The United Nations was the culmination of a long line of attempts by the international state system – beginning with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 – to institutionalize a multilateral approach to coordinate the activities of states towards common goals. One may contrast it with the unilateral approach in the Thucydidean aphorism: “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”, or “bilateral” approaches where two countries deal with each other directly. However, even with the proliferation of states since 1648, now numbering 193, and notwithstanding protestations to the contrary, multilateralism has always been undermined by the tendency of the strong to “have their way” at the expense of the weak.
This is exemplified by the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine that are supported respectively by the US and Russia. The UN’s fundamental contradiction in its effectiveness lies in the veto power of the P5 nations – the US, Russia, Germany, France and China – in the Security Council. This has to authorise interventions – armed or otherwise – that may be voted on by the General Assembly or the High Commission of Human Rights in trouble spots. As the P5 nations legitimize their national priorities through their veto power, there has been growing dissatisfaction with the UN system and nations are looking at alternative pathways towards more equitable international arrangements.
For instance, with the Cold War between the US and USSR launched coterminously with the UN in 1945, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was launched in 1961 after the Bandung Conference of 1955 and at its height had 120 members from the developing world, including Guyana. At the end of the Cold War in 1989 the grouping became moot with the US left as the lone superpower standing. But with a new one brewing between the US and China, as the latter develops inexorably in economic and military strength to match the US, there are pressures on other nations to align themselves along this new dipole.
One response is the BRICS+ grouping that will be meeting within two weeks in Russia. Originally Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, which were seen as ‘emerging economies” – out of “developing country” status – it now has ten members including Iran and UAR and forty-seven others, including Venezuela, seeking membership. With its push to break free of the global financial architecture launched in 1945 and dominated by the US and Europe, it exemplifies new fears that one country – here China – will use the institution to impose its own hegemony. G-20 – meeting in mid-November in Brazil is another powerful sub-group – and this one includes the US, EU and the more developed countries from BRICS – that works outside the UN system and helps to subvert the latter’s multilateral ethos.
But the UN has attempted to “strike back”. Early last month, at a High-Level Political Forum in New York of the General Assembly, several countries committed to accelerating the delivery of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These were promulgated in 2015 and were the culmination of a process that began in 1992. Sadly all that they could commit to was the achievement of 15% of the goals that were supposed to be delivered by 2030. This was followed by a “Pact for the Future, that was signed by the UNGA on Sept 23 after nine months of intense negotiations. The UN Secretary-General was candid and declared, “We are here to bring multilateralism back from the brink.”
The Pact covers a wide array of themes including peace and security, global governance, sustainable development, climate change, digital cooperation, human rights, gender, youth and future generations. It lays out some 56 broad actions that countries pledged to achieve. Sadly, there is no blueprint as to how these goals will be achieved and since most of them will depend on the UNSC to carry out, we can expect the P5 powers will continue to veto any decisions that impinge on their national interests and keep us at square one.
