News and Events 2006
UN Oil-for-Food Inquiry Conference
The Institute for International Law and Justice at New York University School of Law hosted a one-day conference on the UN Oil-For-Food investigation. The event marked the launch of a new book titled, “Good Intentions Corrupted: The Oil-for-Food Scandal and the Threat to the U.N.,”* written by high-ranking staff members of the Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC) that was charged with investigating abuses committed under the Programme. The book draws heavily upon the reports issued by the Independent Inquiry Committee.
The speakers included Paul A. Volcker (Committee Chair), Justice Richard J. Goldstone (Committee Member and Visiting Member of NYU Law School’s Hauser Global Law Faculty), as well as the two authors of “Good Intentions Corrupted”—Mark G. Califano (Chief Legal Counsel to the Committee) and Jeffrey A. Meyer (Senior Counsel to the Committee and chief editor of the Committee reports.)
After an introduction by IILJ Faculty Director, Professor Benedict Kingsbury, the four panelists engaged in a revealing discussion that covered almost every aspect of the Oil-for-Food Programme, the investigation, and the response to the IIC report. The dialogue was directed initially by questions from Professor Kingsbury and the IILJ Executive Director, Professor Simon Chesterman, before taking questions from the audience.
Mr Volcker, who wrote the introduction to “Good Intentions Corrupted,” spoke first and provided some insights into the politics behind the Oil-for-Food Programme that influenced both its design and implementation. His analysis highlighted the need for reforms within the UN to strengthen its competence, expertise and integrity. During the course of his comments, he repeated several concrete suggestions from the IIC report, in particular the call for the creation of a Chief Operating Officer position at the UN. Such a change, he argued, would help to separate administrative oversight responsibilities from the office of the Secretary-General, who would then be free to focus full attention on matters of international diplomacy.
Justice Goldstone, who spoke next, commented on the nature of accountability within the UN as evidenced by the attitude of member states and the Secretariat during the review process. He drew upon his broad experience—including years of judicial service in South Africa and as chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda — to compare and contrast the ad hoc accountability structures set up in response to particular scandals with established review procedures common within many national jurisdictions but not within the United Nations.
Authors Mark Califano and Jeffrey Meyer then offered a detailed examination of mismanagement and corruption under the Oil-for-Food Programme, addressing the activities of member states of the UN and their citizens, as well as the activities of the UN Secretariat. The former included efforts by Iraq to corrupt the system and by its neighbors to ensure a supply of oil despite UN sanctions. On the Security Council the permanent members avoided criticism of sanctions in order to keep them in place. For some this was a way of containing Saddam Hussein’s regime at an acceptable humanitarian cost, and for others it was a way of protecting the interests of those profiting from the sale of Iraqi oil. Greater oversight within the Security Council and the Secretariat might have helped minimize abuse of the program, but a key structural flaw was the initial decision to allow Saddam’s regime to choose to whom it would sell oil and from whom it would purchase humanitarian goods.
At present there seems to be little energy to push forward the reforms advocated in the IIC report and now in the book. In particular, efforts to increase independent oversight of UN financial affairs are seen by many developing states as simultaneously taking power away from the General Assembly, which oversees UN finances. In the absence of such reforms, it may be possible to retain external assistance to administer large programs (such as the 2004 tsunami relief effort) but this will not address the more systemic problems of unaccountability identified here.
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* The book has been published by Public Affairs Books. The authors will donate all royalties from the sale of the book to Relief International.
