The United Nations Reform in Post-Cold War

The United Nations Reforms in Post-Cold War

Introduction:

    Since the late 1990s there have been many calls for reforms in the United Nations (UN). However, there is little clarity or consensus about what reform might mean in practice. Both those who want the UN to play a greater role in world affair and those who want its role confined to humanitarian work or otherwise reduced. The United Nations has undergone phases of reform since its foundation in 1945. During the first years, the first decisive change was the developments of peacekeeping measures to oversee the implementation of cease fire agreements in 1949 in the Middle East and one year later in the Kashmir conflict between India and Pakistan (Edward, 2008: 8).

Reform initiatives launched by the Soviet Union during the East-West antagonism in the 1950s to curtail the independence of the secretariat. With states from Africa and Asia joining the United Nations, development issues became increasingly important, resulting in the expansion of the United Nations in the development area, including the establishment of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 1965 and negotiations on an International Economic Order (NIEO) as part of the North-South conflict in the 1970s. the 1980s were characterised by financial crisis and the retreat of the United States, which triggered a reform of the budgetary process and the downsizing of the Organization (Evelyn, 2005:6). With the end of the Cold War the rediscovery of the renaissance of the United Nations were hailed, the first half of the 1990s saw a major expansion of the Organization and the reform associated with the Agenda for Peace launched by Secretary-General Boutros Boutros Ghali (Edward, 2008:8).

A string of new peacekeeping missions were launched in Namibia, Yugoslavia, Somalia and Angola by the Security Council which also triggered interest I the reform of 15 member body. Germany and Japan in particular, as well as India and Brazil, launched efforts to gain permanent seats and veto rights at the council. In the late 1990s, Secretary-General Kofin Annan improved the coherence of the United Nations, with a better co-ordinated development system and more effective humanitarian structures. The fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic was energized, and a new concept of partnership between the United Nations and International business developed under the Global Compact. Other reforms include revamping of peacekeeping operations following the Brahimi Report. The World Summit in 2005 recognized, albeit mainly symbolically, an international responsibility to protect populations from genocide and the Human Rights Council replaced the discredited Commission on Human Rights (Muravchik, 2005: 10).

According to Edward (2008:12) as of 2007, Secretary-General Ban Kimoon continued the reform agenda covering oversight, integrity and ethics which had previously been launched in response to investigation of the UN Oil for Food Programme. The programme responded to the humanitarian needs of Iraqi civilians and was the largest, most complex and most ambitious relief effort in the history of the United Nations. With reference to the 2005 World Summit, the General Assembly approved in April 2007 a number of loosely related reform initiatives, covering international environmental governance, a unified gender organization, and delivering as one at the country level to enhance the consolidation of UN programmes.

United Nations Reforms

Security Council Reform

A very frequently discussed change to the UN structure is to change the permanent membership of UN Security Council, which reflects the power structure of the world as it was in 1945. There are several proposed plans, notably by the G4 nations, by the Uniting for Consensus group and former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan (Evelyn, 2005: 12).

 

UN Secretariat Transparency Reform

At another level, calls for reforming the UN demand to make the UN administration (usually called the UN Secretariat or 'the bureaucracy') more transparent, more accountable, and more efficient, including direct election of Secretary- General by the people. UN Secretariat/administration reforms seldom get much attention in the media, though within the Organization they are seen as widely contentious issues. They run the bureaucracy of the UN, responding to the decisions by the Member States in the Security Council and the General Assembly (Evelyn, 2005: 12).

Mark Malloh Brown, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations Development Programme attributes the inefficiency of the UN administration to the disconnect between the merit and reward and further advocates reconnecting merit to make the UN again an international meritocracy to overcome the problem. He believes that the UN must stop promoting on the basis of political correctness that encourages promoting of staffs proportionately from certain regions of the world, but instead make more use of Asia, Africa and other so-called less developed regions that now offer a large pool of talented, skilled, and highly qualified will readily move up through the UN system without need of the cultural relativism which is used to promote incompetents. A somewhat related point is often made by UN member states from the developing worlds, who complain that some of the most desirable senior posts within the Secretariat are filled under tradition of regional representation that favours the United States and other affluent nations (Fasolu, 2008: 166).

Among the notable efforts of Secretariat reform since 2005 is the Secretary-General's report investing in the United Nations from March 2006 and the Comprehensive review of governance and oversight within the UN, June the same year. From the Member States side there is the Four Nations Initiative, a cooperation projected by Chile, South Africa, Sweden and Thailand to promote governance and management reforms, aiming at increased accountability and transparency (Edward, 2008:15).

Democracy Reform

Another frequent demand is that the UN become more democratic and a key institution of a world democracy. This raises fundamental questions about the nature and role of the UN. The UN is not a world government, rather a forum for the world's sovereign states to debate issues and determine collective course of action. A direct democracy would request the presidential election of the UN Secretary-General by direct vote of the citizens of the democratic countries as well as the General Assembly (just as cities, states and nations have their own representatives in many systems, who attend specifically to issues relevant to the given level of authority) and the International Court of Justice. Others have proposed a combination of direct and indirect democracy, whereby national governments might ratify the expressed will of the people for such important post as an empowered World Court (Evelyn, 2005: 12).

