Since the late 1990s there have been many calls for reforms of the United Nations (UN). However, there is little clarity or consensus about what reform might mean in practice. Both those who want the UN to play a greater role in world affairs and those who want its role confined to humanitarian work or otherwise reduced use the term "UN reform" to refer to their ideas.[1] The range of opinion extends from those who want to eliminate the UN entirely, to those who want to make it into a full-fledged world government. Secretaries-General have presented numerous ways to implement these new reforms. There have been reform efforts since the creation of the UN and closely associated with each of the Secretaries-General.[2]
On 1 June 2011, UN Secretary-GeneralBan Ki-moon appointed Atul Khare of India to spearhead efforts to implement a reform agenda aimed at streamlining and improving the efficiency of the world body.[3][4] Khare led the Change Management Team (CMT) at the UN, working with both departments and offices within the Secretariat and with other bodies in the UN system and the 193 member states. The CMT was tasked with guiding the implementation of a reform agenda at the UN that started with the devising of a wide-ranging plan to streamline activities, increasing accountability and ensuring the organization was more effective and efficient in delivering its many mandates and protocols.[5]
Timeline of reforms
The United Nations has undergone phases of reform since its foundation in 1945. During the first years, the first decisive change was the development of peacekeeping measures to oversee the implementation of ceasefire agreements in 1949 in the Middle East and one year later in the Kashmir conflict between India and Pakistan. The Soviet Union launched reform initiatives during the East-West antagonism in the 1950s to curtail the independence of the Secretariat by replacing the post of Secretary-General with a troika, including a representative from the socialist states. Decolonization created rapid growth in UN membership, and by 1965 it stood at 118, twice as much as at the Organization's founding.
With states from Africa and Asia joining the United Nations, development issues became increasingly important, resulting in the expansion of the United Nations in the development area, including the establishment of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 1965 and negotiations on a New International Economic Order (NIEO) as part of the North-South conflict in the 1970s. The 1980s were characterized by financial crisis and the retreat of the United States, which triggered a reform of the budgetary process and the downsizing of the Organization. With the end of the Cold War, the rediscovery of and renaissance of the United Nations were hailed; the first half of the 1990s saw a major expansion of the Organization and the reform associated with the Agenda for Peace launched by Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
A string of new peacekeeping missions were launched in Namibia, Yugoslavia, Somalia, and Angola by the Security Council which also triggered interest in the reform of the 15-member body. Germany and Japan in particular, as well as India and Brazil, launched efforts to gain permanent seats and veto rights at the Council. In the late 1990s, Secretary-General Kofi Annan improved the coherence of the United Nations, with a better coordinated development system and more effective humanitarian structures. The fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic was energized, and a new concept of partnership between the United Nations and international business developed under the Global Compact. Other reforms included the revamping of peacekeeping operations following the Brahimi Report. The World Summit in 2005 recognized, albeit mainly symbolically, an international 'responsibility to protect' populations from genocide and the Human Rights Council replaced the discredited Commission on Human Rights.
As of 2007, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon continued the reform agenda covering oversight, integrity, and ethics which had previously been launched in response to investigation of the UN Oil-for-Food Programme. The Programme responded to the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi civilians and was the largest, most complex and most ambitious relief effort in the history of the United Nations. With reference to the 2005 World Summit, the General Assembly approved in April 2007 a number of loosely related reform initiatives, covering international environmental governance, a unified gender organization, and 'Delivering as One' at the country level to enhance the consolidation of UN programme activities.[6]
Reform ideas
Asia’s inadequate representation poses a serious threat to the UN’s legitimacy, which will only increase as the world’s most dynamic and populous region assumes an increasingly important global role. One possible way to resolve the problem would be to add at least four Asian seats: one permanent seat for India, one shared by Japan and South Korea (perhaps in a two-year, one-year rotation), one for the ASEAN countries (representing the group as a single constituency), and a fourth rotating among the other Asian countries.
