The Erskine Childers Lecture 2003.
The 2003 Erskine Childers Lecture was given by
Caroline Lucas MEP on Crisis
in the UN, EU and NATO, with Linda Melvern
in the chair. Over 200 people attended the lecture; many of whom asked Caroline
Lucas MEP questions.
The text of this and reports of all the Erskine Childers
lectures will soon be published in a book by Action For UN Renewal. The Quotes below give
a flavour of the lecture.
Statement by Caroline Lucas
" what better time to be delivering such a speech - despite the
end of the Cold War we still live in a hugely dangerous and insecure world. Amnesty
International recently stated that the American government's response to the September
11th attacks "far from making the world a safer place, has made it more dangerous by
curtailing human rights and undermining the rule of international law".
The world is currently facing an American government
with a more unilateral approach to foreign policy than at any time in recent history. It
has led many to question how the international system should be run.
It has even raised the most fundamental question of all: should
there, indeed, be an international system at all, or would we do better simply with
variable geographies of "coalitions of the willing".
The Iraq crisis has shaken many of our international institutions to their very roots.
The UN was perceived to be powerless, the EU angry and disunited. Yet at the same time,
citizens are looking to these institutions as perhaps never before for moral authority and
leadership. That gives us a vital opportunity, and indeed responsibility, to revitalise
these institutions, and to shape them anew for the t
wenty first century.
Key questions must include: what is the EU for? As 10 new members join, how will it
keep its focus and relevance? How should the UN change to meet the challenges of an
increasingly unipolar world? And where does NATO fit in?
I will also focus on the role of the UN in economic decision-making. As Thomas
Jefferson remarked, "as new discoveries are made, new truths
discovered...institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times." One of
today's "new truths" is that freedom is about much more than the right to vote,
once every few years, for one of a few increasingly identical groups of politicians.
Freedom is also about the right to decide your economic destiny - and that is precisely
what globalisation - the global spread of neoliberal capitalism - is taking away from
people the world over, impoverishing them in the process.
We therefore need major changes in our global financial direction and regulation - and
the UN has a key role to play. As Erskine Childers himself recognised, it is still
entirely appropriate to envisage the strategies for the IMF and WTO being negotiated and
agreed at the UN. Unless we address the vast and increasing inequalities between rich and
poor, global insecurity can only grow."
Office of Dr Caroline Lucas
Green Member of the European Parliament for S.E. England
web: www.carolinelucasmep.org.uk