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PlainSpeak
United Nations:
The Imperatives for Drastic Structural Reforms
by Dr. Subhash Kapila
 The
United Nations was founded in 1945 in the aftermath of the victorious
end of the Second World War in favor of the Allies, namely the United
States, Britain and France, and the Former Soviet Union which brought
about the collapse of Germany and Berlin from the East. Lofty ideals
were propagated by the victorious Powers as the building blocks of this
noble edifice to ensure international peace and harmony. If one were to
go by the record of the United Nations of the last sixty four years
international peace and security stand more breached by its Big Five
members, than peace ensured, one is led to the sad conclusion that
unless the imperatives for drastic structural reforms are not recognized
by the major global Powers, the United Nations too seems destined to
fading away as its predecessor, the League of Nations.
The “United” Nations is a misnomer as there is nothing united about
it in terms of a united resolve not only to ensure global peace, but it
remains “disunited “ in terms of upholding the noble ideals and the
founding principles of the Charter of the United Nations. Come September
every year when the annual General Assembly takes place in New York, one
sees a motley procession of political dignitaries from all over the
world, big and small, mouthing platitudes and giving sermons, more in
terms of attitude statements than with any serious intent to follow
them.
The cleavages within the apex body, the Security Council of
the Global Five Major Powers became apparent soon after the founding of
the United Nations. The Western Powers were soon embroiled in the
infamous Cold War against their fellow Security Council member, the
Former Soviet Union. The Cold War intense struggle for global dominance
manifested itself not only in heartland Europe but also manifested
itself in diverse forms in all the strategically important geopolitical
regions of the world. This strategic struggle continues even today with
addition of a more militarily challenging emerging power of China.
The United Nations Security Council as the apex organ of the United
Nations is the first and most top priority organ for structural reforms.
It is not representative of the strategic realities that now define the
emerging world order and nor is it representative of the international
character of a global organization. In terms of strategic realities
Great Britain and France are no longer global powers of consequence. In
terms of international character the UN Security Council is Western
–centric and US –centric in that out of the five Permanent members,
three are Western countries namely USA, France and Great Britain. All
these three are part of the Atlantic Alliance and NATO.
India,
Japan and Brazil along with South Africa need to be incorporated as
Permanent Members of the UN Security Council by virtue of their emerging
power profiles, economic strengths and political importance as regional
powers in their respective regions. However, the tragedy is that the
existing Big Five are averse to expand the Security Council as they fear
that their traditional hold on global affairs could be diluted.
Take the example of China. China as an Asian country should normally
have been expected to second the inclusion of India and Japan as
Permanent Members of the UN Security Council in terms of Asian
solidarity. China regrettably is vehemently opposed to this move as it
fears that its strategic and political importance as the only Asian
nation in the Security Council as a Permanent Member would become
marginalized with the inclusion of India and Japan.
Similarly,
the much hyped UN Peacekeeping Operations in different parts of the
world are more determined by strategic and political inclinations of the
Big Five than by global imperatives of peace. Further, these UN
operations are costly and reports suggest that there is a lot of
corruption involved in terms of vested inflation of logistics support
bills of such operations. Regional flashpoints and threat to peace
should be left to regional organizations and regional powers to deal
with, without financial burden on the United Nations.
The United
Nations has a bloated UN Headquarters Secretariat in New York with an
over-paid and over-staffed bureaucracy to run programs from the doubtful
utility of international relief, humanitarian aid and what not. Take for
example the case of the Middle East. There are any number of UN
Peacekeeping and UN Observer Missions in the Middle East besides refugee
aid programs for the Palestinians etc. The Middle East abounds in
Islamic oi- rich nations with trillions at their command. Why should
these Islamic nations not take on themselves the burden of problems
which plague the Islamic World?
The issues mentioned in this
Column are only pointers besides a host of other issues which call for a
thorough re-examination of the structure and functions of the United
Nations.
Without awaiting the detailed re-structuring and
overhaul of the United Nations, the first imperative step and priority
is to restructure the UN Security Council by inclusion of India, Japan,
Brazil and South Africa as Permanent Members of the UN Security Council
with “full veto powers”.
September 28, 2009
Image under license with Gettyimages.com
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