UN.
Leadership, especially the visionary sort, does not respond
to crisis after crisis; rather, a vision is of an alternative paradigm, and
thus connotes structural change in governance systems. Perhaps political
leadership had been so melted down into public administration and the culture
of managerialism by 2014 that structural change even as an ideal could only be
imagined as an oxymoron, and certainly not uttered in the public square. With
such a tight straight-jacket, it is no wonder that pressures around the world
built up and exploded. Are we then left with a tale of two cities—one gripped
by a pathological fear of change and the other moved only in fits by
revolutionary fervor? Is the want of visionary leadership in formulating,
enunciating, and advocating systemic change to be forever sacrificed in favor
of either Edwin Burke’s conservatism or Robespierre’s forced radical change?
[1]Oren
Dorell, “U.N. Chief: Crises at New High,” USA
Today, August 20, 2014.
[2]
Ibid.
[3]
Ibid.
