The United Nations : Failure, Success or In-Between
The UN’s strength is also its weakness. For when the global powers meet at the UN they carry with them the baggage of their respective ideologies and security and economic interests.
By Achal Malhotra
The flip side of the devastating second world war was the creation of an international arrangement in 1945 known as the United Nations Organisation or simply UN. The international platform was devised in the backdrop of a war which caused immeasurable miseries to the humanity the repeat of which no sensible person would have liked. The founders of the UN therefore rightly attached great importance to the objective of maintaining international peace and security, including through promotion of friendly relations among nations. Equally important for them was the objective of promoting socio-economic progress, and protection of fundamental human rights.
Founded initially by 51 countries, the UN’s membership has grown to 193 taking practically the entire world into its fold. The range of activities has also expanded manifold to include maintenance of international peace through prevention and resolution of conflicts, peacekeeping operations and other means.. The UN is also engaged in promoting disarmament, combating extremism and terrorism. On the socio-economic fronts the UN organs are engaged in attaining mutually agreed Sustainable Development Goals, environment protection, delivery of humanitarian aid and assistance to people in areas of armed conflicts or natural disasters, protection of human rights, promotion of gender equality. The list is fairly long and impressive.
In short the UN activities today impact on the lives of billions of people on our planet and therefore it is logical that questions are raised from time to time on the usefulness and effectiveness of the UN – in other words on the success or failure of the largest international organisation.
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At the outset, credit must be given to the UN that the human race has been spared the disaster of yet another world war. However, the UN’s success rate in preventing or resolving local/regional conflicts is much lower than the desired levels; these include live as well as frozen/simmering conflicts involving two or more nations. The list of such unresolved conflicts which continue to threaten the regional security and have larger ramifications beyond the region is long. In most recent times, Armenia and Azerbaijan remained locked in a bloody war for forty four days while the international body watched helplessly in silence.
The strength of the UN is that all major global players are represented in this largest world organisation. Unfortunately its strength is also its weakness. For when the global powers meet at the UN they carry with them the baggage of their respective ideologies and security and economic interests. The global political polarisation comes to play at the UN deliberations. Net result is the lack of consensus which in turn often leads to unilateral actions and proxy wars. The military interventions in Libya, Iraq, Syria in the recent history are glaring examples in this context. The Veto power vested with P5 countries (USA, Russia, France, UK and China) can also play the role of a spoiler and block consensus opinion of an overwhelming majority.
The UN’s powers and means to enforce its decisions are rather limited. At best it can enforce punitive economic sanctions through mandatory resolutions on a particular country for violation of internationally agreed norms. Often such punitive actions turn out to be counter -productive in the long run.
The UN has no armed forces of its own; it does have UN Peacekeeping Forces comprised of voluntary contributions of human and material resources by selected countries but their main objective is “peace keeping” in war-torn and troubled areas. One must admit here that the peacekeeping is one such area where the UN has done reasonably well; the other area which falls in this category is the delivery of humanitarian assistance in troubled regions and regions hit by natural disasters and calamities of huge proportions.
The UN processes at times are painfully slow; issues of global importance keep appearing on the UN agenda year after year but without much progress. For instance, India had proposed way back in 1996 to the UN General Assembly that a comprehensive legal framework to counter terrorism be developed and in this context had introduced a draft “Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism”. Twenty five years have elapsed and despite periodic discussions it has not yet been possible even to agree on the definition of terrorism which would be acceptable to all.
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Of late, a certain degree of trust deficit for some UN bodies has cropped up; some world powers are believed to be exercising undue clout in these organisations on the strength of the monetary assistance being extended by these countries. In recent times, in the backdrop of the spread of deadly Corona virus the World Health Organisation (WHO) came under the clouds of suspicion for allegedly shielding China. The global financial institutions such as World Bank, IMF are often accused of assigning low priority to the needs and demands of poor and developing countries. So much so that BRICS- a group of emerging economies ( Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa)- have opted for an alternative mechanism and founded the New Development Bank (2014) to support infrastructure and sustainable development efforts in BRICS and other underserved, emerging economies for faster development.
The UN’s annual budget of around $3bn comes from assessed contributions of member-States and also voluntary contributions. At times the voluntary contributions are conditional and allegedly come with strings attached to them; this happens usually when certain projects are to be carried out for the benefit of poor and developing countries based on voluntary contributions from rich and influential Member States. Also there is a feeling that a substantial part of the UN funds are spent on UN’s self-sustenance (mandatory salaries and travel expenses of the staff and essential upkeep and updating of office infrastructure).
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No one is questioning the desirability of having an international platform of the size and magnitude of UN at which the global community can meet and address the issues of global dimensions and come to a consensus as far and as often as possible. The Sustainable Development Goals and the agreements on climate change and environment protection are some of the visible achievements in this context. The absence of an organisation like the UN would only mean the Law of Jungle or in other words a situation in which there are no laws or rules to govern the way the international community should behave.
At the same time, however, there is a growing consensus that the UN and international financial institutions require urgent and serious reforms as the ground realities have changed dramatically since the establishment of the UN more than seventy five years ago. These institutions must be more transparent and more representative and speak for the countries whose issues on trade, security, monetary framework and on funding for development etc. have remained unattended to for decades. It is a matter of some satisfaction that work in this direction is in progress; however looking at the enormity of task and conflicting vested interests, the chances of a visible outcome in near future are remote.
The author is a former Indian Ambassador.
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