After 70 years of striving to maintain global peace, some experts suggest the UN Security Council needs reform to better respond to international disputes and crises.
“As an institution, the UN can’t do much,” Dave Benjamin, a global development professor at the University of Bridgeport, told CTV News Channel. “It’s the member states, and particularly the permanent five of the Security Council, that have to muster the political will to address the issues.”
The UN was formed in 1945 and was tasked with avoiding another major conflict like the Second World War.
The Security Council was created the following year to regulate conflicts between the world’s most powerful nations. China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States are now the five permanent members of the council
But despite its 70 years of relative success in maintaining peace between member countries, Benjamin said the council has to “re-engineer” itself to be “less driven by the power politics … and more in tune with the long-term strategies that the council needs to address crises, not as they occurred, but in anticipation of them.”
The Security Council has faced criticism over its members’ failure to agree on humanitarian crises, such as the war in Syria or the refugee influx currently overwhelming Europe.
'Still relevant'
Despite the accusations, former Canadian ambassador to the UN Paul Heinbecker said the United Nations is still a relevant organization.
In 1945, the UN gave itself a mandate of avoiding another global military conflict, growing the economy, improving human rights, and creating an international justice system. And Heinbecker said it “has actually succeeded on those four objectives.”
“There have been other, smaller wars -- terrible wars -- but it isn’t the same thing as if you had an exchange between the major nuclear powers,” he said.
The “24/7 diplomacy” being carried out by the UN is in part responsible for smaller advancement that are often forgotten, Heinbecker said.
“You look around the world and people have never been better educated, they’ve never been better connected, they’ve been healthier, (and) they’ve never been richer,” Heinbecker said. “A lot of progress has been made in the last 70 years and I don’t think it would be a good idea to deprecate that.”
Canada’s role
Canada’s new Liberal government will likely play an important role in the future of the UN as the country tries to repair some of its damaged diplomatic ties, Heinbecker suggested.
“I don’t think the population of Canada, perhaps, is aware of just how ineffective and in what shambles Canadian foreign policy has been.”
Heinbecker said Canada’s relations with major global partners, such as the U.S., Mexico, China, and countries in the Middle East, have suffered since Canada was voted out of the Security Council in 2010.
“The new government has promised a constructive diplomacy and engagement in international affairs, and I’d say it’s not a day too soon,” he said.
Landmarks around the world will be lit “UN blue” today to mark the global body’s 70th anniversary.
