Kemal Dervis: The challenge of multilateralism

^M00:00:01 >> Good afternoon, I'm Rebecca Blank the Joan and Sanford Weill Dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. I want to welcome you to our CitiGroup lecture series which was established by a gifted honor of Gerald Ford from the CitiGroup Foundation to bring distinguished leaders, thought leaders and lecturers here to campus. I am really pleased today to have Dr. Kemal Dervis with us and he's going to be speaking in a few minutes but I just wanted to welcome him for being here. ^M00:00:29 [ Applause ] ^M00:00:36 He will be formally introduced in just a minute. At the Ford school we are committed to fostering interaction among those within the community who have a real interest in discussion of public affairs. The CitiGroup lecture provides an important opportunity to ask questions and to explore ideas with distinguished individuals who have worked at the highest levels of national and international policy. We welcome everyone who's joined us today for this lecture and for the discussions that are going to ensue after it.  We are particularly grateful to CitiGroup for making this type of opportunity available. With us today on behalf of CitiGroup is Jamie Mistry [phonetic] of Smith-Barney which is the local representation for CitiGroup here in town and I'm going to ask Jamie to say a few words, thank you for coming Jamie. ^M00:01:18 [ Applause ] ^M00:01:22 >> Thank you good afternoon and welcome what a great honor on behalf of CitiGroup to be joining you this afternoon and a great honor of course to be welcoming our distinguished guest Kermal Dervis to Ann harbor and to the University. This event marks the first of the CitiGroup lectures to be held in the new home of the Ford School of Public Policy. Most of you are probably already of the very generous personal give from CitiGroup's now former Chairman, Sandy Weill and his wife Joan to the Ford school. So there is a special sort of significance to today's event as we now begin to present the CitiGroup Lecture Series here in Weill Hall and what a beautiful facility to have here. The CitiGroup Foundation in endowing this remarkable lecture series continues a long tradition of supporting education, interaction and open dialogue around the globe. This type of lecture series is one of many events that makes life on the Michigan campus so enriching and unique and thank you for your participation today we hope you'll be able to join us for future lectures in the series, thank you very much. ^M00:02:24 [ Applause ] ^M00:02:30 >> Thank you Jamie. I'd know like to introduce the Director of the International Policy Center, Professor John Spanier who will in turn introduce today's speaker, Dr. Kemal Dervis. Dr. Dervis as you know is the Director of the United Nations Development Program. The International Policy Center was established here in the Ford School in 2005 to bring together students, faculty and researchers from across campus with events, speakers and research activities focus on a range of issues relating to international economics, institutions political economy and global health and John has just been an excellent initial Director and leader to this whole effort, so John I'll turn things over to you. >> Well, it's a real pleasure to introduce Kermal Dervis to you, Kermal and I go back a long, long way. I'll say first he is a remarkable person in every respect, he's a product of the French London School of Economics as an undergraduate, PhD from Princeton and that's why I had the opportunity to meet him he was actually subsequently on the faculty, a professor at Princeton when I was a graduate student there and I've always thought whatever I don't know it's because I didn't pay enough attention in Kermal's class...a great teacher. But Kermal went on from Princeton, had a very stellar, rising career in the World Bank, I had an opportunity to work with him, he was kind enough to bring me in on some of the fun stuff that was being done at the World Bank at that time. He became Vice President, was in charge of Europe, Middle East, North Africa as well as other activities in the bank and then went back to save his own country. He was what the economists call the economic supremo of Turkey, he helped position the Minister of the economy, as well as treasury and led Turkey out of one of the major crises, a real modern economic fete of applied economic policy. He then was member of the Turkish Parliament representing Istanbul and actually was one of the key negotiators of the European constitution, the one that failed to be approved on the first round but many people are working on it hopefully getting it approved on the second round and Kermal was there representing Turkey, a potential incoming member in the future into the European union. Subsequent to that he was drafted to serve now as the Administrator of the United Nations Development Program, sounds modest but the administrator is like the president, it's the equivalent of the president of the world banks so you have the head of the UNDP and that's Kermal and he is in that capacity actually overseeing all the activities that the UN has in terms of economic development. It is a pleasure to have him here today to speak about the challenges of multilateralism I should add that we had two choices here, one was to have a formal on the record discussion in which case he would have to hold himself back. I said let's go off the record that way he can be loose and talk to use as if he had no constraints and then if you would like to quote him on the record or something like that you have a chance afterwards to talk to him and get your quote. So this is the rules, this is the Chatham House Rules, you can ask any questions he'll answer as well as he can given his personal constraints and it's a real pleasure to have you here Kermal. ^M00:05:48 [ Applause ] ^M00:06:00 >> Well, it is my great pleasure and privilege to be here really with all of you and I think you very much for inviting my John, Jamie it's great that I have other friends in the audience that I can see. It is always very good to be in an academic setting, I did start very early in my career as an academic both in Turkey and then teaching at Princeton and then John gave a summary but it feels very good to be in an academic setting, I think you're lucky to be in this beautiful building with all the minds here, the discussion, it's a very special time of life and I think one has to enjoy it fully. I will talk...you know I've learned in politics there's no such thing as off the record but I will of course try to be as free as possible but you know when something then gets published well, we'll go over it for some of the details. Choosing a topic is very difficult of course for always and one can't fit into 40 minutes everything one wants to say and one wants to share with such a wonderful audience. I want to talk about multilateralism really today and really make a plea for multilateralism both in the political and economic area and try to share with you some of the arguments that I've accumulated throughout my life whether it's in academia, at the World Bank, in my own country, at the European convention and not at the United Nations. So it will be points rather than a fully integrated presentation but I think that's all we really have time for and I do want to try to put it altogether. The first point I'd like to make is that globalization, you