US leadership requires common values and international cooperation – Annan

Leaders of the United States over the last six decades have understood and demonstrated that true international leadership depends on common values and a shared view of the future, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today in a commencement address to students at Harvard University.

Stressing the value of supporting multilateral institutions and international law, Mr. Annan said US power gains legitimacy and is more effective when it is deployed within that framework.

“Over 60 years, whenever this approach has been applied consistently, it has proved a winning formula,” he said at the graduation ceremony, during which he was also presented with an honorary degree.

Describing the US as “a unique world power,” the Secretary-General said it is exceptional because it “feels the need to frame its policies, and exercise its leadership, not just in the light of its own particular interests, but also with an eye to international interests, and universal principles.”

He pointed to the US role after World War II in founding the UN, developing the Marshall Plan for the economic reconstruction of Western Europe and promoting decolonization as examples of when the US has worked in statesmanlike ways to craft a stable international order.

“This country is, inextricably and indispensably, a part of this successful international system, based on the primacy of the rule of law,” he said.

But he said the willingness of US leaders to continue to follow these principles is in jeopardy because of the recent crises of collective security, global solidarity and cultural division and distrust.

While acknowledging that in the wake of the terrorist attacks against the US in September 2001, the world must deal aggressively with the threats of terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and rogue or dysfunctional states, Mr. Annan said that does not mean every country should have the right to use force unilaterally “simply because it thought there might be a threat.”

The Secretary-General urged countries to take heed of his panel of eminent persons, which is studying how to make the UN more effective on questions of international security, when it issues its recommendations later this year.

Citing recent events in the Darfur region of western Sudan, he also said that collective security means the international community must not tolerate instances of massacres and other atrocities, as it did in Rwanda and Bosnia during the 1990s.

“The international community must insist that the Sudanese authorities immediately put their own house in order…Further delay could cost hundreds of thousands of lives,” he warned.

Mr. Annan said the crisis of solidarity last year on how to deal with Iraq should not divert people from working together on tackling such problems as extreme poverty, HIV/AIDS and the lack of debt relief for poor countries.

“Unless we make those issues a priority now, we shall soon run out of time to achieve the Millennium [Development] Goals by 2015 – which means that millions of people will die, prematurely and unnecessarily, because we failed to act in time,” he said.

The Secretary-General also stressed that the world must fight against the rising tide of prejudice and intolerance between faiths and cultures.

“It is in times of fear and anger, even more than in times of peace and tranquility, that you need universal human rights, and a spirit of mutual respect,” he said.

Saying the world will need “enlightened American leadership” in the years ahead, Mr. Annan urged the graduates to “live up to your country’s best traditions of global commitment and global leadership.”