NAM Summit adopts comprehensive declarations, re-asserting its relevance in a turbulent world

The Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in mid-September 2016 was an occasion to reflect on the movement’s history and to reaffirm its relevance in a world of great political and economic turbulence.   It adopted two documents which are remarkable for their comprehensiveness, showing the consensus of 120 countries for positions in a wide range of issues.   It faces the challenge of maintaining these positions in negotiations in the years ahead, and converting some of them into action.

By Martin Khor

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) held its 17^th Summit on 17-18 September 2016, in the beautiful island of Margarita in Venezuela, under the theme of  “Peace, Sovereignty and Solidarity for Development”.

The NAM Summit was attended by several heads of state or government, Foreign Ministers, senior officials and Ambassadors from its 120 member states and representatives from many observer states and international organisations .  Two general outcomes were the political NAM Summit Declaration (widely known as the Margarita Declaration); and the 200-page Outcome Document which lays out the position and recommended actions of the Movement on a wide range of political, and economic and social issues.   They had been carefully negotiated by the NAM Missions in New York, and the NAM members’ senior officials and Foreign Ministers in Margarita just prior to the Summit.

The Summit was an occasion to reflect on the history and future of the movement, to reaffirm its relevance and to make commitments to addressing the manifold global and regional problems confronting the world.

NAM, which is 55 years old, has had a glorious history, having been formed during the period in modern history when many colonialised territories had just won their independence, and several more were in the final stages to cast off colonialism.

NAM symbolised the unity of the newly independent countries, a unity forged from a common past of being exploited as colonies of the rich countries, and from a common struggle to be free from colonial rule, and a common aspiration to develop their new nations economically and socially with the central goal of benefitting their own people.

Their experiences may be different, and their socio-economic systems may be diverse.  But there was a shared desire to reform the old world dominated by a few countries and make a new world where national sovereignty was respected, and the continued domination of the former colonial-master countries over the world economy could be replaced with more democratic governance and a more equitable sharing of global income.

In a world split by the Cold War, led by the West on one hand and the Soviet Union on the other, the newly independent countries decided to be “non-aligned” and thus was born the name of the Non Aligned Movement, its principles and the positions it has been taking.

With the end of the Soviet Union and the Cold War, it has been debated whether a non-aligned movement is still needed.   The members of NAM have responded with a sound Yes, as military interventions and political interference by the major developed countries, especially the sole superpower, continued and in some ways even intensified.  Moreover, the developing countries are still subjected to a global economic system dominated by the former colonial countries.

The developing countries have continued to feel the need to unite and show solidarity for one another.  NAM played an important role in the successful struggle against apartheid and today it continues to show solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for independence and for the lifting of the US embargo against Cuba, to name two examples.

In the halls of the United Nations in New York and Geneva, the NAM continues to play a major role in the General Assembly and its organs, in the Human Rights Council and other bodies.   It works with the other umbrella body of the developing countries, the Group of 77 and China, on a range of issues.  The struggles of past decades — that led to the movement for a new international economic order, for recognition of the national sovereignty of developing countries, for the right to development, and for making developing countries’ interests not only to be recognised but to be at the centre of negotiations in various fora  — are still the struggles of today, and with the addition of new issues.   This is why the continued relevance of NAM has been deeply felt not only by political leaders but also civil society and intellectuals in the developing world.

It is within this background that the 17^th NAM Summit was held, with the Chairmanship passing from Iran to Venezuela.  In his opening speech, the Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro, gave a useful categorisation of three phases in the history of NAM —  with Phase 1 as the initial foundation years from the Bandung conference in 1955 to the Belgrade founding NAM conference in 1961 and to the collapse of the USSR in 1990;  Phase 2 as the years of the unipolar world dominated by unilateral actions of the dominant countries especially the sole super-power, usually against developing nations;  and Phase 3 which started with the NAM summit of 2003, is the present era where the unipolar world has become a world of more distributed power in which there is the rise of emerging countries, with the countries of the South able to gather more strength of their own, and with more opportunities to reshape the world order into a more balanced one.

President Maduro pledged his own commitment to work on 11 key issues and goals during Venezuela’s three-year term as NAM Chairman.   The issues are drawn from a longer list in the Margarita Declaration.  They include democratising the UN, building a new international economic order with developing countries playing key roles in this process, implementation of Agenda 2030, democratising the international order in communications and information, building a culture of peace and dialogue of civilisations,  combatting climate change from a South perspective, support for the cause of Palestinian people, support for Cuba against the US blockade,  decolonisation of Puerto Rico, taking initiatives to resolve the refugee crisis,  and fighting  terrorism in all forms.

Recalling the South Commission, the precursor to the South Centre, President Maduro also made three proposals to implement its recommendations:  establishing a Secretariat of the South to coordinate activities including between NAM and the G77 and China;  establishing a Bank of the South with finances from and to the South;  and pursuing food security and sovereignty with the assistance of FAO.

