Daily Times

The United Nations came into being after World War II and replaced the League of Nations. Its main objective was to keep the world away from war, and create a friendly and peaceful global environment. The world body failed to achieve its objectives due to various reasons, mainly its feudal structure to decide regional and international disputes, along with other issues.

Feudalism may be defined as a lack of public authority that is replaced with the writ of the local lords. To elaborate further, it is the people who use their collective power to prevail on local and individual authorities to enforce only their will.

Before proceeding ahead let us examine the Charter of the United Nations. The chapter 1 of the Charter provides the Purposes and Principles of the world body. The Purposes includes maintenance of international peace and security, to develop friendly relations among nations, promoting and encouraging respect of human rights and taking other suitable measures to strengthen universal peace etc. To achieve these objectives, the United Nations has certain mechanisms, however, unfortunately, due to its decision making system that is based on feudal principals, they have only served to cause embarrassment in resolving international and regional disputes.

The United Nations has two major platforms for making decisions on the global disputes. These include the General Assembly and the Security Council. All U.N members participate in the proceedings of the General Assembly. The Security Council consists of fifteen members i.e. five permanent and ten non permanent which are elected for the term of two years. The permanent members are the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, China and France.

After the Second World War, it was the Cold War that dominated global affairs between 1945 and 1991. This war between the United States and the Soviet Union divided the world into two main blocs, which badly affected the performance of the Security Council

The decision is generally taken based on a simple majority, although each of the five permanent members has the right to veto. The non permanent members’ right of vote loses its weight before veto power of the permanent members.

After the Second World War, it was the Cold War that dominated global affairs between 1945 and 1991. It ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union divided the world into two main blocs. This division badly affected the performance of the Security Council. When one country viewed a resolution against itself or their ally’s interests, it exercised its power of veto. Thus, the resolution lost its efficacy. This spirit continues in the post cold war period.

Other three permanent countries also exercised their respective veto on different occasions. According to a Security Council Report from 2013, for the period between 1946 and 2013, the five permanent members exercised their veto powers the following number of times: United Kingdom with 32, the United States with 77, the Soviet Union with 68 / Russia with 9, China with 8 and France with 18. The powers enjoyed by only a few, affects the decision of the entire world body.

There has been a demand for restructuring the United Nations. A few countries desire to expand the number of permanent members on the UN Security Council. If this happens, the feudalistic culture within the UN may be further strengthened

They exercised their veto authority in their respective interests or in the interest of their allies, yet large number of other populations suffered greatly. Even though this power has been used for good as well, there have been occasions when basic human rights were ignored in the name of self interest.

These five feudals have now managed to convince the rest of the members of the United Nations to seek alliances with them, in order to have some semblance of power in the organizations’s decision making process. Their feudality has rendered the most powerful organ of the world body ineffective. Presently, more than fifteen disputes are pending on the agenda of the Security Council, including Kashmir and Palestine.

There has been a demand for restructuring the United Nations. A few countries desire to expand the number of permanent members on the UN Security Council. If this happens, the feudalistic culture within the UN may be further strengthened. The Security Council needs to be democratic in nature, and the threat of Veto powers needs to be nullified, so that all decisions are directed towards ensuring peace and prosperity for humanity as a whole, rather than being reserved for a few select powerful nations.

The writer is an author and has a doctorate in Political Science

Published in Daily Times, August 21^st 2018.