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Are the UN’s days over?

Are the UN’s days over?

Recently, a growing number of voices and opinions from various types of experts have been raised to assert that the UN is, in fact, largely obsolete and in need of a major overhaul. Recent online polls have shown that three times as many people consider the UN to be an ineffective organisation as those who see it as a kind of “last bastion of humanity”.

The essence of the claims is that the universal organisation, which was set up to resolve the political and economic issues of states, as well as to help settle territorial disputes, has recently not only failed to carry out the tasks assigned to it, but has also come under attack from a number of senior political officials.

The latest scandal erupted when Israel’s permanent representative to the UN called on the organisation’s secretary-general, António Guterres, to resign after his comments on the conflict in the Gaza Strip. These comments seemed extremely harsh. It should be noted that in the past, politicians and high-ranking officials of countries had not allowed themselves to make such direct accusations against the organisation and its executive body.

“A UN Secretary General who shows incomprehension in the face of a campaign of massacres of children, women and the elderly is not fit to lead the UN. I call on him to resign immediately”, wrote Gilad Erdan in response to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who said that “Hamas attacks do not come from nothing, because the Palestinian people have been subjected to a suffocating occupation for 56 years”.

It should be remembered that another scandal recently broke concerning the non-issuance of visas to members of the Russian delegation to meetings of the working groups of UN committees. In September 2023, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov stated that not all Russian representatives had received US visas for the UN General Assembly. They included the Deputy Chairman of the State Duma and some heads of departments in the Russian Foreign Ministry.

It should be pointed out that this issue of visa refusals has been systematically brought up by the United States and its allies for at least a year and a half. Since 2022, the number of such incidents has increased. Western countries have also repeatedly refused to issue visas or entry permits to Russian officials and delegations.

In my opinion, this is being done systematically and deliberately, in order to provoke a reaction from the Russian leadership and initiate the procedure for Russia’s withdrawal from the UN (which would be ideal for the West), or the gradual dissolution of the organisation due to the ‘loss of confidence’ of the players in international politics, if one can put it that way.

The actions of Israeli leaders in the case of the impeachment of the UN Secretary-General have also served to add fuel to the fire of mutual attacks.

It is worth digressing here and recalling that Israel is recognised as a state, although it is recognised by the majority, but not all, of the members of the United Nations, namely 165 of the 193 UN member states.

At least 28 countries have never recognised Israel or have withdrawn their recognition of Israel as a state in its own right. These are mainly Arab countries in Africa and the Middle East, such as Qatar, Pakistan, Oman, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Iran (which broke off relations in 1979), Iraq, Indonesia, Cuba (which broke off relations in 1973), Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Syria, a number of African countries and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

It is clear that Israel is not happy with this situation, and has not been for a long time. Now it has a pretext and an opportunity not only to present its old demands for world recognition, but also, if it is refused, to demand the dissolution of the UN and the creation of a new supranational institution of which Israel would be a full member, perhaps with a right of veto, like the permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Other countries in the Western collective also have their own demands of the organisation, because on the one hand, the organisation is going through a certain crisis, having virtually no leverage left over the countries at war, and on the other hand, the West no longer needs an organisation such as the UN. This is why this “project” is trying to disappear, because it is ineffective.

What’s more, this process has its obvious stakeholders. An organisation that does not have the right to exert “legitimate pressure” simply becomes useless. The world order is changing, the rules of the game are changing. The Western collective, which realises this, is trying to further undermine the existing framework of mutual coexistence in the hope of winning this confrontation.

Some analysts compare the current crisis of the organisation to the crisis in which the world order and the Society of Nations found themselves at the start of the Second World War. Officially aimed at preventing hostilities, ensuring collective security and settling disputes between countries through diplomatic negotiations, the Society of Nations failed to achieve the statutory objectives for which it had been created in 1919. In fact, the organisation ceased to exist in 1942 and, in 1946, transferred all its powers to the newly created UN.

Apparently, the United States has chosen a similar scenario today. If the UN cannot prevent wars and conflicts and, above all, if it does not allow the sole will of the United States and its partners to be carried out through it, then let’s think about creating a new organisation to replace the United Nations. The interest is clear and calculated.

But for Russia, at least for the time being, this option does not suit it at all. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council (and what’s more, of the five permanent members, at least one is our obvious ally – China), it has the unquestionable right to express its position on international issues and to veto UN Security Council resolutions that are not in its interests.

On the other hand, I see no reason to believe that the world community today would be capable of creating a better international organisation based not only on the law, but also on the principles of justice and humanity.

Veronika Kazakova

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