Transforming the United Nations System

The United Nations has not been able to fulfil its mandate of maintaining international peace and security

- Dilip Sinha

THE United Nations (UN) is the centrepiece of what is touted as the rules-based international order. The entrenched biases in these rules are, however, laid bare by the composition and voting procedures of its most powerful organ, the Security Council. The Council was designed as an alliance of the permanent five to maintain international peace and security. But these powers became the biggest warmongers who reduced the Council to a showpiece by ensuring that it did not act against them or their protégés. Much worse, the Council became an instrument of their hegemony when, in the brief periods of their camaraderie, it authorised them to take military action on its behalf.

The blame for this lies essentially with the big three—the United States, Russia and China—who are aggressively trying to establish their dominance in world affairs. The United Kingdom and France, much diminished in military strength, play second fiddle to the US.

The UN was the second international organisation formed to provide security to the world. Its predecessor, the League of Nations, sandwiched between the two World Wars, had a fleeting existence. The UN has done little better in saving the world from the scourge of war, but it has one creditable achievement—it has survived. Its main founding powers, the US, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom, fell out soon after its formation and their collective security arrangement became unworkable. They could not agree on providing a military force to the Security Council under Article 43 of the UN Charter, leaving the newborn at their mercy for any military action.