Abstract
After 1994, South Africa became the sine qua non of an internationalist state, willing to promote cooperation amongst a plurality of actors, believing common interests to be more important than their differences. This raised the hopes of constitutionalists, and those who believed in the expansion of a liberal democratic peace. South Africa has acted out two seemingly contradictory roles: those of a reformer and those of a conserver. By 2007–2008 she had shifted towards the latter, conservative-reformist position. Thus, South Africa's voting record at the General Assembly expressed her overriding concern to regionalise African issues and minimise the US and the West shaping political events. This brought her foreign policy into sharper relief. But while in some sense successful, it came at a price: a controversy about her surrendering her internationalism and principles on human rights for African unity and traditional sovereignty. But it also marked the arrival of South Africa in the world of international Realpolitik.
After 1994, South Africa became the sine qua non of the internationalist state, willing to promote cooperation amongst a plurality of actors. She was committed to equitable development and supporting national self-determination, constitutional democracy, human rights, multilateral negotiations on peace and security and the expansion of international society and international humanitarian law.
South Africa had been a prominent adherent to evolving global governance structures and international regimes – such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) or the Ottawa Treaty with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL). South Africa proposed sanctions and engaged with civil society against the excesses of the Abacha regime suffered by Ken Saro Wiwa and the Ogoni people, and promoted a membership ban on military dictatorships at the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and all peace settlements on the African continent. With worldwide implications she stood her ground against a landmark court challenge by more than forty drug multinationals to invalidate a South African law allowing the government to import or produce less costly generic versions of patented drugs.
Some hoped this would spell a commitment to a foreign policy driven by ethical commitments rather than the pledges made to other states (Buzan 2004: 60), to support civil society and individuals in struggles against oppressive states and the corporate world. Yet, during the Mbeki presidency and in correspondence with a greater authoritarianism under his leadership within the ruling African National Congress (ANC), South Africa for ostensibly strategic reasons, aimed at leveraging itself as a regional power. Foreign policy became predominantly state-centred. The idea of regional integration in Southern Africa, the creation of a Greater African Commonwealth centred on the African Union (AU) and global multilateral reform, mainly reversed the idea of states as prime agents. Following an economic neo-liberal script, this was only mediated by the importance – such as with the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) – given to private multinational economic and financial investors. Individuals and civil society obtained less or little attention from South African diplomacy.
South Africa worked and identified with fellow African governments or states from the rest of the developing world. The intention was to use the AU and NEPAD, the Non Aligned Movement (NAM), the World Trade Organisation (WTO) or the United Nations (UN) to obtain influence and recognition as a regional leader, a builder of pan-African institutions and an emerging middle power. This meant her diplomacy had to find the greatest possible support from states, even though, many lacked in democratic legitimacy.
This implied finding the greatest followership around very broad issues – such as the restructuring of international financial institutions to allow for more representativeness – regardless of the political couleour of the governments in question. In what was now a self-chosen paradigm, ethical foreign policy principles to do with justice, human rights, solidarity or democratic legitimacy in guiding foreign policy conduct, were used more selectively.
To broaden participation by the states of the global South in all matters to do with global governance at a time when US soft power is waning remains a major foreign policy preoccupation. This is paralleled by South Africa's bold, largely intergovernmental pan-Africanism at the AU, which has her engage in African integration and the domestication of the external factor in Africa's international relations. Investing heavily in African-led mediation on African security, she has advocated the dictum of “African solutions to African conflicts”. This has been complemented by promoting South-South relations – around the India-Brazil-South Africa partnership (IBSA) and the engagement with other upcoming centres of power, such as China.
All speaks of the wish to be recognised as a regional power and an emerging middle power defending Southern sovereignty. To achieve this, the UN has been a key for South African diplomacy. South Africa's first tenure as a member of the Security Council during 2007–2008 shows the degree to which her foreign policy shifted ground from a pluralist cum solidarist reformist position to a pluralist-reformist one, intent on advancing a democratic multilateral order amongst states while preserving their right to unconditional sovereignty.
