- And its concerns in recent years as it confronts a seemingly endless list of problems.

The Economic and Social Council has 54 members elected by the General Assembly for three year terms.

They work through the UN specialized agencies and other programs and commissions to achieve the third major purpose of the Charter International cooperation in solving economic and social problems and in promoting human rights.

- Today, by far, the greatest part of the UN's effort is devoted to this work, a global attack on poverty, hunger, disease, and ignorance.

It calls for skills in many fields and each is the concern of a different UN body.

Together they are known as the UN family.

Some are independent agencies with their own budgets and charters like FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization, WHO, the World Health Organization and the World Bank.

Others have more direct links to the General Assembly and are paid for out of the UN budget or by voluntary contributions like UNDP, the United Nations Development Program, or unicef, the Children's Fund.

- A new DAM could eventually involve half a dozen UN organizations, a study to determine the best location alone to build it experts, to train skilled workers, planning for new industries to use the power irrigation schemes to use the water negotiation of trade agreements for exported produce.

- And what about the effect on the environment?

An emergency operation means caring for people with food and medical aid.

It also means long-term planning, agricultural research into new crops, water systems, education in nutrition and childcare, housing and population studies.

- And what about their human rights?

The economic and Social Council coordinates all these interdependent efforts.

It sets priorities and reports back to the General Assembly with recommendations and draft resolutions.

The final cog in the machinery is a secretariat of international civil servants researchers, statisticians, translators, technical experts, economic advisors, and administrators.

- At the head of the secretariat is the Secretary General appointed by the General Assembly on a recommendation of the Security Council.

As Chief Administrator, the Secretary General is responsible for running the organization smoothly and as head of the United Nations.

He, or perhaps one day she is an important diplomatic figure.

He may bring matters to the attention of the Security Council and the general Assembly, and he may use his good offices publicly or privately to help settle the disputes between states.

- And we're back live from the studios of Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia with our panelist, Mr.

Ricard in New York.

Again, the telephone number eight oh four four four zero and you'll see that number coming up, coming up on the screen back where I have to refer to my notes, 4 4 0 4 7 2 9.

If you would like to phone in some questions for our guests and panelists this afternoon, Mr.

Erhart in New York, what did the framers of the United Nations charter learn from the demise of the League of Nations and how did they use that knowledge in designing the UN structure as we know it today, sir, - The first thing they learned, it seems to me, was that if great powers don't belong to a world organization, it's going to be very defective.

As you remember, the United States never joined the league.

I think the second thing they learned was that a collective security system without teeth won't work.

That is you must have a, a provision in the charter for the nations of the world led by the great powers to get together if necessary, to use force to keep the peace.

Of course, that particular provision of the charter has never been used except in the Korean affair when the, when the uni, the Soviet Union was absent from the Security Council.

But I think those were the two main lessons, and we do have one of them still enforced.

That is the question of universality.

As I said before, the United Nations with 159 members now is very broadly representative of the whole planet.

We do not as yet have the other, which is the capacity, the collective capacity of the membership to get together and if necessary, apply forceful measures.

Though occasionally they do that, I mean sanctions, for example, or one such measure which have been applied in a number of cases.

And of course there is the question of peacekeeping, which is using military personnel in a nonviolent role, which is a very important innovation of the United Nations in that, in, in the sphere of conflict control.

To give you some example of what I mean, if we were, for example, to remove the 1,250 man force on the golden heights between the armies of Syria and Israel, I think it's fairly safe to say that we would have a world class crisis in a, in a matter of days.

These are very important conflict control mechanisms.

They are not the same thing as a consensus for a collective system where everybody, if necessary is required to join in - Mr.

Erhart, we come back to our panelists here.

We introduced earlier in the program Mariano Acevedo, and he has a question for you at this time, sir.

- Thank you, Mr.

Tiller.

Mr.

Erhart, would you please explain how a question comes before the security council?

- Well, a question can come before the security council in a number of ways.

The most normal way is for a government to bring a question to the security council, and that's what usually happens.

The council itself can decide to take up a question, and then of course, the Secretary General under Article 99 of the charter has the right to bring to the attention of the security council any situation which he believes to be a threat to the peace or an act of aggression.

