UN must revamp itself if it wishes to remain relevant

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the United Nations. Its survival as the apex international body across three eras - the Cold War period, the post-Cold War age, and the current 'post-post-Cold War' epoch - is a testament to the unique blend of power and morality which underpinned the UN's creation.

Unlike the League of Nations, the UN has successfully retained membership of the nations that mattered in might and capabilities. The design of the UN Security Council in 1945 enshrined higher status for the most powerful countries of that time so that none of them stayed outside the fold and became a systemic threat. Whatever foul play the big powers would commit was thus constrained by virtue of their presence within the UN's confines.

Dismissing the UN as a handmaiden of major powers is an oversimplification. The General Assembly has been a democratic arena where poor and aggressed countries found a voice and a platform to espouse their causes. Once Asia and Africa decolonised by the 1960s, their blocs and coalitions in the UN such as the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the G-77 kept naked power games under some check.

Over time, the UN has expanded its core mandate beyond maintaining international peace and justice with a litany of additional purposes like promoting economic development, human rights and environmental protection, all of which mitigate international power hierarchies.

The UN has been a useful tool as well as a stymieing hurdle to the haves. It has been in parts frustrating and uplifting for the have-nots. At 70 though, it is not enough to simply celebrate the UN's continuous existence as an overarching supplier of global public goods. Is this institution, hailed by Columbia University's Jeffrey Sachs as "the most important political innovation of the twentieth century", fit for the challenges of the 21st century?

The answer is a resounding 'No' unless there are reforms in the UN's structure and modalities. The UN Security Council (UNSC) has been redesigned slightly only once, in 1965, and its much-sought overhaul has been stuck in a political and bureaucratic maze with several false starts and setbacks.

The latest development in the UN General Assembly, where a negotiating text has been adopted as the basis for UNSC reforms, is a welcome move that will boost chances of deserving candidates like India finally entering the elite precincts as a permanent member.

However, myriad other lacunae haunt the UN and cry out for urgent attention. A civil society movement labelled '1 for 7 billion' is demanding less opaque and more bottom-up election methods for picking the next UN secretary general.

A campaign for a directly elected 'UN Parliament' through worldwide voting is trying to redress the State-centric bias of the UN. Critics also want a rollback of over-bureaucratisation and desensitisation of UN employees and peacekeepers, who are rarely accountable to victims of their malfeasances.

Keeping its dialectic of power and morality intact, the UN has to undertake revamping and external attitude alternation. The agency for transforming it lies not just with responsible rising powers but also in the hands of the more conscious and engaged people of the world in whose name the UN was founded.

(Sreeram Chaulia is professor and dean, Jindal School of International Affairs. The views expressed are personal)

Source: The Hindu, 17-09-2015

If UNSC opens its door wider, India has a claim to entry

India’s chances of becoming a permanent member of the UN Security Council (UNSC) appear brighter with the General Assembly agreeing to adopt a negotiating text for UNSC reforms. Actually the reform of the UNSC is something that has been discussed since 1993. The structure of the council reflects the world balance of power of 1945. Since then the world has moved on and the power dynamics have changed. CENTO (the Central Treaty Organisation), formed to contain communism, has been dissolved.

Communism is no longer the State ideology of many nations of Europe, Africa and South America, and Cuba and the United States have established diplomatic relations. In this what has come through are the strong trends towards globalisation, which has been an ongoing, inexorable process from the time of the industrial revolution. India has been a willing partner in that.

If the UNSC opens its door wider, and there is no reason why it should not, India has a claim to entry. The country is the third-largest economy in Asia and the fastest-growing in the world. India’s companies have for long been operating in various parts of the world and professionals from this country have excelled in various fields. So this should be the right occasion to recalibrate the disequilibrium of the existing world order. Of course the reform of the UNSC can be done in various ways and on various counts. One is by defining categories of members, restricting the scope of the veto held by the five permanent members, giving representation to regions, increasing the size of the council and amending its working methods. If this is done there would be greater scope for India and other countries to be at the high table.

China and Russia have predictably opposed any expansion of the ‘permanent five’ membership of the UNSC. In the process the whole of Africa and South America are without membership in the ‘permanent five’. The five countries with veto powers have used their power only to back their favourite nations as non-permanent members. Given this power barrier, where the judges are judging for themselves, India should tread cautiously and not treat the present opportunity as ‘now or never’. There is always a next time, for which this is a healthy precedent.

ug 18 2015 : The Economic Times (Bangalore)

A DIFFERENT STAND A WEEK AGO - In U-turn, Russia Supports India's Entry Into UNSC

DipanjanRoy Chaudhury

New Delhi:





We support India and Brazil for permanent membership in Security Councils, says Russia