South Africa at the UN: Human Rights and Inclusive Global Governance
Democratic South Africa in 1994 embodied the UN's own principled stand against apartheid over many decades. As a result, the country initially found considerable recognition and support in the world. South Africa's relationship with the UN has revolved around issues to do with recognition, and symbolism, conflict resolution and management as well as the reform of the institution itself (Bischoff 2000: 387). Wishing to provide Africa and the developing world with leadership, her growing ambivalence towards the West, her often fraught leadership position on the African continent, capacity constraints (Kagwanja 2008: 10) and the challenge to her leadership role have sometimes made the South African foreign policy one of mixed signals and “ambiguity” (Bischoff 2003: 234). This tension between declaring universal norms and conducting foreign policy contrary to these norms, with a realist script in mind, have detracted from Pretoria's ability to advance itself as a leader within the UN (Cornelissen 2006: 27).
South Africa acted out two seemingly contradictory roles: those of a reformer and those of a conserver. As a reformer she insisted on greater inclusiveness in international decision-making rather than any radical change in the principles guiding international organisations. Accepting the conventions of neo-liberalism, she fell in line with a Western-led society of states who made and supported international rules. At the same time however, she upheld conservative notions of sovereignty. This was in order to oppose the constraints and diminution of the independence of developing states by the encroachment of global forces. So, while she supported global governance, it clearly had its limits.
2007-2008: South Africa at the General Assembly
South Africa's aim is to help forge a rule based system where small and big nations will be treated as equal sovereign states, believing that such a democratic reform is necessary for all international institutions. This on the premise that it would ultimately secure her and Africa a place in an evolving multi-polar world where “other regions or civilisations” would form an inclusive part of global governance (Kagwanja 2009: 278) and become an integral part of a reformed multilateral system.
Giving overriding prominence to this strategic goal has had her oppose the selective raising of issues by the permanent, primarily Western members of the Security Council led by the USA. In the context of Myanmar, the Department of Foreign Affairs denied that there were strategic reasons for this (Kagwanja 2009: 293). But her diplomats engaged in growing political rhetoric opposing a “world based on hegemony as domination”, pitted against the US to the point where there were real tensions with the Bush administration (Kagwanja 2009: 278).
Thus, South Africa, even though, domestically committed to combatting rape, opposed a US-initiated resolution in the General Assembly (GA) condemning rape as a weapon of war in November 2007. As a member of the Security Council (SC) in March of the same year she supported the UNSC resolution 1325 of 2000 on eliminating grave sexual violence (Nathan 2008: 12). She chose to ignore the issue of rape for the higher purpose of protecting the sovereignty of a Southern state vis-à-vis the US.
South Africa's ostensible reasoning was that such a narrow interpretation of rape might make other forms of rape seem more acceptable (Caromba 2008). But her position had more to do with the fact that the resolution was raised by the USA in the context of Sudan. This was seen as politicising rape for the purpose of further internationalising the Darfur issue whereas the USA had not done this in the Balkans some years previously (Nathan 2008: 13). This had her oppose the resolution and instead, defend Sudanese state sovereignty. The fact that a number of African states, including Burundi, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, voted for the resolution was explained away by stating that this was a function of big powers intimidating “little countries” (Nathan 2008: 14).
UN General Assembly Resolutions: Degree of Correspondence in Voting, South Africa and Selected States (%)
Compiled from: UN Documentation Research Guide, 2009, online: http://www.un.org/Depts/dhl/resguide/scact.htm (access: 22 February 2009)
In only a minority of cases did the USA vote correspond to South Africa's. Looking at a selection of powers, South Africa's vote in the GA remained closest to Nigeria's vote followed by those of Brazil, China and Russia. This was followed by India, Germany and Sweden. Ultimately, her voting record expresses her overriding concern as a Southern state – alongside others, often in opposition to the USA – to strategically advantage the majority of developing states.
South Africa as a Nominated Member of the Security Council
In recognition of her aspirant status, South Africa had an overwhelming majority of 186 UN member states elect her as a SC-member for the period 2007–2008. South Africa saw this as proof of her importance and ability to contribute to change in international affairs and promote her chances of obtaining a permanent seat on the SC. South Africa was determined to make an imprint and prior to assuming her seat a senior government official put it succinctly: “The UN should not change us. We should change the UN” (Kagwanja 2009: 275).
