Refound United Nations to Combat Global Crises

AT the end of World War I, US President Woodrow Wilson decided that the horror of war should never be relived. He founded the League of Nations to establish a new order “based on the rule of law, the consent of the governed and the organised opinion of mankind.”
Unfortunately, due mainly to pressure from weapons manufacturers, the adage “if you want peace, prepare for war” prevailed.
After World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt founded the United Nations in 1945. The UN includes organisations specialised in labour (ILO); health (WHO); food (FAO); education, science and culture (Unesco) together with development funds (UNDP), programs for children (Unicef), etc.
But the strongest and most prosperous nations soon began to distrust this international system of cooperation and coordination, and replaced development aid with loans, shunning the UN institutions, and what is much worse, replacing the values that should guide international governance with the laws of the marketplace.
The richest countries banded together in groups (G7, G8), replacing the democracy of multilateralism with plutocracy, converting the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (“for reconstruction and development!”) into instruments of their economic policies, and, in the 1990s, setting up the World Trade Organisation (WTO) completely outside of the scope of the UN.
At the end of the Cold War, the world expected a reform of the United Nations to “democratise” international relations, to reap the “dividends of peace” by reducing social inequalities, and to promote endogenous development in the poorest countries. But none of this was achieved, and commencing in the early 1990s, the richest countries imposed “globalisation,” creating huge multinational business conglomerates that limited the power as well as the responsibilities of the states.
This led to considerable social strife and fostered breeding grounds for frustration, radicalisation and hostility, frequently resulting in the use of force and in great waves of immigrants who have lost all hope.
As a consequence, it is imperative to establish the criteria for achieving in-depth renewal, endowing the UN General Assembly with the necessary moral and political authority required to face the great challenges of our time, along with sufficient personal, financial, technical and, when necessary, military resources to enable the UN to exercise its functions on an international level.
The UN would be able to prevent and/or resolve conflicts peacefully; establish, maintain and consolidate peace; seek disarmament; and jointly confront international terrorism and transnational delinquency. At the same time, it would work toward resolving the major issues on which the quality of life of all the inhabitants of the world depends.
“We, the peoples of the United Nations have determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” is the initial pledge in the Preamble to the United Nations Charter.
But ,contrary to the terms of the Charter, not only nations, but also civil society (non-governmental and intergovernmental organisations, association of cities, regional and business institutions, etc) should be represented.
In this re-founded United Nations Organisation, the IMF and the WB, together with the WTO (which would be an institution within the United Nations), would fulfill their original functions of promoting global development, and improving the situation on worldwide.
The Security Council (SC) would have permanent and proportional representatives influencing decision-making, but without veto rights, in order to address the principal issues of human security. Its mission would be preventing war, promoting economic and social security, as long ago proposed by Jacques Delors, renewing the work of ECOSOC- which for years has dealt almost exclusively with economic issues, ignoring social ones- and ensuring environmental security.
Only then will it be possible to eliminate all forms of trafficking, and close down tax havens. “No resources were available” for funding the fight against Aids or the eradication of hunger and poverty, but suddenly thousands of millions are available to “rescue” the same people and institutions that have created this difficult situation.
The coordinated action of the United Nations would also provide personal, technical and humanitarian resources to assist in natural or man-made catastrophes. In that regard, a proposal has been put forth to create a force of “red helmets” for rapid deployment.
It is necessary to re-found the UN for the sake of our future generations. And, contrary to those who seek to underestimate and even denigrate them, we must take the youth movements of 1968 and 2008 (in Greece) very seriously. They are not student uprisings, but rather social conflicts.
In appointing Susan Rice as Ambassador to the United Nations, President Obama has signaled his determination to foster multilateralism as a relevant part of, in his own words, the “new beginning” for the American people and the world. Together We Can!
The immense economic scaffold is collapsing, along with the concept of power and its ideological foundations. We must take into account all of the dimensions of this disaster in order to rebuild. Above all, at the very core of public action, we must re-establish the “democratic principles” which, in an error of history, have been inexplicably replaced by the laws of the marketplace.