In a sudden U-turn, Russia has said it backs the applications of both India and Brazil for permanent membership in the UN Security Council, less than a week after opposing Delhi's entry into the powerful five-nation grouping.“We think that developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America are under-represented in the UN Security Council. That is why we support the applications of India and Brazil for permanent membership in the Security Council,“ Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told news agency Itar-Tass ahead of the General Assembly session on the 70th anniversary of the United Nations. “We think that the African continent should be similarly represented in the structure because, I will stress it again, developing countries are under-represented and their role is insufficient in the work of this main institution.“
Only less than a week ago, Vitaly Churkin, Russia's Permanent Ambassador to the UN, had written to UN General Assembly President Sam Kutesa opposing India's entry as a permanent member of the Council. Both the US and China also resisted India's efforts to sit at the h i g h t abl e. C h i n a , France, Russia, the UK and the US are the permanent, veto-holding members of the UN body responsible for maintaining international peace and security .
While the Chinese position was predictable, the stand of the US and Russia ­ close partners of India ­ did not go down well with the Modi government, officials here said. They are of opinion that these countries do not want to share their exclusive privileges. Prime Minister Narendra Modi may raise the issue when he meets US President Barack Obama on September 28 in New York and when he visits Moscow this December for the annual summit.
India has been hoping that the 70th anniversary of the UN this year would be an appropriate time to reform the Security Council to reflect global realities. France and UK have supported India's case.
Lavrov noted that it was important to promote such a reform “that will not make UN Security Council uncontrolled, exceedingly amorphous, overblown institution.The efficiency of its work is one of the key principles along with appropriate representation of all regions, all centres of global development. Somewhere around slightly more than 20 members -I think, that is the threshold that should be considered.“
In his letter to UNGA President Kutesa, Churkin had said that the “prerogatives of the current Permanent Members of the Security Council, including the use of the veto, should remain intact under any variant of the Council reform.“
Samantha Power, The US Permanent Representative to the UN, said in a letter to Kutesa that, while the US is “open in principle“ to a “modest“ expansion of both permanent and non-permanent members, it believes that consideration of new permanent members must be country-specific in nature. She also categorically stated that the US was opposed to “any alteration or expansion of the veto.“
China said UNSC reform is “multifaceted,“ covering not only issues such as enlarging the Council's membership and strengthening representation, but also increasing efficiency and improving working methods.

Four Ideas To Save The Peace

Kofi A Annan and Gro Harlem Brundtland





Celebrating its 70th anniversary, the UN must reform to recover its authority

Seventy years ago, the United Nations was founded “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war“.Looking around the world today, the least one can say is that it is not fully succeeding in this mission. From Nigeria through the Middle East to Afghanistan and Ukraine, millions are dying from that scourge, or imminently threatened by it, and the UN seems powerless to save them.
We have four ideas for making it stronger and more effective.
A big part of the problem is that the Security Council, which is supposed to maintain world peace and security on behalf of all member states, no longer commands respect ­ certainly not from armed insurgents operating across borders, and often not from the UN's own members.
Throughout the world, and especially in the Global South, people struggle to understand why , in 2015, the Council is still dominated by the five powers that won World War II. They are more and more inclined to question its authority and the legitimacy of its decisions.
We ignore this threat at our peril.Times have changed since 1945, and the Council must adapt.
Almost everyone claims to favour expanding the Security Council, to include new permanent members, but for decades now states have been unable to agree who these should be, or whether, like the existing ones, they should have the power to veto agreements reached by their fellow members.
Our first idea aims to break this stalemate. Instead of new permanent members, let us have a new category of members, serving a much longer term than the non-permanent ones, and eligible for immediate re-election. In other words they would be permanent, provided they retained the confidence of other member states. Surely that is more democratic?
Secondly , we call on the five existing permanent members to give a solemn pledge. They must no longer allow their disagreements to mean that the Council fails to act, even when ­ for instance, as currently in Syria ­ people are threatened with atrocious crimes.
Let the five promise never to use the veto just to defend their national interests, but only when they genuinely fear that the proposed action will do more harm than good to world peace and to the people concerned. In that case, let them give a full and clear explanation of the alternative they propose, as a more credible and efficient way to protect the victims. And when one or more of them do use the veto in that way let the others promise not to abandon the search for common ground, but to work even harder to find an effective solution on which all can agree.
Thirdly , let the Council listen more carefully to those affected by its decisions. When they can agree, the permanent members too often deliberate behind closed doors, without listening to those whom their decisions most directly affect. From now on, let them ­ and the whole Council ­ give groups representing people in zones of conflict a real chance to inform and influence their decisions.
And finally , let the Council, and especially its permanent members, make sure the UN gets the kind of leader it needs. Let them respect the spirit as well as the letter of what the Charter says about choosing a new secretary general, and no longer settle it by negotiating among themselves behind closed doors.
Let us have a thorough and open search for the best qualified candidates, irrespective of gender or region; let the Council then recommend more than one candidate for the General Assembly to choose from; and let the successful candidate be appointed for a single, non-renewable term of seven years.
He or she ­ and after eight `he's it is surely time for a `she' ­ must not be under pressure to give jobs or concessions to any member state in return for its support. This new process should be adopted without delay , so that it can be used to find the best person to take over in January 2017.
These four proposals are spelt out in greater detail in a statement (http: theelders.orgun-fit-purpose) issued today by The Elders. We believe they form an essential starting point for the UN to recover its authority . And we call on the world's peoples to insist that their governments accept them, in this, the UN's 70th anniversary year.
Kofi Annan is Chair and Gro Harlem Brundtland is Deputy Chair of The Elders, a group of global leaders for peace founded by Nelson Mandela.