A series of developments leading to 2003 saw the UN increasingly marginalised, unable to respond and made irrelevant to peace and security in the world, the raison de'etre for its creation in 1945. It began with Srebrenica and Rwanda in the mid 1990s when despite the presence of UN soldiers (few in the case of Rwanda), mass scale massacres could not be prevented. Indeed, in Rwanda some 800,000 people were brutally massacred by largely unarmed civilians in inter-tribal rivalry over a period of three months, even as the world remained paralysed. Again in 1999 at Kosovo, the NATO forces intervened without specific UN sanction, in what some termed as a 'necessary war'. Finally, in 2003 in Iraq, the doctrine of self defence was invoked to preventively strike Iraq, bypassing the UN even as its sanctions and inspections were beginning to have the desired effect.

It appeared as if the consensus on collective security through the UN, the basis of the post Second World War global order, was coming apart. According to Kofi Annan, the Secretary General, the UN had "reached a fork in the road". To bring it back on track and initiate a global debate on necessary reforms, the Secretary General set-up on 4 November 2003 a High Level Panel of 16 eminent persons from around the world.

The Panel was tasked to examine the threats and challenges facing the world. The terms of reference were wide. It was asked to recommend clear and practical measures of the changes necessary to ensure effective collective action including but not limited to a review of the principal organs of the United Nations. The Panel carried out a year of consultations around the world. Four were held in Asia, in China, Japan and Singapore, hosted by their respective governments. The one for South Asia was hosted by the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies in Delhi in July 2004. The Panel submitted its report to the Secretary General on 1 December 2004. The SG will follow this up with a report of his own in March 2005 setting the agenda for a September summit at the UN to deliberate on its major recommendations. A debate on this is both necessary and important.

The Report itself is in four parts. Part-1 examines the nature of threats to today's world. It concludes that these are interconnected and hence requires a collective response. That self-protection has its limits and state sovereignty cannot be inviolable and comes with responsibilities. There is today an even greater need for a collective security system that is effective, efficient and equitable. Indeed the world of 2005 is different from the world of 1945 in substantial ways. The threats are varied and different and responses can no longer remain the way they were originally visualised.

Part 2 of the Report constitutes a major part. It divides the threats we face into six clusters: economic and social threats, inter-state conflicts, internal conflict, threats from weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and trans-national organised crime. It then considers collective action in each case and considers challenges of prevention.

The Report has consciously avoided a distinction between hard security and soft security. It defines threats as "any event or process that leads to large-scale death or lessening of life chances and undermines States...". Both hard and soft security issues are and must remain a concern of the UN and the world in equal measure and cannot be separated into different compartments. This is a solid contribution and hopefully in future will lead to greater clarity in spelling out what needs to be secured and why. The threats posed by HIV/AIDS, poverty and environment are an integral part of the other threats that combine in a seamless pattern and lead from one to another to merge and challenge states in equal measure.

The Report makes a solid contribution by attempting a definition of terrorism. While not entirely final, the parameters spelt out leaves little room for speculation regarding its character. In brief it is defined as "any action, …. intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a government or an international organisation to do or to abstain from doing any act". The Report also calls for a consensus definition in the General Assembly and a comprehensive convention on terrorism. This definition will not entirely please South Block.

In the case of conflict, both between and within states, the Report emphasizes the need for preventive action. It identifies its four pillars; better international regulatory frameworks and norms, better information analysis, preventive diplomacy and mediation and where necessary, preventive deployment. The Report endorses the collective international responsibility to protect, to be exercised by the Security Council as a last resort, in the case of large-scale killing and ethnic cleansing within states.

*Dipankar Banerjee was a member of the Resource Group to the UN High Level Panel, in which capacity he participated in the Asia wide deliberations.