Is the future of the UN under threat?
in de media image: T. Salya on Unsplash
Does the United Nations still have enough clout in a changing world order and what direction should it take in the future? Niels Blokker, professor emeritus of international institutional law, gives his opinion in 'Het Financieele Dagblad'.
Member states are increasingly ignoring agreements made when it suits them, which is putting the UN's founding principles under threat like never before. At a recent meeting to mark the 80th anniversary of the signing of the UN Charter, Secretary-General Guterres warned the member states that the Charter ‘is not an à la carte menu’.
Blokker says that 'the UN as an institution certainly still has value, but there are also imperfections’. These shortcomings have often been apparent in the 80 years since the founding of the UN. Blokker gives the examples of the Suez Crisis in 1956, the Vietnam war which lasted two decades, and the Cold War. ‘All this time, the Security Council was effectively sidelined, preventing it from fulfilling its most important responsibility: maintaining international peace and security.’ This is mainly due to the structure of the Security Council, in which five permanent members each have a right of veto. It is virtually a utopia to think that China, the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom and France would agree on a major international crisis.
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Read the full article in FD (€, in Dutch)