United Nations and the Emerging Global Order

          The foundations of the United Nations were laid on the ashes of the League of Nations. League’s failure to avert the war and promote the cause of peace reiterated the conviction of the people all over the world to work for enduring peace. The name ‘United Nations’ was devised by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and was first used in the declaration by ‘United Nations’ of 1^st January 1942 during the war when representatives of 16 nations pledged their governments to continue fighting together against the Axis powers. The advent of UN owes its roots to the Moscow Declaration of 1^st November, 1943 whereas Foreign Ministers of China, Russia, UK and the United States took up a decision to establish an international organisation.

          The representatives of the countries mentioned above again met at Washington in September-October 1944 and are also known as Dumbarton Oaks talks. On October 7, 1944, the proposed framework of the UNO was tentatively published. These proposals were further discussed at the Yalta Conference in February 1945 where Heads of United Kingdom, United States and Russia – Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin – took part. Finally, the draft was signed on June 26, 1945 when it was ratified by a requisite number of states.

Objectives of the United Nations:

          The objectives of the United Nations are enshrined in the Preamble to the Charter. There are four major objectives:

i. To save the succeeding generations from the scourge of war;

ii. To reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the work and dignity of human person and equal rights of men, women and nations large and small;

iii. To establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained;

iv. To promote social progress and better standard of life in large freedom.

          These objectives envisaged a better and peaceful life to the people of the world through practising tolerance and living together in peace and harmony with one another. This spirit has facilitated the emergence of the concept of peace coexistence among the states despite political, economic and ideological differences prevailing between them. The Preamble envisages the principle of collective security to maintain international peace and security. The Preamble emphasises the use of international machinery to promote economic and social advancement of the people throughout the world. This has led to a new international economic order which attaches importance to the development of less developed countries.

The Purposes and Principles of the United Nations:

          The purposes of the United Nations are set forth in Article 1 of its Charter. These include the following:

1.     Maintenance of international peace and security.

2.     Development of friendly relations among nations.

3.     International cooperation in solving problems of economic, social, cultural and humanitarian nature; promotion and encouragement of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.

4.     To act as a centre for harmonising the actions of nations to achieve the above ends.

          It will be observed from the above list of purposes of United Nations, that maintenance of international peace and security has been given first place, because in its absence the other purposes of the United Nations cannot be realised. For the purpose of maintenance of international peace and security, the UN can take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about any peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustments or settlement of international disputes of situations which might lead to a breach of the peace.

          The UN also seeks to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principles of equal rights and self-determination of the peoples, and can take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace. Both the above purposes of the United Nations are essentially political in character because they have a direct bearing on the struggle for power among the nations. The third purpose of the United Nations is to ensure international cooperation for solving international problems of economic, social, cultural or humanitarian nature. It promotes and encourages respect for human rights and assures fundamental freedoms to all without distinction of race, sex, language or religion.

          Finally, the United Nations is expected to act as centre for coordination of various international economic, social and cultural activities. It is noteworthy that the United Nations alone does not coordinate all these activities. A number of other organisations also play a vital role in this regard. For the attainment of the above purposes, the UN acts in accordance with certain principles which have been outlined in Article 2 of the UN Charter. These principles include the following:

1.     The Organisation is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its members.

2.     The members shall fulfil in good faith the obligation assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter.

3.     All members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice are not endangered.

4.     All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.

5.     All members shall give the United Nations every assistance in any action it takes in accordance with the present Charter, and shall refrain from giving assistance to any state against which the United Nations is taking preventive or enforcement action.

6.     The Organisation shall ensure that states which are not members of the United Nations act in accordance with these.

7.     The organisation shall not intervene in matters essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state. This provision shall not, however, prejudice the application of enforcement action with respect to threats to the peace, breaches of the peace and acts of aggression.

           How successful has the UN been in realising its objective of maintaining international peace and security divides historians. But there is little doubt that right since its inception in 1945, it has helped save millions from different kinds of privations including from the deepest of poverty, from watching their children die of treatable diseases, from starvation and exposure as they fled wars made in the name of ideology, ethnicity, religion, language or nationality.

          In its 71 years, the United Nations may have been hailed as the great hope for the future of mankind – but it has also been dismissed as a shameful den of dictatorships. It has infuriated with its numbing bureaucracy, its institutional cover-ups of corruption and the undemocratic politics of its security council. It goes to war in the name of peace but has been a bystander through genocide. It has spent more than half a trillion dollars in 71 years.

