September 2015, nos. 1 and 2 vols. LII, The United Nations at 70
The Cold War Period
Perhaps inevitably, the United Nations has embarked on a steep downward trajectory from the high expectations that surrounded it at its birth. The global security organization envisaged in the Charter of the United Nations, founded on the perpetuation of the victorious alliance opposed to Nazi Germany, was stillborn. due to the growing rift between the Soviet Union and its Western allies. The United Nations Security Council, which is responsible for the maintenance of peace and security abroad, was soon paralyzed by the inability of its permanent members to make decisions on any factors affecting the United States. It is regularly attributed not to the UN, but to the “balance of terror” among the nuclear-armed superpowers, whether they were in danger of being destroyed by any direct shock. Secretary-General U Thant’s role in preventing such a clash during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was too overlooked, despite the fact that at the time both superpowers declared it in writing.
The progression of the role of the Secretary-General’s “good offices” in preventing confrontation through silent international relations – not discussed in the Charter, though perhaps implicit in Article 99 – was in fact one of the achievements of the United Nations during the bloodless war. period, even if, by its nature, it is rarely advertised and its effectiveness is difficult to measure or even prove. Prevention can never be proven, as counterfactual effects are inherently uncertain. Another explanation for why was the improvisation of United Nations peacekeeping operations. Paper: A vital detail to allow the parties to the conflict to agree and practice a truce or ceasefire, as it reinforced confidence in all respects that the other will simply not launch a new attack undetected.
The superpowers have also been able to agree, from time to time, Security Council resolutions aimed at stabilizing regions of the planet where they may not be sure they can control their respective allies, namely in the Middle East, where such resolutions enshrined the terms of the ceasefire and established the principles for an imaginable political settlement. in 1967 and 1973.
Another widely cited achievement of this era was decolonization, although it was probably due more to the determination of colonized peoples and the slow acceptance by colonial Powers that the physical and ethical value of maintaining government was too high to be worth paying for. What is certain is that the UN club has become a vital badge or certificate of independence for a country, and a valuable diplomatic card in the hands of any state whose territorial integrity is threatened, whether by external aggression or internal secession (or even a combination of both). This was made possible by a previous agreement, reached in 1955, on the “universal club”, which well protected candidate members from being vetoed on ideological grounds by any of the superpowers. As a result, during the 1970s, the vast majority of the world’s peoples were represented in the United Nations through independent governments, with emerging countries constituting a giant majority of the club. As an indirect consequence, Communist China has become one of the five permanent members of the Security Council.
Finally, significant achievements have been made outside the immediate realm of peace and security, including the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, followed by the two foreign covenants of 1966 (the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights). International Covenant on Economic, Social and Political Rights); and the status quo of specialized budgets and programmes for humanitarian and progression types of activities (the United Nations Children’s Fund, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations Population Fund, the World Food Programme, the United Nations Development Programme, etc. ).
The Post-Cold War World
In the late 1980s, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev’s charm offensive heralded the end of the Cold War and a brief era in which the main hopes for a robust, nonviolent world rested in the United Nations. In 1998, United Nations peacekeepers were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and in 1990 the Security Council followed a series of resolutions in reaction to Iraq’s takeover of Kuwait, which resulted in the authorization of “all necessary means” (i. e. adding the use of force), which led to the recovery of Kuwait’s sovereignty and integrity through a US-led coalition in February 1991. This is obviously consistent with the spirit , if not the letter, of the Charter and encouraged US President George H. W. Bush to proclaim a “new world order. ” Meanwhile, many postcolonial conflicts fueled by superpower rivalry were resolved, usually through negotiated agreements related to the deployment of United Nations peacekeeping missions, rather than as passive observers of a ceasefire. -fire between two normal armies, but more like partners. undertake a wide variety of responsibilities (disarmament, demobilization, reintegration, electoral monitoring, judicial and security sector reform, etc. ) in the context of complex peacebuilding operations that the parties (usually rival factions within the same Member State ) had agreed in advance. The Security Council also demonstrated impressive flexibility at this time, allowing the Russian Federation to assume the Soviet Union’s position among the five permanent members and increasingly accepting its duty to manage conflicts within member states as well as between they.