know much used and often abused term is really an important part of modern times that we are increasingly living in a world which is more connected, more independent than anything we've seen in the past, there was always interdependence even 2000 years ago. Diseases did spread across borders, the world was always linked to some degree but the degree of linkage we have today is by nature...is not just quantity, there's a qualitative change both in the economic and in the political sphere. Take the economy for example it is true at the end of the 19th century the share of trade and global GDP was already quite high and it caught up; and there was a period after the first world war, the Great Depression, the second world wart where it fell, it caught up in the early 70's with the level it was at the end of the 19th century, now it is 50 percent higher than that but it's not just the volume o trade it's the degree to which global production systems are integrated, the degree to which any product we buy today has components coming from all over the world. So it's not just the volume it's the way multinational's organize their production, plan there production, it's the way small firms fit into that whole system. That's one angle if you like on the economic side. The financial system, of course there was direct foreign investment in the past in fact as compared to British GDP foreign direct investment from the UK at the time of the British Empire was even larger than it is today but what's happening today is that the gross flows are much, much larger than net flows, it's not just money moving from one place to another it's money moving sometimes within 24 hours thanks to Citibank and others three or four times in and out of one place. So financial integration is much, much more advanced and indeed with the modern technology derivatives and so on we're even having a hard time keeping up with the degree of financial integration there. On the political side of course these are the biggest of all topics, the danger in terms of security, human survival that we faced ever since the nuclear age is much larger than anything that we ever faced before and it's continuing so from a security point of view whether it's the nuclear threat which we are again rediscovering these days, we somehow had forgotten about it but now with nuclear proliferation, the north Korean problem and all that we say wait a minute we actually still have nuclear issues to face and I think they're going to become bigger as the oil and gas price will probably remain quite high, it may go up and down but fundamentally I think all forces tend to say that the hydrocarbon will be very scarce so the price will be very high. I think nuclear energy technology is again going to be a priority for many countries and of course once a country develops nuclear energy technology then the step from there to nuclear weapons is not the big a step given the advances in know how and technology. So I think the interdependence of the world on the security side is as great as ever and greater and of course you know terrorism the whole threat perceived you know it may not be of massive destruction but it is true that when we board a plane today you know the threat is palpable, it's present so I think there's a tremendous degree of interdependence of human security also on that side. Climate change, I'm not a specialist of the issue, I want to find the time to read more carefully about it but many of my friends who really do more about it have really convinced me that this is a serious issues, it's not just a scare, it may take a long time but we do have a major, major environmental challenge here and again one has to stress the interdependence. One example I think which is telling is the role the Brazilian rain forest plays on this issue of climate change and environment. I don't know whether the exact numbers are right or wrong but it doesn't matter, give or take 20 percent experts...some experts say that the Brazilian rain forest has a carbon retention capacity worth about 5 trillion dollars so that's what it's worth as a stock in terms of carbon retention. Now therefore if Brazil diminished that by 1 percent that's 50 billion dollars worth right so in a sense it's the Brazilian forest, nobody should dispute the fact that the forest is owned by Brazil, on the other hand it's also a human asset, a humanities asset, an asset of the international community so one could argue well if it's a public good that everybody benefits from why not help the Brazilian's preserve it, why not make available from the international community 50 billion dollars to Brazil to finance the preservation of the rain forest. When you compare that to the total number of foreign aid in the world of 100 billion obviously you see that's not going to happen tomorrow but I thinks it's a very vivid example of how national and international issues interact, global public goods or global public bad. I did read two weeks ago the United States actually did conclude debt for environment [inaudible] a very small scale so the whole idea of swapping resources against environmental assets is not outlandish, in fact it's happening but at the scale of the Brazilian rain forest of course it would be very difficult so all these are examples I think of interdependence of why many issues in the world have to be handles with a global public policy perspective by the international community acting and behaving as a community rather than just individual nation states. Comparing all these issues to the role a nation state plays in the traditional sense, you know the traditional [inaudible] state I think one can distinguish three dimensions only, there's the regular three dimension, there's need for some kind of regulation at the global level, there is the public goods provision I mentioned and the two things are often related because you can provide public goods by regulation rather than necessarily by providing the service yourself, the private sector can be active but if you regulate it the right way then you can fulfil you're public goods requirements and then finally there's the redistribution aspect of a nation state nationally, most nation states...all nation states find that the market mechanism does not produce the income distribution of...social [inaudible] distribution that is considered politically acceptable by society so the state does engage more or less but always engages in some redistributive activity. I think in all these three dimensions we increasingly need something at the regional and global level, this is becoming stronger and stronger and stronger and I think will in fact increase dramatically in the next 10 to 20 years particularly because of issues such as climate change but also security issues, I think are very, very critical and... I remember growing up the nuclear danger was very...you know we felt it, we came very close to massive human destruction during the Cuban missile crises. I remember those days particularly not because I was back home don't get me wrong you know in 1960 but as a kid I was living in Turkey and we found out, we didn't even know about it, that the equivalent of the Soviet Missiles were installed in Cuba, the U.S. had installed in Turkey pointing at the Soviet Union. So the deal was, it was a deal between [inaudible] and President Kennedy, it was an [inaudible] compliance that the U.S. would quietly dismantle the missiles