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Presentation |
The Start of A
Global Shift in The Balance Of Power And Need For Reform Of
The UN
Mr Chairman Ladies
and Gentlemen,
It is a matter of great pride and privilege for me to be
invited to your conference and have the opportunity to speak
on what I consider to be the burning topic of today - that
is, the global shift in the balance of power and need for
reform of the UN. I firmly believe that a tectonic move in
world politics and the economic order is silently shifting
the global balance of power. The US is about to lose a lot
of ground. The National Intelligence Council, which pools
thinking from all US agencies, published a report in 2005
‘Mapping the global future’ which predicted that the 21st
Century will belong to China and India. Rising Asia will
continue to reshape globalisation giving it more of an Asian
outlook and feel. China is already producing three times as
many graduates as the US does and India is not far behind.
As Prof. Victor Nee has pointed out ‘There has been a very
rapid movement up the product chain as high-technology
industries move manufacturing sites to China and India and
as domestic entrepreneurs in these countries have
successfully penetrated markets in the global economy.’
China and India are emerging as new economic giants; they
are home to 1/5th of humanity and are two of the world’s
fastest growing economies. The transformation of India and
China offers the most remarkable possibilities in the modern
world – both countries have benefited immensely from the
early economic and social policies adopted after their
independence from colonialism. A decade of fast economic
growth has produced a revival of confidence. It is an
established fact that economic growth and prosperity leads
to political power. China and India’s economic and political
weight goes for beyond Asia. It gives them a stake in
developing a multi-polar world that can resist any single
nation’s efforts to achieve domination. They are challenging
the uni-polar world in which the US had unchallenged
supremacy.
In the case of India, the US says that the world’s most
powerful country and the world’s largest democracy should
work closely together. But the question is to work on what?
A uni-polar world or a multi-polar world?
Apart from the growing strength of India and China, in my
view, there are at least 4 other trends which could
eventually alter the balance of power in the world:
a) The rise and revival of other states such as Brazil and
Russia whose economic strength and energy resources compete
with the established powers of the world as energy is
becoming a defining factor.
b) In South and Central America, major political changes are
taking place such as the emergence of populist leaders in
Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador and, to a certain
extent, Brazil. Historically, the US has seen these
countries as its backyard where it can bribe, bully and even
choose their rulers but this new generation of leaders is
just saying no to American policies in the area.
c) There is intense and growing competition for securing
energy and other resources. Africa is coming out of poverty
principally because of competition between China, India,
Europe and America for its raw materials. For example,
Zambia was paid $2,000 per ton for its copper by the West
until China entered the market. It is now paying $8,000 per
ton.
d) The growing power of non-state players, such as large
energy corporations and drug companies as well as movements
like Hamas, Hizbullah, many NGOs, anti-war movements, human
rights movements, Greenpeace and other environmental
movements.
e) Changes in the very currency of power are taking place.
Developments in technology with ever more devastating
potential as well as developments in IT and an increasingly
globalised media mean that the most powerful country in the
world can lose a war not on the battlefield but on the
battlefield of public opinion.
The net effect of these disparate trends is to reduce the
relative power of established western states, above all the
US. What has underpinned US power is its economic strength.
However, the US is now subject to both a short term crisis
with a massive internal and external debt and it accounts
for a declining share of world GDP. Moreover, up to now,
military power has been the key to the American ascendancy
and the failure in Iraq has curbed its desire to intervene
elsewhere. History will surely judge the invasion of Iraq to
have been a huge miscalculation and the moment when the
geo-political decline of the US, following the end of the
Cold War, became manifest. The last five years have shown
the limits of American power and exposed the fallacies
intrinsic to the neo-conservative view that overwhelming
military power can retain a uni-polar world. Just to take a
few recent examples:
North Korea exploded a nuclear bomb and test fired missiles
capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Washington says: come back to the six party talks;
Iran resumes uranium enrichment.
Washington says: we are going to take you to the UN.
War breaks out between Israel (The chief ally of the US in
the Middle East) and Hizbulluah.
Washington says: the hour of diplomacy has come.
In earlier circumstances, perhaps Washington would not have
hesitated to use military force.
A multi-polar world will be more democratic and an advance
on a uni-polar world. There will be more centres of power
than just one. It will have at least 4 major players –
Europe, North America, Asia and Latin America. I firmly
believe that the economic and political balance is fast
shifting towards this.
The question is whether the UN, which was established half a
century ago, is now fit for the purpose of a multi-polar
world. We need to re-examine the proper role of this
international organisation and see what changes will be
needed in its Charter and structure to meet these new
demands.
I intend to deal to deal with four main issues related to
the UN.