A very frequently discussed change to the UN structure is to change the permanent membership of the UN Security Council, which reflects the power structure of the world as it was in 1945. Various proposals have been put forward, including ones by the G4 nations, the Uniting for Consensus group, and former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, suggesting that other nations – most notably Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan – should also have permanent membership, to allow for a more equitable representation within the council.
UN Secretariat Transparency reform
At another level, calls for reforming the UN demand to make the UN administration (usually called the UN Secretariat or "the bureaucracy") more transparent, more accountable, and more efficient, including direct election of the Secretary-General by the people as in a presidential system.
UN Secretariat/administration reforms seldom gets much attention in the media, though within the Organization they are seen as widely contentious issues. They run the bureaucracy of the UN, responding to the decisions by the Member States in the Security Council and the General Assembly.
Mark Malloch Brown, the former administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, attributes the inefficiency of the UN administration to the "disconnect between the merit and reward" and further advocates[8] "reconnecting merit to make the UN again an international meritocracy" to overcome the problem. He believes that the UN must stop promoting on the basis of political correctness that encourages promoting staffs proportionately from certain regions of the world, but instead make more use of Asia, Africa and other so-called less developed regions that now offer a large pool of talented, skilled, and highly motivated professionals. He argues that these individuals who are highly qualified will readily move up through the UN system without need of the "cultural relativism which is used to promote incompetents." A somewhat related point is often made by UN member states from the developing world, who complain that some of the most desirable senior posts within the Secretariat are filled under a "tradition" of regional representation that favours the United States and other affluent nations. The point has been made forcefully by Ambassador Munir Akram of Pakistan, who was recently head of the G-77. "The major countries, the major powers hold very high positions in the Secretariat and support their national interests and refuse to allow the Secretary-General to cut departments," he claims. And when they do ask for budget cuts, they do it "where it does not affect their national interests." He labels this "a double standard which is applied or is thought to be applied in the Secretariat, and we as overseers of the G-77 do not accept this double standard."
Among the notable efforts of Secretariat reform since 2005 is the Secretary-General's report Investing in the United Nations from March 2006 and the Comprehensive review of governance and oversight within the UN, June the same year. From the Member States side there is the Four Nations Initiative, a cooperation project by Chile, South Africa, Sweden and Thailand to promote governance and management reforms, aiming at increased accountability and transparency.
Democracy reform
Another frequent demand is that the UN become "more democratic", and a key institution of a world democracy. This raises fundamental questions about the nature and role of the UN. The UN is not a world government, but rather a forum for the world's sovereign states to debate issues and determine collective courses of action. A direct democracy would request the presidential election of the UN Secretary-General by direct vote of the citizens of the democratic countries (world presidentialism) as well as the General Assembly (just as cities, states and nations have their own representatives in many systems, who attend specifically to issues relevant to the given level of authority) and the International Court of Justice. Others have proposed a combination of direct and indirect democracy, whereby national governments might ratify the expressed will of the people for such important posts as an empowered World Court.
Implementation of population-based UN voting also raises the problems of diversity of interests and governments of the various nations. The nations in the UN contain representative democracies as well as absolute dictatorships and many other types of government. Allowing large powers to vote their population's interests en bloc raises the question of whether they would really represent the interests and desires of their individual citizens and the world community.[citation needed] Anything like direct election would be impossible as well in the many nations where an accurate direct vote would be impossible or where the local government has power to influence the local voters as well as security of the ballot box. Giving the UN any kind of actual governance power raises the question of how these powers could be carried out. What would happen when a vote of the UN General Assembly demands changes in the borders or political status of a nation, or requires citizens in some nations to tax themselves in favour of other nations, or demands the arrest of the leader of a nation, and is met by refusal?[citation needed]
The subsidiarity principle resolves some of these issues. The term originates from social thought within the Catholic Church and states that no larger organ shall resolve an issue that can be resolved at a more local level. It can be compared to federalist principles where entities of the union retain some aspects of sovereignty. Only when two or more members of the federation are affected by any given act does the federal government have the authority to intervene. Giving a reformed UN more powers but enshrining the subsidiarity principle in its Charter would guarantee that the UN does not evolve into a world autocracy that can arbitrarily dictate policy.[citation needed]
Financing reform
On the subject of financing, Paul Hawken made the following proposal in his book The Ecology of Commerce:[9]
"A tax on missiles, planes, tanks, and guns would provide the UN with its entire budget, as well as pay for all peacekeeping efforts around the world, including the resettlement of refugees and reparations to the victims of war."
