Revamping the UN

[Jam Stunna]

There are alot of people who think that the UN is a good idea in theory, but in practice its task is nearly impossible. I agree with them, but I don't think the reason is because agreement between nations is nearly impossible. The UN itself is set up in a way that guarantees it can't get anything done.

The UN is probably the most famous example of post-World War II internationalism, but while the other international organizations have at least tried to modernize, the UN has simply piled more and more onto its outdated World War II era framework. That design was irrelevant in less than ten years, when the Cold War began to kick into high gear, and it became apparent that giving the two nations vying for global supremacy unilateral veto power wasn't such a great idea.

Over sixty years have passed, and we still have a Security Council with FRANCE as a permanent member. France was already losing relevance in 1946 when the UN was created. Meanwhile, the next generation powers like Brazil, India and other countries that are already more important to the future of the planet than the old European nations are left to be content with revolving membership. There are numerous examples of things that need to be changed, but this is the most glaring to me.

I don't think the UN is useless by definition, but it's outdated view of the world, which is built into its structure, does not help it deal with modern problems, like Iran's nuclear program. Modernizing the UN would go a long way to making it actually matter in foreign affairs.

Any other ideas to help the UN?

 

[Bob Jane T-Mart]

There are alot of people who think that the UN is a good idea in theory, but in practice its task is nearly impossible. I agree with them, but I don't think the reason is because agreement between nations is nearly impossible. The UN itself is set up in a way that guarantees it can't get anything done.

The UN is probably the most famous example of post-World War II internationalism, but while the other international organizations have at least tried to modernize, the UN has simply piled more and more onto its outdated World War II era framework. That design was irrelevant in less than ten years, when the Cold War began to kick into high gear, and it became apparent that giving the two nations vying for global supremacy unilateral veto power wasn't such a great idea.

Over sixty years have passed, and we still have a Security Council with FRANCE as a permanent member. France was already losing relevance in 1946 when the UN was created. Meanwhile, the next generation powers like Brazil, India and other countries that are already more important to the future of the planet than the old European nations are left to be content with revolving membership. There are numerous examples of things that need to be changed, but this is the most glaring to me.

I don't think the UN is useless by definition, but it's outdated view of the world, which is built into its structure, does not help it deal with modern problems, like Iran's nuclear program. Modernizing the UN would go a long way to making it actually matter in foreign affairs.

Any other ideas to help the UN?

The standards that the UN produces should be binding and enforceable through some means, eg. the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The actual power that the UN wields seems rather small, most of what it can do is recommend. And even if it makes binding decisions, it doesn't really posses any means to enforce such decisions eg. the International Court. Okay, peacekeeping is an exception, but that is agreed on by the constituent nations taking part in the affair.

Also, the security council is rather silly, at least in the way it is arranged. China, not a permanent member? India? This is rather poor to say the least. But then, why should there even be a security council? Why should those nations get to decide what others do, even in the face of a massive opposing majority?

 

[Jam Stunna]

China is a permanent member of the Security Council. But the rest of your point is well taken.

 

[KrazyGlue]

Having done Model United Nations for four years now, I can understand why the UN has problems passing substantive resolutions. Most of the actions that could be taken to actually benefit the situation violate a country's national sovereignty in some way. I agree that veto powers are stupid, and that it's ridiculous that we treat France and the UK like they're still the most powerful nations. That said, operating on such a large scale is very tricky.

One of the things they could do a better job of is the way meetings are structured. There's over 190 countries in the General Assembly. There are basically three different formats of discussion: Speaker's List, Moderated Caucus, and Unmoderated Caucus.

For speaker's list, delegates raise their placards if they want to be placed on the list, while the chairperson calls on them. Eventually, there's a list of delegations, and each of them speak (in the order dictated by the list) for a certain amount of time. In a moderated caucus, delegates raise placards each time they want to speak, i.e. each speaker is called on one-at-a-time by the chariperson. The speaking time and duration of the moderated caucus are pre-determined. In an unmoderated caucus, delegates may freely speak with each other and walk around. In other words, there's no moderation.

See where the problem is? With so many different delegations, it's very difficult to hear every country's opinion. And since the chairperson should ideally be calling on delegations evenly, most countries don't get to speak many times. Discussion moves at a snail-like pace. Moreover, it's very difficult when your delegation is drafting a working paper (resolution in progress) and need to gather enough support for it to be voted on.

I've only been in one conference with a similar scale to the UN (it had about 80-100 delegations). Our committee barely accomplished anything, and I only got to speak twice during a total of about 18 hours of discussion. Basically, the UN should figure out a better way to organize information and opinions in a way that improves pace.

 

[Aesir]

From my understanding it's not really proportional, like each country gets one representative right? One state, one vote is the idea am I correct?

If this is the case that in it's self is a big problem, could you imagine if our house of reps was structured that way? one state, one vote? Just seems to be that's a huge malapportionment problem.

 

[Jam Stunna]

Yeah, there are enough small nations that resolutions can be passed by a majority that in reality only represents about 10% of the global population.

 

[Aesir]

Maybe if the UN was organized more like a confederation it might actually be more successful than it is now. Though the idea of a confederation being even remotely successful is foreign to me.

 

[Bob Jane T-Mart]

Yeah, there are enough small nations that resolutions can be passed by a majority that in reality only represents about 10% of the global population.

Yeah, maybe they should have two assemblies, one in which countries are represented by a number of people depending on their population, and another less powerful assembly that represents each state with a specific number of votes. This would be similar to the two house system that is present in the USA and Australia.

Unfortunately, this would result in an extremely large assembly or a whole host of nations going unrepresented. Both of these would cause massive problems, though, speeches could be only given by the leaders of their groups (unless in certain circumstances), but voting would be done by all of the representatives.

This probably will make the smaller nations whine massively though.