Lecture Delivered at A.U. by H.E. Asda Jayanama, Thai Ambassador to United Nations on December 21,1999.

1. Introduction

   1.It is certainly good to be back home for the holiday season and to be at this beautiful campus for the first time. When I was invited to talk to you on the subject of “UN Multilateral Diplomacy: the Challenges of Cross-Cultural Communication,” I accepted with pleasure because it will give me a chance to tell you what we do at the UN, and in particular how well we do it very much depends,amongst other things, on our ability on crosscultural communication, a subject which most of you are familiar with.

2. Meaning of diplomacy and its linkage to Foreign Affairs

   2. But let me first try to explain to you what diplomacy is all about-and in order to understand diplomacy, it is first necessary to explain to you a little about foreign affairs for the two are very much linked.

   Any country's relations with the outside world are called its foreign affairs or foreign relations. A country's foreign affairs are basically determined by its foreign policy. This foreign policy usually consists of general statements of the country’s philosophy and principles of foreign relations. However as this foreign policy is rather general, it can be subdivided into more individual and detailed foreign policies towards different specific states and institutions. For example, Thailand can have a general foreign policy towards the outside world, which is usually announced in Parliament when a new government comes to power. At ;he same time, we also have specific policies towards individual countries that we have extensive relations with, such as towards the US, Japan, India, Malaysia, etc. We also have specific policies towards major global institutions such as the UN, the IMF or the WTO.

   These more specific policies are often called foreign policy objectives or goals, because they are more practical and are meant to be implemented if possible.

   3. How is diplomacy related to foreign policy?
   Diplomacy, or the work of a diplomat, is the implementation of foreign policy objectives. If implementation is not immediately possible, which is quite often the case, then diplomats should try to facilitate conditions whereby these objectives or goals can eventually be implemented. Often these foreign policy objectives are still too general or vague, and require interpretation to make them more concretized and implementable, in such a situation diplomats with others would have to devise appropriate strategies whereby it would be easier to eventually implement these foreign policy objectives. So in this sense diplomacy can be both a means to an end as well as an end in itself.

   4. I hope this explanation does not sound too confusing, but it is absolutely vital for you to at least understand the close relationship between foreign affairs, foreign policy, foreign policy objectives, foreign policy strategy, and diplomacy. In short, diplomacy is one of the components of foreign affairs process.

   5. I should at this juncture explain to you that there are two types of diplomacy; namely bilateral diplomacy and multilateral diplomacy. Bilateral diplomacy involves negotiations or discussions between two parties. An important element of this diplomacy is that its contents are usually secret or confined to limited parties, until one day these parties decide to reveal them. Multilateral diplomacy also involves negotiations but among several member states in dn international organisation, usually in an open non-secret conference type of setting. The Latin word “multi” means many, and “lateral” means side, hence multilateral diplomacy means diplomacy of many sides. Multilateral diplomacy can be at the regional level, like Asean meetings, or at the global level, like UN meetings, which includes the up-coming UNCTAD 10 meeting in Bangkok in February 2000.

3. What we do at the UN, and how the UN works.

   6. As Thailand’s permanent representative to the UN, my job mainly involves m&lateral diplomacy in the UN forum which means understanding and improving Thailand’s policy objectives towards the UN, and try to implement them the best we can. Well, what then are our policy objectives at the UN? Basically the following:

   6.1 Defend and promote Thailand’s views and positions on various important issues discussed at the UN. Incidentally, because all members of the UN make use of the UN this way, the UN has often been derogatively described as a “talk shop”. But I say it is better to talk than to make war. Any psychologist would confirm that there is value in talking for it can result in better understanding. Nevertheless long speeches are discouraged at the UN, thus lessening the chance for grand standing. Thailand continues to use the UN as a forum for airing its views, but our diplomacy has not been as vocal as those from some other countries. In a way, this character of our diplomacy reflects both our national character, as well as the happy state of our relations with other countries in the world. Yet I should emphasize that in multilateral diplomacy, nations have to do a lot of talking so that their views are taken into account when resolutions are drafted or when decisions are made. In short, “talk shopping” is an important medium of multilateral diplomacy.

   6.2 Our second policy objective at the UN is to participate in activities which the UN call “standard setting”, namely setting standards for political, economic, social and environmental issues for countries to follow even though these standards are not legally binding but morally they have important influences on UN member states, especially if they themselves have approved of resolutions setting up these standards. We participate in these standard setting activities mainly to ensure that these standards or norms do not go against our views and values. In the past 10 years, there have been at least 10 global UN conferences held especially to set global standards-e.g. on the right of the child, on human rights, on environmental standards, a summit on social values and standards, and on nuclear nonproliferation.

   6.3 Our third objective in the UN is simply to cooperate with this universal body in various areas that we can contribute to the UN work, such as in human rights and environmental protection and promotion, or in peace-keeping as we are now doing in Iraq and East Timor. Our cooperation with the UN here is not simple public relations work but to demonstrate that we are good citizens of the world.

