OneWorld.net (U.S.)

WASHINGTON, D.C., Mar. 22 (OneWorld) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Monday for sweeping changes at the United Nations, saying the world body needed to keep up to date with threats to global peace and security. Diplomats greeted the plan cautiously but a new global poll said his ideas enjoyed widespread public support.

Annan said it would be hard to achieve his goal of selling the plan to all 191 member states so they can officially adopt the changes by September. He appealed to them on the grounds that the plan was pragmatic, not grandiose.

''These are reforms that are within reach--reforms that are actionable if we can garner the necessary political will,'' Annan said in the introduction to his report.

Washington rejected the plan's call to spell out the specific conditions under which the Security Council could justify the use of force and it has been set against the International Criminal Court, the role and status of which the plan seeks to advance. Moscow looked askance at a proposal to set up a human rights council. And a call to define terrorism once and for all seemed set to be a particularly hard sell.

Yet, a poll published on Monday showed that ''very large majorities all around the world are calling for the U.N. to become more powerful in world affairs,'' said Steven Kull, director of the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes, one of two independent pollsters that surveyed 23,518 people in 23 countries for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) World Service.

Annan described his plan as the boldest overhaul of the United Nations since its founding in 1945. It would enlarge the Security Council to include more voices from the wealthy and developing worlds; give the council power to override permanent members' vetoes; and generally realign the world body to give additional weight to development, security, and human rights issues.

Among proposals to make the organization more efficient and accountable, Annan would bolster the independence and authority of the U.N. internal watchdog and streamline General Assembly procedures.

He would replace the Geneva-based human rights commission with a new council with status equal to that of the Security Council. Washington and others long have assailed the commission for allowing the world's worst offenders to use their membership to shield one another from condemnation.

While leaving the specifics of Security Council enlargement for the General Assembly to decide, Annan endorsed two options proposed last year by a high-level panel. One would add six new permanent members and the other would create a new tier of eight semi-permanent members, two each from Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.

Likely candidates for new permanent memberships include Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, and Nigeria or South Africa.

Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan, in a joint statement issued late Monday, backed the first option for six new permanent members.

At present, five permanent and 10 two-year members make up the 15-nation Security Council.

The report said the Security Council already had authority under the U.N. Charter to use military force, even preventively, but it should adopt a resolution specifying the criteria for decisions on whether to use force. These should include the seriousness of the threat, whether other action could stop it, and whether there is a reasonable chance that military action would succeed.

It said half the countries emerging from violence slip back into war within five years and urged setting up a peace-building commission and Democracy Fund to help countries buttress their democracy.

Annan further asked governments to cap years of debate and adopt a comprehensive convention against terrorism by September 2006. While some countries have said that one nation's terrorists are another's freedom fighters, he urged all to accept that resisting occupation ''cannot include the right to deliberately kill or maim civilians.''

He urged rich countries to establish a timetable to reach the goal set 35 years ago of spending 0.7 percent of gross national product on aid no later than 2015, starting with a significant increase next year. The United States currently has one of the lowest levels, about 0.15 percent. He suggested that donor countries seeking permanent berths in the Security Council should be the first to commit. This would mean Germany and Japan.

The U.N. secretary-general released his blueprint in advance of the expected Mar. 31 release of former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker's probe into alleged corruption in the Security Council-supervised and U.N.-administered oil-for-food program in the 1990s.

Security Council members, especially the United States and Britain, oversaw the program closely but the investigation has centered on the activities of Annan and his son Kojo, who worked for a company that won contracts under the scheme.

U.N. officials said Annan's report showed the probe had not distracted him.

Non-governmental organizations urged governments to support the plan.

International charity Oxfam said that by agreeing on governments' responsibilities to protect civilians and clear criteria for U.N.-authorized military intervention as a last resort, the international community could make significant strides towards ending ''the obscene levels of civilian suffering in today's conflict zones.''

''Millions of people are dying because of conflict and poverty while rich countries are busy jostling for Security Council seats,'' said Nicola Reindorp, head of Oxfam's New York office. ''Governments must come together at the U.N. this year and focus on the real task of ending poverty and protecting innocent people caught in deadly conflicts.''

Amnesty International urged governments to support the plan as ''a unique opportunity to put the U.N.'s chief human rights body on a more transparent and objective footing.''

In sum, Annan's plan ''reflects his uneasy balancing act between defending the U.N. Charter and international law, and giving in to U.S. pressure,'' said Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies.

It is commonly accepted that the plan cannot succeed if Washington does not back it.

Citizens for Global Solutions, a Washington, D.C. research and advocacy group, urged the U.S. administration to recognize that the plan contains many items on its own wish list for U.N. reform.

''If the U.S. is sincere about U.N. reform, now is the time to step up, to move beyond micro-management, and champion a package of reforms to create a better more secure world for us all,'' said Don Krauss, the group's executive vice president.

The BBC poll found a majority of people in 22 of the 23 countries surveyed support expanding the U.N. Security Council. In Russia, however, only 44 percent backed the idea. Germany and Japan were the most popular choices for new membership, with 56 percent of all respondents for including Germany and 54 percent for Japan.

Overall, 58 percent of those surveyed said they were for giving the Security Council the power to override a permanent member's veto. And some 64 percent said they wanted the United Nations to become ''significantly more powerful in world affairs.''

Respondents were questioned between last November and January in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Chile, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, Philippines, Poland, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, and the United States.