1) The UN Charter
2) Security Council - Democracy and equality in the UN
3) Veto Power
4) Comprehensive economic sanctions
The UN was founded in the aftermath of the Second World War
to protect future generations from the scourge of war,
promote political self-determination, global prosperity and
strengthen the bond of civility among nations. The UN has
not lived up to its expectations due to the emergence of a
bi-polar world after World War 2 then a uni-polar world
after the end of the Cold War.
The UN Charter talks endlessly of the sovereign equality of
all of its members yet the overwhelming majority of UN
members have little impact in the formulation of UN policies
and rules of international law and international relations.
There is a clear contradiction in the Charter. On the one
hand, the Charter talks about the equality of all nations
yet, on the other hand, in article 2 of the UN Charter, it
grants special rights to the five permanent members of the
Security Council which had established the organisation.
Permanent membership of the Security Council makes it a
condition for their presence in Council meetings. Each of
these powers can veto a majority decision related to
international peace and security as well as any reforms in
the structure of the UN presented to them. This clearly
defies the principles of equality and democratic principles.
Smaller countries can keep citing Charter norms while
powerful members of the Security Council can simply impose
their own vision of these norms. Threats to international
peace and security are constantly invoked as a cover for
hegemonistic supervision and punishment of ‘rogue’ states.
As Professor Koechler has put it, the UN with its wonderful
Charter, is not an organisation of equal sovereign states.
It is an umbrella organisation designed to give cover and
legitimacy to the powerful. The veto power granted to the
five permanent members not only contradicts the UN Charter’s
sovereign equality of states but also the will of the
overwhelming majority of members.
Why should a multi-polar world preserve the right of veto?
At present, no decision can be adopted without the agreement
of the permanent members.
The Security Council requires basic reform – it should be
established on the basis of equality and power-sharing among
all members. Perhaps the Security Council can continue to be
the body with primary responsibility for the maintenance of
international peace and security but for it to be effective,
it needs to be supported by the international community. At
present, the Charter gives the body unrestricted discretion
to make the final determination without any right of appeal.
Another problem with the permanent membership of the
Security Council is that there are three European states,
one Asian and the US. There is no representation from
Africa, South America, the Middle East or South Asia.
Therefore in my view, permanent membership should be
abolished and total membership of the Security Council be
increased. All decisions should be taken by a simple
majority. Veto power should be done away with.
The Security Council should be responsible to the General
Assembly for its actions. The General Assembly should have
the right to override the decisions of the Security Council.
At present, the General Assembly which could be termed the
World Parliament, can only debate and pass resolutions
regarding international security and peace but does not have
the power to pass binding resolutions. In a reformed UN,
General Assembly resolutions should be final and binding.
This will establish democracy and equality among all members
of the UN.
Another issue is of comprehensive economic sanctions which
the permanent members have constantly used against
developing countries. Article 41 of the UN Charter provides
for comprehensive economic sanctions and other forms of
non-military sanctions for maintaining or restoring
international peace and security. The Charter grants the
Security Council sole authority to decide whether a threat
to peace, a breach of peace or an act of aggression exists.
In fact, comprehensive economic sanctions represent a form
of collective punishment ignoring individual responsibility.
The sanctions punish people who have no role in political
decision making. It is akin to a terrorist measure. The
object of the measure is to influence the government’s
course of action but deliberately assaults the civilian
population. Purposefully, injuring the innocent is an
immoral act per se, e.g. economic sanctions against Iraq
resulted in the death of half a million children. The
civilian population was explicitly taken hostage in the
security strategy of power politics. This policy is
incompatible with the individual’s natural rights. The only
exception should be where the majority of the population of
the country concerned welcomes such measures as it did in
the case of South Africa. Otherwise, the sacrifice of a
whole people for the sake of strategic interests of a
superpower or of a coalition of states could not be
ethically justified, it would be judged to be immoral. The
responsibility for imposing comprehensive sanctions should
be passed on to the General Assembly while the Security
Council should only be allowed to impose selective and
limited sanctions.
At present, the UN structure is stuck in a bygone era and
the shifting balance of power requires the transformation of
the UN which should be fit for a multi-polar world. There is
an African proverb that says ‘until lions speak, tales of
hunting will always glorify the hunter’. Those who have
vested interests will always glorify the present structure
and resist reform - until more internationalists who dream
of a peaceful, democratic, human rights respecting and
egalitarian world speak up against it. It should be accepted
that military and economic superiority cannot, in the long
run, give a political advantage to anyone. In a multi-polar
world, there is no alternative to democratisation and
humanisation of politics in international relations and
institutions. |