The main problem with implementing such a radical tax would be finding acceptance. Although such a system might find acceptance within some nations, particularly those (1) with a history of neutrality, (2) without an active military (such as Costa Rica), or (3) with lower levels of military spending (such as Japan, which currently spends 1% of its GDP on defence), it would be unpopular among many consumers of arms. Nations in this latter category range from the United States, which spends 4% of its GDP on defence, to dictatorships who depend on arms to keep themselves in power. Other likely opponents would be nations engaged in ongoing military conflicts, or others in a state of heightened military alert, such as Israel. Arms producers would also oppose it, because it would increase their costs and possibly reduce their consumer base.[citation needed]
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights came under fire during its existence for the high-profile positions it gave to member states that did not guarantee the human rights of their own citizens. Several nations known to have been guilty of gross violations of human rights became members of the organization, such as Libya, Cuba, Sudan, Algeria, China, Azerbaijan and Vietnam. Meanwhile, the United States was also angry when it was ejected from the Commission in 2002. While it was re-elected, the election of human rights-abusing nations also caused frictions. It was partly because of these problems that Kofi Annan in the In Larger Freedom report suggested setting up a new Human Rights Council as a subsidiary UN body.
On Wednesday, 15 March 2006, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favour of establishing a new United Nations Human Rights Council, the successor to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, with the resolution receiving approval from 170 members of the 191-nation Assembly. Only the United States, the Marshall Islands, Palau, and Israel voted against the Council's creation, claiming that it would have too little power and that there were insufficient safeguards to prevent human rights-abusing nations from taking control.
The UNHRC has itself been criticised for the repressive states among its membership.[10] The UNHRC has also been accused of anti-Israel bias, a particular criticism being its focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at each session as Agenda Item 7.[11]
Relocation proposals
United Nations logo in headquarters
Due to the significance of the organization, proposals to relocate its headquarters have occasionally been made. Complainants about its current location include diplomats who find it difficult to obtain visas from the United States[12] and local residents complaining of inconveniences whenever the surrounding roads are closed due to visiting dignitaries, as well as the high costs to the city.[13] A US telephone survey in 2001 found that 67% of respondents favored moving the United Nations headquarters out of the country.[14] Countries critical of the US, such as Iran and Russia, are especially vocal in questioning the current location of the United Nations, arguing that the United States government could manipulate the work of the General Assembly through selective access to politicians from other countries, with the aim of having an advantage over rival countries.[15][16] In the wake of the Snowdenglobal surveillance disclosures, the subject of the relocation of the UN headquarters was again discussed, this time for security reasons.[17]
Critics of relocation say that the idea would be expensive and would also involve the withdrawal of the United States from the organization, and with it much of the agency's funding. They also state that the proposals have never gone from being mere declarations.[23]
Creation, removals and additions for proposed UN reform
A United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, or United Nations People's Assembly (UNPA), is a proposed addition to the United Nations System that eventually would allow for direct election of UN Parliament members by citizens of all over the world.
Proposals for a UNPA date back to the UN's formation in 1945, but largely stagnated until the 1990s. They have recently gained traction amidst increasing globalization[citation needed], as national parliamentarians and citizens groups seek to counter the growing influence of unelected international bureaucracies.
