UN Assembly approves weakened summit blueprint

UNITED NATIONS, Wednesday (Reuters) The U.N. General Assembly approved a watered-down declaration on development, human rights, terrorism and global security on Tuesday for adoption at the world body's 60th anniversary summit.

The meeting of world leaders is intended to revitalize the United Nations for the fight against poverty and environmental destruction, and make the sprawling organization more effective in tackling the 21st century threats of terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

But negotiators failed to agree on how to tackle nuclear proliferation or on a definition of terrorism sought by Western nations, and they fell short of commitments to greater aid and tearing down trade barriers that developing nations wanted.

"All of us would have wanted more, but we can work with what we have been given ... It is an important step forward," Secretary-General Kofi Annan told a news conference.

He reserved his sharpest criticism for the failure to agree on a common approach to nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, saying: "This is a real disgrace."

The three-day summit, starting Wednesday, will be one of the largest in history with some 150 kings, presidents and prime ministers converging on U.N. headquarters. It comes at a time when the world body and its Secretary-General have been weakened by a highly critical report on abuses of the U.N.-run oil-for-food program in Iraq. The incoming president of the General Assembly, Jan Eliasson of Sweden, said the document showed the United Nations could advance only as far as the 191 member states were willing to go.

"Still I would claim that this very ambitious reform proposal represents a major step for reform of the United Nations," Eliasson told a news conference.

Fresh initiatives include the establishment of a new human rights body, a Peacebuilding Commission to help nations emerging from war and perhaps most significantly, an obligation to intervene when civilians face genocide and war crimes.

The commitment to dismantle trade barriers was weaker than poor nations would have liked, while the West failed to secure the criteria it wanted for a new human rights council as well as detailed decisions on U.N. management reforms.

European Union External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said the proposed Human Rights Council was "a simple name-change" rather than a root-and-branch reform of the widely criticised U.N. Human Rights Commission, which includes countries such as Zimbabwe, Sudan and Cuba.

She also lamented the lack of progress towards building a more powerful U.N. environmental organisation.

The document condemns terrorism "in all its forms" but at the insistence of Islamic countries, negotiators deleted wording describing the targeting of civilians as "unjustified" in exchange for dropping a reference to national liberation struggles, such as that of the Palestinians.

The right to self-determination of people under foreign occupation was inserted elsewhere in the text. Delegates cheered the agreement loudly after divisive all-night and weekend negotiations among developing countries and rich nations and between the United States and Europe.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, who stunned delegates by issuing a barrage of amendments last month, said he was pleased with the outcome.

"This is not the alpha and omega and we never thought it would be. It was only ever going to be the first step," he said.

Cuba's delegate denounced some of the amendments inserted by the United States and criticized language on the goals of the new Human Rights Council as well as on trade. Venezuela also expressed reservations.

The United States and Annan had pressed hard for an overhaul of U.N. management structures that would move control of the U.N. secretariat away from the General Assembly.

But many of the proposals will be left for the General assembly to decide later, although the document approves external accounting and oversight and other measures.