Kissinger’s case for an attack on Iraq

IN his recent article “Pre-emption as a principle not in US interest,” Henry A. Kissinger opposes an American attack on Iraq for reasons of “regime change.” Invoking the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, Kissinger says an attack on a country for changing its regime “challenges the international system” established by the treaty. What is amazing about the line of reasoning that Kissinger develops is that he opposes President George Bush’s ‘reason’ for attack and not the attack itself.

To begin with, the Treaty of Westphalia has been of no consequence to Europe in the following three centuries insofar as the question of regime change is concerned, for Europe witnessed destructive wars, including the War of Austrian Succession and the wars of Louis XIV. The treaty that ended the 30-year war established one basic principle: what church a Christian belonged to was his personal matter — the state should have nothing to do with it.

While the parties to the treaty were also France and Sweden, its real impact was on Germany, because the princes of the member-states of the Holy Roman Empire acquired full sovereignty over their possessions. Besides, a clause in the treaty laid down that a prince would lose his land if he changed his sect. This put an end to the main cause of religious wars — conversion.

The logical outcome of the treaty was that the European states’ conduct of foreign policy acquired a secular character. The aim was to forbid changing a given regime for religious reasons in another country; instead, the governments were to be guided mainly by national interests. (One of its consequences was the French entry into Alsace). Beyond that, the treaty had no impact on the shifts and swerves of foreign policies of European states, most of them still ruled by dynasties, and wars continued for “regime change” though not for religious reasons.

The Napoleonic wars are a story unto themselves. But when Napoleon returned from Elba and the Bourbons fled Paris, the diplomats gathered at Vienna hurried home to organize a new war for the specific purpose of regime change. The war that ended with the Prussian victory at Waterloo aimed at restoring Louis XVIII, the brother of the executed emperor, to the French throne.

In any case, a discussion of the impact of the Treaty of Westphalia on European history (“international system,” as Kissinger puts it) is only of an academic interest. At any rate, the citing of that treaty in no way detracts from the supposed “moral” or legal basis of the case for an attack on Iraq, because the treaty is as irrelevant as the United Nations and all its resolutions that outlaw aggression and sanction the use of force, singly or collectively, only as a defensive measure. As for George Bush, he is at least being honest when he declares that the aim of a US attack on Iraq will be a change of regime in Baghdad. He wants Saddam’s head.

Having thus opposed the use of force pointedly for regime change, Kissinger wants George Bush’s “declaratory policy” to have other reasons for an American attack whose “beneficial effects” will automatically include a change of regime in Baghdad.

Kissinger’s main concern is that the war on Afghanistan will prove useless and “runs the risk of petering out” if it is not followed by pre-emptive strikes against terrorists and regimes harbouring or encouraging terrorists elsewhere. He then lists “beneficial political consequences” that will flow from an overthrow of the Saddam regime and the elimination of the weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) purportedly in its possession. Overall, Kissinger gives nearly a dozen reasons for attacking Iraq and then goes on to list seven perceivable “consequences.” It is obvious that what he calls “consequences” are actually his reasons for attacking Iraq.

The former US secretary of state does not at all speak of the need for a UN authorization for such an offensive, thus going along with those hawks in the Republican administration who feel that Baghdad’s presumed violation of the 1991 Security Council resolution in the wake of the Gulf war and its expulsion of the UN monitors are grounds enough for an attack.

What the actual results and the devastating consequences of a US-led attack on Iraq will be he chooses to keep quiet about, for Kissinger knows, as much as any casual observer of the Middle Eastern scene, that a militarily forced ouster of the Iraqi regime might lead to a dismemberment of the country, with an independent Kurdistan emerging in the north, a Shia state in the south and a Sunni Iraqi state in the centre.

Neither Turkey nor Iran would want an independent Kurdistan for fear of a similar uprising by their own Kurdish minorities. More ominously, a break-up of Iraq could set in motion a process of fragmentation in the region whose dimensions and consequences are hard to predict. But then what difference does a splintering of the Middle East and the coming into being of mini-states mean to the world, especially to the US? Think-tanks would oppose such a move, fearing anarchy in the region. But then a fragmented Middle East poses no great threat to Israel or to the US. In fact, a collection of mini-states would be easier to control than relatively big and stable states like Turkey and Iran. The point to note is that the US is in a position to effect such a change without being opposed by any power militarily. Besides, such an opportunity may not again be available to the US and Israel, maybe for decades. In such an unstable Middle East, mini-states ruled by petty tyrants will be at each other’s throats, and will be dependent on the US more than some of the Arab potentates at the moment are.

