THE RESTRUCTURING OF THE UNITED NATIONS AND ITS AGENCIES by Patricia de Lille
2004-11-04. The debate over whether Africa deserves a seat on the all-powerful United Nations Security Council is far more important than a beauty contest and a struggle for prestige between some of Africa's pivotal states South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Senegal and other aspirant states.
It is fundamentally about the nature
of power in the world, about legitimacy in the global order and giving
a voice to the voiceless in world affairs. The UN has occupied
the position as the world's most important international organization
and the Security Council remains the most important entity for the
maintenance of international peace and security. The notion of
permanent stems directly from the idea that there were winners and
losers after the 2nd World War. But there has always been
something fundamentally wrong with this composition.
The UN has always been characterised by more discord and less collaboration. Many of the great powers, notably the superpowers, have always sought to turn the Security Council into instruments of their foreign policies.
What should underlie the restructuring process are common norms and values of both national and international democratic governance, peace, security, economic integration and collective security. If the world order is to be stabilized and democratised, there will have to be greater efforts at bringing about a rules-based order - an order that is able to convince rich and poor, big and small - to play by legitimately arrived at rules. Dictatorships at home and abroad need to be democratized. The UN should be the agency articulating both a principled and ethical global order, while continuing to work hard to bring about a rules-based global order, and through its commitment to multilateralism and address poverty and the devastating HIV/AIDS crisis. It is only through such a rules-based multilateral order that both developed and developing countries could defend their interests and rights.
The UN of the future will have to better make the links between democracy, governance and peace and security and economic development.
But, it is not only the UN that should be transformed. It is important that the broader global governance architecture be transformed. The entire unaccountable Bretton Woods institutions the World Bank, IMF and WTO should not only be brought back in the UN fold; these institutions too need transformation. They have developed major jealousies and territorialities, precisely because they are illegitimate. They are not going to give up their ill-gained sovereignty easily; they are not going to hand it back to the UN on a silver platter. The UN will have to fight hard to reassert its own sovereignty and for the accountability of these other bodies.
The UN has always been characterised by more discord and less collaboration. Many of the great powers, notably the superpowers, have always sought to turn the Security Council into instruments of their foreign policies.
What should underlie the restructuring process are common norms and values of both national and international democratic governance, peace, security, economic integration and collective security. If the world order is to be stabilized and democratised, there will have to be greater efforts at bringing about a rules-based order - an order that is able to convince rich and poor, big and small - to play by legitimately arrived at rules. Dictatorships at home and abroad need to be democratized. The UN should be the agency articulating both a principled and ethical global order, while continuing to work hard to bring about a rules-based global order, and through its commitment to multilateralism and address poverty and the devastating HIV/AIDS crisis. It is only through such a rules-based multilateral order that both developed and developing countries could defend their interests and rights.
The UN of the future will have to better make the links between democracy, governance and peace and security and economic development.
But, it is not only the UN that should be transformed. It is important that the broader global governance architecture be transformed. The entire unaccountable Bretton Woods institutions the World Bank, IMF and WTO should not only be brought back in the UN fold; these institutions too need transformation. They have developed major jealousies and territorialities, precisely because they are illegitimate. They are not going to give up their ill-gained sovereignty easily; they are not going to hand it back to the UN on a silver platter. The UN will have to fight hard to reassert its own sovereignty and for the accountability of these other bodies.
