Mankind's last best hope?
From the Blog PkColumnist.com: Mankind's last best hope? - Two historical anniversaries take place within three months every year. The first commemorates the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 and the second marks the founding of the United Nations in October, 1945, as a world body established to save humanity from the scourge of war. Fifty million people were killed in the Second World War, including the hundreds of thousands who perished in Hiroshima and Nagasaki alone. However, the conduct of states has not gone beyond the ringing of bells and solemn prayers on these anniversaries. Tens of thousands of nuclear weapons remain in the world. At least nine states, including the five NPT-declared nuclear-weapon states, are known to be in possession of roughly 27,000 nuclear warheads, and they continue to produce weapons-grade fissile materials. The US and Russia together possess more than 95 percent of the world's nuclear weapons. As for the United Nations, which only serves as a venue for conferences, it regularly celebrates its anniversaries. This year's anniversary notice at a UN-related website made an attractive appeal: "Fed Up With Hunger? Combat Starvation & Poverty! Join Us At This Year's UN 65th Anniversary Celebration and Banquet. Participation Fee Only $35 Per Person." What a joke! What happened to the vision that hailed the UN at its inception in 1945, as "mankind's last best hope"? The world body stands totally incapacitated in the face of the myriad challenges facing mankind. It has no relevance to its twin goals of peace and prosperity. The post-9/11 world has witnessed unprecedented erosion in the role, authority and credibility of the UN, which is no longer the sole meaningful arbiter on issues of global importance. Washington, not the UN Headquarters in New York, is the focus of world attention where actual decision-making on major global issues is concerned. The UN has prevented no war, and has resolved no major dispute. Palestine and Kashmir, the world's two longest-running major disputes, are a glaring example of this hopeless situation. The UN was meant to provide a moral edifice in the reordering of the global system, which was to be based on justice and equity and governed by rules, laws, values and cooperation. The world is neither just nor equal, and remains afflicted with undiminished poverty, hunger and disease. Economic disparities are only widening, while global peace remains as elusive as ever. Functionally, the UN today is no more than a debating forum, annually producing voluminous and repetitive resolutions without tangible results or follow-up action. The UN system is not only the world's largest consumer of paper but also its largest producer of waste paper. No wonder it is dubbed as "dustbin of history." The UN Security Council, responsible under the Charter for maintenance of international peace and security, is left with no role in preventing conflicts or resolving disputes. The overriding vested interests of the more influential and powerful players limit its role in conflict prevention and dispute resolution. Its deliberations are conducted in a theatrical manner through stage-managed debates and choreographed scenarios. There is no transparency in its proceedings. Its decisions on critical issues are reached behind closed doors in the anterooms of the Council's Chamber. "They come, they speak, and they leave." This is what happens in September every year, when government leaders from across the globe assemble in New York to participate in the general debate at the annual session of the General Assembly. At the beginning of each regular session, the General Assembly holds a general debate, often addressed by heads of state and government, in which member-states express their views on the most pressing international issues. For nearly two weeks at this time of the year, the "Big Apple," as New Yorkers fondly call their city, is paralysed with extraordinary traffic jams and security gridlocks. It also becomes a global carnival with a lot of fun and frolic in the name of the world's poor and global peace. The programme normally kicks off with a breakfast hosted by the UN secretary-general at UN Headquarters, with a lavish global menu. A series of luncheons, receptions and banquets, and "bilaterals" then keep them busy with each other. The only UN-related official engagement of the world's leaders at the annual session is the 10- to 15-minute statements that they deliver from the podium of the General Assembly. The statements so made are only a rehash of the words of wisdom that world leaders have been delivering at this forum for years on major issues. Some even dramatise their presence at the podium by self-serving antics. We hear a lot of good things about our future in terms of peace and prosperity, and about mankind's freedom from all evils and menaces. Our leaders also reiterate their resolve to reshape the UN in conformity with the realities of the changed world. The promised change is nowhere to be seen. Neither the world nor the UN shows any change for the better. Neither is different from what it has been since the Second World War. The world remains afflicted with the same old problems, perhaps in their acutest forms now. Injustice and oppression continue unabated. Historical grievances and outstanding disputes remain unaddressed. Wars of aggression and attrition, invasions in the name of self-defence, military occupations, massacres and genocides, human tragedies and a culture of extremism and violence continue to define the "new world disorder." Global peace remains as elusive as ever. There is no letup in violence and the causes that breed violence and vengeance. What aggravates this bleak scenario is the growing inability of the international community to respond to these challenges. The events of the last nine years have immeasurably shaken the international system, which is no longer governed by norms and principles governing inter-state relations. There is no global balance of power, nor consensus on major peace and security issues or on how to address them. The complacent world has never been so indifferent and so chaotic. If the UN of the 21st century has to be prevented from meeting the fate of its predecessor, the League of Nations, its structure and culture will have to be adapted to the realities and challenges of today's changed world. This would require restoration of the primacy of the General Assembly as the UN's chief policy-making organ and restructuring of the Security Council to make it more representative and more effective. The UN must shed its vestiges of power and privilege, the remnants of World War II Realpolitik. The democratic principle of sovereign equality must now be the basis of its strength and participatory character. . Read Full Post
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