Two wars in two years, those in Ukraine and Gaza, measure the most exhausting and demanding period for the UN since the beginning of the century, when the war in Iraq shocked the world (and definitively illuminated the new global disorder of jihadist terrorism). The old mechanism of the right of veto has made the Security Council, the body in charge of ensuring world peace and security, inoperative. Thus, while the initiatives for Ukraine have been showing signs of fatigue for months (Russia has blocked them all), those it defends for Gaza are doomed to failure: the United States vetoed for the third time a permanent humanitarian ceasefire resolution last week. The global south denounces the West’s double standards in both conflicts, while the continuation of fighting in the Strip prevents humanitarian aid. The killing of a hundred people this Thursday during a flour distribution in the enclave has been the umpteenth demonstration of the practical consequences of this paralysis.
“The UN was created in 1945 to prevent a repeat of the horrors of World War II: 45 million deaths. Five victors had to jointly guarantee peace, in exchange for a veto right in the Security Council. Two of them, Great Britain and France, were world powers then; Now they are world dwarfs. Russia is a criminal mafia enterprise. China has no ambition to become an arbiter of other countries’ conflicts. The United States, once the last standing World War II power, lost all credibility following Iraq, as did many of its allies. The Council, what remains of it, is fatally divided, totally impotent and has lost its influence…”
The words of Dirk Salomons, professor of Relations at Columbia University, graphically explain the paralysis of the UN executive body, whose operation refers to the world of the mid-20th century, not the current one, with a growing prominence of the global south, as demonstrated by the third diplomatic path of Lula da Silva’s Brazil – a negotiated solution in Ukraine, in the face of its unequivocal denunciation of Israel’s violence in Gaza -, and the genocide lawsuit once morest Israel presented by South Africa in the Court of The Hague . Brazil and South Africa, two BRICS, have already altered the traditional distribution of roles. “Few southern countries were members in 1945,” Salomons recalls.
Financing problems are not unrelated to the paralysis of the organization. “No more than 10 countries of the 192 members of the UN maintain the system, voluntarily financing the organization,” recalls the Columbia professor. As of Wednesday, only 70 member states had fully paid their share of the regular budget, and the United States, the club’s largest contributor, was not among them. Peacekeeping and humanitarian operations are financed separately, which is why the population of Gaza is especially accusing the withdrawal of funds by a dozen countries (the US in the lead) to UNRWA, the UN agency. UN for Palestinian refugees, following accusations of collusion with Hamas that Israel launched a month ago. The desperation of thousands of hungry Gazans leads to episodes as dramatic as this Thursday.
While the international community rebuilds itself—and the global south raises its head in a silent revolution or at least a new distribution of roles—the civilian population in the Strip pays the bill. “The main benefactor, UNRWA, is being demonized by several countries that should (and do) know not to throw out the baby when emptying the bathwater. Other UN agencies are also struggling to gain access. But the UN’s numerous efforts in the past to help resolve the conflicting interests of Israelis and Palestinians have always been sabotaged by spoilers, on both sides,” Salomons notes.
Silence around Ukraine, clamor for Gaza
Like two sides of the same coin, while the Gaza war grabs headlines, the Ukraine war has an almost invisible profile in the day-to-day life of the UN, as demonstrated by the more than discreet commemoration of the second anniversary of the Russian invasion, on the 23rd. February (the invasion occurred in the early hours of the 24th): speeches in the General Assembly, but no initiative. Not even a symbolic resolution like the one approved a year ago by 141 votes in plenary. Diplomatic fatigue or shift of focus to Gaza? Richard Gowan, for decades a senior official at the institution and today at the NGO Crisis Group, specialized in conflict prevention, responds: “I think Gaza is an important factor, but not the only one. Members were already less focused on Ukraine long before October 7 [el ataque de Hamás]many non-Western states were tired following a year of intense debates and votes on Ukraine.”
