The UN the World Needs

Relevance: GS 2 – Important International Institutions, agencies and fora – their Structure, Mandate.

Why in the news?

  • The global community has failed to solve conflicts such as the Ukrainian war and the situation in Gaza. The organization needs to rethink how it operates.
  • Countries like India should be given a more prominent role and voice in its decision-making.

More about the News

  • Prime Minister Modi is scheduled to visit New York later this month. He will address a special global conference of the United Nations. The meeting will be held Sept. 22-23.
  • While talking about the future of the world, PM Modi can reveal the future of the United Nations
  • PM Modi can emphasize the importance of India and other developing countries having a greater impact in creating jobs for the organisation.

The United Nations Summit of the Future

  • Earnestly called the “The UN Summit of the Future”, the aim was to establish a “new international perspective” to deliver a better present and secure the future
  • The theme is timely, as the world faces troubling challenges and stands in the midst of a major transition.

Concerns about the future of the United Nations

  • Despite the focus of the conference, many are concerned about the future of the United Nations itself.
  • Founded eighty years ago in San Francisco with 50 member states, the organization is now considered outdated and incapable of dealing with today’s issues.
  • The United Nations was originally created to deal with global conflicts, and it seems unable to cope with today’s geopolitical conflicts, wars and conflicting national interests.
  • As former Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold once said, “The United Nations was not created to take us to heaven, but to save us from hell.” This is a role that the United Nations is currently struggling to fulfill.
  • Demand for reform
    • Within the United Nations, there is increasing recognition of the need for change.
    • General Assembly President Denis Francis chose “Rebuilding Trust and Reviving Global Solidarity” as the theme for its 78th session in September 2023.
    • UN Secretary-General António Guterres stressed the need for reform and adaptation in the multilateral system, saying, “It’s either change or it’s broken. The world has changed. Our institutions have not changed.”

The United Nations and the Origins of Western Thought

  • To understand the challenges facing the United Nations, it is necessary to examine the thinking that developed in the West in the early 20th century.
  • Influential Western intellectuals such asG. Wells, Albert Einstein, Aldous Huxley and John Foster Dulles were inspired by the idea of ​​Anglo-Saxon superiority.
  • These thinkers advocated world integration led by the United States and other English-speaking countries.
  • G. Wells’s Vision of a World State
    • In his book Anticipations, H.G. Wells saw the rise of a dominant English-speaking world state.
    • Wells imagined that this world power was ruled from the United States and controlled such territories as the black states of the British Empire, parts of the Pacific, and much of Africa
    • In 1935, Wells argued that English-speaking nations should unite for world peace under a common foreign policy.

The Collapse of the United Nations

Impact on UN foundations 

  • The Anglo-centric worldview influenced Roosevelt and Churchill to lay the foundation for the United Nations in 1941.
  • Most of the first 50 countries in the UN in 1945 came from the territories highlighted by Wells in 1935.
  • Although the United Nations has grown to 193 member states and two observer states (the Holy See and Palestine), Western views of sovereignty differ.
  • This worldview is sustained by concepts such as “liberal internationalism” and concepts such as the “concert of democratic states”.
  • Modern initiatives such as Brexit, AUKUS and CANZUK (Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK) are products of this constant thinking.

Ethnic hegemony

  • Eventually, Anglo-Saxon supremacy became a central issue in the Commonwealth.
  • As non-English speaking countries gained power and influence, they began to assert themselves on the global stage.
  • In response, sovereign states chose to circumvent the UN by denying it democracy and inclusiveness.
  • This unwillingness to change hinders the effectiveness of the organization and its ability to represent the broader international community.
  • In his 2023 General Assembly address, President Joe Biden focused primarily on economic and climate issues, briefly mentioning the Ukraine war.
    • This reflects the growing connection between the United Nations and complex global challenges.

The inability to address major global issues

  • The United Nations seems powerless to deal with major issues like the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
  • It struggles to enforce the Global North’s legislation on food security and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the global South.
  • Nor does the UN have the power to force the industrialized North to compensate the developing South for climate non-compliance.
  • The World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement mechanism has suspended disclosure of UN system disabilities from December 2019.
    • The United States has refused to approve new judges for the WTO appeals panel, crippling its work.
    • Until 2023, more than 600 bilateral and regional trade agreements at the WTO stand without a decision.

India’s Proposals at the UN

  • Ruchira Kamboz, India’s permanent representative to the UN, highlighted the crisis at the UN General Assembly in February, two years after the Ukraine conflict.
  • Kamboj asked two important questions:
    • Are we close to finding a possible and acceptable solution to the conflict?
    • Why has the United Nations system, especially the Security Council, been relatively ineffective in resolving the conflict?
  • In January, Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar highlighted the key issue by noting the unwillingness of the five members of the Permanent Security Council to give up their power and influence in the system
  • While the UN aims to negotiate the future of the world, PM Modi may raise the need for reforms within the UN itself, demanding more representation from countries like India to play a central role in its affairs.

Alternative articles

https://universalinstitutions.com/united-nations-reforms/

https://universalinstitutions.com/reforms-in-un-security-council/

Source:

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/ram-madhav-writes-the-un-the-world-needs-9566522/

Mains question

Critically examine the challenges faced by the United Nations in addressing global conflicts and the relevance of reforming its structure to give greater