The pandemic might be exactly the crisis needed to force global unity and confrontation of the long-needed structural change to the UN system, and the current multipolar order might be the right political environment to push that agenda.
This article is part of GP-ORF series — From Alpha Century to Viral World: The Raisina Young Fellows Speak.
Multilateralism is the coordinated diplomatic interaction between three or more stakeholders in international politics, but can be interpreted differently by different stakeholders. Sometimes it is understood as not only a diplomatic approach, but one that is committed to certain principles and set of values<1>. The value basis of multilateral institutions such as the United Nations (UN) — where many nations work towards a common goal to enable diversity and strengthen the weakened voice of the neglected majority — has inevitably led to a tug of war between the true values of multilateralism and the increasing use of multilateral networks for individual countries’ geostrategic purposes<2>. This coupled with the rising criticism of the UN system’s inability to respond to the growing global governance challenges has led to the questioning of the need for such an institution. Is it an excessive layer in global governance or does it still play a pivotal role in enabling the international community to work together?
At the very core of multilateralism lies an interdependency that is key to the equilibrium needed to maintain peaceful global governance that promotes collaboration and equity. Functioning through an architecture of organisations, institutions and procedures based in treaties, international law and essentially in the UN charter, the UN has been imperative in preserving peace and addressing common global threats since its creation<3>. Significant UN attainments beyond the domain of peace and security include the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, as well as the creation and later achievements of specialised funds, programmes and technical agencies<4> — such as the elimination of smallpox by the World Health Organization<5>, the non-proliferation treaty of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of the World Trade Organization<6>. Although the UN is often referred to as one entity, it is important to understand the complexity of its structure with five principal organs, 17 specialised agencies and many funds and programmes that give life to the decentralised and massive organisation that can be largely divided into the political, developmental and humanitarian parts of the UN.
Although the UN Charter is still as relevant now as in 1945, there is a well-acknowledged need to reform the functioning of the institution to uphold its legitimacy<7>. According to article 108 of the UN treaty, changes to the UN structure and governance are extremely difficult because they must be adopted by two-thirds of the members of the General Assembly and ratified by two-thirds of the members of the United Nations, including all the five permanent members of the Security Council<8>. Although the UN is the defender of democratic values on a global scale, it is restricted by the permanent members of the Security Council to fulfil this goal for its own governance mechanism. Thus, the idea that the international society should act collectively through the UN Security Council to protect populations from war, ethnic cleansing, genocide and other crimes against humanity is a normative aspiration that is constantly challenged by the inability of the five permanent members to act cooperatively. The conflict in Syria is one recent demonstration of the level of dissonance that has led to a paralysis of action<9>. The UN preaches democracy and supports its values in countries all around the world, but cannot live by its own rule due to structural limitations that reflect an old political order that no longer corresponds to what the world looks like today. Multilateral platforms such as the UN are used by member states to pursue their own national interests<10>, clearly exemplified by how Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin were recent advocates and defenders of multilateralism in contrast to former US President Donald Trump<11>. This is, however, not a new phenomenon, nor bound to disappear as global politics have always been the foundation underlying the multilateral order and will remain a structural force. That said, multilateral institutions must function within those parameters and other realities of our time, making UN reform and adaption to the global scene it operates in even more crucial<12>.
Beyond the criticism of the UN, it is hard to deny the importance that it has had for globalisation and peace and the interlinkages between countries. Although it is easy to criticise the UN for shortcomings and mistakes made as part of its global machinery, it is hard to imagine how the world would have looked, or what global threats or diplomatic disasters would have been a reality if the institution did not exist. We take the UN for granted now, but would have had to re-invent it to protect ourselves from the consequences of unilateral hegemony if we found ourselves in a world without the UN or an equivalent<13>. One could claim that the very reason why the UN and multilateral institutions are being criticised is exactly because they contribute to the destabilisation of a stagnant world order in which a few powerful states bully other countries. Indeed, the strongest opponents to the UN today are powerful heads of state and private entities who feel they are held back by the slow multilateral apparatus and have less to gain from it than what they can achieve unilaterally or bilaterally. The truth is that the UN has helped give a voice to many smaller states by making sure they are at the negotiating tables and have an opportunity to act internationally and exercise influence that by far exceeds what their size otherwise would have allowed<14>. The broad multilateral diplomacy of institutions like the UN does not only give a more inclusive platform for smaller states, but it also offers a better chance to deal with complex challenges as the joint efforts mean a better ability to legitimise the achieved results, thus making them more sustainable.
