The InterDependent

Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, who has been described as “low-key” and “modest,” in the media and elsewhere, has revealed another side to his personality in his strenuous lobbying efforts to forge a climate change treaty in Copenhagen next month. Besides convening the UN’s climate change summit in September – a first for the world body and attracting major heads of state -- Ban has been meeting with Congressional members for months to pull the US aboard in Denmark to “seal the deal,” to borrow the UN’s slogan.

UN Photo/Sophie Paris Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Ban’s strategy has been based on the notion that climate change legislation that passed in the House of Representatives and that is now being debated in Senate chambers will spell success for an international treaty around the corner. And though expectations for a comprehensive pact to emerge from Copenhagen have been dashed, Ban’s approach reflects more pointedly that to gain the support of the whole world, the UN secretary-general must engage first and foremost with domestic lawmakers.

Ever aware of the crucial role the US plays in eventually putting together an agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, Ban has been shuttling to the capital in the mode of former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who realized that to obtain US financing for the UN, he needed to get to know the right people in America’s most politicized city.

Ban’s Trips to Meet D.C. VIPs

Since January, Ban has met with President Barack Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden, the speaker of the House, the energy secretary and members of various Senate and House Committees, traveling to Washington at least four times this year alone. Linda Fasulo, the author of “An Insider’s Guide to the UN,” said that while most secretaries-general travel to meet with Congress, the number of Ban’s trips was unusual.

This month, after the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee tumultuously drafted a climate bill, Ban was invited to Washington to engage with White House staffers as well as Congressional representatives to explain how other governments are approaching the coming negotiations in Copenhagen and what these governments expect from the US.

According to Janos Pasztor, the secretary-general’s chief adviser on climate change, Ban met with such key senators as John F. Kerry, Joseph I. Lieberman, Richard G. Lugar and George Voinovich, as well as the US special envoy for climate change, Todd Stern.

“The response was very positive,” said Pasztor, adding that though “it is clear that US legislation will not be passed before the summit, they discussed a framework document or hard summary” that would set a baseline for US negotiators. Pasztor said that the secretary-general was hardly limiting his visits to US politicians. He met, for example, the legislature in Greece on “whatever occasion he has.”

Pasztor said that despite Ban’s cultivation of Congress, “there is no systematic program developed” and that though Ban has no concrete plans to go back yet, he is sure to meet with officials again soon.

Washington and Other Secretaries-Generals

Some of Ban’s predecessors, like Kofi Annan and Javier Pérez de Cuéllar also used domestic opportunities to further UN goals. Annan’s trips to Washington to meet Congressional leaders who were not so friendly toward the UN turned out to be fruitful, said Frederic Eckhard, who was Annan’s spokesman and worked in the UN spokesperson’s office during the tenures of several other secretaries-general.

In his book, “Kofi Annan for the Record, a Spokesman’s Memoir,” to be published by Ruder Finn Press in 2010, Eckhard describes how the secretary-general met with senators and representatives, who held vastly different views on UN financing issues and accused the secretary-general of supporting a global tax.

Though Eckhard says in his book that initial meetings were “rough going,” he also notes that the credibility and trust built up over time fostered major progress in the US-UN relationship.

Robert C. Orr, assistant secretary-general for policy coordination and strategic planning at the UN, worked on the National Security Council at the time. He is quoted in Eckhard’s book as saying, “Members of Congress felt a level of confidence in Kofi Annan; they felt that if a deal were done on reform for arrears, the UN would not simply pocket the money without taking action on reform.”

James Sutterlin, a former speechwriter for Secretary-General Pérez de Cuéllar, said in an interview with UNA-USA that a Congressional amendment limiting US payments to the UN that had been authored by Kansas Senator Nancy Landon Kassebaum in 1985 took a different route after a dinner. There Kassebaum and Pérez de Cuéllar were seated next to each other, and the relationship between the US and the UN struck a new chord.

“I do not know how much this directly influenced the senator,” Sutterlin told UNA-USA. “But undeniably, her attitude toward the UN changed markedly after that, and she eventually became a supporter of the UN and cooperated in the eventual repeal of the amendment.” Kassebaum went on to become the National UN Day chairperson in 1992, a position meant to further recognition of the UN on the anniversary of its founding.

As Eckhard told UNA-USA in an e-mail, “A Secretary-General with credibility with the US Congress can make a difference.” Yet, this is not always easy to achieve, dinner conversations or otherwise, as demonstrated in Eckhard’s book, where he recalls an early trip by Annan to Washington and writes: “Ted Stevens of Alaska, the Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman, told Kofi that repairing the US-UN relationship ‘was going to be difficult.’ Boutros Boutros-Ghali had left a bad taste here, he said.”