Reforming UN should be the first step for future

BY BAYRAM ALIYEV OP-ED
SEP 28, 2021

The United Nations headquarters building is seen from inside the U.N. General Assembly hall before heads of state begin to address the 76th Session of the General Assembly, New York City, U.S., Sept. 21, 2021. (Photo by Getty Images)

Wars leave societies in a state of poverty and destruction. At the beginning of the 21st century, approximately 60 countries were either experiencing conflict or the conflicts had just ended in these countries, according to Human Security Report 2005. Recent destructive crises in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq are but one addition to them. Stopping the conflicts and building post-conflict peace in conflict areas are among the priorities of the United Nations.

However, the U.N. draws much criticism over its activities, its approach to the ongoing global problems and its role in solving these problems. The veto power issue in the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) emerges as the most criticized issue as it may block the ability to solve crises. Be it from academics, researchers or states, these criticisms are very accurate when the current structure of the U.N. is investigated.

Does the U.N. play an active role in maintaining international peace and resolving crises? Does it have the ability to make decisions that directly or indirectly come into conflict with the interests of any of the UNSC members? What is the role of the U.N. in current crises and conflict zones and in the peaceful resolution of these conflicts? Can it help build and maintain peace? Such questions will enable us to understand better the current functioning of the global system.

Since the U.N. is the largest international organization, it is expected to take an active role in all international problems. It is also expected to play a role in the resolution of conflicts with a problem-solving and peace-building mechanism based on impartial and objective laws.

However, the U.N. has not been able to demonstrate its expected impartiality and effectiveness. While the U.N.'s obsolete structure from the Cold War era requires comprehensive reform, the great powers' acting in line with their own interests rather than international law also draws criticism. For example, in the Syrian crisis, this was notably observed.

Whether we look at the example of Libya and Syria, or the resolutions of the UNSC on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue that had not been implemented for a long time – as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan noted in his speech at the U.N., Azerbaijan itself was forced to implement it by using hard power – it is clear that the U.N. is a relatively dysfunctional and passive organization.

In a nutshell, the U.N. has failed to contribute to the end of the ongoing crises and human tragedy around the world.

The resolutions' failure

Furthermore, although the UNSC resolutions are binding by all members and have sanction power, we see that the UNSC actually implements practices in line with the interests of major international actors. In other words, rather than the UNSC implementing decisions as a U.N. agency, we see that member states take and implement decisions that do not conflict with the interests of other states.

It is not more than a hope that global problems will be resolved when the approach to global politics and ego-centered interests of the states are replaced by global justice and a conscientious vision. When global problems are squeezed between the interests of five countries, they become more and more chronic. This seems clear in the example of Russian hard power exercises in the post-Soviet region. The U.S. intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan can also be analyzed from this perspective.

In order to ensure peace swiftly and to ensure its perpetuity in the conflict zones, there is a need to make the U.N. the most effective decision-maker for international peace by undergoing radical reform. Otherwise, as stated above, the organization will continue to be stuck between the UNSC members and it will continue to take dysfunctional decisions that are not implemented or given the opportunity to be implemented, in the end becoming an increasingly ineffective institution. The U.N. falling into such a situation might bring along the threat of new chaos in the world, further deepening international problems and potentially causing the outbreak of a new war.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Faculty member at International Relations Department of Nakhchivan State University
UN a toothless tiger… or an appendage of the US? - EDITORIAL

29 September 2021 

THE MIRROR PAKISTAN

Yesterday (September 27) brought the curtain down on the final day of world leaders addressing the august body.

Addressing the sessions, Secretary General Antonio Guterres promoted the lofty ideals of the world body, spoke on issues of justice, warned the world of impending dangers climate change posed to future generations, as well as of death, destruction and the possibility of famine in Ethiopia and Yemen caused by war in those regions.

 
Meanwhile in Switzerland, another ‘game’ was playing out. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), an arm of the United Nations announced that he was ‘depriortising’ investigations into alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan!

The prosecutor’s reason for this about was even more startling. Prosecutor Karim Khan said he had filed an application to resume his office’s investigation into alleged atrocities committed in Afghanistan since July 1, 2002. But, with a big difference… he said he would be focusing on the actions of the Taliban and the Islamic State Khorasan - an ISIS-K- militia.

His thinking was that since the Taliban had driven the US and NATO troops out of their country, it was impossible. Since the US-supported government was no longer in power, there was little chance for ‘a genuine and effective domestic investigation’.

In other words, only an investigation carried out by a regime backed by the perpetrator of war crimes, and atrocities committed by on the Afghan people could be considered reliable and genuine.

Who is trying to deceive whom?

All over the world the US has been committing war crimes with complete impunity.
Sadly, it looks like a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. The poor Secretary General is obviously completely unaware of what one of the most important arms of his organization is planning to unleash on an unsuspecting world.

When the ICC announced last year that it was going to investigate alleged US war crimes and atrocities in Afghanistan, the people of the world believed that at last the US would be held to account for its numerous crimes against the civilian populations in different parts of the world.

Alas! That it not to be, among some of the worse ‘incidents’ committed and reported by rt.com was a US airstrike in 2002 which struck a wedding banquet in Uruzgan province, killing dozens and injuring many more.

 
In 2015, a NATO attack killed 15 policemen on an anti-narcotics mission, and in 2019, a US drone attack killed at least 30 Afghan farmers in Nangarhar Province.

According Brown University’s ‘Costs of War project,’ up to 47,245 Afghan civilians have been killed in the war launched by Washington two decades ago.

These killings took place and were documented by several reputed organisations, backed up by proof and witness reports.

As the character ‘Alice’ in Lewis Carol’s novel ‘Alice Wonderland’ want to say, things get curiouser and curiouser and so it was with the UN prosecutor who emphasised ‘It is this finding that has necessitated the present application…’ that is ‘deprioritising’ investigations into alleged US war crimes and atrocities.

We wonder whether the ICC prosecutors will apply the same criteria to allegations of war crimes committed during Sri Lanka’s ‘War on Terror’, which ended in 2009. But of course this paper has always stood for justice to the victims of war.

Or for that matter will the UN even at this late stage charge the US for crimes against humanity for dropping two nuclear bombs on civilian targets in Japan at a time when Japan was on the brink of surrendering?

Even the head of the then US forces, then General Eisenhover asked President Harry Truman not to use nuclear arms, (according to his diary kept by an aide to the US Ambassador to the Soviet Union).

If this was not a war crime, what is? But the US has never been charged for these crimes.

All evidence points to the US crimes in Afghanistan being swept under the table. However, this time around, the UN will be unable like Pontius Pilot of old be able to white wash itself off the crimes committed against the Afghan. People.