And that has happened on a number of occasions too, notably in the Congo and during the hostage crisis in Iran.

- Mr.

Ricard, we have another question from one of our panelists here.

Leanne Burman sitting on the end.

Leann, - Thank you Mr.

She, I have two questions for you, Mr.

Erhart.

IL has come under numerous attacks and the first question is, should these attacks persist, how long can member states realistically be expected to support this operation?

My second question is, in the long run, will these attacks secure peacekeeping forces and trouble spots?

- Damn, they gone.

Well, let me answer the the first question.

IL has now been in place since 1978 in a situation which is about as difficult as you can find, I think, anywhere in the world, because in the first place there is no governmental authority inside Lebanon.

There is just a mass of warring factions.

And of course it is attached to the terrible problem of the question of Lebanon as a whole, as well as to the Israeli preoccupation with attacks from Lebanon.

It's, it's about the most difficult situation the peacekeeping operation can be in.

And I think it's an enormous tribute to the governments who provide the troops and the troops themselves that they have stayed there for eight years and tried to do the best they could with the result that whatever else you may say about fight Lebanon, the IL area is probably one of the best places in Lebanon to actually live.

If you're Lebanese, if no mean achievement, believe me, I don't think that that this is a solution to anything.

However, I think that much more effort has got to be made to produce the conditions in which IL can finish its job.

And at the moment, there is no sign of that happening.

Will it, will IL's experience deter countries from taking part in peacekeeping?

I don't think so.

I think it's a sign of how important the government's concern believe IL's presence in Lebanon to be that they have maintained their troops there for eight years under very, very difficult conditions, including having people killed.

I think that shows a very responsible attitude on the part of those governments.

And it also is a measure of the seriousness of the situation which would happen if we pulled IL out.

And I think that peacekeeping operations are, are very often going to be like that.

Governments are prepared within reason to take risks if they think that the cause of international peace will be served best by doing so.

And as long as we have governments who are prepared to do that, we shall have peacekeeping operations.

I think it's important to remember that peacekeeping operations don't go into an ideal situation.

They go in precisely because the situation is a mess and you can't really expect to have perfect order and perfect conditions for a peacekeeping operation.

And governments realize that these, these operations are put in to make, to control conflict in very sensitive areas of the world where if that conflict gets out of hand, it'll immediately escalate a much wider conflict, possibly even the confrontation of the nuclear powers.

They are not matters of small importance, even if they're small in numbers and have very light weapons, but I think governments understand that, which is the reason why they support peacekeeping operations.

- Thank you, Mr.

Erhart.

We'll be back with our panelists in just a moment, but we now have a question from the audience here at Dominion University in Norfolk, and we'll turn that question over.

Now, - Mr.

Erhart, would you please explain the role of the Secretary General's good offices in mediating disputes between member states and in recent years?

Has this method been successful in resolving any specific disputes?

- Well, the good obvious is, is, I'm glad you asked.

That is a sort of awkward phrase, but it has a history like everything else.

We used to talk very freely about mediation.

We had a mediator, for example, in in, in, in Palestine, Ken Bedo who was assassinated.

And then Dr.

Bunch took over that that function and in fact negotiated in that function.

The amist disagreements between Israel and her Arab neighbors an extremely important achievement for which he got the Nobel Peace Prize.

We had a mediator in Cyprus at one time who proposed a solution of that problem.

Unfortunately, it was violently objected to by one side the Turks and the mediator was, was no longer acceptable to one side, so he couldn't operate, but a mediator is, can put a proposal on the table.

Good offices means that you can simply work between two conflicting parties and try to narrow their differences and get them to propose means of settling them.

It's a much more limited function.

The Secretary General at the moment is conducting that function in a number of areas in Southeast Asia, in Afghanistan, in the Iran, Iraq War and in Cyprus.

And if you look at that list, you can easily see that's a hardcore list.

Those are very difficult problems to solve.

I think that one must understand that the negotiating process has a great importance on its own, whether or not it gets results.

If you have a negotiation going, it means that people are involved and you don't leave a vacuum, which can be filled by violence or extremism.

And that is what happens, for example, in Cyprus.

It's an exceptionally difficult, though small problem.

And what has happened with these negotiations is that it's rather like the scopic stabilizer on a ship.