For states which join the five permanent members for two-year stints, there is generally little room for manoeuvre. For the elected members of the Council ‘the reality is that the permanent members control the agenda-setting’ (van Nieuwkerk 2007: 62). Moreover, many issues that come up for consideration are ongoing issues, leaving little space for diplomatic initiative.
Nevertheless, South Africa used the opportunity to define its foreign policy more strongly. She proceeded to do more than other elected members: declaring that the SC was often infringing on the prerogatives of the GA and other UN bodies such as the Human Rights Council (UNHRC), established in 2006 as a body to replace the Commission on Human Rights. In delivering his maiden speech, the South African representative, Ambassador Dumisani Khumalo, made it clear that South Africa believed the UNSC was taking an uneven and, as such, inherently political approach to dealing with conflict, whose root cause, for the most part lay in poverty that had to be addressed holistically. One solution to this lay in the UNSC respecting the division of roles and functions of other UN bodies, with a view to devolving decision-making power on the larger, more democratic body of the GA or on other, more open bodies such as the UNHRC.
Presidency of the Council
When holding the presidency of the SC, there is some scope for the elected member to pursue issues of interest. In assuming the rotating presidency of the UNSC during two months of a two year period, a non-permanent member has the opportunity to issue presidential statements. Requiring consensus, they nonetheless afford the elected member the opportunity to make an imprint on developing SC policy.
South Africa was President of the Council in March 2007 and April 2008. Apart from presidential statements dealing with regional sites of African conflict, the first general presidential policy statement issued in 2007 was on Women, Peace and Security, the second on a core item of South Africa's foreign policy: the strengthening of African regional organisation.
South Africa supported a process where in detailing the evolution of the relationship between the UN and regional organisations, previous commitments made to the AU were highlighted and coordinated efforts with the SC in building regional capacities to maintain international peace and security were put forward. Ultimately, the Secretary-General was asked to furnish a report on how to better support arrangements by the UN (Security Council 2007b).
Pursuing the same theme in her month long presidency the following year, South Africa used the opportunity to convene a high-level SC meeting, presided by the South African President and attended by the Prime Minister of Britain and the President of Italy as well as Foreign Ministers, to address the same issue leading to the adoption of a SC resolution 1809 which called for an effective partnership with the AU to enhance the ability to respond early to emerging crises on the continent (Security Council 2008b). By initiating a process which subsequently led to a SC Presidential statement in March 2009 to have the Secretary-General formulate the basis for a new UN-AU partnership on peacekeeping (Polity, 16 May 2009), South Africa had achieved one of the important goals she set herself as a member of the SC.
Formal Resolutions
Not much of South Africa's principled stand is evident in her voting record at formal SC resolutions. In the overwhelming majority of cases – one-hun-dred-and-fifteen cases out of one-hundred-and-twenty-two – these were passed unanimously by all fifteen SC members. And South Africa abstained in only one of these seven instances where no unanimity was expressed (United Nations 2009).
South Africa abstained (alongside Quatar, China and Indonesia) from SC resolution 1757 (2007) on the establishment of a Special Tribunal for Lebanon, because she felt that a Special Tribunal opposed by the Lebanese presidency but supported by the Lebanese parliament and cabinet, would constitute interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state.
When South Africa threatened to abstain on a further vote on Iran and after a vituperative exchange with Britain (Sutterlin 2007: 15) it took a visit by a US envoy to South Africa, for her to agree to vote for SC resolution 1747 but only after the USA accepted some amendments (Xinhua 2007), including giving greater prominence to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)(Sutterlin 2007: 15). If the intention was to affect decision-making, she had succeeded in elevating herself and Africa at this global level.
But generally, South Africa retained the view that “Iran's nuclear programme was not a Security Council concern at all because it is not a threat to international security” (Fabricius 2007b). Apart from the issue of Iran's sovereignty, South Africa's reservations about the measures taken against Iran were shared by similarly placed states like Argentina: both states felt that stopping Iran enriching uranium could have implications for non-Western states. eventually wishing to enrich uranium themselves and that one Western intention in the Iran issue was to protect their lucrative, near monopoly as sole producers of enriched uranium. In the event, South Africa chose to be more outspoken on the issue than the Argentina (Fabricius 2007a). The following year, on further measures against Iran and its development of nuclear and missile programmes (where, eventually only Indonesia came to abstain), however, South Africa went along with the vote proposed by the US SC resolution 1803 (2008).