Creation of United Nations Environment Organization
Following the publication of Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC in February 2007, a "Paris Call for Action" read out by French President Jacques Chirac and supported by 46 countries, called for the United Nations Environment Programme to be replaced by a new and more powerful United Nations Environment Organization (UNEO), to be modelled on the World Health Organization. The 46 countries included the European Union member states, but notably did not include the United States, China, Russia, and India, the top four emitters of greenhouse gases.[24]
Placing all UN Development Agencies and Specialized Programmes under a UNDG
Several provisions of the United Nations Charter are no longer relevant. In Larger Freedom proposed the removal of these provisions:
Since there are no longer any trust territories, the Trusteeship Council no longer serves any purpose. Thus, Chapter XIII of the Charter is no longer relevant, and can be deleted.
Due to Cold War disagreements, the Military Staff Committee never succeeded in its intended purpose. Although it formally still meets every two weeks, it has been effectively inactive since 1948. Thus, article 47, and the references to it in articles 26, 45 and 46 can be deleted.
The "enemy clauses" in articles 53 and 107 contain special provisions relating to the members of the Axis in World War II (Germany, Japan, etc.) Some nations consider these to be no longer relevant; Japan in particular would like to see them removed.
There are also other provisions of the UN Charter that deal with transitional arrangements, and thus are now spent. For example, article 61(3) and article 109(3). However, In Larger Freedom does not contain any proposals with respect to these provisions.
Due to the difficulty in amending the Charter, it is unlikely that any of these spent provisions will be amended except as part of a package making substantive amendments, such as Security Council reform. Further, while In Larger Freedom proposes that certain provisions be removed there is not universal agreement. One school of thought in particular suggests that the Military Staff Committee could be revitalized by member states finally meeting their Article 45 commitments to provide a force able to perform peacemaking and peace enforcement under the legitimacy of the United Nations flag.
↑ Kotkin, Joel; Cristiano, Robert (12 January 2010). "Move The U.N. To Dubai". Forbes. Archived from the original on 2 February 2017. Retrieved 20 January 2017.
↑ Remarks By U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan at United Nations General Assembly Session, United Nations Headquarters, Federal News Service, 22 September 1997
Hans Köchler, The United Nations Organization and Global Power Politics: The Antagonism between Power and Law and the Future of World Order, in: Chinese Journal of International Law, Vol. 5, No. 2 (2006), pp.323–340. (Oxford Journals)
Linda Fasulo, An Insider's Guide to the UN, Yale University Press, 2009.
Published in the 2010s
Edward Horgan Thesis on UN Reform: Author Horgan, Edward J. Title The United Nations – beyond reform?: the collective insecurity of the international system and the prospects for sustainable global peace and justice / Edward J. Horgan. Thesis (PhD) – University of Limerick, 2008. Supervisor: Alex Warleigh-Lack. Includes bibliography. Also, Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, UN Management Reform (Createspace, 2011).
Mitcham, Chad, 'Jackson, Sir Robert Gillman (1911–1991)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, Australian Dictionary of Biography, published online 2016.
Mitcham, Chad,'Wilenski, Peter Stephen (1939–1994)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, Australian Dictionary of Biography, published online 2020.
Kofi Atta Annan was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He was the founder and chairman of the Kofi Annan Foundation, as well as chairman of The Elders, an international organisation founded by Nelson Mandela.
The United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and serve as a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations. It is the world's largest international organization. The UN is headquartered in New York City, and the UN has other offices in Geneva, Nairobi, Vienna, and The Hague, where the International Court of Justice is headquartered at the Peace Palace.
The United Nations General Assembly is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as its main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ. Currently in its 78th session, its powers, composition, functions, and procedures are set out in Chapter IV of the United Nations Charter.
The United Nations Economic and Social Council is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations, responsible for coordinating the economic and social fields of the organization, specifically in regards to the fifteen specialised agencies, the eight functional commissions, and the five regional commissions under its jurisdiction.
