An evolving UN

The United Nations (UN) was formed as WWII drew to a close, and its declaration emphasised the concerns of the time: “We ,The Peoples Of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war…to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human persons, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small… and for these ends to practice tolerance…to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security…”

The focus on preventing wars was understandable and while there has been any number of conflagrations since 1945, none were allowed to escalate into another “world war”. In a world populated by states that still hone to the maxim of “big fishes eating little fishes”, war avoidance or containment alone convinced UN sceptics that the institution was necessary.

For smaller states like Guyana, the UN provided the forum in which they can at least articulate their concerns. And through lobbying to the best of their abilities – and their vote in the General Assembly – even be in a position to influence events.

The Guyana-Venezuela Border controversy was an issue that was taken to this forum and is still being addressed through the Good Officer process of the UN Secretary General. The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG’) that were established in 2000 to be achieved by 2015, focused the disbursal of aid to less fortunate counties, and were also a significant achievement of the UN system.

But there have been widespread and long-standing calls for the UN, which now has 193 members, to be “reformed”. Moves in this direction, such as shifts in the sanctity of the “sovereignty” of states, which in the beginning was defined as inviolable, followed. For instance, there is now an evolving “Right to Protect” (R2P) doctrine in which the UN can sanction interventions into states if there are domestic humanitarian imperatives such as genocide, etc. The Rwandan genocide in 1994 helped convince sceptical states that the status quo could not continue.

The UN’s necessary role in addressing emergencies that involve more than one state has recently been highlighted by the Ebola epidemic engulfing several West African states. But that intervention once again exposed one of the major weaknesses of the institution – bureaucratic layers that are removed from ground realities and which inhibit rapid responses. Another reason for the UN becoming somewhat out of step with present realities is that the ultimate decision-making apparatus – the Security Council – is still dominated by the victors of WWII – especially the US.

For a while between 1945 and 1989, smaller countries such as Guyana could manoeuvre within the system by playing off the two competing superpowers in the Security Council – the US and the USSR. But with the collapse of the latter in 1989, there were justified fears that living in a unipolar world would simply mean rubber-stamping decisions of the last superpower standing.

However, the financial crisis that hit the latter and its allies in 2008, and from which they have been unable to extricate themselves, has created hope that the UN itself will now be reformed to deal with the growing inequalities that had always characterised the world state-system. The inequalities had now percolated even within the developed countries and could not be avoided.

Another factor pushing fundamental structural changes in the UN are the rapid shifting in the relative economic strengths of the organisation’s members. As countries such as China and the rest of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) become more powerful, they will certainly challenge what they dubbed “American hegemony” of the UN and its institutions.

The UN Group of 77 in which the BRICS (as well as Guyana) are members have already proposed the contours of what a new economically driven UN would look like. Welcome to a brave, new UN.