Paper for the CSUN Roundtable on the Future of the United Nations Issue Forums
by Jolayne Hinkel and George Rawitscher

The terrible destruction in New York and the Pentagon, September 11 2001, the likewise terrible destructions in the wars against Afghanistan, and now Iraq, the formation of many terrorist organizations, all this violence calls out desperately for a better, faster, and more civilized method to resolve conflict.

One reason for this violence is the inability of opposing factions to remedy their differences by diplomacy, due to the lack of mutual understanding, and the lack of desire of the leaders to compromise. That in turn is due to the arrogance of the political leaders. Their strength lies in dehumanizing the "enemies", and subsequently leading their respective nations to providing protection against these enemies.

Nowadays there are a lot of cultural and economic rifts developing between societies in the world. These rifts make conflict "transformation" especially difficult. There are many sources of conflict, as the world gets more inter-related. The quest for water, energy, food, in part due to the overpopulation of many areas, the lack of educational and medical resources, the despotism of leaders, all of these contribute to the rise of hate and violence.

An immediate remedy that would not require altering the present nationalistic structure of governments may be to create a venue for each interest group to express their particular needs and grievances. Once established, these venues, to be called "Issue-Forums", would permit the various groups with opposing ideas to come together so as to express their views and values in a civilized, logical, well documented, form, preferably by a panel of carefully chosen of "pro" and "con" experts, thus avoiding the ineffective form of communication that occurs via street demonstrations or overt violent acts. The carefully chosen "representatives" of particular viewpoints should preferably not include political leaders, for the reasons mentioned above. Furthermore, these issue forums should be convened by the highest authorities possible, and should be given maximum public press.

These forums would serve a number of important purposes. They would act as a lightening rod for aggrieved groups, and thus hopefully reduce the need for terrorist acts. They would show that different groups have different and valid ways of thinking, thus hopefully increase the respect for the cultural differences between groups.

However, the most important aspect would be the following. The confrontation that takes place in an issues forum may not resolve the differences between the parties. It would, however, serve to clarify the differences and expose them to the rest of the world, particularly to the delegates of the United Nations. Once those parts of the differences that appear to be insurmountable have been defined and exposed, then an international body, such as an international court for conflict resolution, could be called upon to suggest ways of transforming the conflict into positive remedial action. The next step might be taken by the United Nations, and an imminent war, or an imminent episode of genocide could be prevented. The main difference from the present UN procedures would be that the people, through the issue forums, have a greater voice.

Take as an example the demonstrations against the war in Iraq involving 10 million people all over the world. If, during the rallies in each major town, there were a way for the demonstrators to select amongst them two or three of the most persuasive speakers, then the General Assembly of the UN could invite say 20 of these selected people to come and speak at a session of the GA, especially convened to discuss the Iraq issue. The proceedings of this special session could be televised, and made available through the Internet. Of course, this is only an example, and better ways could be devised.

The establishment of these "issue-forums", together with an international court for conflict resolution, would be welcomed and supported by the many peace and conflict resolution programs already in existence at many universities all over the world. A check on the web revealed 96 such programs, some of them of an international nature. These forums would also stimulate the creation of violence reduction programs in middle schools and high schools, already in existence at several locations in the US.

The mechanism for avoiding wars that is operational at present is too slow. The seven year long process of creating the International Criminal Court is an example. The ICC will be a wonderful addition to international law since it brings to justice the perpetrators of crimes against humanity, and perhaps will prevent some future wars, but it punishes only after the crimes have been committed. An important point of the Issues Forums is that they may offer a mechanism for resolving conflicts before the violence has been committed.