          Tensions between western governments, which see the UN as bloated and inefficient, and developing countries, which regard it as undemocratic and dominated by the rich, have rippled across the organisation as ballooning costs drive the push for reform. Even accounting for inflation, annual UN expenditure is 40 times higher than it was in the early 1950s. The organisation now encompasses 17 specialised agencies, 14 funds and a secretariat with 17 departments employing 41,000 people.

          Its regular budget, which is agreed every two years and goes to pay for the cost of administering the UN – including mouth-watering daily allowances which result in many of its bureaucrats being far better paid than American civil servants – has more than doubled over the past two decades to $5.4bn. But that is just a small portion of the total spend. Peacekeeping costs another $9bn a year, with 120,000 peacekeepers deployed mostly in Africa. Some missions have lasted more than a decade.

          And then there are the voluntary contributions from individual governments that go to fund a large part of disaster relief, development work and agencies such as UNICEF. They have risen six-fold over the past 25 years to $28.8bn. And yet even at that level, some agencies are warning that they are operating on the brink of bankruptcy. Even with costs surging fourfold in the last 20 years, total UN spending this year is still only about half of New York City’s $75bn budget. The United Nations has a total of 193 members today.

India and the United Nations

            India, one of the founding members, signed the UN Declaration at Washington on 1 January 1942 and also participated in the historic UN Conference of International Organization at San Francisco from 25 April to 26 June 1945. India has consistently supported the purposes and principles of the UN and has made significant contributions to implementing the goals of the UN Charter, particularly in the field of peacekeeping. Over the years, India has viewed the UN as a forum that could play a role as a guarantor to international peace and security. In recent times, India has attempted to strengthen the UN system to combat in the spirit of multilateralism global challenges of development and poverty eradication, climate change, terrorism, piracy, disarmament, human rights, peace-building and peacekeeping.

          There have been periodic misunderstandings and disenchantments, from the early referral of Kashmir to censorious remarks in the Security Council during the Bangladesh war and after the nuclear tests in 1998. The truth is, India is still distracted by the Kashmir dispute and restricted by Pakistan to sub-continental status. India's, however, has always been a strident voice at the UN, a voice that was stronger as it founded the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the Group of 77 developing countries that argued within the UN for a more equitable international economic and political order, in keeping with Article 53 of the UN Charter. 

          In the 1950s and 60s, India led the charge of newly independent countries in the UN to argue and secure freedom for still enslaved countries in Africa and Asia. India co-sponsored the landmark 1960 Declaration on Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples which proclaimed the need to unconditionally end colonialism in all its forms and manifestations.     India was also at the forefront in the fight against apartheid and racial discrimination in South Africa. India was the first country to raise the issue in the UN in 1946 and played a leading role in the formation of a sub-committee against Apartheid set up by the General Assembly.

          India was one of the earliest signatories to the Convention on Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination adopted in 1965. India has over the years also championed the cause of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. In 1996, India as part of a group of 21 countries submitted to the Conference of Disarmament a Programme of Action calling for a phased elimination of nuclear weapons (1996 - 2020). India is the only state with nuclear weapons that has consistently supported the call for a total nuclear disarmament.

          India was closely associated with the processes of estimation of the official development assistance that developed countries, one per cent of their national income, required to transfer to developing countries. Of this one per cent, 0.7 per cent was to constitute the ODA. India also played an important role in formulation of the 'development decades'. The first 'development decade' was from 1961 to 1970 and the fourth in the 1990s. The post-Cold War era changed the North-South donor and donee equation with the developing countries realising they needed to restructure their economies to attract private foreign investment as direct foreign aid was a thing of the past. 

          The process culminated with world leaders signing the UN Millennium Declaration in New York in September 2000 where they pledged to meet time bound and measurable targets to reduce deprivation by 2015. It adopted eight Millennium Development Goals or MDGs. Another six MDGs were adopted in 2015. In recent decades, India has apart from calling for reforms of the UNSC and world financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, has also advocated "zero tolerance” approach to terrorism in all its forms. In 1996, India piloted a draft Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) with the aim to provide an exhaustive legal framework to counter terrorism.

