The EU’s waning influence at the United Nations
Eric Witte September 17th, 2008
The European Council on Foreign Relations released a report today, A Global Force for Human Rights? An Audit of European Power at the UN [PDF], which finds that the influence of the European Union at the United Nations has markedly declined over the past ten years. At 80 pages, I haven’t had time to read more than the press release and executive summary, but it looks to be well worth the read. Authored by Richard Gowan and Franziska Brantner, the report finds that support of EU positions in the General Assembly has declined from around 70% to around 50%. They detected a similar drop-off in EU influence on the Human Rights Council and in the Security Council. The shift has been accompanied by corresponding increases in the influence of China and Russia, each finding their support in the General Assembly rising from around 50% to around 75% over the same period. The authors note several reasons for this troubling dynamic, including these (from the press release): “Europe has lost ground because of a reluctance to use its leverage, and a tendency to look inwards - with 1,000 coordination meetings in New York alone each year - rather than talk to others. It is also weakened by a failure to address flaws in its reputation as a leader on human rights and multilateralism.”