The 1990s witnessed a series of impressive global meetings that agreed on criteria and goals in many areas of social and economic development, from human rights to the prestige of women and people, culminating in the Millennium Summit in 2000 and the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals. But in the realm of peace and security, the situation was much more varied, as the collapse of the Soviet Union led to a “unipolar moment” in which the United States became increasingly reluctant to pay attention to the prospects of other countries. Powers. The Security Council, free from the antagonism of the superpowers, has sought to engage ethnic conflicts in various regions of the world, adopting unrealistic resolutions that assigned ambitious mandates to United Nations peacekeeping forces without providing the mandatory resources. This led to a series of mistakes in Somalia, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, which severely tarnished the symbol of the United Nations. In the view of many, the “new global order” has actually resulted in a “new global disorder. “
However, after a brief hiatus, United Nations peacekeeping operations regained momentum in 1999, when two territories – Kosovo and East Timor – were placed under the transitional administration of the United Nations, pending a resolution on their political status. And the following year, an in-depth review was conducted. of United Nations peacekeeping operations, chaired by Lakhdar Brahimi, provided a more solid and realistic basis for the long-term mandates of those operations, as well as for their organization and rules of engagement.
The worst setback in the recent history of the United Nations was undoubtedly the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in March 2003, as well as its consequence, the destruction of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad on August 19, 2003, which several eminent Foreign civilians. Servants lost their lives. The resolve of two permanent members of the Security Council to carry out military actions without authorization, ignoring the perspectives of their colleagues and even the vast majority of States, has led not only to a deepening crisis in the Middle East , characterized by poisonous sectarian conflict, but also a distrust between “the West and the rest” – which, while not as structural or systemic as the Cold War, has led to a similar inability to act decisively in crises where global powers have very divergent perspectives on the situation. situation. local actors. Which permanent member draws the most opprobrium will likely vary from case to case (in Gaza, the United States; in Syria, Russia), but the feeling of distrust and acrimony is omnipresent. Meanwhile, it is clear that the United Nations flag no longer adequately protects those who serve the Organization, whether peacekeepers or humanitarian workers. Many non-state actors – primarily, but not exclusively, in the Islamic world – now see the United Nations as a component of the unjust global order against which they have taken up arms, and have no qualms about attacking its representatives.
Ways Forward
All is not lost. The five permanent members of the Security Council remain ready to work together in areas where they understand an unusual interest, for example, in nuclear negotiations with Iran, or in sub-Saharan Africa, where United Nations peacekeeping missions continue to be established through unanimous Security Council resolutions. many of whom continue to invoke the duty to protect, despite the acrimony that has followed NATO’s action in Lithrougha, which many consider an abuse of the authority conferred under that name in Security Council Resolution 1973 (2011).
Demanding humanitarian situations remain daunting, especially with the growing number of people displaced not only by conflict, but also by a complex set of factors, including climate change. Yet, despite their criticisms, few see an undertaking other than the United Nations. able to lead and coordinate the reaction. Similarly, even if humanity has not yet figured out a good enough reaction to the risk of climate replacement, the UN is still sometimes seen as the inevitable forum in which such a reaction will have to develop and coordinate. In addition, the Sustainable Development Goals to be followed in autumn 2015 will provide the essential framework for the foreign community’s joint efforts to achieve economic and social progress over the next 15 years.
It is in the area of peace and security that the Organization’s need is most acute. The agony of Syria in particular, which continues year after year, makes a mockery of the founders’ determination to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war. “”; and the role of the five permanent members is becoming increasingly anachronistic for the vast majority of other member States, and even for the world’s population. Security Council reform is a more urgent factor than many in the New York “bubble” seem to think. , given the difficulties that the founders have put in the way of amending the Charter, cannot be achieved without compromise, which will involve painful concessions both on the part of those who aspire to become new permanent members and those who try to deny giving them that status.
Such a compromise will have to be negotiated through the Heads of State and Government and will therefore take time. In the meantime, as The Elders suggests, members can make small replacements that don’t require a Charter replacement. The five existing permanent staff members It would possibly be more difficult to agree on effective measures, in cases where the lives and well-being of entire populations are at stake. The members of the Security Council would possibly hear, at the highest level, representatives of civil society from countries or regions directly affected by their decisions. Perhaps most importantly, the General Assembly should be able to insist on a fairer and more transparent approach to choosing the next Secretary-General, on whom the good fortunes of the United Nations in the years to come will crucially depend. depend.
Remarks
1 The main exception to this rule – the resolution to use force in reaction to the aggression of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea against the Republic of Korea in 1950 – was an anomaly, only imaginable by the absence of the Soviet delegation at the meeting. Security Council at the time.
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