The UN Invites Its Friends To Dinner

“We The Peoples of the United Nations determined…to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,”

~United Nations Charter Preamble (1945)

This is the third part in a series looking at the plans of the United Nations (UN) and its agencies designing and implementing the agenda of the Summit of the Future in New York on 22-23 September 2024, and its implications for global health, economic development, and human rights. Previous articles analyzed the impact on health policy of the climate agenda and the UN’s betrayal of its own hunger eradication agenda. 

The saying “One cannot serve two masters” probably dates back many thousands of years before Jesus said it in Galilee, as it is simply stating the obvious. Masters will have different requirements, intents, and priorities. The servant will have to choose, and in choosing one, will have to abandon or compromise service to the other. An ambitious servant will choose with the wealthier master – the highest bidder. An honorable servant will follow the master whose work seems of the greatest integrity. Most people, put to the test, will highlight ethics but follow the money. That is just the way humans are.

The UN system was intended to represent the people of the world. Guided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it was based on the idea that a Cambodian poor mother or a Ugandan street cleaner must be of equal importance to the organization as someone who happened to be born to wealthy parents in the US Northwest. A Tuareg herder in Mali should have the same influence as someone who achieved fame through acting in Hollywood or a former political leader living off wealthy connections. 

Article 1 (Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

This was critical – the UN was the servant, and its master had to be “The Peoples,” not a group or network of their self-appointed ‘betters.’ “The Peoples” would be represented through leadership, of whatever variety, in recognized Member States. So, the UN was the servant of these nation-states and could be allowed no other master. As soon as it did, it would have to choose and would choose the one who offered personal and corporate rewards. Because the UN, as an institution, is made of humans, and this is what humans do.

Like us all, the people working in UN offices crave prestige. This means being considered important by others. Working in the UN, business class travel and fancy hotels help, but mixing with the rich and famous is most effective in filling this need. On the other side of the relationship, those with money seek opportunity to use institutions like the UN to make more, while laundering their reputation. Those with a name, like recycled politicians, seek ways to maintain their prominence. 

Over time, with no checks and balances, a body like the UN will always move from prioritizing the Cambodian mother to fawning upon those of wealth or name. 

The Vortex of Power and the Slippery Slope of Ego 

The UN has persisted long enough to become stuck in this inevitable trap of mutual patronage. Rather than representing “The Peoples,” it now works with and for those with the loudest voices, most glamorous pictures, and greatest gifts. From appointing the wealthy as “Special Envoys” and celebrities as “Goodwill Ambassadors,” it has expanded to embrace the very corporate and self-serving elitism it was supposed to shield the world against. 

Set up as a response to fascism, the UN now openly does the bidding of corporate authoritarians from the tax-haven foundations of the rich to those controlling the world. The UN Global Compact, was established in 2000 on an incredibly naive idea to have a prestigious forum where the biggest corporations, including those convicted for violating relevant legislations, annually promise to respect human rights, labor, environmental, and anti-corruption principles.

More boldly, in 2019, the UN signed a strategic partnership framework with the World Economic Forum (WEF), the infamous Davos club where current, former, and aspiring politicians and carbon-burning billionaires make hypocritical promises to reduce CO2 emissions. 

In this imposed era of New Normal, the UN calls to censure any efforts to return to pluralistic dialogue as “false, misleading and hateful narratives.” In doing so, it inevitably concentrates those who need their egos maintained, expurgating those capable of self-reflection.

The UN System, a Refuge for the Wealthy and Retired Politicians

There are too few politicians with self-reflection. Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus (c. 519 – c. 430 BC) once inspired George Washington – the US Founding Father and one of the most influential politicians of the past few hundred years – to resign after two presidential terms and return to a private life at Mount Vernon.

Today, former politicians seem unable to forsake the opportunity to continue haunting decision-making processes at the international, regional, and national levels. Following their mandates, they join groups of parasitic quasi-leaders, residing in advisory committees, consulting firms, or economic fora. Once thriving under the spotlight, they keep circling like moths around a light, lacking the strength or wisdom to withdraw. Their egos demand that they maintain the illusion of irreplaceable expertise in conflict resolution, human rights, leadership, global health, or whatever they claim as their latest expertise. 

The UN system has become an excellent refuge for this type of politician, appointed by a UN Secretary-General (UNSG) or a leader of a specialized agency. 

After promoting a Middle East war and mass killings on false pretenses and decimating humanity’s cultural treasures, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was chosen to represent the UN as Middle East Peace Envoy (2007-2015). He has since continued to jet-set the world to instill such “global change” through his Institute as an advisor on national development or even a vaccine expert.  

Helen Clark, a former New Zealand Prime Minister (1999-2008) was immediately nominated Administrator of the UN Development Program (2009-2017) and Chair of the UN Development Group composed of 36 funds, programs, offices, and agencies by UNSG Ban Ki-Moon. Currently, she is co-chairing the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response thanks to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) DG Ghebreyesus, as discussed below. 