That is why, among the “beneficial” consequences, Kissinger includes the need to “bring about a better balance in oil policy within OPEC,” besides demonstrating to the Palestinians that Washington is “serious about overcoming corrupt tyrannies” — a warning to both Yasser Arafat and Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Kissinger then goes a step further and includes the entire Islamic world in his sweep.

The terrorists who attacked the World Trade Centre, he says, had roots in many parts of the Islamic world, and the September 11 attacks would not have been possible but for the “tacit cooperation” of societies which in Bush’s words “oppose terror but tolerate the hate that produces terror.” An attack on Iraq will produce “catastrophic consequences for the perpetrators, as well as their supporters, tacit or explicit.” In other words, these “catastrophic consequences” for the Arab-Islamic world are Kissinger’s reasons for a war on Iraq.

Kissinger is in a hurry, for he does not want America to wait for a solution of the Palestinian issue before going for Saddam’s head, because a delay in attacking Iraq will only “magnify” the threats emanating from Baghdad in the form of WMDs and its alleged support to terrorist groups.

The most amazing part of the Kissinger thesis is the limits which the former secretary of state puts on “pre-emption,” for he says the US must translate an attack on Iraq into “terms of general applicability for an international system.” But, he goes on to emphasize that pre-emption should not be established “as a universal principle available to every nation.” In other words, Kissinger wants “pre-emption — a euphemism for aggression — not only to be an essential element of Washington’s foreign policy; he wants it to remain an exclusive American prerogative.

Here Kissinger ceases to be his usual self — the cool-headed Nixon aide who flew from Nathiagali to Beijing to lay the stepping stones to a new era in the relationship with China. Here he appears to be in the company of men like Paul Wolfowitz, US deputy defence secretary, who in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, talked of “ending” certain states.

In trust we trust

TRUST is a little word and a big concept that’s taken a genuine pounding across America in recent months. We trusted that evil was far away, airlines were strong and airliners were safe.

We trusted that skyscrapers didn’t collapse, quarterly corporate reports were true, the stock market and economy were recovering and even hate had limits. We trusted that baseball was a game, Olympic judges and Little League coaches didn’t cheat and adults — even strangers and especially priests — wouldn’t hurt children.

Given such apparently contrary evidence, perhaps it should not be too surprising that we so easily find reasons to ponder distrust these days. It’s amazing how important something as transparent as trust can be in our lives. And how frazzled most feel when any trust is betrayed, even the simple trust in a once-reliable car to start. Distrust throws everything into doubt. Even suspicion of betrayal corrodes the bonds that link family, town and nation.

Trust, according to Webster, is a “firm belief or confidence in the honesty, integrity, reliability, justice, etc. of another person or thing.” As invisible as it is, trust, it turns out, is an essential ingredient in a successful society, especially a democracy.

We trust in trust in so many ways each day. Trust that our elected representatives will be honest and representative, if not infallible. Trust that our justice system will be, if not perfect, at least fair. Employers trust employees to work. Employees trust employers to pay. Customers trust the products they buy and sellers trust their payment promises. Trust is even printed on our money.

It takes a long while to build trust and only seconds for it to melt away. But before we get too suspicious of trusting people and things, as terrorists hope we will, let’s recall some important facts.

—Los Angeles Times

In search of a constitution?

A QUESTION keeps coming up: why did Mr. Jinnah not give a constitution? Some of his remarks on the subject are worth noting: “The constituent assembly may take some time to accomplish its task of framing the final constitution of our state. It is a stupendous task and it may take eighteen months or two years before it can come into full operation... Pakistan is now a sovereign state, absolute and unfettered and the government of Pakistan is in the hands of the people.

“Until we finally frame our constitution which, of course, can only be done by the constituent assembly, our present provisional constitution, based on the fundamental principles of democracy, not bureaucracy, not autocracy or dictatorship, must be worked”. More than half a century after Mr. Jinnah uttered these words, Pakistan is still in pursuit of a durable constitutional framework. It has been a 55-year journey and Pakistan has not arrived yet. The country is under military rule; the Constitution remains suspended. Parliament stands dissolved.

The supreme power of the country is wielded by a single person. His word is law. He exercises sovereign power. Any discussion of the legality or illegality of his decree is without any practical value and is in fact quite impertinent. For this reason, all the lengthy debates in the Supreme Court do not impress the people and leave them cold. It is a long story to tell: how we have come to this pass, but in this retrospective account, I shall try to be brief.