Draft Resolutions
South Africa's role at the SC is more evident from the resolutions that did not materialise, the draft resolutions that were contested and did not see the light of day. Here her “somewhat controversial” role was particularly evident when she chaired the Council in March 2007 (van Nieuwkerk 2007: 62).
Climate Change
On 17 April 2007 the UNSC discussed climate change as a security issue. This was the result of a British initiative to consider the likelihood of future wars occurring as a result of climate change. The SC was to discuss contestations over water, food production and land use. The effect of this was to securitise climate change and to see it as a potential driver of conflict in world politics. South Africa, alongside China, Russia, Indonesia and Quatar, objected to the SC being the appropriate forum for this kind of discussion (Brauch 2008: 12). South Africa then sided with the opponents of the initiative, despite having endorsed fighting climate change at the G8 summit at Heiligendamm the same year (Brauch 2008: 14).
Zimbabwe
While holding the presidency in 2007, and opposing SC deliberations on Zimbabwe, South Africa held that Zimbabwe did not constitute an international threat to peace and security. This, despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans had been forced to mass migrate to South Africa and the rest of the region because of a repressive state and an economy in inflationary free-fall after the gross political and economic mismanagement of the country and its resources.
When the SC considered sending a fact finding mission to Zimbabwe, South Africa opposed the suggestion. This, presumably, in order to minimise the internationalisation of the issue as much as possible and keep the issue within the region, where a host of conservative states intent on safeguarding the sovereignty of the Zimbabwean state as well as their own, were more likely to be able to control events in favour of the status quo of an entrenched ZANU-PF government and keep an elected MDC from claiming outright executive power.
In the same vein, in 2008 South Africa, together with China, Libya, Russia and Vietnam (Indonesia abstained), successfully opposed a draft resolution supported by ten Council members led by the USA (including another African state, Burkina Faso) to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe following the contested outcome of the presidential elections and a sharply deteriorating human rights situation in the country in July. Despite evidence to the contrary and its strong constitutional commitment to democratic elections and human rights, South Africa insisted that “the Zimbabweans parties' commitment to dialogue was encouraging” (Security Council 2008a) and chose to stand behind the multilateral positions taken by the AU and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to allow South Africa, in the interests of stability, to work towards a political accommodation to suit the Mugabe regime but also accommodate the opposition parties, even though the latter had been the ostensible winner in the earlier parliamentary elections and were forced to witness the manipulation of the outcome of presidential elections: So South Africa could state:
“For this reason, the South African delegation would vote against the draft. It would lead to the improvement of the humanitarian and economic situation, thereby contributing to a better life for all Zimbabweans. The Security Council must give space for implementation of the African Union Summit's decision.” (Security Council 2008a)
Myanmar 2007 and 2008
In 2007 a draft resolution calling on Myanmar to release all political prisoners, begin a widespread dialogue and end its military attacks and human rights abuses against ethnic minorities had South Africa, as well as Russia and China exercise her veto, making this the first use of multiple vetoes since 1989 (UN News Centre 2007). It was China's first veto since 1999 and South Africa's first ever. While noting her concern for the human rights situation in Myanmar, she did not find that Myanmar was a threat to international peace. South Africa felt it would have been better for the people of Myanmar if the greatest possible number of states had a say in the matter rather than that this issue – like others – be selectively hived off to become “the special preserve” of a few privileged nations. This was seen to weaken democracy at the international level and was a “dangerous formulae” to follow (Africa Monitoring 2007).
Seemingly in line with South Africa's position that regional bodies such as the AU on their own continent should be given the space to resolve their own conflicts, she thought it important to remind the UNSC that the Association of Southeast Asian States (ASEAN) had pronounced that Myanmar did not constitute an international threat to peace. As such, at a fundamental level, the resolution did not fit in with the Charter's mandate. The matter would better be handled by the UNHRC but in the interim, South Africa would want to leave the matter with the good offices of the UN Secretary-General (Security Council 2007b).
