Blair tells Bush US must back reformed UN

Julian Borger in Washington, Martin Kettle and Will Woodward
Friday May 26, 2006
The Guardian

Tony Blair will today call for a return to a multilateral approach to global affairs built around a radically reformed United Nations led by a powerful secretary general, in a bid to salvage his legacy as a progressive leader on the world stage.
In a foreign policy address at Georgetown University, Mr Blair will put forward the case for "values based interventionism" in the name of democracy and human rights and the reinvigoration of the UN and other institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

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In today's speech, Mr Blair is expected to do more to distance himself from the US president, suggesting that in return for UN reform, world powers and America in particular should take a more collective approach to foreign policy.

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Those reforms would include an expansion of the Security Council to 25 members and the addition of Brazil, Germany, India and Japan as permanent members. The position of secretary general would no longer be rotated to give every continent a turn (it is Asia's turn next), but awarded instead to a high-powered international figure chosen from a global pool. He or she would have far greater powers over the budgets and staff of the UN agencies than Kofi Annan currently commands.

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http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,,1783490,00.html

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