Friday, September 19, 2003
The United Nations Conundrum
According to this New York Times story, the United Nations is a facing a real dilemma, caught between the only superpower which treats the organisation with scorn and the rest of the world that views it as, hmmmmm, something else altogether. Shashi Tharoor puts it succinctly -- "The worst fear of any of us," said Shashi Tharoor, an under secretary general whose entire career has been spent at the United Nations, "is that we fail to navigate an effective way between the Scylla of being seen as a cat's paw of the sole superpower and the Charybdis of being seen as so unhelpful to the sole superpower that they disregard the value of the United Nations."
I believe part of the problem lies in the composition of the United Nations security council, which is representative of an entirely different time and place, an issue that Kofi Annan touches upon in the report. I dont see how the claims of Japan, Germany, India and perhaps Brazil can be ignored for much longer. Of course, the problem with Germany becoming a veto-bearer is that the EU gets 3 permanent votes, which is pretty ridiculous. I think the EU should have two votes, at most.
For the U.S. though, its a different conundrum. To minimise the influence of France and Russia, it would probably help to enlarge the council. On the other hand, getting India and Brazil to cooperate with some of its mis/adventures might prove to be more difficult. After all, if it still was about buying off poor countries, the Cancun round would not have collapsed, would it?
I believe part of the problem lies in the composition of the United Nations security council, which is representative of an entirely different time and place, an issue that Kofi Annan touches upon in the report. I dont see how the claims of Japan, Germany, India and perhaps Brazil can be ignored for much longer. Of course, the problem with Germany becoming a veto-bearer is that the EU gets 3 permanent votes, which is pretty ridiculous. I think the EU should have two votes, at most.
For the U.S. though, its a different conundrum. To minimise the influence of France and Russia, it would probably help to enlarge the council. On the other hand, getting India and Brazil to cooperate with some of its mis/adventures might prove to be more difficult. After all, if it still was about buying off poor countries, the Cancun round would not have collapsed, would it?