in Turkey in exchange for the Soviet's dismantling the missiles in Cuba. You know some of you must have read the book about Cuban missile crises, how close we came to utter destruction world wide at that time. So I think after the cold war the collapse of the Soviet Union and the disappearance of the Berlin Wall we became a little bit complacent that somehow that danger had passed and I think now we're discovering that the destructive capacity is still there and that that whole issue is managed multilaterally or managed in some form, I'm arguing that it has to be so multilaterally we're again facing the same kind of dangers. Now when we look at the institutions, the kind of world architecture of multilateralism we discovered [inaudible] very complex system, institutions were created and grew over time somewhat haphazardly of course there was a grand design at the end of second World War with the creation of the United Nations in San Francisco and all of that but then many things were added, both in the political and economic field and we now have almost 100's of institutions within the United Nations itself we have 38 United Nations organizations and then you have to add others. I think if you ask a citizen of the world in any country to explain that or even to tell you a little bit what they know about it, it's very little. It's very little, it's not easy to understand, it's not easy to explain it reminds me a little bit of a computer program, now of course you guys all have...the students have all these packages but when John and I were students  you know I actually programed my own PhD these in [inaudible] the solution algorithm to [inaudible] model and you know I know with those programs after a year of adding this and adding that they become so complicated  you have to throw them away and start from scratch basically and the international architecture is a little bit like that, it's so complex that because it's been added and added [inaudible] that it has reached I think this point, I don't think we can do the same as we can do with a computer program but really a kind of a look, a holistic look at what we're trying to achieve with all this architecture, I think is needed because otherwise also in terms of just explaining it and getting backing for it it's very, very difficult. So when we look at it what we find is there's the over arching kind of United Nations framework and even the World Bank and the IMF are part of that framework and then there [inaudible] many specialized organizations and each sector, each global issue in a way has created an organization and that's not necessarily a bad thing, in a very empiricist approach to life you could even say that's the best way to do, you have an issue don't try to create some grand design, just focus on that particular issue, see who can deal with that issue, get the people together and try to deal with it and that's an approach to global public goods which I think is quite reasonable in many ways and works to some degree. You know you don't need an overall grand design to solve everything. So that's what we have, we have the World Health Organization that deals with health problems, we have the international labor office that tries to elaborate on labor standards and labor policies, you have of course some things which we don't even think about like international postal union, when you think about it letters and now of course e-mail don't basically abolish letters but for decades we used to write letters and they came and they had stamps and everybody knew how much they had to pay and so but this is an example of an international organization that could provide the service for the whole international community. Not a very controversial service in this case but that works, I certainly don't want to argue against kind of pragmatic issues or into the approach but I do want to argue that we do need something more than that. Here what we have is block, this kind of doesn't advance. Within the United Nations we have the security counsel which is a product of the second World War, the way it was created, the victors gave themselves the permanent veto and permanent membership and then their electric members the size was increased at some point, essentially it reflected what was the case after the second World War and when you think of the security counsel it has it's legitimacy, it is part of the United Nations machinery, I think the recent years have shown that despite its failings and despite the fact that it represents the world of 50 years ago it still has a certain amount of legitimacy but it is very contested and easily blocked. One permanent members veto can stop any action and we see it today in parts of conflicts like in Sudan elsewhere you know there is always this questions can the U.N. act. For people like myself who actually work as a U.N. Staff member on the staff side of the U.N. is this big confusion of course in public opinion between U.N. as an organization and the U.N. as a family of nations and it is always very disturbing to us and not a nice event when somebody says the U.N. is inactive, can't do anything, isn't moving you know well we can't move unless...on these issues unless the security counsel actually makes a decision and without that decision we are totally lost, so there is that side of the U.N. and then there's the general assembly it is a fantastic institution, the whole world is there, all the countries are there I think it has a tremendous degree of legitimacy because of the universality, because of the fact that everybody's there but it does have the feature if you like that's a very, very tiny country. Vote counts the same as the vote of China and India or the U.S. or France or Brazil and of course the debate is that functional, I mean is that really workable, is that a reasonable way of making decisions. Now the general assembly does have power of the purse in the U.N. it does have some influence on how the organizations is run, it [inaudible] which then elects boards of the funds and programs and so on but in terms of real decision making power it is very limited of course so you have this duality within the United Nations of a security counsel which has decisions making power but the counsel can be easily blocked by a single permanent member, then you have the large general assembly where nobody can block any decision per se alone but where you kind of have a culture of consensus which reflects that an actual vote of the general assembly is something that many would perceive as a strange thing so the best thing is to have consensus because if you have consensus you don't face the vote thing. You have the same problem at the WTO, the World Trade Organization, here it think there are 150 members there, strictly speaking all members are equal and you have to move by consensus which makes it sometimes extremely hard to move as we saw in the recent [inaudible] talks. When you go to the economic sphere of the international system, the financial sphere you have the IMF at the World Bank with a very different governing structure which is based on weight of voting where actually their constituencies, groups of countries that form group blocks or constituencies and the vote at the board reflect certain measurements such as the weight in the international economy of this countries. You can debate the weight...there's a lot of debate on the weight but the systems does function in a