United Nations And The Crisis Of Legitimation

While addressing the United Nations (UN) General Assembly Session of 2024, Mia Mottley, the PM of Barbados remarked, "The UN system was formed when most of the countries of the world were not sovereign entities, and whether we like it or not, it cannot reflect the true representation of world's current realities". She further added, "If we want to hold on to the past, we better get eyes in the back of our head rather than front of our head, because we are seeing the dying of current world order. This opinion voiced by Ms. Mottley is neither unique nor limited to the Global South. Benedict Franke, the CEO of Munich Security Council (MSC), the so called elite club, also expressed similar concerns stating that most of the global south doesn't very much like this "rules based world order" (RBWO) because the rules were made when most of them weren't independent". So, let us briefly see what is this current world order that is so talked about. 

 The current RBWO emerged out of the catastrophic outcomes of the two world wars, when it was felt that a global peace mechanism and an institution should be built to avoid the repeat of the world wars. This eventually led to the formation of UN led by the USA as one superpower and reluctantly supported by the other superpower, the USSR. The primary aim of this global, supranational institution was to establish global peace, protect human rights and avoid conflicts. The primary aim of UN was best articulated by Former UN Secretary General (UNSG) Dag Hammarskjöld who famously said that UN was not created to take mankind to heaven but to save humanity from hell.  

UN in this regard has some notable achievements to it's name. It acted as an institution at the forefront of Decolonization in over 80 countries primarily in Asia and Africa. It negotiated over 170 Peace Settlements, carried out over 70 Peacekeeping Missions across the world. Having witnessed the horrors of Holocaust and loss of millions of life in the wars, UN emerged as the custodian of Human Rights (HR) which was legalized through Universal Declaration of HR (UDHR) in 1948. In the aftermath of nuclear attack on Japan, UN led a resolution in 1946 to prevent nuclear proliferation. 

On the other hand, the specialized agencies of UN like WHO, FAO, UNESCO, ICJ have done great service to humanity at large. While FAO has been leading a fight against hunger, poverty and malnutrition; WHO has been able to tame the problem of Polio to large extent while raising awareness about smallpox, malaria and HIV. UNESCO has tried to protect the intangible cultural and natural heritage amid the environmental degradation and global conflicts. Let us not forget the contribution of UNFCCC in bringing climate change at the core of global politics which used to be dominated by the power projections. Though the tangible outcomes of all these successes detailed above can be debated yet they clearly reflects the underlying potential of UN as an institution of global good.

Having briefly looked into the bright spots, let us dive into it's failures. In it's early years, UN failed to prevent the Korean War eventually leading to the bifurcation of Korean peninsula. Despite stated objective of nuclear non-proliferation, it remained mute spectator while the privileged few were adding to their stock pile while lecturing others through coercion and persuasion. Though it institutionalized the vision of collective security through UN Peacekeeping yet it failed to establish lasting peace due to structural and political issues. UNSC, the only UN organ with teeth to bite remains defunct due to power politics, crises in Ukraine and Gaza stand testimony to it. We can go on and on but the failures are so many that they dwarf the noble works carried out by it.  

Despite the pious objectives and near universal membership what has led to the decline of this global institution ? So, the answer lies in the very genesis of UN as an institution. Having been created by the victors of world wars, the UN from the very beginning had normalized the privilege of few over the others. It has been aptly summed up by India's UN envoy R. Ravindra who said, "1945 vintage binary outlook is reflected clearly in the composition of the UNSC". As mentioned earlier about the rise of two superpowers in the form of USA and USSR post world war, UN was reduced as a platform for power politics which both used to serve their own interests. 

The creation of five permanent (P-5) members provision with veto powers arguably remains the biggest structural flaw of UN as it has almost made it defunct. The selective use of veto to target one's adversaries and save it's allies has been the primary goal of P-5 at UNSC.  USA saving Israel or Russia and China saving Iran and North Korea are very common sights in the functioning of UNSC. Veto power doesn't just violate the Principle of Sovereign Equality which lies at the heart of UN as universal body but also gives overriding powers to the wishes of one over that of all others.