It all started at the dawn of our independence. Under the Indian Independence Act of 1947, the function of the legislature of the dominion, including the making of the constitution, was to be performed by a constituent assembly which had also to function as the federal legislature. The framers of that document had before them the experience of other constituent assemblies in the world and believed that both the constituent assemblies (of India and Pakistan) would complete the work assigned to them within approximately the same time as other constituent assemblies had done. They never imagined that in this respect the constituent assembly of Pakistan would beat the world record.

When the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan was set up, the longest time ever taken up by any constituent assembly in the world had been one year and nine months. The Constituent Assembly of India had begun its work in 1948 and it enacted the constitution of India on November 26, 1949.

It took the United States of America one year and nine months to produce a written constitution which is the envy of the democratic world. During the same period of about two years, all that the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan accomplished was to adopt the Objectives Resolution which affirmed that sovereignty over the entire universe belongs to God Almighty alone and the authority which he had delegated to the state of Pakistan through its people for being exercised within the limits prescribed by Him, was a sacred trust.

After adopting the Objectives Resolution, the assembly resolved to appoint a Basic Principles Committee to consider and report on the main principles on which the constitution was to be based. The interim report of the committee was presented to the assembly by the prime minister, Mr. Liaquat Ali Khan, on September 28, 1950. It was bitterly criticized in East Bengal and Punjab, because of the principle of parity-cum-weightage embodied in it.

On April 17, 1953, the governor-general, Mr. Ghulam Muhammad, relieved Khawaja Nazimuddin of his responsibilities as prime minister and called upon Mr. Mohammad Ali (Bogra), who was then Pakistan ambassador to the United States, to form the government. Meanwhile, the provincial elections held in East Bengal in March 1954 completely eroded the representative character of the Constituent Assembly, as the dominant political party in it (the Muslim League) secured only two seats in the provincial assembly. On September 21, 1954, the Constituent Assembly adopted the Basic Principles Committee report.

The drafting committee prepared a draft of the constitution which was sent to the printer on October 16, so that it would be on the table of the house when the Constituent Assembly reconvened to discuss it on October 27. Pakistan was to be declared an Islamic republic on January 1, 1955. The document, although printed, did not see the light of day. The governor-general, Mr. Ghulam Muhammad, dissolved the Constituent Assembly on October 24, 1954, ostensibly because, over the years, it had lost its representative character. The president of the dissolved assembly (Maulvi Tameez Uddin Khan) challenged the legality of the governor-general’s action and a full bench of the Chief Court of Sindh held the dissolution to be unconstitutional. The decision was, however, reversed by the Federal Court in March 1955.

The governor-general then called a convention of parliamentarians and legal experts to frame a constitution. The elections to the convention were however, postponed because of the advice given by the Federal Court on a reference made to it. In accordance with this advice, the governor-general gave up the idea of calling the convention and, instead, promulgated the Constituent Assembly Order 1955 for the election of a new Constituent Assembly consisting of 80 members equally divided between the two wings of the country. On January 8, 1956, the government introduced the constitution bill in the assembly which was finally adopted by it on February 29. The constitution was to come into force on the Pakistan Day (March 23, 1956), marking a smooth change-over from the Government of India Act 1935 to the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

General elections under the new constitution were to be held in early 1959. Unfortunately, the Constitution prepared after nine long years did not last longer than two and a half years. No general election was held under it because President Iskandar Mirza had lost control over the democratic forces in the country. He was unable to influence the electoral process and was, therefore, not prepared to run the risk of holding a general election. Ayub Khan, the commander-in-chief, contemptuously dismissed the 1956 constitution as a “hotch-potch of alien concepts which had already brought enough confusion and chaos in the country.

The hour had struck. The moment so long delayed had finally arrived. The responsibility could no longer be put off”. In the darkness of the night General Ayub and President Mirza conspired to derail the political process. This was the beginning of the recurring periods of military rule in Pakistan.

From June 8, 1962, to March 25, 1969, Pakistan was governed under the 1962 Constitution promulgated by Ayub Khan, the new president and chief martial law administrator, on the strength of a mandate acquired by him through a dubious referendum held on February 14, 1960. Towards the end of this period, the country witnessed scenes of unprecedented chaos and upheaval forming part of a popular movement to overthrow the regime in order to democratize the system.

