We have always shown we’re good global citizens... now we deserve a place at top UN table

THINK about Irish aid workers abroad, fixing a well in Mozambique, perhaps, or our soldiers in South Lebanon, under the watch of the Israeli artillery. Or Irish diplomats, indeed, inspecting a new school in Vietnam, aided with Irish public money. Think also of the same diplomats at long meetings in Geneva, Vienna and New York, arguing for a reduction in nuclear weapons and in global conflicts generally.

What you are imagining here is the soft power of Ireland abroad, as part of our United Nations duty. And even if you begrudged or were wary of the spending of Irish public monies in these far away places, you could at least console yourself that such activity creates a goodwill factor for Ireland and raises its international profile in a way that can later have positive effects in terms of inward investment, and tourists and connections in trade and culture.

Legacy

This is Ireland’s international legacy to the world. It is not invading countries, or carrying out bombing raids or drone strikes, or putting up provocative tariff barriers. These, alas, are the things too often done by the great powers, or superpowers, and even by our Western allies.

Yes, of course, the Americans have also engaged in positive diplomacy (they helped achieve peace in Northern Ireland, for example) and have done great amounts of charitable work, but the Americans’ soft power is too often accompanied and overshadowed by the hard power of military engagement.

With Ireland, it is just soft power. We are militarily neutral and although there is a gradual increase in our EU military cooperation, we remain neutral.

We are not in Nato, and we do not have missile batteries or an arms industry.

Instead, we send aid workers, nurses and electricians around the world, and soldiers to divided lands wearing the blue helmets of the UN peacekeepers.

Crucially, we are unusual among European countries in not colonising other nations, but in being colonised ourselves, and understanding what this means. We are a small but proud country and we understand why the United Nations is so valuable.

To crown all this ongoing activity, Ireland is now seeking another term on the United Nations Security Council. This is the crucial decision-making body of the UN, when it comes to sanctions and war.

All the countries of the world are members of the UN General Assembly, which sits in New York in that great amphitheatre room with the green marble lectern at which many famous leaders have spoken over the decades.

But really this is just a debating chamber, however laudable it may be.

The Security Council is where the real decisions are made, and it has only 15 members. This reflects the wishes of US president Fraklin D Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, after World War Two, that the UN should revive the idea of a global association of equals (the General Assembly), but actually keep the real power in the hands of the bigger players (the Security Council).

Hence the Security Council has five permanent members who are basically the ‘victors’ of World War Two – the US, Russia, China, France and the UK. These also, individually, have the power of veto.

The other ten members are voted onto the council, on a regional basis, for two-year terms. Every year, two places come up. This is simply how it rotates. Ireland is going for one of the two seats which fall free for the 2021-2022 term. The vote is not until 2020, but intense work has already been done by our officials and ministers.

Earlier this month, Leo Varadkar was in New York pushing our candidacy, and the State paid the bill for a concert by Bono, supporting our case.

The campaign, in other words, is under way, and is the linchpin of the Taoiseach’s stated ambition to boost Ireland’s profile and foreign legacy in the post-Brexit era.

It’s all about branding these days, and Ireland has a strong and established appeal when it comes to tourism and inward investment, as well as our humanitarian reputation and our diminishing neutrality. So we may as well combine these two elements into a strong pitch for our international profile – and a UN Security Council seat.

Ireland has had this seat before. Indeed, we actually chaired the UN Security Council in 1982 when the Falklands conflict happened and when Israel invaded Lebanon.

As the Irish Ambassador to the UN at the time, Noel Dorr was in the chair, and the veteran diplomat has since written a book, Small State At The Big Table, about that particular period, describing the pressures he was under.

Intense

Ireland also had a term on the Security Council in 20012002 when the 9/11 terrorist attacks happened in the US, and again the pressure was intense. But not as intense as it would be in the years following when the US pushed for overseas invasions.

Many would argue that this would have been the ideal time for Ireland to push against such militarism, but in reality it would have had no effect in that heated post-9/11 atmosphere. Besides, would we have really wanted to annoy our American friends to that degree?

Now, it is a different era. But given how much we have contributed to the UN as a forum in which to resolve international conflict and reduce tensions, then surely we are ideally placed to secure and bolster the UN and its legacy against both the unilateralism of US president Donald Trump, and Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s global upheaval. (Indeed, in a landmark achievement of our own, we led the development of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to help eliminate nuclear arsenals.)

That’s certainly how Ireland is selling it, and even at the Ploughing Championships last month (yes, our UN campaign is getting in everywhere!), the Department of Foreign Affairs had taken a stall, with people handing out leaflets making the case for us getting a Security Council seat.

The pitch was an interesting mixture of almost left-wing activism combined with corporate speak – ‘combat hunger and poverty’ alongside ‘promote trade and investment’. But that’s to be expected: that’s the mix that has served Ireland as a country and it increasingly reflects our feel-good, touchy-feely political culture and Government.

Opposition

However, we are up against stiff opposition in our campaign, with Canada and Norway also going for the slot, the latter of which has put considerable resources into its canvassing.

But we have an excellent foreign service and a strong international reputation and brand that belies our size; as Garret FitzGerald said of a previous Irish term on the Security Council: ‘We punch above our weight.’

To secure a Security Council berth for two years would be a reassuring confirmation of our international standing despite Brexit – or even, dare we say it, because of it. We joined the UN in 1955, after all, to get out from under the shadow of the British. And we’ve come a long way since then.

Securing another Security Council seat for 2021-2022 would only confirm that we are well out of that shadow and more than able to represent ourselves, the EU and, indeed, the UN itself, on the 21st-century world stage.

We should do everything in our power to support the campaign to give ourselves this important global voice.