somewhat more flexible way although of course there is the facto veto because for some decisions you need 85 percent of the vote and for example the U.S. that has 17 percent of the vote can block certain decisions but it is true that in the [inaudible] system because of the weight of voting you do get...you know you get somewhat more flexibility in the whole governance mechanism. However the [inaudible] systems is very much dominated of course by the richest countries, it is very much perceived as being a G7 dominated system, G7 being the major industrial, rich countries which have now become the G8 with Russia and in that sense it really does lack the legitimacy in kind of a political psychological sense, particularly in the developing countries that the U.N. does have despite all the limitations of the U.N. there is this legitimacy where we can debate exactly where it comes from but it really does exist and the same degree of legitimacy is not really an asset for the [inaudible] institution, they're considered a much more antagonistic way by public opinion in most developing countries. We also have regional organizations of course, I don't want to go too much into that just to say that we have to think not only globally but also in terms of regionally, my basic feeling is that the regional and global should interact and reinforce each other, I don't think it's an either or you know build regional institutions or global, I think we need both and we need both in a way that they help each other. So in this overall picture what has been proposed for change, what are the avenues of change that are being explored and debated well one as you know was the Secretary General's proposal last year for reform of the actual secretariat part of the United Nations including the Security Counsel. I must say that when I came to the U.N. a year ago and I was all excited about the Security Counsel I had written a book for Brooking's before I joined the U.N. thank God because what I wrote there therefore was not due to the fact that I had joined, friends told me, friends who had been in the U.N. for a while that Kermal don't get too excited because you know we've been working on Security Counsel reform for 30 years so you know it will take some time. But anyway it is interesting to look at the proposals for change of Security Counsel at the Secretary General table and many of you I'm sure are somewhat familiar but let me just remind you there were two plans, plan A and plan B. Plan A was to bring selected countries into the Security Counsel as permanent members without veto rights but still as permanent members, okay. The Secretary General did not particularly pick on this country or that country but the leading candidates were Japan, Germany, India and Brazil and then there obvious need for one or two African countries, specific countries joining, then there would be some other countries that would be nonpermanent members elected. The veto remains the veto so the P5 still maintain their veto but you do have others joining in, in a permeant way, so once Brazil joins it's a permanent member and then there was Plan B, I don't go into all of it here but plan B was different because in Plan B what you had was something a little more like the [inaudible] system but no weighted voting but constituencies, group of countries electing representatives for very long terms, two times four years so instead of Brazil joining you...Brazil might be elected by a Latin American group and might be a member for four years or eight years but Mexico or any other Latin country, Ecuador or whatever, Uruguay was not forever excluded from the permanent status so it was more flexible.  The one which gathered a lot of steam was actually plan A, plan B was a little bit shelved not by the U.N. itself but by the members, there was a lot of support by some countries for example making Japan a permanent member but it never happened, the whole year passed, no final decision was made and I think a lot of the opposition to this plan came from the fact that some countries said look in a sense you're making things worse the whole idea of having some countries that are permanent members and others that are not introduces a fundamental inequality and all you're doing is adding another four, five, six countries to that group forever. Instead let's have it more constituency based but then the constituency based plan didn't gather much steam either so that's where we are at this point, I don't know what will happen in the next year or two, I do believe some change is necessary, I mean I once asked the advisor to a permanent member with a veto right do you think that 20 years from now your country will still be a permanent member with a veto right and the advisor said no. Then I said well what about discussing some changes, he said no. So we have this funny situation that everybody kind of agrees that the present system doesn't make much sense and probably will not be around 20, 30 years from now but when you then say okay well let's do something about it you know then no we can't because it's just too ingrained so we have very tough situation here. On the economic side I also believe it may not be as dramatic because at the end of day the economic crisis even very bad economic crisis doesn't have the same urgency...[inaudible] but the same devastating effect as for example nuclear war could have but there are some major problems with it, whether it's trade, whether it's environment, whether it's in financial systems, global stability and so on, many issues on the economic side need also a multilateral frame work and here we are stuck with this situation where the IMF and the World Bank kind of do their thing, the U.N. system is on the other side and done their thing, they don't really meet very much and there's a general feeling of the system is dominated by the rich countries and it generates a lot of resentment on the part of the developing countries and also among the emerging developing countries, both the very poor ones in Africa and elsewhere who feel powerless within that whole system but also the new...the bigger guy who feel they need a place at the table now. The table of course outside that whole system where people meet and try to make decisions is the G8, that's where leaders meet regularly...I have to keep thinking that everything is kind of on the record even if it's off the record but you know that's where somehow seven countries plus one now, plus Russia have given themselves the right to meet and kind of decide the future of the world, okay and when you think about it China isn't there, India isn't there, Latin America isn't there, it's not...you know it's not a framework that one can qualify is very legitimate, it may be useful to get some things going and I think the G8 has made some very good decisions in the past on [inaudible] for example the decision to really increase development later at least the commitment to promise and other things but when you think of the G8 as the only kind of framework for actually making decisions on the economic and social side...well it really lacks representatively and lacks legitimacy. So what is now being put forward increasingly in various ways is based on two or three principles I would say, one is that you need a framework, a forum which is less than 191 countries meeting around the table which you know is too unwieldy and doesn't generate decision, you need