The UN also takes care of the whole family. Gordon Brown, another former British Prime Minister, is now the UN Special Envoy for Global Education (coincidentally enough, he is Chair of the WEF’s Global Strategic Infrastructure Initiative). His wife, Sarah Brown, as the Chair of the Global Business Coalition for Education, forms an office with him. Vanessa Kerry, daughter of John Kerry, the former US Special Presidential Envoy For Climate, was recently nominated as the first-ever WHO Special Envoy on Climate Change and Health.

Such lists go on. These individuals may well have good intentions to improve the world and some work without direct remuneration. Nevertheless, the playbook is not appropriate. Left alone to their delusions or well-meaning charity, the wealthy and connected are fine and have their right. As privileged partners of the UN, however, they should have no place.

They are usurping the role of “The Peoples” and becoming the reason and the guide for the UN’s existence, in a circle of mutual benefit with its high officials and staff. Despite their professed concerns about human rights erosion, their appointments show disdain for democracy and equality by seeking such power through name and connections.

The Curious Case of the Elders

The post-retirement business was so thriving that the late UNSG Kofi Annan institutionalized “The Elders” in 2013 (jointly with the late Desmond Tutu), building on Nelson Mandela’s 2007 initiative “to “support courage where there is fear, foster agreement where there is conflict, and inspire hope where there is despair.” The intent of its originator was no doubt genuine, to give back where they saw they had gained. But Mandela, with unusual honesty and humility, was too rare an act to follow.

The Elders, whom no one except their friends ever asked to advise the rest of us, have grown to look like an anti-democratic, self-entitled, and rather arrogant club, releasing reports on subjects for which they have little background or expertise. They operate in a symbiotic relationship with world organs like the UN General Assembly, the UN Security Council, the WHO, or the G20, enabling UN agencies to then quote them as an external expert source.

It is not that they are of bad intent – but that their only mandate for wielding huge influence is the patronage of UN officials who are supposed to be standing for all of us or that of individuals who use vast personal wealth to buy the influence that is supposed to be reserved for countries. Rather than representing populations as they may once have done, they were appointed by fellow members in their exclusive international club.

The WHO and “The Independent Panel:” Friends Working for Mutual Benefit

An example of this flawed patronage mechanism is The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response. On request of the (virtually-meeting) World Health Assembly in May 2020 to organize an independent review of the Covid response (Resolution WHA73.1, para 9.10),

The Seventy-third World Health Assembly, 

9. REQUESTS the Director-General:

(10) to initiate, at the earliest appropriate moment, and in consultation with Member States, a stepwise process of impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation, including using existing mechanisms, as appropriate, to review experience gained and lessons learned from the WHO-coordinated international health response to COVID-19 – including (i) the effectiveness of the mechanisms at WHO’s disposal; 

(ii) the functioning of the International Health Regulations (2005) and the status of implementation of the relevant recommendations of previous IHR Review Committees; 

(iii) WHO’s contribution to United Nations-wide efforts; and 

(iv) the actions of WHO and their timelines pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic – 

and to make recommendations to improve capacity for global pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response, including through strengthening, as appropriate, the WHO Health Emergencies Programme…

The WHO Director-General (DG) turned to two Elders – Helen Clark and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (former President of Liberia) – to convene and run a panel for this purpose. The Panel included other former politicians such as David Miliband (former UK’s Foreign Secretary) and Ernesto Zedillo (former Mexico’s President), some financiers/bankers, and about three people with a public health background. They make pronouncements fully in line with the WHO’s concept of greater funding, commodity-based public health, and centralized control. Their report entitled ‘COVID-19: Make it the last pandemic’ (May 2021), is worth summarizing.

The report did not produce significant analysis, but referenced the conclusions of others and then made a series of recommendations. These were presaged by this statement:

Our message for change is clear: no more pandemics. If we fail to take this goal seriously, we will condemn the world to successive catastrophes.

Apart from underlining the lack of seriousness of the analysis (of course we cannot stop all future outbreaks that cross multiple borders, i.e. pandemics), it set the rather childish zero-Covid tone overall. It went on to underline the “careful scrutiny” involved in its work, then listed harms which it attributed to Covid, including:

• US$ 10 trillion of output is expected to be lost by the end of 2021, and US$ 22 trillion in the period 2020–2025; 

• At its highest point in 2020, 90% of schoolchildren were unable to attend school; 

• 10 million more girls are at risk of early marriage because of the pandemic; 

• gender-based violence support services have seen fivefold increases in demand; 

• 115–125 million people have been pushed into extreme poverty.

It was immediately apparent to any reader that these were all results of the public health response (irrespective of its benefits), and not the result of actual virus infections (Covid-19 was associated with death in already-sick people mostly over 75 years of age). Yet, although mass lockdowns had never been tried in public health, nowhere in the report was the advisability of the novel Covid-19 responses actually questioned and weighed. It simply advocated that countries and their populations applied these measures “rigorously.”

Similarly, irrespective of the huge age skewing of severe Covid-19 and the known effectiveness of natural immunity, the Panel advocated for 5.7 billion people (everyone on earth over the age of 16, whether immune or not) to be vaccinated. To achieve this, they advised the G7 countries to provide $19 billion, or over 5 times the world’s total annual expenditure on malaria. Though this diversion of funds and human resources would obviously make the harms listed above worse, there was no questioning anywhere in the report of costs versus benefit or of actual need (vaccination was recommended to reduce variants, even though it could have no such effect as it did not significantly reduce transmission). 

