The UN: Reform or Die
This article is published as part of Fridays With MUNPlanet, and its special series dedicated to world politics. The aim of this series is to bring you the analysis of global affairs by the established and upcoming scholars, decision-makers and policy analysts from various world regions. This week, Aidan Hehir (University of Westminster) writes about the United Nations at 70, its position to take action in response to intra-state crises (the case of Syria), and the importance of a substantive UN reform.
By Aidan Hehir
As the seventieth anniversary of the United Nations looms, myriad reflections on the organisation’s record are being published and debated. Considering the devastation during which it was conceived, and the Cold War into which it was immediately plunged, the organisation has certainly demonstrated an admirable resilience. The UN’s membership has nearly quadrupled, its remit has expanded exponentially, and the numbers of UN Peacekeepers deployed on active duty is at record levels. And yet, its efficacy remains a perennially contested issue.
“The UN”?
When reflecting on the UN’s record it is necessary to first ask “What is the UN?” Obviously it is an international organisation but is the UN independent of states, a servant of states or something in between? The Secretariat — comprising the UN Secretary General and a host of additional departments — is certainly a “UN” body insofar as it not state-based, but when people speak of the UN how often do they actually mean “The Secretariat”? Generally, discussions about the organisation focus on the activities of the General Assembly and the Security Council; these organs are both constitutionally the most powerful within the UN and, importantly, state-based. Thus, when people criticize “the UN” for not reacting swiftly or robustly enough to, for example, the ongoing crisis in Syria, this is arguably unfair; the “UN’s” response to Syria was essentially a function of its member state’s national interests, especially those of the veto-wielding Permanent Five members (P5). It is not the “UN” which has failed the people of Syria, it is, more accurately the P5.
Syria and “the UN”
In the course of the conflict — which has thus far claimed over 220,000 lives — those specifically UN organs with a relevant remit have been vocal and proactive; the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in particular has, from the early stages of the conflict, denounced the barbarity of Assad’s regime and called for robust remedial and punitive action. The UN Secretary-General has also consistently advocated for greater international involvement in the cessation of the slaughter, and the referral of the situation to the International Criminal Court. Other bodies like the Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect have issued similar statements.
These appeals from within the UN, even when coupled with the damning report into the situation by the Human Rights Council’s “Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic”, have not, however, halted the carnage. This is because the position of the Security Council is far more important in determining the “UNs” response to the crisis in Syria than any of the bodies within the Secretariat.
Security Council Mendacity
The Security Council is constitutionally empowered to determine what, if indeed any, remedial action to take in response to intra-state crises. This of course means that coordinated UN action is prey to the veto; in the case of Syria, on four occasions Russia and China have vetoed draft resolutions seeking to impose sanctions on Syria. One need not be a genius or a conspiracy theorist to understand why; Russia has a naval base at Tartus in Syria, sells arms to the regime — even since the conflict began — and Russian energy company Soyuzneftegas signed a $90 million deal with the Syrian oil ministry in December 2013. This has meant that regardless of the escalating scale and duration of the carnage, the Security Council has been, in the words of Ban Ki-moon ‘hopelessly divided in their approaches to ending the conflict’ due to the competing geo-political interests of the P5. Kofi Annan stepped down as UN/Arab League Joint Special Envoy for Syria in August 2012 decrying the ‘finger-pointing and name-calling in the Security Council’ which had impeded his efforts, and in her final speech to the Security Council as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay declared, ‘greater responsiveness by this council would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives’. Indeed, the OHCHR has argued that P5 disunity has actually been a casual factor in the campaign waged by Assad’s forces; ‘The failure of the Security Council to agree on firm collective action’ they wrote ‘appears to have emboldened the Syrian Government to launch an all-out assault in an effort to crush dissent with overwhelming force’.