South Africa never took the matter to the UNHRC, perhaps, because the Council had previously virtually refused to discuss the Myanmar issue. Thus, unlike Argentina, who voted against the human rights abuses on the SC, South Africa demurred (Fabricius 2007a). It took Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to remind the government that a democratic South Africa, in line with her own history was meant to have directly sided with the Burmese people (Kagwanja 2009: 293).
In 2008 France's attempt to invoke the R2P “responsibility to protect” clause to put pressure on the Myanmar government strengthened South African and others opposition. The Council had informally been discussing the humanitarian situation in Myanmar since Cyclone Nargis and France was pushing for the SC to take action on the direct distribution of aid even though the consent of the Myanmar government to this was in doubt. Eventually, France did not table a formal resolution because of the divisions in the Council. The Council was divided between members who wanted to see the Council take a more active role and those, like South Africa, who, defending the issue of sovereignty over the need for international humanitarian assistance, argued that this was not an appropriate issue for the Council to consider. South Africa indicated that she did not feel “a strongly worded Council resolution was an appropriate way of engaging with Myanmar” (Global Policy Forum 2008).
Sudan
In 2007 South Africa opposed a draft resolution which raised the option of imposing sanctions against combatants who attack civilians and obstruct peace efforts or the work of UNAMID, the hybrid UN-AU peacekeeping mission (Nathan 2008: 2). The following year, South Africa and two other members of the SC, Libya and Burkina Faso – with support from a number of other Council delegates – asked that the resolution to renew UNAMID include the call on the ICC to defer for 12 months any consideration of the ICC's request to prosecute al-Bashir. While their request was not accepted by all members of the Council, there was an agreement to include language which would take note of the AU request and that would state the desire to consider this issue in the SC at a later time (Hauben 2008: 1).
In her pursuit of institutionalising pan-Africanism, South Africa wished to regionalise (African) issues such as Sudan as much as possible and by default, minimise the US and the West defining and thereby shaping political events on the continent. This was her way of demonstrating leadership amongst African states and the developing world in general.
South Africa and the UNSC-Outcomes
South Africa's stint on the SC brought her foreign policy into sharper relief: it both won her friends and alienated some old ones. What had previously been seen as an ambiguous and woolly foreign policy – both in her attempt to straddle the North-South divide and in the strengths and weaknesses of her diplomacy (Bischoff 2003), had now shifted to something more assertively counter-hegemonic and majority oriented, so much so that it could now be described as more clearly anti-imperialist in tenor (Nathan 2008). It did this by, for some, “… its tedious, unchanging message that the Council should not overreach itself” (Fabricius 2007c) and by using its seat on the Security Council as an “ideological prop” (Pottinger 2008: 308).
But while in some sense successful in projecting her assertiveness as an emerging middle power, it came at a price: a controversy about her surrendering her internationalism and principles on human rights for those to do with state-centred notions of African unity and the parochial defence of traditional notions of sovereignty. For commentators, the “International Community confronted … a destructive foreign policy that fails to live up to its potential moral weight” (Mailer 2008). This damaged her identity as a democratic state projecting constitutional values. But it was also seen as a rational foreign policy that marked the arrival of South Africa in the world of international Realpolitik.
South Africa voted on political rather than ethical grounds. In reading the international balance of forces as one of “uni-multilateralism”, with new centres of power clustered around China (and perhaps Russia) emerging, the ANC government sought to respond in ways which position her favourably in the realignments taking place: South Africa, after all, would like the BRIC (Brazil, India, China and Russia) countries to include her as a member while having the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) grouping of Southern states continue and mature.
After following a neo-liberal script in line with its close economic ties with Europe and the USA, the government, alongside others, is in search of a “stable, post-liberal social world”. For her own part this is in response to the considerable growth in its economic relations with China and India and in not wanting to be politically isolated by the rest of Africa's own veritable lurch towards the East (Martin 2009: 3).
At the UN South Africa signalled that she can be courted by China and Russia. Chinese President Hu Jintao on a visit to South Africa reiterated that South Africa “could learn from China as it had been playing a role on issues of global politics” while in turn, South Africa as a member of the SC intended to “consult” China, seeing its partnership with China as a “strategicasset” (Sakoana 2007). Zuma's current administration is upgrading its relationship with the Obama administration in the wake of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's first visit and talks of how relations with the West remain important. The question, however, remains one of finding the right pitch at which to credibly and, with maximum effect, play to these different audiences.
