Crescent International
As the world is slowly parting with the US-run global order, discussion about the role of the United Nations is likely to become more common.
As an institution set up in the mid-1940s when the US was the only real candidate to implement its vision on a global scale, today the UN must be reformed to survive in the multipolar world order.
It is not by accident that the conversation and studies of how the UN needs to be reformed has attracted the attention of major global policy centers in the immediate aftermath of the war in Ukraine.
This war in the heart of Europe is seen as a threat to western geopolitical dominance and without a strong international institution it is unlikely to be resolved any time soon.
Reform of the UN would not be framed within the context of the zionist occupation of Palestine.
Few international relations scholars or organizations would dare point out that because of Israeli refusal to abide by dozens of UN resolutions, it is the single most serious violator of and, therefore, contributor to breaking global governance.
This has resulted in discrediting the UN.
Ukraine or Palestine, the reasons now matter little.
There is emerging consensus that the UN needs to be reformed.
Conversation about this body’s need to be modified for contemporary realities is not necessarily limited to the UN itself.
Global Briefing points out that “perhaps the most underestimated and least understood of all new-century international governance challenges concerns the nature of the interactions between geographical blocs – particularly geographic economic blocs.”
Prior to delving further into the analysis of how the UN is to be reformed, it should be noted that the conflicts in Ukraine, Lebanon, Congo and Yemen still show that some UN mechanisms are the only real micro solutions to micro problems of grand tragedies.
For the experience of some important positive contributions of the UN to be broadened, its reform must, therefore, be political in nature and come from within the bureaucracy of the organization.
This does not simply mean reforming the UN Security Council, but to grant broad financial and administrative autonomy to UN development and humanitarian arms.
For this to happen, western powers must come to grips with the reality that they no longer have the political weight to use the UN as a platform for projecting global influence.
While this is not in the interest of western powers, the rise of geographic blocs and regional international organizations might assist in broadening the push from within the UN to decouple its institutions from western political interests.
Decoupling from the west-centric order is a process.
If the UN manages to serve as a platform for this controlled decoupling, it will survive as an institution and become a truly international organization.
If it does not manage to disassociate itself from western political and economic interests, it will simply be reduced to the level of a humanitarian organization with marginal political relevance.
The US-led ‘unipolar’ world is dead. A multi-polar world is emerging but what role will Muslims play in it?