But the UN’s multilateral diplomacy also has difficulties and limitations. Other than being more costly and time consuming than bilateral agreements or unilateral action, multilateral negotiations often broaden the agenda to take into account the many different objectives and interests of the parties involved. This may result in the outcomes of multilateral agreements being less specific and concrete because they are characterised by compromise and finding the lowest common denominators across a variety of stakeholders, which in turn requires trade-offs. As such, there is an inversely proportional relationship between legitimacy and effectiveness, where more legitimacy is achieved at the price of effectiveness and vice versa<15>. Furthermore, UN action ultimately requires collective action, bringing the need for trust and equal commitment between stakeholders, which is easier said than done. But perhaps the most important aspect of all is the fact that implementation of UN agreements depends on the parties involved without any functioning enforcement or sanction mechanisms in place to ensure action<16>. Instead, the UN depends on observation, monitoring and review mechanisms to improve the chances of implementation where member states allow such support. The lack of enforceability is indeed a problem for the implementation of agreements, but also reflects the unwillingness of member states to politically support the development of such mechanisms. Another limitation is the progressive decrease of budgetary support to the UN system that is meant to serve the whole planet and all its inhabitants with total funding per year that is about half the budget of New York City, making the UN increasingly dependent on private businesses and philanthropies to continue its operations<17>.
To conclude, the UN can be described as the conscious and moral compass of the global community — the goodwill that everyone wants to demonstrate and be associated to, but nobody wants to invest in. The work of the UN is embedded in the UN Charter, which is a set of values that, in principle, all member countries have signed off on and want to live by. As with all aspirational values, it has led to unrealistic expectations on the UN coupled with an insufficient budget and political constraint. The UN is a creation of the global community to serve the global community, and so it ultimately mirrors the action and support of its own source of existence. On the question of its relevance, the simple answer is, yes, it is relevant because it represents the world we strive to create and maintain- a world that respects all equally and provides safety and positive development for all. Meanwhile, it is also necessary for the creators, nurturers and users of the UN — the 193 member states and their people — to decide what they want. The self-improving goal of the UN reflects commitments that the world wants to uphold but for which their engagement, support and continuous devotion is necessary. If all countries want a UN that is effective and whose recommendations become reality, they are the ones who need to pledge and deliver on resolutions and commitments.
The ongoing COVID-19 crisis, with its fast spread across borders and devastating effects on health systems and economies in countries of all income levels, has illustrated the importance of global solidarity and intergovernmental cooperation. Meanwhile, countries’ unilateral decision-making, closed borders and naval-gazing at the onset of the pandemic shed light on the fragility of global collaboration mechanisms and raised questions around governments’ readiness to support each other in times of difficulty. As the world faces more complex global challenges, the UN is more needed now than ever before to help develop legitimate and realistic international solutions. The pandemic might be exactly the crisis needed to force global unity and confrontation of the long-needed structural change to the UN system, and the current multipolar order might be the right political environment to push that agenda. The UN is in need of reform and the institution has been struggling to achieve it for the past four decades, but the question is, are member states ready to allow it?
<1> Hanns Maull, “Multilateralism: Variants, Potential, Constraints and Conditions for Success,” SWP Comment, no. 9 (March 2020).
<2> Vincent Pouliot, “Multilateralism as an End in Itself,” International Studies Perspective, vol. 12, issue 1 (2011): 18–26.
<3> Will Moreland, “The Purpose of Multilateralism: A Framework for Democracies in a Geopolitically Competitive World,” Foreign Policy at Brookings, September 2019.
<4> Edward Mortimer, “The First 70 Years of the United Nations: Achievements and Challenges,” United Nations, 2015.
<5> Frank Fenner, “Global Eradication of Smallpox,” Reviews of Infectious Diseases, vol. 4, issue 5 (September 1982): 916–30.
<6> C. Fred Bergsten, “Fifty Years of the GATT/WTO: Lessons from the Past for Strategies for the Future,” Peterson Institute for International Economics, 1998.
<7> Ville Lättilä, “A New Proposal For UN Security Council Reform,” Oxford Research Group, 28 May 2019; Mona Ali Khalil, “Reforming the UN Security Council: A New Expert Report Fom the Together First Coalation,” Together First, 2020; United Nations, 2020.
<8> Maio Telò, “The Covid crisis, an opportunity for a ‘new multilateralism’?” Confrontations Europe, 7 October 2020.
<9> Jason Ralph and Jess Gifkins, “The Purpose of United Nations Security Council Practice: Contesting Competence Claims in the Normative Context Created by the Responsibility to Protect,” European Journal of International Relations 23, issue 3 (2017): 630–53.
<10> Moreland, “The Purpose of Multilateralism”
<11> Maull, “Multilateralism”
<12> Moreland, “The Purpose of Multilateralism”
<13> Paul Heinbecker, “The UN: If It Didn’t Exist, We Would Have to Invent It,” Policy Options Politiques, 1 October 2006.
<14> Maria Nilaus Tarp and Jens Ole Bach Hansen Han, “Size and Influence: How Small States Influence Policy Making in Multilateral Arenas,” Dansk Institut for Internationale Studier, 2013.
<15> Maull, “Multilateralism”
<16> Ian Goldin, Divided Nations: Why Global Governance Is Failing, and What We Can Do about It (Oxford University Press, 2013).
<17> Barbara Adams and Gretchen Luchsinger, “Fit for Whose Purpose?” Global Policy Watch, 2015.
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Nasim Pourghazian is a medical doctor with experience in clinical and public health in Europe the Middle East Bangladesh and Afghanistan. She obtained her medical ...
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