something where you have representatives of various regional groupings and some individual countries, the largest countries that come together to actually look at these global [inaudible] issues and actually make multilateralism work. The second...and I think most people kind of agree with that, the second principle I think is that it should be...it should reflect the contributions, the weight, the real weight of countries in the international system but should not totally exclude the smaller companies either. One proposal that the former Prime Minister of Canada, Paul Martin has put forward was the L20, the G20 is the group of large countries in the world on the finance side and he said why don't we make that group evolve into a group of leaders, Prime Minister's level and call it the L20. I think the problem with taking only the large countries is that there are very numerous small countries that absolutely have to have a place in that whole debate, you cannot exclude the small countries from this kind of higher level international architecture so I think we need the mix. And the third principle I'd like to propose is that it has to be at the leaders level, I mean that is the value for all it's limitations of the G8 that people meet the heads of state or head of government level, I think the problem we have when we meet only at the sectoral level that some of the inter sectoral issues and priorities don't get even discussed or let alone solved. So we have to have some form, some mechanism where we don't have just the finance ministers meeting, finance ministers and central bank governors as we do for the World Bank IMF meetings. Or the labor ministers meet at the [inaudible] meeting, these meetings will go on but I do believe and over arching framework which pulls this all together, it doesn't deal with all the details but gives some basic direction to the international system and to multilateralism. There are two actual proposals out now, one came out about a month ago by the global task force for public good, global public goods presided by the former President of Mexico, Ernesto Zedillo which proposes what is called a G25 which is the G20 and for those of you who don't remember the G20 is the G7 augmented with the major emerging market countries such as India, Brazil, Mexico and so on, Turkey is also a member but augment that G20 with five regional representatives from a group of smaller countries and formally call this the instead of the G8, the G25 and give it certain powers, certain attributes to try to give impulses to the international system of course nobody is saying that if this group becomes a pure decision maker they couldn't but do what the G8 does but in a much more inclusive and global way. The other proposal is going to come out in a few days and therefore I mean I don't...the Secretary General did create a second panel to deal more with economic than social side, panel of coherence in development environment and humanitarian affairs and that group of people which included three Prime Ministers, Gordon Brown from the UK and others comes up with a proposal for an L27, very similar to Ernesto Zedillo's G25 but where it doesn't start from the G20 but actually starts from Eco-soft, Eco-soft being the 54 members of the General Assembly or of the UN family elected by the general assembly to deal with economic and social matters but these are 54 countries coming by regional grouping from all over the world and the L27 proposal would be to ask the Eco-soft group to come together once a year as leader's level but half of them only, 27 and they would rotate, maybe two years would be one group and then two other years would be another group of 27 which reflects a I think the reasonable concern that once you get the group like that, that's too large in terms of decision making even having a good discussion it becomes very difficult, 25, 20...at most 30 is what you can deal with in a decision in a forum like that if you want to have real decision making or at least real proposals for decision making. So a lot of that is floating around, these proposals are being made. Now I think the reaction you know can be...there probably is going to be a range of reaction but to take extremes, some people would say or this is irrelevant, you know these are people making gymnastics of ideas in the international community and in the U.N. and elsewhere but the fact of the matter is nation state is what counts power politics, real politics is what counts, you create whatever group you like but at the end of the day it won't really matter and you know it's the old game of nation states that continues and all this is not really very relevant, okay. The other extreme of course is to be very optimistic and say that in the face of these huge challenges we can actually create an international decision making architecture that can deal with the global bad's and goods in a much more forceful way than in the past. No body's talking of going above the nation states mind you here, it's not like in the European constitution or in Europe where some European federalists really viewed you know really going completely beyond the nation state, all these proposals are still taking the nation state as the fundamental element of the international system but trying to create you know a structure and an architecture of cooperation that will allow nation states to share some sovereignty to solve particular problems. We really need to think very hard about these things I really do believe that the threats that are facing us are so big, are so huge that just business as usual you know is not...is just not acceptable and in that sense I do want to share this conviction with you today, it reminds me a little big Paul Krugman's [phonetic] book, I think it was the rise of...I forgot the name of it...the Age of Diminishing Expectations. In that book in one chapter he says the falling about human nature, he says look all of us...I mean the big problems in our life you know are our health, our marriage...love life if you like...and our job our career, you know. Once in a while we think about these things but in many of my friends he says beside that these are two big issues to deal with you know my health, I mean I can't change my habits dramatically and my genes and all that you know I may have to change my life style dramatically but I really can't and my health is more of less set in the way it is. In terms of career long ago we studied something, we set ourselves on a certain path, maybe it was a mistake, maybe it wasn't the right thing, maybe we'd love to be a doctor rather than an architect or whatever but it's just...we can't now all of a sudden go back to school and learn a new trade and we can't shift that around you know. Love that was a complicated topic, but many of my friends are in ...some of them let's say are in relationships which maybe don't have enough passion but you know there's habit, there's changing everything now is just too complicated, too nerve racking so they say okay this Sunday I'm going to go ahead and fix my basement and I think the message is that it is true that in life when some of the really big questions are very difficult to face and it's very natural human reaction that you look for something that you can actually deal with and you try to deal with it and it's very...and there's nothing wrong with that and in deed we should do that and that's often the way you make