Given the accumulation of global challenges and the futility of their existence
The United Nations enters its 75th unhappy birthday
The world completely ignored the principle of "responsibility to protect" when the outbreak of violence in Syria, which killed hundreds of thousands of civilians.
A.F.B.
Saddam Hussein violated international law that states not to change state borders by force.
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The United Nations celebrates its 75th birthday this year, different from the previous one due to the outbreak of the new Corona virus.
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The United Nations was 75 years old by this fall, and if this were a normal year, many world leaders could gather in New York to celebrate this great edifice and hold a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.
But this year is far from being normal, and that is why there will be no meeting due to the Coronavirus pandemic, which will not give way to any celebrations.
The United States has fallen short in achieving its goals of "maintaining international peace and security," "developing friendly relations between countries," and "achieving international cooperation in order to solve global problems."
The pandemic helped explain the reason, for the UN Security Council, the most important component of the international system, has become useless, as China has prevented the existence of any important role for this council, which is the executive arm of the United Nations, so that it is not criticized through it for its initial handling of the Corona outbreak, and it becomes responsible for The consequences that resulted from it.
At the same time, the United States withdrew from the World Health Organization, which led to its weakening, and as a result of this, the great powers in the world pushed the United Nations where it wanted, and not according to what the world's needs wanted.
This is not a new thing, during four decades of the Cold War, the United Nations became a theater for competition between the United States and the Soviet Union, and in fact the Cold War did not heat up much, not as a result of competition in the United Nations, but as a result of nuclear deterrence and the balance of power that kept the two superpowers in a state of vigil. Complete for non-heating.
The main occasion on which the United Nations intervened in order to maintain world peace, was to mobilize international forces to deter North Korea from aggression against South Korea, because the Soviet Union was supporting the North.
High hopes
There were high hopes that the United Nations would play a greater role in the wake of the end of the Cold War, and it seems that this optimism was justified in the 1990s, when the world gathered under the umbrella of the United Nations to stand up to Iraq when it occupied Kuwait.
Unfortunately, the Gulf War was the exception, and after the end of the Cold War, relations between the United States, China, and the Soviet Union were relatively good, and there was some love for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein at the time, but he violated international law that stipulates not to change the borders of countries by force, and the goal of the forces that led them was The United States, with the approval of the United Nations, is specific and stipulates removing the Iraqi forces from Kuwait, restoring matters to normal in this small country, and not changing the regime in Baghdad.
In fact, such circumstances cannot be easily repeated. Relations between the great powers have greatly deteriorated, and the United Nations has become useless.
Russia (which inherited the Soviet Union’s seat on the Security Council) prevented unified action to stop the bloodshed in the Balkans.
And when he did not have the support of the United Nations, US President George W. Bush bypassed the international organization when he invaded Iraq in 2003, and the Russian veto in the Security Council prevented any action against Russia when it occupied the Crimea peninsula and annexed it to its territory in 2014. The United Nations failed to prevent Cessation of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. A decade later, the United Nations General Assembly pledged not to do this again, and declared that the world has a "responsibility to protect" or to intervene, when a state’s government fails to protect its citizens or is unwilling to protect them. From the outbreak of violence on a large scale.
But the principle pledged by the United Nations was completely ignored by the world when the countries of the world stood idly by and watched the acts of violence that struck Syria, which killed hundreds of thousands of civilians.
This does not mean that the United Nations has no value, as it provides a useful space for state governments to engage with each other in order to avoid or mitigate crises.
UN agencies worked to promote economic and social development, and to facilitate arrangements ranging from communications to monitoring nuclear facilities.
Peacekeeping missions helped maintain security in many countries.
Disappointment
In general, the United Nations was disappointing because of great-power competition, and the shortcomings of the organization's work, as the corrupt work system puts many people in important positions for reasons of inefficiency, not to mention the lack of accountability.
In fact, undertaking important reforms of the United Nations is not the realistic option, as possible changes such as changing the composition of the UN Security Council to reflect the distribution of power in our current world would be in the interest of certain countries and ignore other countries, and therefore the countries that will not benefit from This change will hinder it.
Although the United Nations General Assembly is the most democratic and representative of the United Nations structure, it lacks the power to implement, and that is why it is ineffective given that all countries have one vote, regardless of their size, wealth and military strength.
What helps develop crises in such a system is the lack of international cooperation, which is considered an urgent need for the present world.
The world is not facing the re-emergence of great-power competition again, but rather other global challenges, from the Corona pandemic to climate change and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, all of which need international cooperation in order to deal with it.
Richard Haass is president of the Council on Foreign Policy, an intellectual and non-profit organization interested in the foreign policy of the United States
Alternatives
The optimistic thing is that countries can create alternatives such as forming the Group of Seven Rich Countries, or the Group of Twenty, when the United Nations fails to achieve its intended purpose.
State coalitions are also able to cooperate with each other to address specific local and global challenges.
We see copies of these coalitions in trade policy and arms control, and we can see them also in the field of action to address climate change, and the creation of standards and regulations in the cyber world.
The issue of multilateralism and global governance seems more urgent than ever, and we do not know if it is moving towards for the worse or for the better, which will happen outside the United Nations to a large extent.
Although the United Nations General Assembly is the most democratic and representative of the United Nations structure, it lacks the power to implement, and that is why it is ineffective given that all countries have one vote regardless of their size, wealth and military power.
The optimistic thing is that countries can create alternatives such as forming the Group of Seven Rich Countries, or the Group of Twenty, when the United Nations fails to achieve its intended purpose.
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