We must take advantage of the world crisis in order to change our course and our destiny. Those who ignored and ridiculed the recommendations that we made in the early 1990s, convinced that an economic system based on commercial interests instead of justice is doomed to disaster, cannot now continue to ridicule proposals for change. Those who should now be judged cannot be judges. They have been “rescued” by their governments and have lost all authority to express their opinions concerning proposals to “rescue” people! Those who, like the WB, the IMF and the WTO, failed to speak up when they should have must now keep silent.
After the “technological bubble” of the 1990s came “the real estate bubble.” During this period, in which “sovereign funds” were denied to countries with a “globalised system”, those who remained outside have accumulated immense fortunes, while often ignoring the conditions of workers and human rights.
It is imperative not to turn to a “new capitalism,” but rather to seek a new global economic system based on justice and regulated by institutions integrated within a reformed UN – endowed with the human, technological and economic resources to enable it to act expediently and to apply to transgressors the full force of the law.
To move from the prevailing unilateral governance of globalisation to a multilateral one, a strong UN is needed. The UN, Unesco, the WB must be reformed and confirmed in their initial mandates.
The following initiatives could be adopted to achieve these goals:
Necessary funds should be made available to ensure adequate nutrition on a world-wide scale, and to promote the fight against Aids;
The millennium objectives should be activated, especially the fight against poverty, redefining the terms and amounts and finally granting the promised development aid along with the cancellation of foreign debt;
The funds necessary to eradicate hunger should not be limited (there was only sufficient funding to “reduce by half the number of those starving” (!);
Priority attention should be given to Africa, taking swift steps to eliminate the shameless exploitation in the Congo’s Kivu territory in the mining of coltan, and to rectify the situation in Angola – where oil and gold are aplenty while the people subsist on less than two dollars per day.
We must rapidly facilitate the transition from a war economy to an economy of global development. Civil society now has the opportunity to promote radical transformations. After so many years of ignored recommendations and unheeded prophesies, the intellectual, scientific and academic community must calmly but firmly make itself heard.
Subjects must become citizens and passive spectators must become actors, in order to implement changes in the form and substance of the exercise of power. The great transition from a culture of force and imposition to a culture of the world requires education at all levels, promotion of creativity and cultural diversity, support for scientific research and health for all.
Responsibility must assumed by citizens who have the most to offer during this change. Crises provide an opportunity to build a new world, to reinstate the universal ethical principles of justice and genuine democracy. We must be reminded daily of the wise words of Sophocles: “When the decisive hours have passed it is futile to run to catch them.”
Of all of the crises resulting from globalisation, the one that is capable of mobilising large numbers of people is the food crisis. Longer-term approaches may be used to address economic and environmental crises, but food crisis is directly related to the highest of all human rights – the right to life.
No nation is exempt from responsibility. It is unacceptable to transfer “to the marketplace” the moral and political duties that are the responsibility of democratic leaders. It is urgent to establish worldwide codes of conduct within the legal and ethical framework of a duly reformed UN.
The world has changed and, fortunately, there are many leaders and peoples who have ceased to be obedient or submissive, or yield to pressure. Corporations, communications media and NGOs must join together in a movement that in a few years will give “citizen power” a new dimension.
The diagnosis has been made. It is now imperative to apply the appropriate treatment before it is too late. In moments of great historical change, moral support is more necessary than ever. A new era is dawning. Amartya Sen said that the state rather than the marketplace must be responsible for the welfare of citizens in developing countries. To prevent the revolution of hunger, the evolution towards a new worldwide economic system must be activated. The difference between revolution and evolution is the “R” of “responsibility.”
We all know the world is changing everyday. People around the globe will not support a Third World War, where nuclear and biological weapons may be used, as a consequence of which homo sapiens are sure to face extinction. So the moment has arrived to combat the catastrophe that is looming large as the greatest global crisis in our time.

26 August, 2009