          India is also a major contributor to UN funds like the UN Democracy Fund that PM Manmohan Singh, US President George Bush and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan founded in 2005. India today is the second biggest contributor to the Fund to engender democratic values and processes. India regained independence two years after the creation of the United Nations, yet it was one of the 51 founding members. The ideals of world peace and global solidarity based on sovereign equality, mutual respect, and universal tolerance were immensely attractive to independent India.

           India has worked actively to ensure that development remains at the core of the United Nations agenda, particularly against the backdrop of the global financial meltdown, together with upheavals in the food and energy markets. In this regard, the need for developed countries to fulfil their commitments to provide enhanced aid, greater market access, debt relief and technology transfer to developing countries was re-emphasized. India also pushed for proportionate voice and participation of the developing countries towards ensuring a greater developmental focus in the international regimes on trade, finance and economic bodies.

          India's most tangible contribution to the UN is in peace operations. India has been among the largest contributors in terms of numbers of missions, force commanders, and personnel. Participation in UN peace operations is not a politically contentious issue in India, nor a constitutionally complicated exercise, nor even a divisive subject of public debate. There are three broad reasons why India is asked to contribute troops to U.N. operations: the size and professionalism of its armed forces; the lack of such forces from most developing countries until recently; and India's influence in world affairs.

          India has contributed over 1,60,000 troops to 43 of 64 UN peacekeeping operations since its inception in the 1950s. Over 160 Indian armed and police forces personnel have laid down their lives while fighting for the UN's blue flag. The first deployment of the Indian armed forces was during the Korean War of the early 1950s. Other peacekeeping operations in which Indian personnel have taken part include Indo-China (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia), Congo, Mozambique, Somalia, Rwanda, Angola, Sierra-Leone and Ethiopia.

          Currently, Indian armed forces are part of seven of the 14 ongoing UN peacekeeping missions, with 9,332 Indian soldiers and police on UN duty overseas.  Indian forces are in Lebanon (UNIFIL), Congo (MONUC), Sudan (UNMISS), Golan Heights (UNDOF), Ivory Coast (MINUSTAH), and Liberia (UNMIL). The first all women contingent in any UN peacekeeping mission, a Formed Police Unit from India, was deployed in Liberia in 2007 as part of the UN peacekeeping mission.

          There has been creeping an apartheid in UN peacekeeping, where the poor countries contribute troops while the rich western countries provide logistical support and dominate the senior policymaking ranks in the UN system. India must look at the balance of composition of UN missions, and contribute only if there are at least some industrialised countries also willing to shoulder the burden. Only so will we begin to put a distance between the professional Indian military and the image of UN operations as something fit only for impoverished and amateurish contributors in it for the money. The changing nature of conflicts where a peacekeeping force is increasingly being asked to do a lot more than its traditional mandate is an issue of concern to India.

          The five permanent members of the Security Council namely US, UK, France, China and Russia, the victors over Germany and Japan, hold the whip hand through vetoes. For all the noise from the US, Britain and France in particular about modernising the UN, they show no willingness to give up the power they wield sometimes in ways governed entirely by political interest. India, the world’s second most populous nation, is pushing for expansion of the Security Council to include six more permanent members with the right of veto, as well as several more non-permanent members.

          The G4 comprising Brazil, Germany, India and Japan has been calling for the reform of the UN, especially to expand the membership of the UN Security Council, to reflect today's reality instead of the international power balance as it had existed in 1945. India and other G4 members have kept the issue of UN reforms alive over the past few years, and have regularly engaged with the L69 and C10 groups. The L69 is a group of 40 African, Latin American, Asia-Pacific and Caribbean countries which wants the UNSC expanded to include six more permanent members - four of G4 and two from Africa. The C10 or the African Union's proposal for UNSC expansion is on similar lines. The three - that is G4, L69 and C10 - however differ with each other on the question of who should be entrusted with veto powers and who shouldn't.

          India continues to play an active role in the United Nations (UN) focusing on the ongoing process of reforming the UN Organization with a view to enhancing its representative nature and its credibility, and therefore, its effectiveness. In collaboration with other member states, India continues to work for reform of the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council and to revitalize the General Assembly. Another probably more easily attainable goal is re-establishing the General Assembly as the primary organ, including the substantial rather than a rubber-stamping role in choosing the Secretary-General. The most important is reclaiming the organisation overall as the forum, voice and servant of the poorer and weaker majority instead of a tool of domination by the rich and powerful minority.