Financing Reforms

On the subject of financing, Paul Hawken made the following proposal in his book 'The Ecology of Commerce': " A tax on missiles, planes, tanks and guns would provide the UN with its entire budget, as well as pay for all peacekeeping efforts around the world, including the resettlement of refugees and reparations to the victims of war." The main problem with implementing such a radical tax would be finding acceptance. Although such a system might find acceptance within some nations, particularly those with a history of neutrality without an active military such as Costa Rica or with other levels of military spending such as Japan, which currently spends 1% of its GDP on defence, it would be very unpopular among many consumers of arms. Nations in this latter category range from the United States, which spends 4% of its GDP on defence, to dictatorship that depends on arms to keep them in power. Other likely opponents would be nations engaged in on-going military conflict, or others in a state of heightened military alert such as Israel. Arms producers would also oppose it, because it would increase their costs and possibly reduce their consumers (Evelyn, 2005: 12).

Another tax that the UN might promote would be some sort of Global resource Dividend.

Human Right Reforms

The United Nations Commission on Human Right came under fire during its existence for the high profile positions it gave to member states that did not guarantee the human rights of their own citizens. Several nations known to have been guilty of gross violations of human rights became members of the organizations of human rights became members of the organization such as Libya, Cuba, Sudan, Algeria, China, Azerbaijan and Vietnam. Meanwhile, the United States was also angry when it was ejected from the commission in 2002. While it was re-elected, the election of human rights abusing nations also caused frictions. It was partly because of these problems that Kofi Annan in the Larger Freedom report suggested setting up a new Human Rights Council as a subsidiary UN body (Evelyn, 2005: 12).

On Wednesday, 15 March 2006, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favour of establishing a new United Nations Human Rights Council, the successor to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, with the resolution receiving approval from 170 members of the 191 nations assembly. Only the United States, the Marshall Islands, Palau and Israel voted against the council's creation, claiming that it would have too little power and that there were insufficient safeguards to prevent human rights-abusing nations from taking control (Evelyn, 2005: 12).

Creation, Removal and Addictions for proposed UN Reform

Creation of United Nations Parliamentary Assembly

A United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, or United Nations People's Assembly (UNPA), is a proposed addition to the United Nations System that eventually would allow for direct election of UN Parliament members by citizens of all over the world. Proposal for a UNPA date back to the UN's formation in 1945, but largely stagnated until the 1990s. they have recently gained traction amidst increasing globalization, as national parliamentarians and citizens groups seek to counter the growing influence of unelected international bureaucracies (Evelyn, 2005: 16).

Creation of United Nations Environmental Organization

    Following the publication of Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC in February 2007, a "Paris Call for Action" read out by French President Chirac and supported by 46 countries, called for the United Nations Environment Programme to be replaced by a new and more powerful United Nations Environment Organization (UNEO) to be modelled on the World Health Organization. The 46 countries include the European Union nations, but notably did not include the United States, China, Russia, and India, the top four emitters of greenhouse gases (Doyle, 2007: 8).

Placing all UN Development Agencies and Specialised Programme under a UNDG

    The then Secretary-General Kofi Annan streamlined all UN Agencies working on International Development Issues under a new United Nations Development Group, chaired by the Administrator of the UNDP. The delivering as one concept was also introduced (Fasolu, 2008:7).

Removal of spent provisions in UN Charter

    According to Edward (2008:15), several provisions of the United Nations charter are no longer relevant. In Larger Freedom proposed the removal of these provisions:

1. Since there are no longer any trust territories, the Trusteeship Council no longer serves any purpose, and has not met since 1994. Thus, chapter XIII of the Charter is no longer relevant, and can be deleted.
   
2. Due to Cold War disagreements, the Military Staff Committee never succeeded in its intended purpose. Although it formally still meets every two weeks, it has been effectively inactive since 1948. Thus, article 47, and the references to it in article 26, 45 and 46 can be deleted.
   
3. The "enemy clauses" in article 53 and 107 contain special provisions relating to the members of the Axis in World War II (Germany, Japan, etc) these are no longer relevant; Japan in particular would like to see them removed.
   

There are also other provisions of the UN Charter that deals with transitional arrangements, and thus are now spent. For example, article 61(3) and article 109(3). However, in Larger Freedom does not contain any proposals with respect to these provisions. Due to the difficulty in amending the Charter, it is likely that any of these spent provisions will be amended except as part of a package making substantive amendments, such as Security Council reform. Further, while in Larger Freedom proposes that certain provisions be removed there is no universal agreement. One school of thought in particular suggests that the Military Staff Committee could be revitalized by member states finally meeting their article commitments to provide a force able to perform peace-making and peace enforcement under the legitimacy of the United Nations flag (Evelyn, 2005: 12).

Conclusively, United Nations Reforms has gone a long way in restoring peace and discouraging coerce in society. That is why it has undergone phases of reform since its foundation in 1945, therefore introducing reform initiatives that have tendered to develop peacekeeping measures of cease fire, discouraging Human Rights Abuse by nations, and initiatives covering international environmental governance. Such reforms include security reforms, UN secretariat transparency reform, democracy reforms, financing reform and human right reforms.

 

References

Doyle, A.    (2007) "46 nations call for long tougher UN environment.

role". Reuter

Edward, H.    (2008) The United Nations beyond reforms?: The

collective in security of the international system and the

prospects for sustainable global peace and justice. University

of Limerick.

Fasolu (2008)    Reconnecting merit to make the UN again an

International meritocracy. Reuters.

Evelyn, L. (2005)         Annan wants swift decision on UN council

reforms. Reuters

Muravchik, J. (2005)    The future of the United Nations:

Understanding the past to Chart a way forward. AEI Press.