progress but I do believe that given the threats we face now, you know given the fact that we're so interdependent and yet we live with the nation state machinery that reflects the world of 50 or maybe 150 years ago I think really carefully thinking through on how we're going to manage the global system, whether it's the ecosystem, whether it's ecology, whether it's human security, terrorism, nuclear threats, disease you know these things really need global approaches in management, not to supplant the local, in many ways the local has to deal with many, many things but we need that global level and if we don't make that real effort to get there we will face increasing problems. Net works civil society, private sector, you know NGO's can contribute a lot to that but they can't really solve the big problem you still need state machinery and public policy to deal with the really big problems. The Middle East disaster situation is not going to be solved by NGO's, I mean you know and [inaudible] can do a lot of good there but somehow you state craft and you need the international community to see the extent of the mess and try to do something about it and I think the same goes true for environmental issues and so on so we need the political...the public policy side as I mentioned to complete the very positive action that civil society can do and indeed civil society can push for these decision, without civil society pushing for them I don't think much will happen. So let me end this plea or this presentation on the role of the U.S. in all that because I think when we look at the world you know half the world's armament budget is U.S., one trillion is spent on armaments, half of it is U.S., the U.S. is tremendously powerful economically and certainly in terms of defense, in terms of ideas, in terms of science, in terms of wonderful universities like this one, it's a huge power in the world and of a kind perhaps that didn't exist for a very long time maybe since the Roman times and so on. At the same time I would submit that the last few years if anything have shown that the tremendous limits to what the country like the U.S. can achieve on its own and it's becoming increasingly clear. So in a way it's a huge challenge now because we are in a...for the U.S. because we are in a multilateral system or an international architecture where certainly it's not possible to advance without the U.S., okay it's too big, too large, too powerful, too influential, too rich, the international community will not get organized without positive U.S. contribution, U.S. support, the U.S. can certainly change...stop any possible change in any direction, okay. Its powerful enough and large enough to play that role. On the other hand the U.S. is also feeling that many initiatives are running into dead allies, many, many things are blocked, many things are not moving ahead and there are clear limits so I do believe that we now in the next years, maybe five years decade or so we face this situation where either in the U.S. there's going to be a change and there will be a much more active support for multilateralism and international policy solutions to global problems or we will face huge, huge international problems and I'm optimistic actually because when you look at the history of the United States and when you look at the U.S. and I'm Turkish, I'm not an American citizen, I say it as a...somebody who lives in the U.S., who likes the U.S., who is very found of America but I think when you look at it actually it has...there's three interesting things, one it's very global, it's a society where you know John here from the Czech Republic and there's compatriots from Turkey teaching it's one of the most global societies so in a sense for the U.S. to kind of relate to the global world in a sense take leadership in a government system that would be appropriate to a global world I think from a cultural, psychological perspective shouldn't be that difficult. It's more difficult in societies that are much more homogenous, which are less open, it's not open to the world in a sense perhaps travel as much as a Czech citizen does but in terms of the basic relationships whether it's to east Asia, whether it's to Africa as African-Americans, whether it's to the Middle East, whether it's the through the connection with the Jewish community and Israel or to the connection to the Arab community, it's all there in the U.S. so in a sense all the ingredients are there for the U.S. to actually become very committed to a global solution or global approach to the world's key challenges. The second things is when one looks back at history of course as I said early on during the presentation I mean it was actually the U.S. leadership that led to the United Nations in the first place. I mean the San Francisco declaration all the very strong commitment of the U.S. to multilateralism and multilateral institutions. A beautiful speech as President Kennedy's address at the commencement of American university I think in 1962 or something like that where you have a beautiful statement about multilateralism, the rule of law in the world, the need for nation states to submit to the rule of law internationally, President Kennedy, you know a U.S. President and the need to organize this world in a multilateral way and I can...you know whether you go back to Jefferson or even President Reagan coming from a different side of the political spectrum a lot of multilateralism and commitment to the world actually in the U.S. leadership in the past and finally third point the resource side. I mean this is a whole different topic much more technically economic, the twin deficits and global imbalances and the 700 billion dollar deficit, the current account deficit in the U.S. but I think if you look at it from a resource point of view it would seem quite clear that U.S. even though it has this huge GDP and wealth and all that doesn't have the financial means to deal alone with many of these problems, it has to share, it has to share the cost of human security of environmental management and of other issues. So there's also strong economic pressure I think that will militate in the direction of a more multilateral approach in U.S. policy and I think when that happens it will...many things that seem impossible now will all of a sudden move ahead much more quickly. So that's why I do believe that it is important and that I am fairly optimistic because I think the dynamics within the U.S. society actually exists. Of course others have to cooperate too, Europe and every country has to move in that direction but I think the role of the U.S. is critical and one comparison I sometimes make I don't know how justified it is but it struck me the other day thinking about it because when I first came to the U.S. when a student at Princeton it was in 1970, at the end of the 1960's and I think in the 1960's American society did something very, very important in terms of race relations and race integration, I think it really faced the issue in the 60's and did a lot of things and of course there are huge problems that remain and some African-American communities remain disadvantaged economically and income wise and so on but I think when you compare the U.S. today to the 50's, early 60's there was a very, very kind of deep shift in what kind of society you know the U.S. was going to be and a deep commitment by leaders to integration and now you have