The Disunited Nations
The United Nations General Assembly Hall (Photo: Serena Tang, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0, via Flickr)
The UN. The glorious body of peace and democracy founded after WWII which worked around the clock to make sure nothing like that ever happened again, with international co-operation and security valued above all else. And for a while, at least, the efforts seemed to work. But things are different now. Aggressions and hostilities are on the rise again. And now, it seems that the United Nations are united by name only. It has simply devolved into another battlefield for key powers to push their own agendas, while ignoring everyone else’s concerns. In other words, multilateralism is ceding the way to a worrying platform of unilateralism.
You can tell that something has gone badly wrong when the biggest international institution of democracy fails to respond in any adequate way to some of the most urgent issues on the planet. But how on earth did we get to this state of affairs? Why is the UN going through such turmoil?
Where to start? For instance, a glaring example of inadequacy was the failure to discuss potential human rights violations committed by China in the northwestern Xinjiang region, specifically regarding Beijing’s abuses against the Muslim Uyghur minority. The Human Rights Council narrowly voted against holding a debate on this topic in October of 2022, despite a concerning report submitted in August by the UN OHCHR (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights) that said China’s actions may constitute a ‘crime against humanity’.
The failure to even hold a discussion on this topic outraged people and organisations alike. Amnesty International neatly summarised the outcome, saying that this result ‘puts the UN’s main human rights body in the farcical position of ignoring the findings of the UN’s own human rights office’. The outrage is justified. No country should be immune from discussion. How can it be that the body established specifically to fight against such atrocities refuses to even hold a simple debate about the situation?
Similar UN failures are seen at various points throughout history. The failure to prevent the slaughter of thousands of Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995. The failure to prevent the killing of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis during the Rwandan Civil War. Horrific acts of barbarism committed by UN ‘peacekeepers’ during the Congo Peacekeeping Mission. Their dubious financial dealings during the tsunami disaster of 2004. Not to mention the glaring issue of the UN’s paralysis regarding the Russia-Ukraine crisis, a situation that is ongoing and will undoubtedly get worse before it gets better.
But to understand why the UN has and continues to struggle with these issues, we need to delve deeper and examine what is truly going on behind the scenes, as it’s not obvious on the first reading. Firstly, the UN is suffering financially. Its economic position at the moment is unstable. It is currently facing severe financial constraints in light of the pandemic, whilst individuals’ need for assistance grows ever larger in all sectors, and member states are doing less and less to support it. As of September 2020, member states are only paying 60% of their contributions to the UN’s general budget.
The effects are obvious and worrying. With funding stripped back, vital humanitarian aid cannot be delivered. The UNHCR is operating with only 47% of its $9.1 billion allotted budget, and this is a huge problem. In Chad, water supply in refugee camps has been cut due to fuel shortages. In Lebanon, 70,000 extremely vulnerable refugee families no longer receive their safety net help from UNHCR. Current and future UN operations as we know them are at risk if nations fail to uphold their financial commitment to the organisation.
Another snake in the grass is the long-term effect that Trump’s presidency had on the power and overall credibility of the UN. His administration was characterised by a markedly isolationist approach to foreign policy. With regards to the UN, this meant pulling out of UNESCO, threatening to leave WHO and withdrawing from numerous international accords, such as the Paris Agreement.
Although President Biden has now recommitted the US to the UN, the fact remains that the US remains its biggest financial contributor, accounting for 22% of its total funding. The fact that the US, who are meant to be its biggest advocate, dismissed the UN - even for a short while - meant that its reliability has taken a huge hit.
The problem is that the UN has become a vector for hostilities between individual countries, primarily the key world players, including the US. The issue lies with the very way in which the UN is structured. One of the UN’s biggest (and self-made, really) obstacles is the system of vetoing on the Security Council, comprised of 5 permanent members: China, France, Russia, the UK and the US.
The veto system of the Security Council is, in my opinion, its Achilles heel. What is the use of even proposing discussions or drafting resolutions if any of the permanent members can simply veto on anything and everything that’s not to their liking? This is the UN’s fatal flaw. It is only as effective as member states allow. As long as a veto power still exists, as long as individual nations cannot set aside their partisan opinions, it cannot function in the way that was envisioned at its creation. Its very essence obstructs co-operation.
The UN needs urgent reform. But, surely, as the biggest organisation of international democracy, it can be solved, and I’m not giving up hope on the unity that I know still persists in the United Nations.