Another factor behind the current crisis of legitimacy being faced by UN is the disproportionate representation of the countries. The UN has completely failed to reflect the changing realities of the world either in terms of demography, geography or the economic progress. As has been rightly said that at UNSC, while West is over represented, Asia is under represented, Africa is absent. This institutional flaw and reluctance to change reflects the fear of privileged few to cede space to the deserving aspirants. The absence of India, the most populous country in the world, from UNSC's permanent membership reflects the deeply entrenched rot in the system and also it's failures in addressing the challenges of 21st century like climate change, hunger, poverty, inequality, civil wars and many more. As Indian PM Narendra Modi also said that the problems of 21st century can't be solved with the institutional structure of 20th century. Yet, the UN fails to awake from it's deep slumber.

For decades, we have heard the P-5 paying lip service to the idea of meaningful reforms yet the real progress on the ground remains invisible. One of the reasons behind the failure to bring tangible gains in reforms has been the lack of coherence and consensus in putting up their joint demand by the pro-reformists, primarily the Global South. Along with it, the regional rivalries among nations has been a major obstacle which has been capitalized by the existent powers to delay the reforms. Pakistan opposing India, South Korea challenging Japan or Italy opposing Germany for permanent seat at UNSC reflects the power politics at play which only suits the status quoist powers. 

The recent developments like COVID-19 pandemic, Ukraine and Gaza crisis, revival of fundamentalist led governments in Afghanistan and Syria, civil wars in Sudan and Myanmar, climate induced migration, points not just towards the failure of UN system but also it's limitations in it's current form. The announcement by President Donald Trump, on his inauguration day, to withdraw US from Paris Climate Change agreement is also a major blow to the global climate change negotiations led by UN. His decision to withdraw USA from WHO may be in line with his populist America First agenda but it doesn't augur well for the WHO's mandate as the global health crisis manager in light of the experiences of the pandemic. 

Today any discussion about the challenges to the mankind is incomplete without talking about the impacts of frontier technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Cyber Warfare, Quantum Technology etc. Though technologies of any sort are double edged swords but the potential of AI to disrupt the human life is unimaginable whose heat has already started to warm the global diplomatic get togethers. The attempt so far to regulate the field of AI has been individualistic ignoring the transnational potential of it. There is an open race to the bottom among major powers to gain preponderance over the other in any technology leading to confrontations of epic proportion for example the Global Chip War.  

The aforementioned issues and their impact on humanity at large are nothing but smoke signals for impending crises. The challenges of climate change, natural disasters, refugees, transnational terrorism resource constraints are only going to rise. And it can be said with some degree of authority that no one nation can handle these crises on their own as these are problems without passport. And in this regard the relevance of UN becomes even more important and it's revival, a necessity. 

Going forward, UN must act immediately to arrest it's further decline and loss of legitimacy. As Former EAM of India Sushma Swaraj said that if UN is unwilling to accept the reforms, it will erode it's own legitimacy and meet the fate of League of Nations (LoN) and world certainly remembers the consequences of the failure of LoN. So, the reforms should be led by those who have benefitted the most by the existing systems by ceding more space to those who deserve and desire to serve the purpose of greater good. Next step should be to empower the UN General Assembly (UNGA) to override the veto of the few in UNSC, so that the will of majority is not trampled upon by few for narrow political interests. 

As Prof. Happymon Jacob aptly said, "In global governance, imperfect institutions reflecting the realities of today are better than perfect institutions alien to the world of today". Those seeking meaningful reforms should also go for early harvest or piece meal approach rather than aiming for whole sale engineering over night. They must realize that the perfection is desirable yet unachievable as it is just a chimera. They should (G4/G77) attempt to get incremental gains like permanent seat at UNSC without veto, increasing the strength of UNSC to reflect current realities. There should be attempts to provide functional and financial autonomy to the specialized agencies so that they don't fall victim to the narrow agendas of individual leaders in carrying out their mandates (Read this in light of Trump's adventurism).   

The survivability and longevity of human race has been a function of their willingness to cooperate and work together in times of crises. And hence a institution or a system born out of crisis can't be made to fail during the crises itself. UN was proposed as a liberal institution rooted in human rationality needs to revive those traditions. It is unquestionable that world today is all about realpolitik yet the rationality still guides the way for majority with few outliers. The need of the time is for that majority to pool together their rationality and goodwill to improve a system which is mandated to serve the greater good.