a country where the Secretary of State is an African-American, the Chief of Staff was also African origin American and now the latest to throw their hat into the ring, Barack Obama, you know is talking about becoming President. I think in my views, I'm not saying I don't it would have been feasible in the 60's at all. So there has been a deep transformation in the psychology, very positive, extremely positive of course to a multiethnic, multiracial society in the real sense where anybody from any ethnicity, from any minority can go to the very top. I compare and that needed to be a deep transformation of people's attitudes, of people's way of thinking and so I compare this challenge that existed in the 60's a little bit to the challenge of multilateralism now in the U.S. I think what's needed is kind of realization that multilateralism is absolutely necessary for human security and that the U.S. has to lead the process, has to look at it very positively not as something to be afraid of and something that somehow will make things more difficult and the country as one of the only ways that we can manage the challenges of the coming century in a decent way and I think once that conversion happens you know which I think it will happen actually, then we will have the strongest nation in the world playing this leadership role which we so much need. I don't think it's the only solution again there are many other things that are necessary for it to happen but I do believe that there is this psychological conversion that's needed. I do feel a deep resistance to it of course also you know but I think that it's a resistance that in the end is superficial and that if there is some leadership that is actually arguing for it without being afraid that it's a bad word then I think all of a sudden the progress maybe much, much fast than we think. So this is something I want to share with you, it is linked to the role of the United Nations because we need that support and effective United Nations cannot be there unless major countries of the world are supportive, we cannot deal with the huge developmental issues and human security issues without that support so that step that needs to be taken where the United Nations meets it's largest member so to speak in a positive way and wants to move forward I think is one of the big, big challenges ahead of us. Again we need others, we need support from everywhere of course but this particular support given that I'm talking in an American University is particularly important, many thanks. ^M00:54:18 [ Applause ] ^M00:54:34 Yeah I think we do have some time for a few questions. Why don't we start there. >> [Inaudible section] very long process of European nations coming together in what's now a very [inaudible] the kind of multilateralism [inaudible]. >> Well, I think it's an excellent question because Europe in a sense led the way from being the origin of nation states in the good and the bad because the European nation state was able to create a much more human society, greater social welfare, more democracy and all that, it also created two world wars and terrible destruction, you know that nation state so the attempt of Europe to kind of overcome that and create the multilateral...kind of super national system I think is very, very important although I would be a little bit careful because when I talk of multilateralism I don't yet...maybe our grand, grand children will talk of the super nationality that Europe involves you know so there's some differences. I still believe that it's way too early and that it would be unrealistic to define a global project ala Europe where Europe kind of tends to see itself to some degree as almost one country you know the flag, a blue flag and the blue flag is very interesting, I mean you go to all kinds of places which is are no where near Europe yet, like Georgia or whatever you have the blue flag there so lots of people. But none the less there are many elements that are very, very similar for example how to balance still the state versus the federal level, I mean of course the U.S. has that too, it's a federal country, how to use population weights in the voting system versus having one country, one vote type of [inaudible] so many, many things that the Europeans are exploring I think are very relevant to the global experience. I think Europe of course now is suffering a major set back and in the sense it's true their constitution was rejected. I remain fairly optimistic, I think these things don't work linearly, Europe does have to absorb the new entrance does have to really have to work on the institutions before it can actually have new vigor in its project and there is one sentence which I really love by Jean Monet [phonetic] one of the founders of...founding fathers of Europe you know when they asked him to define...it's actually the last sentence of his memoirs where he says, ladies and gentlemen don't make a mistake  our European project is not an end in itself but just the first step to a better organized world, so in a sense the founder of Europe already...it wasn't just about Europe it was about the world in a sense too, so there are many, many relevant aspects but I do believe that in a way it all feeds on one another, you know when one side blocks the other one becomes less cooperative, so there's an interaction between what's happening in the U.S., what's happening in Europe, what's happening in other countries which can either be positive or negative, right now it's more in the negative mood than in the positive mood. Then there's this thing about efficiency which is another given that you asked the Europe question which I think is an interesting point. When you walk in the European parliament I don't know how many of you have walked in the European parliaments, some of you I'm sure, you have all the interpreters, all the languages, I think 23 or something now given that there are 25 members and it costs...a significant  portion of the European budget is actually spent on interpretation so one thought I had working around the European parliament is what a waste of resources, all the interpreters...but then immediately I stopped my self and I said look if that's what it takes to avoid wars between these countries you know to lower military budgets, to create a zone of peace I mean let's spend the money, there's no problem so there is a little bit of a trade off between trying to be super efficient versus creating the mechanism where by you may have to talk a lot and waste some time but it's a little bit the same as the General Assembly in the United Nations, you come in there and one reaction could be well let's get something done you know and of course that is the correct request but on the other hand having all these people interacting in all the languages, all the translations, nobody feeling as an outsider, has tremendous benefits also. Yes. >> I would like to ask how we get the voices of three groups of people in the world really to that table and one is women's voices since the Beijing conference in 1995 and their platform for action, there's been enormous resistance to moving forward even though [inaudible] and then there are farming communities who really do not want to leave the farm and go to the city even though agricultural policies  in many places and internationally policies are forcing farm families off their farms because of the low prices for commodities, internationally