The negotiate negotiating process goes round and round and keeps the whole vessel more or less stable.

Some other forces are needed usually to propel the vessel towards its destination, but the negotiating process should not be underestimated.

I think that the, the difficulty for the Secretary General is that he does not have the kind of means of pressure, the clout, which sovereign states have.

He does not have military or financial or economic or political clout.

What he can do is to take on extremely difficult situations and try to open up the avenues by which they might be solved.

And if he can do that, that's a very important function.

Curious enough, if you actually succeed, the result is always forgotten.

I don't know how many of you remember the case of the future of Bahrain, for example, in the Gulf.

This was a very hot issue in the late sixties when the British were leaving the Gulf and a number of countries had claims on Bahrain, my predecessor in the United Nations Ralph Bunch negotiated that and negotiated a face saving device by which everybody gave up their claims on Bahrain.

And Bahrain became an independent state that was a totally successful negotiation and therefore has been totally forgotten.

Mr.

- Erhart, we have some phone in questions that have come in from around the country and we'll get to those in just a moment.

But in the meantime, we would like to show you a film clip that was shot in October of this year during the third annual Old Dominion University model you in collegiate conference.

- The chair will now entertain a motion for the first item on the agenda.

Bulgaria - Delegation of Bulgaria would like to introduce the topic of Central America for discussion today.

- There is now a motion before the chair to establish Central America as the first item on the agenda.

- Just as the League of Nations laid the foundation for the United Nations.

Any objection?

So to the Mock League of Nations spawned the concept of simulating the United Nations commonly known around the country as model United Nations.

- I think there's a need for an immediate international solution to the problem in Central America.

I think we have to right now today reflect that we are sick and tired of all this outdated problems created on the basis of dogmatic ideologies.

It is not a question of ideology that we are discussing here.

It's not a question of bipolar perception in international relations.

We are dealing with life and death struggle in that region.

- Model UN simulations are being popularized by an ever-growing community of high school and college students interested in international relations.

It is estimated that 60,000 students participate in this activity annually in the United States.

Furthermore, the number of major conferences which are held in Europe annually attest to the universal appeal of the UN and to the desire of young people worldwide to simulate this institution - Concerning Afghanistan as an internal problem.

So I'm sure the Soviet Union can relate to that and that is why there are other pressing topics that are more pertinent to the agenda than the issue in South Africa.

Thank - The government of Venezuela condemns all aggression against third world nations by the superpowers we believe - With a premium always placed on realism.

Delegates who attend model United Nations conferences attacked the world's most challenging problems with the same conviction and principles, as did the statesman who created the UN over 40 years ago.

- We will be returning to Mr.

Erhart in just a moment with a couple more questions, but we want to direct some questions now to our panelists.

Beginning on my left, Tony Callas.

Tony, how was the ODU model?

United Nations organized this year.

- Thank you Mr.

Tilley.

This year we have a number of new features that I'll explain in a second.

This year's General Assembly has been expanded to include four GA committees.

They're the political and security committee, special political disarmament and social humanitarian, and they will discuss such divergent issues as the Middle East International terrorism, the Antarctica women's roles in Afghanistan.

We also have a economic and social council, which will discuss human rights, refugees and the problem of drugs.

In addition, this new council will have special ad hoc committees that will focus on new ways to attack the drug problem and perhaps come up with hypothetical international draft conventions and treaties.

The security council will address the issues of Southern Africa, central America, and the Middle East in the International Court of Justices.

Justice student delegates from ODU will present the cases to the justices from the various high schools and they in turn will render their judgments to the body, to the ga.

And if time permits, we'll have a special advisory opinion yielded by that body to the Secretary General.

And this year we will also have for the first time a historical security council, which will proceed under the the pretext that the year is 1914 and the world is teetering on the brink of World War I - And a much larger question now directed to Tim Glover.

Tim, what's the philosophy behind the ODU model United Nations?

- Well, the purpose of Model UN simulations is to provide a participatory learning experience for students.

Each student is assigned one or more countries to represent on committees, discussing the key issues before the un.

In their preparation, the student delegates learn about the history, culture, and policies of the country that they have been assigned.

They learn about the un its structure and functions.

They learn about the issues before their committees.