Gowan concedes that the Gaza war “has clearly shaken the diplomatic dynamic in New York. “Many UN members, including Arab states, which previously voted in favor of Ukraine in the General Assembly, are unhappy that the US and some major European powers have not shown similar solidarity with the people of Gaza,” he explains.
Anger in the south increases as Ukraine has voted once morest or abstained from resolutions on Gaza; that is, in favor of Israel. Clear gestures that, according to Gowan, were directed more to the US Congress, on which the continuation of military aid to Ukraine depends, than to the UN itself. “I don’t think Zelensky’s strong support for Israel has helped Ukraine at the UN, but it’s important to remember that he is much more concerned regarding political developments in Washington than in New York. [sede de la ONU]. For kyiv, support at the UN is something bueno to count on, but support in Congress is something essential to survive,” he concludes.
The resolutions of the General Assembly, the body to which the blocked Council refers the proposed resolutions – it has done so in both cases, Ukraine and Gaza – are purely symbolic, non-binding, which also fuels impotence, to the extreme. that Kiev is bypassing the UN as an arbitrator or mediator. “There are credible rumors that [el presidente de Ucrania, Volodímir] Zelensky and his team have become increasingly skeptical of the value of UN resolutions. kyiv has found other channels to speak privately with powers like Brazil [que propone una solución negociada al conflicto]. So I suspect that even if all had been quiet in the Middle East, the commemoration of [el segundo aniversario de la guerra de] Ukraine at the UN would have been relatively silent,” points out Gowan.
The irrelevance of the UN as an arbiter of the international community—not at all of the role of its agencies on the ground—is the idea that all the experts consulted for this report agree on. “The wars in Ukraine and Gaza have dramatically demonstrated how the UN, created in and for the world of 1945, is incapable of resolving the many complex security challenges we face today. Wars have turned the United Nations into an organization of disunited nations like never before,” explains John Kirton, professor of Relations and Global Governance at the University of Toronto. By virtue of the right of veto, and “despite the valiant efforts of the secretary general [António Guterres]”, and its agencies, the UN has been unable to meet the basic humanitarian needs derived from the war in Gaza, where it has long provided much of the food and services that innocent civilians need,” Kirton emphasizes.
The possible alternative of the G20
The necessary reform of the Security Council, and specifically of the veto mechanism of its five permanent members, is the elephant in the room, although there is international consensus regarding it: António Guterres himself made it clear in his inaugural speech last year. General Assembly, last September; also President Joe Biden, whose Administration nevertheless uses the veto to stop any resolution that compromises Israel. But meanwhile, the organization drags its feet, in some specific cases, such as those in Ukraine and especially Gaza, with shackles. “Russia has taken advantage of this situation, constantly accusing the US of blocking a ceasefire in Gaza. The crisis is a gift for Moscow. I think Arab diplomats are worried that Russia is exploiting Gaza to score political points with Washington. But the use of the US veto on Gaza has alienated much of the UN,” Gowan maintains.
“There are no short-term prospects for serious reform of the Security Council or the UN in general, to give the growing global south, led by democratic India, Brazil and South Africa, the greater voice they seek and deserve,” notes Kirton. . “Nor any short-term prospects of them using their place in the UN General Assembly or the broader system to ease geopolitical divisions fueled by war. The only exception is the General Assembly resolution that, by a large majority, declared Russia guilty of aggression once morest Ukraine, and which all G20 leaders endorsed at their Bali summit in November 2022. For the Canadian expert, the G20, “a club of 20 equals, dominated by democracies, in which the countries of the global south are fully balanced with those of the global north,” has in practice replaced the UN as the center of the global governance, “in the face of the many forms of security threats, old and new, that the world faces.”
A Copernican turn in international relations, with its trail of blood and destruction due to the two conflicts – and many other forgotten ones – to which there is no end in sight, is underway. But while it has just been substantiated, for the moment, as Salomons points out, “in Ukraine and Gaza, the political role of the UN is marginal, and the impressive appeals of its secretary general barely resonate.”
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