Reforming the United Nations

UN reform is like the weather - everyone talks about it but nothing is ever accomplished. Therefore, I am not very optimistic that the current spate of UN reform proposals will get very far.

Amending the UN Charter is a very difficult process. There has not been any substantive amendment to the document since it was created in 1945. Therefore I distinguish between "micro" amendments (which could be implemented today if there were the political will) and "macro" amendments (which require an amendment to the UN Charter).

The extent of the micro amendments shows how far governments could go in making the UN Charter more effective without having to amend it - and, by implication, how reluctant they are to make full use of the current document.

Micro reforms

The UN was not designed to fail. The people who drew up the UN Charter in 1945 really did think that they were producing a workable document. Winston Churchill, one of the UN’s architects, referred to the war they had just fought as the “Unnecessary War” because it “could easily have been prevented if the League of Nations had been used with courage and loyalty by the associated nations”.

The architects did not want to want to repeat the same errors. But that generation, scarred by two world wars, has long since passed from the political scene, and the current generation is more concerned with furthering national interests rather than expanding the UN.

Therefore, before speculating on ways of “reforming” the current document, attention ought to be given to seeing how the current document can be better implemented. “Micro reforms” could be implemented immediately - if there were the political will to do so. Here are some examples of how the UN could be made more effective today.

UN finances

All member states should pay their subscriptions on time. The sums are not large. The total UN system spends about US$12 billion each year. Therefore the appalling record of most countries paying late (though Australia is always on time) can only be explained as a political action because their contributions are not onerous.

A variation on the proposal that all members should pay their subscriptions on time is that all aspiring members of the Security Council should have paid their contributions to the UN budget (this would knock out most of the current membership - including the US and Russia).

More generally, there should be more money for the UN system. For example, many people die from diseases that could be prevented if there were more money for health care services. Ironically, developed countries such as Australia are now providing - as a percentage of their gross national product - less foreign aid than they were two decades ago. The UN foreign aid target for developed countries is 0.7 of the gross national product - Australia is giving less than half of that target. As countries have become richer, so they have become meaner.

More women at senior levels

More women should be appointed to senior positions. The senior level of the UN traditionally had none or only a few women. This was similar to the lack of women as heads of national delegations to the UN. However, just as some countries are now making more of an effort to ensure equal opportunity at the head of delegation level, so the UN's own employment practices could reflect that same determination.

The UN Secretary-General has little leverage over countries (such as in the slow payment of their dues) but the Secretary-General does have much greater scope for action in employing women in the Secretariat's senior level. Some progress has been made of late but much more could be done.

Peacekeeping operations

"Peacekeeping" is not referred to in the UN Charter. It has been an ad hoc measure that the UN devised to cope with the Cold War's freezing of the procedure that is laid down in the Charter.

Generals always prepare to fight the last war - and diplomats design methods to avoid having to fight the last war. The ghost of Hitler (who had died only two months before the 1945 San Francisco conference which finalised the UN Charter) underpins the original vision for the Security Council. If, the reasoning went, enough countries had worked together in the League of Nations, then Hitler would have been deterred from his aggressive foreign policy. Consequently, the League's successor, the UN, was given - on paper - immense power.

All UN member-nations agree to be bound by Security Council resolutions (the only part of the UN system with such power) and all member-nations "shall hold immediately available" defence forces to be deployed as required by the Security Council (Article 45). A Military Staff Committee was created, drawn from the representatives of the Chiefs of Staff of the five permanent members (US, USSR/Russia, UK, France and China), to co-ordinate the military operations.

Because of the Cold War, this elaborate system was never used. Instead, there evolved an ad hoc system of peacekeeping for intervention in disputes where the two super powers agreed not to intervene if the other also agreed not to intervene. Instead of the five permanent members (P5) controlling the UN's military work, peacekeeping almost always avoided any involvement of the P5.

The ending of the Cold War saw a great increase in the UN's peacekeeping work. The UN is now mounting more peacekeeping operations than at any other time in its history. But the UN Charter's elaborate Military Staff Committee system is still not being used in the way it was designed to be.

Meanwhile, there is a sense of combat fatigue. Governments are reluctant to commit troops to UN operations in case they get killed. The US, for example, has gone from the Cold War to cold feet. It is highly selective as to where its commits its troops. It is, for example, most reluctant to commit troops to any operation in Africa.

Therefore, to assist with the implementation of the UN Charter, there could be a standing force drawn from the defence forces of countries around the world, to be ready for instant deployment. The UN could create a training centre for senior military officers who are on stand-by for UN operations; the centre would help standardise procedures and equipment, and provide training in conflict resolution techniques.

The perpetual problem of financing operations could be addressed by governments paying for UN operations out of their respective defence budgets rather than the foreign affairs one (since the former are always much larger than the latter).