They learn about the role their country plays at the United Nations.

The philosophy behind the ODU model UN is to provide as realistic a simulation of the UN in New York as it's possible in a three day program.

We do not want our delegates to leave with an unrealistic idea of how the UN operates.

As a result, we monitored the conference constantly to assure realistic country portrayals, which is our primary criterion in judging for awards.

- Alright, we'll be back with the panelists in just a moment, but Mr.

Erhart, back to you in New York.

We've received some phone in questions and we have a question from Rex Broom, a sophomore at Kaiser High School in Kaiser, West Virginia.

And we've rewritten the question here on the panel based on us not really hearing whether or not you addressed weighted voting.

The question in its original form was how do you propose to do away with weighted voting?

We never heard that proposition from you in New York, so we're going to rephrase the question.

Would you propose to do away with weighted voting?

- Well, I think we already dealt with that.

I, not a question of whether I proposed to do away with weighted voting.

It's a question of whether it's politically even remotely possible to get the membership to accept weighted voting.

There isn't.

There is weighted voting in the United Nations, as I pointed out, in in, in, in the sense that in the Security Council five, the five permanent members had the veto, but in the General assembly there is no such thing.

The idea now is to try to introduce weighted voting on budgetary matters in the general assembly.

I think inevitably that will run into enormous objections from the large majority of the membership.

And I think that some other means of controlling the budgetary and program process will have to be devised because I very much doubt if they will accept that.

- Ricard.

Another question from the Model UN Club of Cox High School in Virginia Beach.

How does the UN determine whether or not to send in troops to a troubled area?

How are the troops dispersed?

- Well, the, the sending in of troops, I take it we're talking about peacekeeping here.

Of course, in the charter, theoretically, at any rate, the, if the security council votes an enforcement action, you can send in a fighting army.

But that has never happened except in Korea.

As far as peacekeeping is concerned, it requires a decision of the security council.

It requires the ascent of whatever country the troops are going to operate in, and it requires the willingness of a number of countries to provide the troops.

The whole thing is voluntary.

Once you've got those elements in place, the council and the Secretary General will decide who will take part in the operation, who will command it, and then the operation can be launched.

That is the, but there it is not possible to send a peacekeeping force into a country or even military observers without the a, a positive decision of the security council.

- We'll come back to the panel now.

Again, we introduced earlier Tony Callis, who's Director General of the ODU Model UN Society.

Tony has a question for you, Mr.

Erhart.

- Thank you Mr.

Erhart.

Recently the United States refused to comply with an International Court of Justice ruling concerning the mining of Nicaragua Harbors.

Does this refusal, in your opinion, injure the credibility of the World Court and signal perhaps the demise of the court?

- No, I think it injures the credibility of the United States.

- Will you now have another question from Tim Glover?

Tim, - Mr.

What do you feel is the value of students throughout the country participating in Model United Nations?

- Well, I have actually been fortunate enough to take part in a number of model United Nations sessions, and I think they are easily the best way of getting students and young people really involved in what is really involved in international affairs and in an organization like the United Nations.

I think it, it, I've been extremely impressed over the years by the amount of work that people put in, how interested and involved they become in trying to see a international situation through the eyes of someone far away, another country.

And I think that this, this is an absolutely remarkable and, and extremely valuable process.

And I'm very glad you are, you're, you're organizing this one that we're engaging in today.

I think this, I think there is no way even remotely comparable to this for trying to develop a real understanding below the superficial appearances of things, of what international relations and international problems are all about.

- Mr.

Ard Odus modeled you in society's business manager and one of the three under Secretary Generals of the 1987 high school conferences, Mariano Acevedo.

We introduced him earlier and he has another question for you as we start to wind this up.

- Thank you, Mr.

Tiller.

Mr.

Erhart, in your opinion, are economic sanctions and or embargoes effective modes of political persuasion?

- I think that I, I didn't quite catch your question, but I think it was the validity of economic sanctions and embargoes.

I think this is one way of doing things.

I think that, that these are perhaps in most CI cases more likely to be psychological weapons than actually practical ones because it's incredibly easy, especially for a fairly developed state to get round sanctions.

There are always people who are prepared to break sanctions for financial gain as we are seeing now.