The NAM Summit Declaration had 21 goals described as commitments by the political leaders for their joint efforts or actions.  Among them were:

• Strengthening and revitalising the NAM.
• Strengthening International Peace and Security, including by rejecting the illegal policies of regime change aimed at overthrowing constitutional governments.
• Addressing Disarmament and International Security, and especially eliminating nuclear weapons within a specified time frame.
• Promoting Human Rights, with a special mention of the Right to Development.
• Condemning Unilateral Sanctions, especially unilateral coercive measures used against countries of the Movement.
• Condemning terrorist acts and the spread of violent extremism, and affirming that these two evils should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilization or ethnic group.
• Showing solidarity with Palestine, in light of the continued injustice against the Palestinian people as a result of the Israeli occupation and policies, and calling on the parties to exert all efforts to resume and support a credible peace process.
• Reform of the United Nations, with the strengthening of the General Assembly’s authority and the reform and democratisation of the Security Council. The selection of the UN Secretary General should be a more transparent and inclusive process, with a central role for the General Assembly.
• Peacekeeping Operations should respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of States.
• Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals should be implemented  in an integrated and indivisible manner, recognising the principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities. The multilateral trading system should provide an enabling environment for development, by ensuring a level playing field for developing countries in international trade.
• Tackling Climate Change, including through implementing the principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibilities, and recognising the historic responsibilities of developed countries. The developed countries are urged to fulfill their commitments of providing finance, transfer of appropriate technology and capacity building to developing countries.
• Under Economic Governance, there is a need to democratise decision-making in the IMF and World Bank and in the governance of a new world economic order.
• South-South Cooperation is an important element of international cooperation for sustainable development, as a complement and not as a substitute to the North-South Cooperation.
• Address the issues of Refugees and Migrants including to provide support to countries most affected, to assist the host countries, and for Governments to safeguard and protect the rights of migrants in accordance with international and domestic laws.
• Under a New World Information and Communication Order, there is need for media of developed countries to respect developing countries in the formulation of their opinions, models and perspectives and not to use media as a tool for hostile propaganda against developing countries.

The 11 points for action pledged by President Maduro and the related 21 points of the Declaration are laudable.  If NAM takes up all these issues seriously in various fora, it will have a very significant effect on global affairs and international relations.   To make it happen, the NAM would have to establish stronger coordination among its own members, with some taking lead roles on each of the issues.  It would also have to coordinate with the G77 and China as well as with other organisations and regional groupings of the South.

On a basic level, NAM needs to continue and enhance actions that enable it to maintain and advance its positions in the Declaration and the Final Document.  Much of these actions will be in the negotiations or discussions in various fora, especially in the UN bodies.  Implementing concrete actions beyond the taking of positions in negotiations will be even more challenging, but the possibilities for this are already evident.  Individual developing countries and groupings are already taking their own South-South initiatives, such as establishing the BRICS’ New Development Bank.  NAM can build on and add value to these initiatives.

Exploring and implementing the three proposals by Maduro would also be beneficial.   Having an official Secretariat of the South to fully service the NAM and the G77 and China and their members has been talked about for a long time.  In a modest way the South Centre has been playing its role as a think tank in the service of developing countries and its groupings, including NAM and G77 and China.  Whether there can be found sufficient political will and practical ways to establish a full-scale Secretariat, to coordinate developing countries and to support the implementation of the Declarations made by their groups, remains to be seen as this would be a big challenge.

The Bank of the South was one of the ideas of the South Commission; to some extent the New Development Bank is an operationalizing of this idea, and we should be patient in seeing how it works in its present initial phase, and how it takes off.  Similarly there are initiatives such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and various development banks in South America.  Achieving food security in the South through increasing food production is a laudable goal;  achieving it requires not only intense efforts in developing countries but also reforms to the rules of world trade which currently favour the developed countries and constrain the agricultural potentials of developing countries.

The Final Document is a detailed statement of 200 pages with 919 paragraphs.  It contains the positions of the NAM on a whole range of global and regional political issues, including the key principles of NAM, the reform of the UN, North-South dialogue and South-South cooperation, regional and sub-regional political issues, as well as development, social and human rights issues (including the world economic crisis, trade, food security, migration, climate change, water, energy and humanitarian issues).

This voluminous document is valuable as a statement of where the NAM stands on a unified platform of 120 member countries.  It is a great feat for the NAM members to have had intense discussions and finally getting consensus on such a comprehensive set of issues, in some of which there are strong differences of views not only between North and South but also among developing countries.   The Final Document stands as a very useful and valuable compilation of NAM’s collective position on contemporary international and regional issues, political and economic/social.   It will be another great achievement to maintain the unity and solidarity of the group and to maintain (or if needed to appropriately modify) the positions on these issues as situations evolve in the next three years until the document is revised and updated at the next NAM Summit.

All in all, the NAM Summit has been very useful.  It gave the NAM members the opportunity to review their collective position on a whole range of international issues, and to come to agreement on them.  It was also an opportunity to reflect on the history and present state of the movement and to conclude that NAM is as relevant as or more so than before and why; and to reaffirm the need to advance the cause in the next three years, with positions on most issues clearly spelt out.

This kind of occasion that the NAM Summit provided is much needed especially in a world that has become extremely unstable, economically and politically;  where major developed countries still exercise dominance in global military, political and economic affairs;  where South-South solidarity and cooperation is very much in need;  and where the developing countries are also emerging in some areas and issues, thus providing new opportunities for a rebalancing of global power and affairs.  Let us hope the NAM and its members grasp the opportunities and make significant progress in the years ahead.

Martin Khor is the Executive Director of the South Centre.

Contact: director(at)southcentre.int

Information on the NAM Summit can be obtained from: http://namvenezuela.org/. The Declaration and the Final Document can be obtained from: http://namvenezuela.org/?page_id=6330.