Additionally, there could be greater recourse to arbitration and mediation as a way of settling disputes. Also, greater resources devoted to human development could reduce some of the causes of conflict: prevention is better than peacekeeping.

Jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the world's main legal body. But attendance at it is not compulsory. Only about a third of the UN's membership accepts its jurisdiction. The obvious reform is that all countries should accept the ICJ's jurisdiction and should make greater use of it in the settlement of international disputes.

UN Secretariat

The Secretary-General could be appointed for only one, seven-year term. The present arrangement is for the person to have five-year terms, with the understanding that only two terms will be served. There is a temptation to use the end of the first term as an election campaign to get re-appointed. One term in office would remove that need and perhaps make the office-holder more independent.

The UN Secretariat could be a truly international civil service. UN staff promise not to take instructions from their national governments but there is a temptation to maintain close links with their governments.

Similarly, national governments ought not to use the UN as a dumping ground to reward retired politicians or relatives of the ruling households who need a job - or whom the government would prefer to have out of the country. Recruitment should be on merit: it generally is at the lower levels but not necessarily at the senior level.

To sum up, all these micro reforms could be implemented this day if there was the political will. The list indicates that - contrary to some of the assumptions of the UN reform debate - the problems with the UN lie less in the UN Charter itself, and more with national governments not being willing to honour their current obligations.

The difficulty of amending the UN charter

It is very difficult to amend the UN Charter. According to Article 108, amendments have to be adopted by a vote of two-thirds of the General Assembly and ratified in accordance with their respective constitutional processes - including the Permanent 5 (US, Russia, UK, France and China). This latter provision provides a blocking veto - including a possible veto on any proposal to change the veto.

There are also political problems. According to Article 109, there was to be a review conference of the UN Charter no later than 1955 but this could not be held because of the Cold War. It has never taken place, and there is at present little governmental support for it to do so.

Since 1945, the only changes have been to the number of member-nations on UN bodies; these changes have arisen because of the increase in the UN's overall membership. For example, the UN Security Council's membership was increased in 1965 from 11 to 15.

Macro amendments

Macro amendments require a change to the UN Charter. Here are a few examples.

The Security Council

The UN Security Council is designed to meet day or night to handle threats to international peace and security. Its core consists of the P5 which were the Allied leaders in World War II. The other 10 countries serve two-year terms and are elected via the UN's caucus system to maintain a representative balance of the world.

Ideas for reforming the Security Council focus on its composition and the veto power.

The P5 are no longer necessarily the world's “main” countries as they were in 1945. The UK and France are the most obvious members to be dropped. Germany and Japan (ironically the two big losers of World War II) are the obvious candidates to join the Security Council.

Germany wants permanent membership on the Security Council because this would reflect its economic strength. It was said of the UK in the early 1960s, that it had lost an empire but had not yet found a new role. It can be said of Germany that it has regained its unity but it also has yet to find a new role. Being on the Security Council would give Germany - it evidently hopes - a clear sense of direction.

Japan has given the UN similar signals. Japan is increasing its financial contributions to UN operations. There is an element now of taxation without (permanent) representation.

An alternative approach to reforming the Security Council would be to break the nexus between the P5 and the veto power. The P5 would remain permanently on the Security Council but the veto power would be abolished entirely. The P5 would not have to worry about an election every two years - and the cost of retaining their permanent membership would be the surrender of the veto.

Another proposal is to increase the Security Council's overall size. Twenty-four is a common suggestion (since it would give each country the chance to chair the Council for one month during the two-year cycle of Security Council membership).

The chances of any immediate major Security Council reform are slim, if only because the P5 states could use their veto power to block reform. For example, the UK and France would not support their being replaced by Germany and Japan.

The UN as an instrument of national policy

There is a gulf between people who would like to see a more effective UN and most (if not all) national governments. Many of the ideas on UN reform (such as those listed above) are based on developing the UN as the major international co-ordinator of world policy.

The assumption is that if only the UN could be given more resources, and so on, then it could tackle world problems in a neutral, disinterested way and so benefit all humankind.

But governments have a different expectation of the UN. It is, for them, simply another tool by which they conduct their competing foreign policies. The UN is not so much a location for settling world problems - as for fighting them. Therefore, their proposals for UN reform are motivated by a desire to further their own national policy and not necessarily to create a more effective UN.

Indeed, in so far as a more effective UN could be developed, then it would further erode some of the national sovereignty of governments and so would be resisted by them.

Therefore, although I have long been involved in various campaigns for UN reform, I have no illusions about our chances of being successful in the near future. The lesson of history is that major tragedies bring on major international reforms (such as the creation of the League and UN following each world war). One wonders what tragedy the national governments need to have to convince them to resume work seriously for a more effective UN.