The situation deteriorated to such an extent that President Ayub wrote to the C-in-C, Pakistan army, General Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan, on March 25, 1969: “I am left with no path but to step aside and leave to the defence force of Pakistan to take over full control of the affairs of this country”. Martial law was re-imposed for the second time since independence and Pakistan’s second working constitution was scrapped by its own creator.

After the break-up of Pakistan in 1971, General Yahya Khan was compelled to transfer power to Mr. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party. On December 29, the new president said: “As far as the constitution is concerned, we intend to move fast in that direction. I am going to have further discussions with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court as well as with others. I am determined to move as fast as possible for the restoration of democracy”. On April 12, 1973, at a special session of the National Assembly 137 members affixed their signatures to the new Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. After authenticating the constitution, marked by a 31-gun salute, the President remarked: “The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is the constitution of the people of Pakistan and they are best suited to speak for it. The document is their property and they are best suited to protect it. It is our hope and belief that under the inspiring guidance of God Almighty, the people of Pakistan will speak for their constitution and will protect it for all times to come”.

In a similar address on the radio-TV network, Mr. Bhutto said: “Today we bid goodbye finally and for all times, to the palace revolutions and military coups which plagued Pakistan for nearly two decades”. Fate willed otherwise. On July 5, 1977, General Ziaul Haq, chief of army staff, staged a military take-over, arrested Mr. Bhutto, sacked the federal and provincial governments, dissolved the assemblies, and suspended the Constitution. The evening before, I saw Mr. Bhutto for the last time at the American ambassador’s reception. He was smoking a cigar and was huddled with the Afghan ambassador.

Would it have made any difference if we had succeeded in making a constitution earlier than we did? Would it have deflected the grand currents of our history? Would it have prevented the imposition of martial law? Would it have prevented the breakup of Pakistan? I have my doubts. It might have slowed down the course of events but nothing more. The rot had set in long before the army struck. For years, the political landscape of Pakistan had been dotted with Potemkin villages: parliamentarians went through the motions of attending parliamentary sessions, question hours, routine legislation, privilege motions etc., — endless debates which everybody knew were sterile and totally unrelated to the real problems of the common man.

The loss of faith in the democratic process, the bankruptcy of our political leadership, palace intrigues, etc, enfeebled and then ultimately brought down the rotten structure of Pakistan’s democracy. Like the Berlin wall, it came tumbling down because nobody believed in it strongly enough to defend it. Nothing could have stopped the army from taking over.

Successive governments, both civil and military, have disfigured, defaced, and defiled the 1973 Constitution and changed it beyond recognition. What will it look like when it is restored and how long will it survive? A constitution makes sense only if people genuinely believe in the sanctity and supremacy of the constitution and are prepared to protect and defend it. It makes sense only if people have confidence in the independence and integrity of the judiciary which is the guardian of the constitution.

A constitution makes no sense if what it says is one thing and what actually happens in practice is another. It makes no sense if it is periodically abrogated, suspended or held in abeyance by people who have sworn to defend and uphold it.

It makes no sense if it is treated as a parchment of dried leaves and is torn to pieces whenever it suits the rulers. If that is how we are going to treat our constitution, why have a constitution at all? Whither, then, are we moving?

Constitution-making is a hazardous business in Pakistan. On the eve of the 1973 Constitution, Mr. Bhutto said: “Today we have passed through the dark tunnel, and I see the Golden Bridge”. Tragically, what he saw was not the Golden Bridge but an optical illusion and a mirage. Six years later, on April 4, 1979, to be precise, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, prime minister of Pakistan and architect of the 1973 Constitution, was taken to the gallows on a stretcher and hanged. What is the moral of it all? Danton summed it up famously in his memorable words. Standing on the scaffold, he said: “It is better to be a fisherman than to govern men”.

No smoking — I love you

I AM not pro-smoking. I gave it up 18 years ago, but I think New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s ban on smoking in restaurants, bars and taverns is going too far.

It is not the question of health for the employees who work in these places. I have no argument with that.

But the danger is that it could change the mating habits of the singles class as we know it.

The cigarette has always been the easiest way for two people to meet in a bar.

Man: “Would you like a light?”

Woman (if she likes him): “Yes, I would.”

Man lights cigarette.

If the lady refuses, the man keeps offering to light anyone until he finds someone who wants to be lit.

A woman can start a conversation with a stranger by saying, “Do you have a cigarette? I just ran out.”

“Wait,” the man says excitedly. He runs to the cigarette machine and brings back a pack.

Man: “I hope this is your brand.”

Woman: “It will do.”

Man: “I have an idea I got from a Paul Henreid movie. I’ll light both, then I’ll give you one and I’ll smoke the other.”

