In seeking to explain the sub-optimal outcome of this week's United Nations Millennium review conference Kofi Annan said that even with national legislation, political leaders usually achieve less than they expect. This is all the more the case with the UN's 191 members, who work by unanimity and consensus.
It is a valid observation which obliges those examining the text finally adopted yesterday by the General Assembly to be aware of its overall balance, how it will be implemented and whether it can be revisited. If there is a continuing political will to keep development and international security issues on a single agenda, the summit outcome looks more half-full than half-empty after an intense week of bargaining and rhetoric.
This judgment is justified most especially by the successful agreement to "take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner ... should means be inadequate and national authorities manifestly fail to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity".
This new doctrine expressing a responsibility to protect represents, in principle, a major shift in international law and politics overriding national sovereignty. It meets a prime objective arising from the UN's profound failures in Rwanda, Bosnia and, more recently, Darfur. The argument stands even if no formal obligation to intervene has as yet been agreed.
Given the intense haggling about other major reforms agreed this week, such as the peace-building commission to assist countries emerging from conflict or a new human rights body, the failure to agree precise means looks more typical of how the UN works in practice. With sufficient will and leadership these new institutions can in time be made to work effectively. The same cannot be said about the most clear-cut failure, on disarmament and non-proliferation. Because of a complete negotiating impasse, this section was dropped altogether, which Mr Annan rightly said is a "real disgrace".
The central objective of this ambitious exercise was to create a systematic and sustainable linkage between the international development agenda and international security. Politically, that relationship has been established this week, even if the links are weak and much depends on how they are implemented and followed through. Thus President Bush explicitly supported the Millennium Development Goals to tackle primary poverty by 2015, even if they remain well off target. At the other end of the political spectrum, states which have traditionally been hostile to encroachments on their sovereignty agreed to intrusive new institutions and processes.
This balance of attitudes and interests must now be grown into a new and more effective multilateralism. Much will depend on the readiness of European states to give leadership and example at the UN, since their positions often influence other states to do likewise. Ireland has a constructive role to play in this endeavour.