The Future Ahead:

          The United Nations can boast of few significant achieve­ments even after 71 years of its existence. Its two finest hours-the defence of South Korea in the Korean War and the liberation of Kuwait from Iraq-were both American- and Brit­ish-led operations that frankly would have taken place even if the United Nations did not exist. With­out the United States, the UN is little more than an emperor with no clothes. The UN's failures, from its inability to stop ethnic cleansing in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Sudan to wide­spread abuses by UN peacekeepers across Africa, are legion. Inaction, incompetence, and even abject inhumanity have all too often been the hallmarks of UN operations, which have frequently demonstrated a callous indifference to human suffering.

          The United Nations today has gained a reputation as an institution rife with corruption and dominated by a sleazy political culture. The several investigations into the massive Oil-for-Food scandal opened up an unpleasant can of worms. Clearly, the United Nations is an institution in fundamental need of wholesale reform and new leadership. Much of the blame should be placed on the leadership of the UN, including the Secretary-General.

          The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 marked a watershed moment in the history of the love-hate relationship between the world's biggest superpower and an international body determined to reign in a Goliath. America did not look to the UN in responding to the biggest attack on its soil since Pearl Harbour. Indeed, the United Nations was largely an irrelevant bystander as the US, British, and other allied forces stormed Afghanistan, the safe haven of al-Qaeda.

          The US-led war on terrorism has become a major wedge dividing the United States and the UN establishment. America's approach to fighting ter­rorism, from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to the practice of rendition of terrorist suspects, has become the subject of extreme criticism from UN human rights bodies, such as the Human Rights Committee and Council on Human Rights, as well as other supranational institutions such as the Council of Europe. Indeed, the US war on terrorism has become a huge target for the UN's human rights apparatus. Tensions between the United States and the UN over the treatment of suspected terrorists will greatly com­plicate any future cooperation between the two in the battle against terrorism.

          The Iraq war was another watershed in US- UN relations. Washington only half-heartedly went to the Security Council in 2002 when it con­fronted the defiant regime of Saddam Hussein, and only after intense pressure from British Prime Min­ister Tony Blair. The liberation of Baghdad was con­ducted without the blessing of the Council after the most acrimonious of debates, which pitted Wash­ington and London against Moscow, Paris, and Beijing. To this day, Secretary-General Kofi Annan continues to refer bitterly to the Iraq war as an "ille­gal" violation of international law, much to the chagrin of the US.

          Despite the rifts over Iraq and the war on terror­ism, the United States still remains committed to working with the UN. However, how long that commitment lasts depends upon the degree to which the institution is reformed and the extent to which the world body serves as an ally or as an obstacle in the war on terrorism and the battle against rogue states, such as Iran, Syria, Libya, and North Korea. Patience is beginning to run out, and it is likely that animosity toward the UN will probably increase rather than decrease in the years to come.

          The United States is likely to clash increasingly with the United Nations over the battle against Islamic extremism, over the interpretation of inter­national law, over the defence of Israel in the face of intimidation by Iranian and Syrian-backed militias, over the approach to foreign aid and over the definition of human rights. The United States will bypass the U.N. where it is seen to be obstructing US interests and will turn to coalitions of the willing in order to deal with specific threats to international security, and even humani­tarian crises.

          At the same time, America, together with close allies, may develop more bodies outside of the UN system to handle global issues. The United Nations will have to compete increasingly in a global marketplace of international institutions. Its privileged position as the dominant world body in areas such as human rights, humanitarian relief, and international development could be increasing­ly challenged, both by other multilateral institutions and by ad hoc coalitions. The UN, with its myriad agencies and vast bureaucracy, may struggle to com­pete in a 21st century world that demands immedi­ate responses to clear and present threats and crises.

          Whether the UN goes the way of its predecessor, the League of Nations, and sinks into the abyss of history as an irrelevant failure depends upon its willingness to be reformed as well as its ability to aggressively confront the challenges of today, whether it be the threat of global terrorism, the aggressive actions of a dictatorial regime, or the mass slaughter of one ethnic group by another. Ter­rorism, tyranny, and genocide remain the three great evils of our time, and the UN will be judged by how it responds to them. If it is not up to the task, then it will be time to take a bow and give way to a successor.