   6.4 Our fourth policy objective in the UN is to obtain technical and financial assistance. But this objective has become less and less important than some 54 years ago when we first joined the UN - because we are now much more developed economically, politically and socially. Our attitude towards the UN now emphasizes less on what we hope to get out of the UN, but more on what we could do in terms of participation, cooperation and contribution, both physically, intellectually and financially to the UN and its system. This positive development reflects our maturity and responsibility as we become an older member of this universal organisation.

   6.5 Our fifth policy objective is rather a simple and practical one, we want to use the UN as a place where we meet both new and old friends. Most countries in the world simply cannot afford to establish diplomatic missions in all capitals of the world, and they also do not wish to do so, as they are not global players in international relations. The UN is an ideal place for meeting representatives of other countries because it has the most number of diplomatic representations, 180 something, plus a few observers. At the Thai mission in New York, some of our work is done with countries which we do not have diplomatic representation or diplomatic relations.

   We all know that N.Y. is the financial centre of the world. Less wellknown is perhaps N.Y. as the capital of the diplomatic world.

   UN organs

   7. The 4 most important organs of the UN are the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council and the Secretariat. The mechanism which most members operate in the UN is principally through the G.A and its various subsidiary bodies, especially the six main committees of the GA. These are six specialized bodies, dealing with dis-armament, economic, social, peacekeeping, administration, and legal issues. The GA is the only organ where all 188 member states belong. It meets for 3 months at the end of every year; during this period heads of state or of government or foreign ministers attend. The work of the GA and its 6 main committees usually end up each year with over 200 resolutions. These resolutions of the GA, unlike those of the Security Council (the most powerful organ of the UN) are not legally binding but are considered morally binding by most states. Generally in the GA we do try to obtain consensus in passing resolutions, but if we cannot achieve agreements, we either differ them to the next GA session or we will vote and let our stands be known-in fact making your stance known publicly on important issues is another important part of UN multilateral diplomacy.

   The Security Council (SC) has 5 permanent members (P-5) and 10 elected members (for a term of 2 years). It is the most powerful body in the UN, in the sense that its resolutions have to be obeyed by all members of the UN. The SC, as the name implies, deals with security and political issues of the world. Any member of the P-5 has veto power in the SC.

   The Economic and Social Council has 54 elected members. It tries to lead and coordinate the work of the UN in economic, social, and environmental areas.

   The Secretariat is headed by the Secretary General and, because of its huge bureaucracy, extensive global network, and quality of the Secretary General, can play a very important role in the work of the UN.

   All these 4 organs of the UN are being or in the process of being reformed to meet the challenges of the 2 1 St century.

4. Multilateral diplomacy and cross-cultural communication

   8. Having explained to you what diplomacy is, what are our objectives at the UN, and under what scenario we operate, I want now to try to explain to you the importance as well as the limitation that CCC plays in helping diplomats achieve foreign policy objectives at the UN.

   9. I suppose the UN is a perfect place to observe how important or indeed indispensable good communication, in this case good cc communication is to diplomats, because of the rich cultural, political, and economic diversities of 188 member states of the UN. But to be effective, cc communication is only part of your work as diplomats in the UN, namely the ability to un-derstand other cultures alone is not enough, but what is more important is your ability to communicate in one of the major working languages of the UN. Moreover, other ingredients for success, such as tact, timing, and a sense of proportion in your communication with other delegates are also indispensable.

   10. In addition to effective com-munication, the complexities of the issues discussed and debated may also handicap your negotiating success. We are fortunate that the Cold War has basically done away with East-West controversies, but North-South suspicions still remain. Some of these North-South controversies are; inconsistency or double standards in disarmament policies, unbalanced views on development issues, selectivity on peace keeping decisions, and different perceptions on meaning and practice of human rights.

   11. Another issue which hinders effective communication is the existence of complex and vague UN rules of procedures which thus tended to favour the more experienced large delegations.

   12. In summary, I would say from my experience in the UN that cultural gap, no matter how initially large, is not the most difficult obstacle in communication between delegations, rather a more difficult gap is the political one. Also the ability to listen, analyse, write, speak, and persuade in a UN working language is much more influential in making a diplomat’s work successful than the existence of some cultural gap.

   This is because in the UN, most people who work there are basically internationalists, reasonably well-versed in major cultures of the world.

5. Conclusion

   13. I want to conclude this talk by quoting former Secretary Daq Hammarskjold where he said many years ago, “the UN is an attempt to provide us with a framework inside which it is possible to serve the world by serving our nation, and to serve our nation by serving the world.”

   I think It was Eleanor Roosevelt who also said basically the same thing, “at the UN we can both be patriots of our countries and at the same time we can also do our work as citizens of the world.”

   These two beautiful thoughts make me proud and happy to be working at the UN.

   Thank you for your attention and perhaps even concentration. I am now willing to answer your questions on this topic and even related topics.

   Note.

   Reproduced by courtesy of A. Boonnada J. of the Student Affairs Department who confirmed that the text has been vetted by H.E. the Ambassador. Ed.