traded and because of government policies which see a diminution of a number of farms as a result. And the third group are indigenous community who live for instance in the Brazilian rain forest and who feel that their former way of life is tied up with a particular [inaudible] particular habitat and see very little regard on the international stage for preserving those habitats and letting them preserve their own community [inaudible]. >> All right, thank you maybe we'll take one or two questions more then I can make my last [inaudible] you had a question or comment? >> [Inaudible] too strong or very strong [inaudible] but not strong enough to succeed without limits and therefore it is in its interest to [inaudible]. I was going to push you a little bit so we can think in recent memory the Clinton administration was [inaudible] much more multilateral than the current administration, if you were to take them [inaudible] to achieve becoming more multilateral. >> Okay then...if there is anybody else then...yeah why don't we take one there. >> You mention that [inaudible] between the U.S. and [inaudible] we all know about issue between [inaudible] and what happened and [inaudible] do you see then this lateral agreement that's [inaudible]. >> All right well I mean [inaudible] say a few words, maybe on the last one you know I think some amount of regional cooperation is clearly can be a building block but it depends a lot what type of agreement they are and I definitely don't think that what's called the spaghetti bowl you know all kinds of vague, complicated regional agreements can replace good multilateral, legally binding trading system so I'm concerned about the bilateral deals and the other thing, the developing countries of course should always realize that when they are in bilateral negotiation with the EU or the U.S. you know the power balance is totally against them where in a multilateral framework, when all the developing countries participate in they can of course bring much more weight to the table and the deal they will reach over all will probably be more in their favor than if Bangladesh negotiates directly with let's say the European union. So in that sense it's to the developing countries advantage I think to have a multilateral frame work. In terms of the voices of many groups, I think the UN, they're voices but whether these voices translate into action which is the real question that's much more difficult. I must say that the UN is trying a lot within the United Nations you know there was a decade for indigenous people. On gender issues we really hope to push much harder there will be a new organization that is now being a proposed, it's UNIFEM but UNIFEM strengthen [inaudible] women's and gender organization so but you know for decisions to be made on all these things again you need the political level, advocacy can only take you so far. Now on the 90's versus afterwards you know President Clinton is an advisor to the [inaudible] Tsunami, post Tsunami and so therefor once in a while he comes...we have the privilege of hosting him and he comes by and we chat and all that and I think the 90's and he very much realizes that and it's his [inaudible] so you know. The 90's I mean so much could have been done during the 90's because the Berlin wall collapsed, the Soviet...the cold war ended, the history [inaudible] and there was tremendous opportunity in a way to build the new world with new institutions overcoming the cold war blockages, security council reform all the things I mentioned. The ideal time was actually the 90's to do that and you know the whole thing on terrorism, 911 hadn't happened it was kind of positive outlook on the world and it wasn't taken, I mean it was not...there was no action against  it but it wasn't considered a major priority and you know let's face it...it's always in our personal lives to you know if there's no major challenge ahead of you, if you have a heart attack you really start a diet, if you don't have a heart attack you don't so I think the 90's were a little bit of a decade where you know there wasn't that much of a challenge in a sense so while the administration in the U.S., even the first bush administration and then Clinton was in a sense much more multilateralism and much more inclined to work within a multilateral framework than what came afterwards is I think the challenge wasn't so immediate and actually President Clinton has shared with me once that he really felt that so much more could have been done at that time and of course he's doing a lot now in his more private capacity. Then came this period, the terrible crime of 911 and all that and then the reaction coupled with this...well I should go back one more step, and of course also in the 90's I think there was an unrealistic view of U.S. power, okay I mean the Soviet Union was gone, no more competition, that's it. Well I think what we're seeing now is that it's not that easy, there are lots of...there are different threads, it's no longer like the Soviet Union another super power but there are many, many socioeconomic and security threats and I think we're now getting to the point where many are realizing that in fact...I mean that's my thesis, one should move toward that multilateral. I don't think...some of the proposals you know like enlarging the security council or creating an L27 and really working with it are practical proposals but I think what's more important than any one particular action is really the outlook, the approach. You know we have these problems how are we going to solve them and here and last point I think it needs to be a combination of people who share certain goals and values, you can't always get the whole world to agree with anybody I mean whether it's France, the U.S., Turkey, the Czech republic so there will always be certain alliances, certain coalitions, certain like minded...in the UN on the economic side we have like minded donor which are mostly the most generous [inaudible] who have their little coalition so all that is fine but the basic approach is you know we have to have international system that works, how can we actually make it work and how can we slowly have rules of the game which people submit to, like in the W2, the W2 is actually a fairly good progress because W2 everybody actually submits to arbitration there. So enlarging that kind of approach and having building political support for multilateralism I think is the essence, once that political support is there once people are no longer afraid in an election campaign or on TV to say yes I am for multilateralism you know once that [inaudible] is broken then I think one can sit down and say okay how do we do it, you know what's the better choice, empirically what works better, then there are lots of things that can be debated but first one has to you know go beyond that barrier which unfortunately still exists that even saying that you might want to work with the United Nations is not such a great politically things these days so and that has to be changed. Thanks a lot...oh sorry I think...I have to run right now because there's a plane. ^M01:09:55 [ Applause ] ^M01:10:06 >> We want to very much thank you for coming and have framed a copy of the... >> Wow. >> The poster that's been out front that you all saw with thanks for all of your work and your contributions. >> Thank you very much, thank you very much. ^M01:10:23 [ Applause ] ^M01:10:29