Woman: “But I don’t know you well enough to have my cigarette on your lips.”

Man: “Trust me.”

The cigarette is what brings people together and what makes them say goodbye.

When you see a lady in a bar laughing at a stupid joke or showing her nail polish to the man/boy next to her, you can guess something is going to happen between them. Who can forget “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”?

On the other hand, if you see a woman talking angrily, her tears pouring over her cigarette, and he is angrily putting his out in the ashtray, you are probably witnessing a breakup at a bar.

This is known by bartenders as “cigarette rage.” When a bartender senses it’s going to happen, he removes the woman’s glass before she throws the contents in the man’s face.

Then there’s the lone smoker. He usually sits at the end of the bar with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, staring into his drink, waiting for the bar to close so he can go out in the street and have another cigarette.

Now here’s the part I haven’t mentioned. A couple pairs off and they reach the stage of “your place or mine?”

After they get to the apartment, they discover there are no butts in the house. The panic-stricken couple stops smooching on the couch. The lady says, “I can’t kiss without a cigarette.”

The crestfallen man says, “Neither can I.”

The evening is over.

I’m not trying to be dramatic, but Bloomberg is really interfering with romance.—Dawn/ Tribune Media Services

Cyberspace borders

TWO years ago, when cyberprophets were riding high, a group of anti-Nazi activists in France had the temerity to sue Yahoo. The suit complained that French Web surfers could buy Nazi paraphernalia on Yahoo’s Web site and that this violated the anti-Nazi laws that were supposed to bind French citizens.

From its Silicon Valley headquarters, Yahoo let out a high-tech guffaw. The Internet is borderless; national regulation can’t apply; if it did, Web companies would suddenly have to respect the law of every country whose citizens might browse their Web sites.

“It is very difficult to do business if you have to wake up every day and say, okay, whose laws do I follow?” said Heather Killen, Yahoo’s senior vice president of international operations.

Things have changed out there in the valley. The aspiration to a borderless Internet has fizzled along with technology stock prices. Commercial Web sites are eagerly re-creating real-space national boundaries in cyberspace, so that they run Japanese ads for people who log on in Japan and German ones for Germans.

National regulators are tightening control, asserting their right to tax e-commerce sites in their countries and the right to “wiretap” e-mail with suspected criminal connections.

For the most part, this is good: There’s no reason why societies that choose to ban child pornography in real space should decide that the same material in cyberspace is fine, or why bricks-and-mortar stores should pay sales taxes while clicks-and-mortar stores escape them. But this principle can sometimes go too far.

It’s ironic that the latest company to cross the line is none other than Yahoo.

Yahoo has recently signed a voluntary pledge to purge its Chinese Web site of material that China’s communist dictatorship might deem subversive. Yahoo promises to avoid “producing, posting or disseminating pernicious information that may jeopardize state security and disrupt social stability.”

It pledges to monitor information posted by users on its site and to “remove the harmful information promptly.” It even undertakes to avoid offering links to sites whose content might not be “healthy.”

In sum, Yahoo is promising to become part of the regime’s strategy: Allow the Internet to spread so that China reaps its commercial potential, but prevent it from nurturing free expression.

Yahoo says it is obliged to follow local law and that the voluntary pledge does not add much to what Chinese law requires anyway.

It points out that the French suit targeted Yahoo’s American Web site, which is different from China’s policy of squeezing Chinese-based Internet operations.

But both cases involve countries trying to enforce domestic law, and it’s strange that Yahoo cooperates more eagerly with China’s dictators than it does with a European democracy. If the firm actually does the things the pledge implies, it may become complicit in the oppression of Chinese whose crime is to have a political idea or to espouse an unpopular religion.

Internet cafes in China already are required to report clients’ visits to subversive sites, and Chinese who have copied material from these sites have been hit with long prison sentences.

Does Yahoo, a firm whose cheeky name evokes the wacky freedom of the Internet, really want to be a part of this?

—The Washington Post

The challenge of Johannesburg

THE Rio Earth Summit of 1992 raised considerable expectations. It agreed on an ambitious and comprehensive strategy to address developmental and environmental challenges through a global partnership.

Ten years down the line, the 2002 world summit on sustainable development (WSSD) will provide an opportunity to revitalize the spirit of Rio, shape a renewed political commitment to sustainable development, and above all, make concrete achievements on delivering not just on Rio but also on the millennium development goals.

The European Union (EU) will, as it has done throughout the preparations, play an active role in Johannesburg to getting concrete results.