          In a highly fluid world, the international system will remain principally an anarchic, self-help system, defined by the absence of a supreme authority with coercive power. Nation states will remain the main actors within this system, engaged in rational power games and seeking to secure their national interests. International regimes may be forced into places, alliances may be expanded, global norms may more frequently be invoked, and a multi-polar world may eventually emerge.

          However, a genuine collective security arrangement that enjoys widespread legitimacy is unlikely to take shape in the foreseeable future. Barring a dramatic change, nation states will have to continue to depend primarily on their internal resources to remain stable and secure in the international system. Simultaneously, external interventions, especially in areas which traditionally fall within the domestic jurisdiction of nation states, could increase in their frequency despite ritualistic commitment to Article 2 (7). These interventions will, of course, be particularly noticeable against so-called ‘failed states’, and against states seen to have violated international norms or more crudely put, great power interests.

          Unless there is a systematic attempt at preventing such misuse, the United Nations may become the principal instrument in the hands of dominant world powers. Be that as it may, the UN is likely to remain the preeminent international organisation in the system. The UN is here to stay. It is not a perfect organisation, but it is the only one of its kind and there are no alternatives on the horizon. It is crucial, therefore, that India shows the maturity and dynamism which can help it assume key influence in the UN system and work towards creating a more habitable and peaceful world. India needs to work in coalition with like-minded powers to prepare the UN to be better equipped to face up to the myriad complex challenges threatening international peace and security on the planet.

Successes of the United Nations

·         The First and foremost it has prevented the occurrence of any further world wars. Instrumental in the maintenance of international balance of power.

·         It played a Significant role in disarming the world and making it nuclear free. Various treaty negotiations like 'Partial Test Ban Treaty' and 'Nuclear non-proliferation treaty' have been signed under UN.

·         Demise of colonialism and imperialism on one hand and apartheid on the other had UN sanctions behind them.

·         UN Acted as vanguard for the protection of human rights of the people of the world, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948.

·         Despite crippled by Bretton Woods Institutions, UN has played limited but effective role on economic matters. Supported the North-South dialogue and aspired for emergence of new international economic order.

·         Agencies of United Nations like WHO, UNICFF, UNESCO have keenly participated in the transformation of the international social sector.

·         Peace keeping operations, peaceful resolution of disputes and refugee concerns had always been on the list of core issues.

·         Since 1945, the UN has been credited with negotiating 172 peaceful settlements that have ended regional conflicts.

·         The world body was also instrumental in institutionalization of international laws and world legal frame work.

·         Passage of various conventions and declarations on child, women, climate, etc, highlights the extra-political affairs of the otherwise political world body.

·         It has successfully controlled the situation in Serbia, Yugoslavia and Balkan areas.

·         A number of peace missions in Africa has done reasonably well to control the situation.

Failures of the United Nations

·         UN opinion on Hungary and Czechoslovakia were ignored by the erstwhile Soviet Union in 1950s.

·         Israel had been taking unilateral action through decades in its geographical vicinity and nothing substantial has come out even by September 2010.

·         No emphatic role in crisis of worst kinds like the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam crisis etc.

·         UN was nowhere in the picture when the NATO rained bombs over former Yugoslavia.

·         Uni-polarity and unilateralism has shaken the relevance of the world body. Unilateral action in Iraq was bereft of UN sanction.

·         Failed to generate a universal consensus to protect the deteriorating world climate, even at Copenhagen in 2009.

·         Number of nuclear powers in the world has kept on increasing. UN Could not control the horizontal expansion and proliferation of weapons and arms.

·         Financial dependence on the industrialized nations has at times deviated UN from neutrality and impartiality.

·         The world body has failed to reflect the democratic aspiration of the world. Without being democratic itself, it talks of democratization of the world.

·         AIDS is crossing regions and boundaries both in spread and intensity.

·         Domestic situation of near anarchy in Iraq and many regions of Afghanistan, despite on active UN. The US President scheme of withdrawal has not able to bring any specific solutions in the region. In fact, the situation has been further aggravated.

·         The UN was totally exposed in the case of US invasion on Iraq in name for the search weapon of mass destruction. US has withdrawn its combat forces but the law and order and mutual distrust has worsened and at this juncture UN seems to be clueless.

·         Its inability to respond to the evolving situation in the Middle East including Syria and Libya on account of resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism as represented by ISIS, Al Qaida and Taliban.