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UN’s Role In The New Century
For A New World Order

By Dr. Mohan Lohani

THE UN millennium Summit that met for three days in the first week of this month in New York is now over with a declaration of historic significance. The summit’s opening was overshadowed by the tragic murder of 3 UN workers in West Timor by the pro-Indonesian militia opposed to the independence of East Timor last year. Reacting to this, many wondered whether the UN could effectively, and efficiently conduct its peacekeeping operations without adequate resources, trained staff and, above all, armed forces of its own. Nevertheless, the Summit will go down in history as the largest ever gathering of national leaders from all over the world. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan personally worked hard to ensure that the Millennium Summit would be looked at in a way different from the past and treated accordingly as a working summit rather than a celebration marked by high sounding speeches and statements.

Purpose

Each summit or conference, if it is not a routine annual affair, has a purpose behind it. The Millinnium Summit was conceived and convened to chart a course for humanity in the new century. The UN, as we are aware, was established in the aftermonth of the end of the Second World War which caused widespread devastation and inflicted untold suffering on millions in different parts of the world. The primary objective of the UN, among others, was and has been to save succeeding generations from the scourage of war and to maintain international peace and security. It is to the credit of the world organisation that it has succeeded in averting another world war, mostly through its peacekeeping apparatus, despite the outbreak, from time to time, of a numerous inter-state and intra-state wars and conflicts in various regions of the globe.

The largest ever gathering of national leaders from all over the world, apart from its symbolic value, proves in unmistakable terms that the UN is an indispensable instrument, to borrow Kofi Annan’s phrase, for tackling our shared problems. The Millennium Declaration also describes the UN as ‘the indispensable common house of the entire human family.’ The significance of the UN as a representative world forum for debating and discussing wide ranging issue of global concern and finding solutions to them through consultations, canciliation and consensus needs no overemphasis. It may be noted that far from being a supra-national body, the UN is an inter-governmental forum designed by common consent to prevent war, to promote peace and development and to ensure freedom and justice in keeping with the noble ideals and objectives enshrined in the UN Charter.

Reflect as it does the hopes and aspirations of mankind the UN embraces within its fold practically all issues of human concern ranging from poverty to population growth, terrorism to traffic-king in drugs, growing indebtedness of Third World countries to ecological disaster and disarmament to international cooperation for development. The agenda is indeed long. Global issues call for global solutions. The decline or increase in the credibility and effective-ness of the world body depends on the political will and determination of member States to support the UN declarations and programmes of action. Support from other quarters at different levels is no less vital and crucial. As Secretary General Annan has rightly pointed out, governments by themselves cannot solve multimentional problems confronting humanity. In other words, concerted efforts of governments must be supplemented and backed up by the active involvement of civil society organisations, NGOs, representatives of the private sector and conscientious citizens in each country.

While addressing the summit, leaders of the world highlighted burning problems of the day and reviewed, albeit briefly in their plenary statements, the performance of the world body, its successes and failures, its strengths and limitations, during the last 55 years of its existence. While African leaders pleaded for international help to combat HIV/ AIDS in Africa,the chiefs of Arab delegations urged the UN to get involved in the Middle East peace negotiations. It may be recalled that the recent Camp David peace talks sponsored by the US got stalled because of conflicting positions on the issue of sovereignty over East Jerusalem. PM Koirala, Head of the Nepalese delegation to the summit, touched on the problems of the LDCs and called upon the international community, in particular developed countries, to help economically weaker countries alleviate their problems of poverty, backwardness, debt burden and other constraints such as their lack of competitive ability to benefit from globalisation.

PM Koirala also called upon the transit countries to provide increased facilities to land-locked countries so that they could join the global economic mainstream. Needless to mention, land-lockedness has been and continues to be a major geographical handicap for Nepal in accelerating the pace of developmental activities geared towards bettering the lot of the people. That Nepal is in favour of comprehensive reforms in the UN system was also reflected in the Prime Minister’s statement: "The UN General Assembly, Nepal believes, should be allowed to play a more decisive role in world affairs. Likewise, the Economic and Social Council, one of the principal UN organs, can play a catalystic role in dealing with glaring social and economic problems that have generated economic backwardness and fuelled social unrest in a majority of Third World countries.

The Millennium Declaration, eight pages long, issued by world leaders at the end of the three-day summit is a significant achievement reaffirming once again the firm commitment of member States to the objectives, principles and purpose of the United Nations. The declaration encompasses prominent issues of global concern such as commitment to eradication of extreme poverty, measures to fight AIDS and global warning and strengthening the UN. It is encouraging that the declaration sets a time frame of 2015 for reducing poverty by half in the world. Poverty is indeed a formidable challenge to the international community including world statesmen and leaders who looked pleased to issue a vision statement in the form of a declaration at the Millennium Summit. The target can be met if international commitment based on a concrete Plan of Action is effectively and expeditiously implemented.

Expectation

While the Security Council has agreed to increase the effectiveness of UN peacekeeping operations, particularly in Africa, the UN is expected to play a more effective action-oriented role to overcome manifold challenges facing humanity in the new century. A declaration of intent or a statement of principles is, however, not enough. Such declarations on a wide range of issues of global concern such as population growth, environmental disaster, women empowerment and social development have been adopted in the past by UN conference during the last 50 years. People of the world ask whether pious wishes reflected in UN declarations have transformed their lives, improved their standards of living and created congenial conditions for a New World Order.

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