And I, I think that it's very important to remember that maybe the political and psychological symbolism of sanctions is their most important and effective part.

I, my, my own feeling is that one wants to consider very carefully what measures are most likely to achieve the objectives you have in mind, what is most likely to influence the government and people who you are directing your attention to.

And I personally believe that it's extremely important to think much more deeply about this, to think really whether, for example, sanctions on South Africa are going to make the South African government change its course on apartheid, or are they going to reinforce the extremes in South Africa to the extent that it will make the situation worse.

This is a very unpopular point to produce, but I think it's important to think about it.

I it's very important not to be carried away by slogans and to really think what the practical result of what you're trying to do is going to be.

I'm not saying that sanctions aren't a very important weapon.

I think they are, but I think you've got to consider in every case precisely what effect they're really going to have and how effective they're going to be.

- Another question from one of our panelists, Leanne Burman, who we introduced earlier in the program as a secretariat member of the ODU model, UN Lee Ann.

- Mr.

Erhart, what has the UN done to promote the legal status of women worldwide?

- Well, it, as in so many other fields of activity, I think the UN's efforts on this have been extremely well intentioned and the results so far at generate are less impressive than one would wish.

But I think that an enormous amount of attention has been raised and it was necessary to raise that attention by the commission on the status of women by the various human rights documents and by the conference in, in Kenya last year, the, which was a very important gathering, not only a governmental gathering, but also perhaps even more important, an enormous gathering of non-governmental organizations.

And I think if you have a great problem as this and a fundamental problem as this is, it's no good.

Supposing you are going to solve centuries and centuries of neglect and error in one fell swoop.

You are not, you have to raise public consciousness.

You have to get all sorts of pressures going and you have to proceed as best you can in trying to get support for what you're doing.

And I think that is what is being done through the UN and through a lot of other organizations as well.

As I say, the, the results so far are nothing remotely good enough.

But on the other hand, it's a start.

And I think that the important thing in the UN or one of its important functions, which one is, is to create awareness of great problems and put in motion the kind of forces which might be able to solve them.

Take a completely different field, the environment.

I think that the whole effort in the UN on the environment has been immensely important in raising public consciousness all over the world and starting the pressures on governments and large corporate organizations and so on, which eventually we hope will have the right kind of effect, but you're not going to do it overnight.

- In closing, Mr.

Erhart, in closing, in the past, the UN was often stymied by east west tensions.

Today, north South clashes frequently paralyzed the general assembly as the UN enters its fifth decade.

Might you speculate on the mission and even on the form the UN may have in say 10 years, - I hope very much that we may see some advance on the East West problem.

You are quite right.

It has paralyzed the UN very, very often in the first 40 years.

And let us hope that that will begin to change because it's essential for any international political organization to function properly.

That particular disadvantage must be at least reduced, if not lifted.

As far as the North south business is concerned.

I believe that we have seen a great deal of progress in that.

I think that you now have a, in most of the third world, a very pragmatic, extremely serious minded leadership, which is simply waiting for a lead in the UN and elsewhere on the enormous problems which they're facing.

And it's one of the reasons why I wish that the United States at this particular moment wasn't so estranged from the United Nations because I think one of the very few countries which can take the lead in the United Nations on the kind of problems which are going to affect the lives of our children and grandchildren is the United States.

And I think that the United Nations offers a unique forum for taking that kind of lead if it's followed up.

We had one example of that this past year, which I think was remarkable, which was the special session on the problems of Africa, which contrary to the general belief, came out with a remarkably sensible, pragmatic, serious, really profound agreed conclusion on a very difficult problem.

And if that is the a sign of what the future will be, I think on the north south side, we may look forward to great things.

And I hope I'm right.

- Mr.

Eckhart, thank you very much for joining us from New York today.

And I also wanna thank Ms.

Jorgensen and Mr.

Luck for being with us and of course, you the viewers.

Our next program will focus on Southern Africa with Ambassador Leala, Joseph Leala of Botswana as our special guest.

We hope you plan to join us next Wednesday at noon Eastern Standard Time as the model United Nations teleconference series continues from Norfolk, Virginia.

I'm Ed Tillett, thank you very much.

And our special thanks to WHRO television in Norfolk.

Good day.