The Charter of the United Nations (UN) is the foundational treaty of the United Nations. It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the UN system, including its six principal organs: the Secretariat, the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Trusteeship Council.
The United Nations Secretariat is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), The secretariat is the UN's executive arm. The secretariat has an important role in setting the agenda for the deliberative and decision-making bodies of the UN, and the implementation of the decision of these bodies. The secretary-general, who is appointed by the General Assembly, is the head of the secretariat.
The secretary-general of the United Nations is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the six principal organs of the United Nations.
The United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF) was created by UN Secretary-General Kofi A. Annan in 2005 as a United Nations General Trust Fund to support democratization efforts around the world. It was welcomed by the General Assembly in the Outcome Document of the 2005 World Summit and was created by the UN Secretary- General.
The 2005 World Summit was a United Nations summit held between 14 and 16 September 2005 at the U.N. headquarters in New York City. It was a follow-up summit meeting to the U.N.'s 2000 Millennium Summit.
An under-secretary-general of the United Nations (USG) is a senior official within the United Nations System, normally appointed by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the secretary-general for a renewable term of four years. Under-secretary-general is the third highest rank in the United Nations, after the secretary-general and the deputy secretary-general. The rank is held by the heads of different UN entities, certain high officials of the United Nations Secretariat, and high-level envoys. The United Nations regards the rank as equal to that of a cabinet minister of a member state, and under-secretaries-general have diplomatic immunity under the UN Charter.
The United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) is an initiative that attempts to "galvanize international action against extremism" through the forging of international, intercultural and interreligious dialogue and cooperation. The Alliance places a particular emphasis on defusing tensions between the Western and Islamic worlds.
The United Nations Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) is a United Nations intergovernmental advisory body of both the General Assembly and the Security Council that supports peace efforts in conflict affected countries. A key addition to the capacity of the international community in the broad peace agenda, it was established in 2005 with the passage of both A/RES/60/180 and S/RES/1645 Mr. Ivan Šimonović (Croatia) is the incumbent chair of PBC.
The Four Nations Initiative (4NI) is a cooperation project started in 2005 as an initiative by Chile, South Africa, Sweden and Thailand. The initiative was created to contribute to the efforts to reform governance and management systems and structures of the UN Secretariat, departing from the perspective of the UN Member States.
The Counter-Terrorism Committee is a subsidiary body of the United Nations Security Council.
Alan Claude Doss is a British international civil servant who has spent his entire professional life in the service of the United Nations, working on peacekeeping, development and humanitarian assignments in Africa, Asia and Europe as well as at United Nations Headquarters in New York City.
The official languages of the United Nations are the six languages used in United Nations (UN) meetings and in which the UN writes all its official documents.
United Nations Security Council resolution 1170, adopted unanimously on 27 May 1998, after considering the situation across the African continent, the Council decided to establish an ad hoc Working Group to review the Secretary-General Kofi Annan's recommendations concerning the maintenance of international peace and security in Africa.
United Nations Security Council resolution 1327, adopted unanimously on 13 November 2000, after recalling Resolution 1318 (2000) adopted at the Millennium Summit and receiving the Report of the Panel on United Nations Peacekeeping, the Council adopted a resolution concerning the improvement of its peacekeeping operations.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1733, adopted by acclamation at a closed meeting on December 22, 2006, after recognising the role of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Council paid tribute to Kofi Annan, whose term as Secretary-General would come to an end on December 31, 2006.
The Gender Equality Architecture Reform (GEAR) campaign was a network of over 300 women's, human rights and social justice groups around the world. The GEAR campaign urged UN Member States and the UN Secretariat to move swiftly forward to create a new UN gender equality entity. GEAR also urges the UN to set up a transparent process now for recruiting the best qualified Under Secretary-General to head this agency. The United Nations must move without further delay to implement changes that it has repeatedly recognized as critical to fulfilling its mandate of working for gender equality as a crucial component of development, human rights, peace, and security.
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