The Earth Summit
When persuasion and power won the day
Singapore's Ambassador-at-Large Tommy Koh was a prime mover in the recently concluded Earth Summit. Off the plane on Wednesday, he gave his inside story to Cherian George of the Political Desk
AMBASSADOR Tommy Koh is exhausted. He has just returned from the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro where he was not only a member of the Singapore delegation but also the chairman of the main committee that met from June 3-10.
"You can see all the grey hairs on my head. It was a nightmare negotiating this," he says, as he sips a soft drink in one of Changi Airport’s VIP lounges.
"The final meeting I chaired of the main committee I think almost killed me, and I’m seeing a doctor just to see whether my heart is okay," he says.
"I was very firm. I had set the 10th to be our last day, and I refused to give myself an extension. The day started for me at 3pm. Ended at six for dinner. Began promptly at eight, and ended at 6am the next morning.
"By 5.30 am, they were willing to accept anything. I put forward a compromise, they adopted it, and then they gave me a standing ovation for five minutes, they were so relieved It was all over."
It is a story of powerplay and persuasion, and the seasoned diplomat tells it with disarmingly childlike delight and barely concealed pride when he recalls some of the manoeuvres that he and his team pulled off.
The Palestinian problem:
The Palestinian question, that mainstay of international politics, emerged as the main obstacle to consensus on one of the conference’s key documents, the Rio Declaration which sets out 27 principles for sustainable development.
Principle 23 of the Declaration refers to the rights of people under occupation to their environment and natural resources. This, Prof Koh says, was consistent with the law of war, and was acceptable to everyone.
Everyone, that is, except Israel, with its own occupied territories. But he managed to persuade Israel, through the United States, not to touch the delicately balanced text of the Rio Declaration, which had been negotiated in earlier preparatory meetings.
In return, however, the Israelis wanted the Palestine Liberation Organization to give up the sticky phrases "people under occupation" and "organizations under occupation", wherever these occurred in Agenda 21, the 800-page action plan for sustainable development.
"To them it was rubbing salt in the wound. They were prepared to accept one wound in the Rio Declaration, but they appealed to me to help them not to have so much salt rubbed into their wound, because these two phrases occur all over Agenda 21."
To get the PLO’s sanction, he enlisted the help of friends within delegations close to the PLO: Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia and Iran. "They leaned on the PLO."
The PLO gave in — at a price. "In the preamble to Agenda 21, I gave the PLO a ‘hook’ saying that in implementing Agenda 21, full respect shall be given to all the principles in the Rio Declaration."
The net result of a week of negotiations was a three-point package deal: adopt the Rio Declaration with no amendments, delete the references to foreign occupation in Agenda 21, and link Agenda 21 to the Rio Declaration.
Second vs Third Worlds:
The former communist states of eastern Europe were competing with developing countries for aid from the West, and this spilled over into talks on Agenda 21.
"After a stormy debate I managed to settle the conflict by maintaining the priority for developing countries, but drawing special attention to the needs of the countries in transition in eastern Europe."
The eastern Europeans were content. "For the rest of the conference, they were supportive."
Forest convention: The US wanted a legally binding convention on forest protection. Malaysia, with its own stock of tropical rainforest, refused.
Enter German Environment Minister Klaus Toepter. He chaired the talks on the Statement of Principles on Forests and broke the deadlock at 3 in the morning.
The US gave in and did not insist on a legal convention. Instead, the two sides agreed to "consider the need for and the feasibility of all kinds of appropriate internationally agreed arrangements to promote international co-operation on forest management".
Prof Koh said of the Malaysian delegation: "Although they took a very hard and confrontational stance on forests, when it came to the final night, they were very reasonable. They did not want to wreck the conference. They were willing to accommodate the developed countries."
G77 and the GEF: The Group of 77 developing nations had rejected outright the proposal to channel aid through the World Bank’s Global Environmental Fund (GEF).
"On finance, we started the session with no text, not even an agreed basis for negotiation," Prof Koh notes.
But Pakistan, chairman of the Group of 77, came to the rescue, through its UN ambassador Jamsheed Marker. "In two weeks, he managed to persuade his group to move 180 degrees in accepting GEF.
"Without Jamsheed Marker there could have been no Earth Summit, because he’s so decent, reasonable, eloquent and cool."
Saudi Arabia — villain of the piece?: Prof Koh takes a dim view of Saudi Arabia’s performance at the conference. "The Saudis are not used to having to negotiate."
The oil exporter wanted to wreck a chapter on atmosphere because of its implications for energy policies.
"They protested so many times that they were completely marginalized, and I said, you make your reservations for the record, we have to proceed."
If Saudi Arabia emerged as the villain of the piece, there were also a few heroes.
With the US abdicating its natural leadership role, he says, the European Community tried to fill the void. "The Dutch and the Germans were particularly outstanding."
The Nordic countries were constructive as usual. "(Ambassador) Bo Kjellen of Sweden in particular was fantastic. He helped me to stare down the Saudis."
The Indian delegation was superb to a man, while China often put forward compromises. Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, Gambia and Egypt were also specially helpful.
And his personal impact?
He extracts a copy of a Brazilian newspaper from his briefcase and opens it to a page from which smiles his likeness. It is a story about him, but it is in Portuguese, which he does not read. But he hears it includes references to his "Buddhistic calm", he says, smiling benignly.
Source : The Straits Times, June 20, 1992
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