South Africa is intent on a rule-based system and therefore seeking to defer matters before the SC to other parts of the UN body, such as the UNHRC, the International Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) or the GA where the voice of the five permanent members could be diluted in favour of a more inclusive and assumedly more democratic majority. What she did not do was to see to it that some of these deferred issues would, in effect, be addressed elsewhere. In consequence, South Africa, with a human rights policy in its foreign policy plank to protect, came to be perceived as inconsistent and acting out of character. For a country that in the past made good use of Western support to project her own interests as well as those of Africa, any enduring image of inconsistency and unpredictability imperils her potential role as a credible facilitator in any genuine partnership dialogue between North and South.
Conclusion
When making decisions at SC level, South Africa as a reformer wished to make the United Nations more representative in its decision-making. Unable to mobilise a majority amongst the non-permanent members, a rather legalistic stance insisting the SC follows its original, rather narrow mandate on upholding international peace and security was adopted. Coupled with the defence of Southern state sovereignty, this had South Africa seemingly subordinate human rights to broader goals intended to increase her influence and standing amongst the majority of the developing world.
There were benefits but also costs in this. It brought her one instance of momentary symbolic leverage vis-à-vis the US (on the one issue of sanctioning Iran, the US believing that South Africa's opinion was of importance to Iran (Katzenellenbogen 2008) and strengthened her ties with states such as China, Russia, India, Iran, Myanmar and Belarus (or the Palestinian Authority). But overall, South Africa did not succeed in establishing herself as a leading power of the developing world either before or during her tenure at the SC. As a member, she was unable to garner automatic support from all other developing (including African) states in the Council and lost support from the democratic global public. Moreover, she sacrificed political capital with (Western) states who wished the country to become an eventually permanent member of any future reconstituted SC.
A foreign policy favouring sovereignty over human rights underlines the disengagement of South Africa's foreign policy from the human rights values espoused in her constitution. But it also addresses a growing authoritarianism and, with it, divisions within the ANC especially under Mbeki's centre right policies, which brought their own culture of intolerance to domestic politics and foreign policy.
Moreover, in interpreting inclusivity as only that of states, and in not promoting the inclusion of global civil society more widely, South Africa, along with most other states, ultimately contributes little towards a more “decent global order” (Nel, Taylor, v. d. Westhuizen 2001: 21). A state-centred commitment to international reform takes place against a background where the country is but a small economic player in an international political economy shaped by a predominant set of emerging and established economic powers.
Given its nominal and uncertain status as a reformer and as an influential player, South Africa is now as unlikely to sustain its high profile or outward oriented policy under Zuma as under the Mandela and Mbeki presidencies. At the start of the Zuma presidency, there is already talk of consolidation rather than of any expansion (Johwa 2009b), the President paying bilateral visits to southern African states like Angola, Zimbabwe and Zambia. With Southern Africa identified as an immediate priority, the foreign policy tenor was one of constraint.
President Jacob Zuma has indicated his intention of preoccupying himself with domestic matters. Against the background of having also to deal with the effects of the current world financial and economic crisis, his government is unlikely to devote the same amount of time as Mbeki did to foreign policy. South Africa as an “encumbered power” even in its African peacemaking efforts would seem to have overreached herself (Kagwanja 2008: 1).
All the same the ongoing clash in upholding the institution of sovereignty as against President Zuma's endorsement of the AU summit's decision to ignore the arrest warrant for Sudan's al Bashir in July 2009 went against the country's endorsement of the Rome Statute under which the ICC seeks the arrest. (Hartley 2009). Even though subsequently South Africa officially announced it would adhere to its treaty obligations, it again put state sovereignty above its commitments to international law.
South Africa could begin to make a real difference to African politics and Africa's place in international relations at a time when a new scramble for Africa's resources threatens African unity and security. Taking a line that rediscovers and promotes the solidarity of people across Africa in their struggle to be heard, could be of benefit not only to her own economic development (Habib 2008: 274), but also make her foreign policy more ethical and meaningful, more in line with true solidarity, than is the case at present.