The Panel was probably well-meaning, but it appears its members saw their remit as backing WHO (and the UN system) – their sponsors, rather than serious inquiry. Their claims of “consulting widely” clearly did not include taking account of opinions contrary to those preferred by the WHO (the possibility of non-natural origin is also specifically ignored). While appearing “impartial, independent and comprehensive,” they produced the report the WHO needed, recommending the strengthening of the DG’s powers, increased the WHO’s funding and “empowerment” to directly intervene in sovereign States. The report was then used by the WHO as supportive evidence to push its expansive pandemic agenda.

The Panel’s leaders – former politicians – could have tried to implement such policies as elected representatives. However, it is extremely unlikely that their populations would have accepted surrendering their rights to external institutions. Now, they allow the WHO to trade on their former democratic credentials to serve the purpose of bypassing, or at best ignoring, the people’s will. The WHO and the UN aim to gain in legitimacy, power, and funding, while retired politicians get to maintain their place in the limelight and feel (perhaps genuinely) that they are enhancing their legacy. It is ‘We The Peoples’ that once again loses ground to a self-supporting international cartel that runs off our taxes.

Their Vision, Our Fear

In their 2023 report, the Elders laid out their strategic program until 2027. They identified three “existential threats facing humanity:” climate crisis, international conflicts, and pandemics. Motivated by their “vision” of a world respecting human rights, without hunger nor oppression, they proclaim their own mission to “propose global solutions” by “private diplomacy and public advocacy.” However, their perception of reality appears distorted or biased, perhaps due to their disconnection with normal life as well as confusion of dogma with science. Their ideas for human rights and freedom openly rely on increasing central control by unelected agencies over the power of elected national governments.

The climate crisis narrative has been propelled by the UN at the highest level. Gro Harlem Brundtland, a former Norwegian Prime Minister and WHO DG, chaired the 1983 UN World Environment and Development Commission which, in 1987, published its independent report. This so-called “Brundtland report” popularized the term “sustainable development” and laid the foundation for the 1992 Conference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and its Declaration, as well as the landmark Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

A clear and balanced report on population and urban growth predictions, the interlinkage of trade, development and environment, and environmental pollutions, it, however, presented dogmatic conclusions that human activities – fossil fuel burning and deforestation – were the cause of global warming (para. 24) and called for a transition to renewable energy (para. 115). It should be noted that risks it predicted regarding sea level rising due to global warming have not eventuated, despite the fact that carbon dioxide emissions have even increased since. 

Today, Brundtland and her Elders peers still proclaim similar views in a context of consistent, and more forceful dissenting voices, such as the scientists and professionals endorsing the World Climate Declaration (“There is no climate emergency”). The Elders stated that the world has “less than a decade left to hold the global temperature rise to 1.5°C and avoid irreversible effects on the planet.”

If this indeed is true, humanity can do nothing to save ourselves, since the burning of coal and oil by heavily populated countries (China, India) is increasing rapidly and shows no trend of reverse as these countries must fight mass poverty. Three decades of pushing for the increasingly dogmatic climate agenda in global agriculture and global health are driving the world toward policy nonsense at the UN, and indeed a poor advertisement for this selective way of working.

The Elders are weighing in similarly on international conflict resolution and, as discussed above, public health. Their reports read like a mandated international agency laying out its agenda on the instruction of Member States. But it is not. It is a group of private individuals, considering themselves wise and independent, enabled by people who are supposed to be supporting the many rather than the few. It reflects the mindset of the WEF and its “Stakeholder Capitalism” – a technocratic elite working as part of a wealthy and powerful club to impose its ideas and desires, in the self-assurance of its own superiority – over the many. As with similar previous movements, those within it likely fail to see what they are actually involved in. But history teaches us to avoid such elitist governance and to insist on the rule of the people for a very good reason.

Conclusion

The UN was set up to be a servant of “The Peoples.” It has grown, perhaps inevitably, to be a self-serving club working with a chosen few, and is gradually becoming self-entitled and detached. It is now functioning with a small elite more reminiscent of the fascist centralized systems it was supposed to be a bulwark against, rather than an organ run by and for and at the will of all of us. It is a path human institutions inevitably take when they forget the reason for their very existence.

Thus, it can fairly be seen as an institutional mess rather than an orchestrated takeover – but ‘takeover’ is what self-entitled regimes end up doing. In this case, its takeover is coated with UN-ese narratives, such as: leaving-no-one-behind, we-are-all-in-this-together, no-one-is-safe-until-everyone-is-safe, climate justice, intergenerational dialogue and, of course, equity.

This is what the ‘free world’ opposed at great cost 80 years ago. Combating it is the basis of modern human rights and the international agreements upon which we were supposed to rely. It is time to recognize the reality of the ossified and self-serving nature of an increasingly centralized and oppressive system, and decide whether the UN should be at the will of “The Peoples,” or “The Peoples” should be at the will of the entitled few.