Curbing AIDS, eradicating smallpox, reducing violence in war-torn regions, facilitating nuclear disarmament, combating hunger – but despite such accomplishments, its work has been tarnished by numerous scandals, oversights and failures to live up to the promises. Perhaps the degree of failure is expected in such complex organizations.
In an interview to United Nations Association – UK, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, British Ambassador to the UN from 1998 to 2003, highlighted one of the major problems of the UN, which is still largely unaddressed to this day.
Fragmentation: the multiplicity of actors and the selfishness of individuals, groups and nations. Under the influence of globalisation in economics, communications, knowledge — everything — there has tended to be a fragmentation of identity, culture, religion and politics. In this way, globalisation breeds polarisation.
Not only a multitude of various cultures, religions and other viewpoints clash in the chambers of the UN headquarters – this also happens ‘in the field’. It’s easy to think of the UN as a single entity – but it’s essentially a sum of its parts. And there’s a huge number of said ‘parts’. Currently over 41,000 people work in the United Nations Secretariat alone. Considering many other branches of the organization, peacekeeping forces, contractors, etcetera, there are dozens of thousands of people who carry the title “United Nations” in one way or another – and all of them come from different backgrounds from all over the world. In other words, although the UN wants peace and unity in the world, it has to first make sure its own employees are up to it – and that simply is not the case sometimes.
Another issue is the cemented structure of the United Nations. On one hand, it exists for a reason – on the other hand, this reason may have been apparent 70 years ago, but times have changed. There are increasing calls to alter the way the UN Security Council operates and the number of its members. For example, in 2005 India's UN Ambassador Nirupam Sen suggested that there are countries which deserve a permanent place in the Security Council.
This struggle cannot be regarded as complete till the defeated and the colonized of that time take their place as equal members in the decision making councils of the UN, including and above all as permanent members of the UNSC… This is the old colonial argument — you are not yet ready for independence; you cannot enter this cricket club or that hospital because you are not part of the ruling elite.
As far as non-permanent members are concerned, there are issues with their selection as well. Candidates for the Security Council are proposed on a regional basis. Hence the countries of the Arab League are usually voted in; on the other hand, the neighboring Israel has never been elected to the Security Council.
The overall effectiveness of the UN is definitely lacking. The first two Charter mandates require the UN: “To maintain international peace and security…. (and if necessary to enforce the peace by) taking preventive or enforcement action,” and, at the same time, the Security Council has at times prevented the organization from carrying out such actions. With increasing frustration from its members, it’s clear that the United Nations needs to change. Whether it will be able to reform itself to take on these challenges or whether it will go the way of the League of Nations remains to be seen.
