UN Report: UN and Global Governance<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

This has been a critical period for the UN. Underlying the discussion about war on Iraq has been a struggle for the governance of the world order. Would the unilateralism of the US, as the main superpower, dominate – or would decisions be made multilaterally, through the UN? Disagreement within the Security Council, as well as world opinion, mobilized with astonishing speed, slowing but not stopping America’s headlong rush to war.

 

Public opinion remains strongly in favour of an effective UN, retaining sovereignty of nations, but with important limits. If crimes against humanity occur, in spite of sovereignty, humanitarian intervention should be justified. Given the many conflicting interests of its membership, the UN is the only institution that can

bring legitimacy to the management of complex international crises. Moreover, increasingly, problems are global. Active world cooperation will be needed and this depends on multilateral participation in decision- making. The UN is the only setting where this can happen.

 

The UN and its various agencies are currently planning the task of meeting the humanitarian crisis which inevitably follows a war. Iraq’s deeply divided multiethnic composition does not bode well for the avoidance of chaos. The problem is acute. After 11 years of sanctions, Iraq’s economy was already paralysed, with about 60% of the population entirely dependent on the UN food-for-oil programme, now disrupted. Infant mortality was two and a half times the level in 1990. One million children under five are chronically undernourished. About five million Iraqis already lacked access to safe water. The UN has experience in coordinating relief efforts to meet a humanitarian crisis. Whatever the form of a post-war Iraq, the humanitarian work of the UN will continue.

 

Sylvain and Phyllis Ehrenfeld are IHEU representatives to the UN and the AEU’s National Service Conference. The role of the UN in the rebuilding of Iraq is under discussion as we go to press.