We are doing this through an active dialogue with the partners, including those from developing countries. The EU wants the WSSD to send a clear political message on the need to make globalization more sustainable for all, and just as importantly, also to agree on measures to achieve this.

Since the UN conference in Rio in 1992 (Conference on environment and development) North-South relations have fundamentally changed. Today, there is a wide agreement on the fact that economic, social and political developments require an integrated approach. The achievements of the major UN conferences in the 1990s have built a new framework for development policies, with the overarching objective of poverty eradication, and which focuses on human, social and environmental aspects as well as sustainable management and use of natural resources.

Based on these developments, the United Nations millennium summit in 2000 adopted a set of comprehensive goals in order to eradicate poverty — the millennium development goals — which set out concrete objectives for the year 2015. Visions like achieving universal primary education, combating diseases like HIV/AIDS and ensuring environmental sustainability can only be realized by a common effort of industrialized and developing countries and the international community.

The positive outcomes of the fourth WTO ministerial meeting in Doha in November 2001 and of the international conference on financing for development in Monterrey in March 2002, provided further important elements towards reaching the millennium development goals. In the “Doha Development Agenda” and the Monterrey consensus a framework was agreed for improving market access, for upgrading multilateral rules to harness globalization, and for increasing financial assistance for development.

The developed countries must now deliver on their commitments and the EU, as the world’s leading partner of the developing countries and as the biggest provider of development aid, is fully determined to do so.

The EU and its member states have pledged, as a first significant step towards reaching the UN target of 0.7 per cent of gross national income for official development assistance, to raise the collective average from the current 0.33 per cent to 0.39 per cent by 2006. Concretely, this should result in an additional annual amount of aid of 9 billion dollars by 2006, and about 22 billion dollars between now and 2006.

The developing countries must take their responsibilities by improving internal policies and domestic governance and creating an enabling climate for investment. All countries must work together, recognizing their common but differentiated responsibilities, to ensure that growth is separated from environmental degradation and that the needs of the present generation are satisfied without destroying the capacity of future generations to cater for their needs.

In the light of the Doha and Monterrey achievements, the world summit on sustainable development, to be held from August 26 to September 4, is a unique opportunity to close the implementation gap left after Rio, and to renew political commitments by all stakeholders.

Making development policies sustainable implies tackling problems with foresight, an approach that the European Union aims to promote and has embraced in its treaty, in the agreements it has signed and in the policies it has adopted. Therefore the EU wants the WSSD to take — after Doha and Monterrey — further steps towards the implementation of the millennium development goals, and to build upon them, particularly in crucial areas such as sanitation and energy.

The EU intends to play an important role in ensuring that the outcome of Johannesburg addresses the three pillars of sustainable development (economic, social, environmental) and enforces coherent global management. all the players will have a role e.g.: developing countries by implementing sound policies, good governance and the rule of law, industrialized countries by ensuring that markets are open to all.

All the stakeholders should commit to a sense of common ownership, which is indispensable in the follow-up of the summit. The WSSD should adopt concrete commitments with a precise timeframe, carried out on the basis of effective partnership.

One of the implementing mechanisms could be well-developed partnerships between governments, the private sector and civil society. There should, however, be a clear link between the political goals and the partnerships decided by the WSSD so that everyone can see how the political goals are being achieved.

The EU wants the WSSD to send a clear political message on the need to make globalization more sustainable for all and to agree on measures aimed at promoting this goal. In order to be clear and coherent in its approach to the WSSD, the EU strategy for Johannesburg follows an integrated approach: We start by putting our own house in order and thus provide leadership in translating rhetoric into action.

This internal strategy for sustainable development was endorsed by the Gothenburg Council in June last year, where poverty eradication and promotion of sustainable production and consumption patterns were identified as overriding objectives for the summit.

In addition to that the community has to make its contribution to promote sustainable development beyond its borders. Putting this into practice, the EU wants to promote progress in five key areas — water, energy, health, agriculture and biodiversity.

The EU water initiative, for instance, plans to bring together, in partnership with countries and regions, public and private funds, stakeholders and experts to provide sustainable solutions to problems of water management.

Reaching the political goal of halving the number of people without access to clean water and sanitation by 2015 would provide a major contribution to improved health and economic development.

At the European Council in Seville, the EU reaffirmed its commitment to be a constructive force at the Johannesburg summit. We will use all opportunities to achieve a positive outcome; the people and this planet deserve no less.

The writer is European Commissioner for development and humanitarian aid.