United Nations: It’s various Organs and associated Issues

This article was originally a part of Samajho's Corner Premium Content but has been unlocked for you to assess our quality of content.
Join Samajho's Corner Now to get full access to all Premium Articles for 18 months.

Context: The United Nations has been an important organ since its creation. However, there is debate over the relevance of the UN and associated organizations amid the changing scenarios of the 21st century. In this article, we'll read all about the UN and its various organizations and associated issues and challenges.

Relevance: GS II- Important International Institutions, agencies and fora – their Structure, Mandate.

• UNO- An international organisation founded in 1945, currently made up of 193 member states.
• The main organs of the UN are
  1. General Assembly
  2. Security Council
  3. Economic and Social Council
  4. Trusteeship Council
  5. International Court of Justice
  6. UN Secretariat

• Main deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the UN
• All 193 member states represented in GA, making it the only UN body with universal representation
• Decisions on important questions, such as those on peace and security, admission of new members and budgetary matters, require a two-thirds majority of the General Assembly
• Decisions on other questions are by a simple majority. The General Assembly, each year, elects a GA President to serve a one-year term of office.

• The Security Council has primary responsibility, under the UN Charter, for the maintenance of international peace and security
• It has 15 Members (5 permanent and 10 non-permanent). Each Member has one vote. Under the Charter, all Member States are obligated to comply with Council decisions
• The Security Council takes the lead in determining the existence of a threat to the peace or act of aggression. It calls upon the parties to a dispute to settle it by peaceful means and recommends methods of adjustment or terms of the settlement
• In some cases, the Security Council can resort to imposing sanctions or even authorize the use of force to maintain or restore international peace and security
• The Security Council has a Presidency, which rotates, and changes, every month India in 55-nation Asia-Pacific Group at the UNSC has unanimously endorsed India’s membership for the nonpermanent seat at UNSC for 2021-22 and later 184 members of the UNGA voted for India.

Why Permanent Seat Claim

• India seems to have depended on the argument that it is entitled to a seat at the UNSC because of multiple factors such as population, growing economic stature and growing global responsibilities like peacekeeping.

• It is the principal body for coordination, policy review, policy dialogue and recommendations on economic, social and environmental issues, as well as the implementation of internationally agreed development goals
• It serves as the central mechanism for activities of the UN system and its specialized agencies in the economic, social and environmental fields, supervising subsidiary and expert bodies
• It has 54 members, elected by the General Assembly for overlapping three-year terms. It is the United Nations’ central platform for reflection, debate, and innovative thinking on sustainable development

Recent Developments

• India along with 12 other members was elected to the Committee for Programme and Coordination (CPC), a subsidiary body of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)
• India voted in favour of Israel in ECOSOC to deny the Palestinian non-governmental organisation ‘Shahed’ the observer status, after Israel said the organisation did not disclose its ties with Hamas.

• The Trusteeship Council was established in 1945 by the UN Charter, to provide international supervision for 11 Trust Territories that had been placed under the administration of seven Member States, and ensure that adequate steps were taken to prepare the Territories for self-government and independence
• By 1994, all Trust Territories had attained self-government or independence. The Trusteeship Council suspended operation on 1 November 1994
• By a resolution adopted on 25 May 1994, the Council amended its rules of procedure to drop the obligation to meet annually and agreed to meet as occasion required — by its decision or the decision of its President, or at the request of a majority of its members or the General Assembly or the Security Council.

• It is the principal judicial organ of the United Nation
• It is the only one of the six principal organs of the United Nations not located in New York (United States of America)
• The Court’s role is to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by States and to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by authorized United Nations organs and specialized agencies. 
• The International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared by a majority verdict that Pakistan has violated the Vienna Convention and urged Islamabad to review and reconsider the judgment in the case of former Indian Navy official Kulbhushan Jadhav. 

• The Secretariat comprises the SecretaryGeneral and tens of thousands of international UN staff members who carry out the day-to-day work of the UN as mandated by the General Assembly and the Organization's other principal organs.
• The Secretary-General is the chief administrative officer of the Organization, appointed by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the Security Council for a five-year, renewable term. UN staff members are recruited internationally and locally, and work in duty stations and on peacekeeping missions all around the world.

The UN system, also known unofficially as the 'UN family', is made up of the UN itself and many programmes, funds, and specialized agencies, all with their own leadership and budget.

The programmes and funds are financed through voluntary rather than assessed contributions. The Specialized Agencies are independent international organizations funded by both voluntary and assessed contributions

Criticism of the UN in the wake of Pandemic

• The UN has been unable to respond effectively to the once-in-a-century global crisis triggered by the coronavirus.
• At the UN Security Council, China blocked a serious discussion on the origin and sources of the crisis.
• The role of WHO has come under severe criticism in the handling of the Pandemic.

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for reform in UNOs “outdated structures”, pointing out that in the absence of comprehensive changes, the world body today faces a “crisis of confidence”.

United Nations General Assembly

• Prominent Stage, Limited Powers.
• Every year, the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) becomes the stage where presidents and prime ministers give speeches.
• UNGA has no control over veto power exercised by UNSC and it cannot take any decisive action against permanent members of UNSC.

United Nations Security Council

• The 15-member Security Council is by far the most powerful arm of the United Nations. It can impose sanctions, as it did against Iran over its nuclear program, and authorize military intervention, as it did against Libya in 2011.
• However, the veto power is used by permanent five countries to serve the strategic interest of themselves and their allies.
• The current composition of UNSC does not represent contemporary realities, as permanent members of UNSC, as it has not been reformed since its inception.
• There has been criticism that the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), who are all nuclear powers, have created an exclusive nuclear club whose powers are unchecked.
• Unlike the General Assembly, the United Nations Security Council does not have true international representation.
• This has led to accusations that the UNSC only addresses the strategic interests and political motives of the permanent members, especially in humanitarian interventions: for example, protecting the oil-rich Kuwaitis in 1991 but poorly protecting resource-poor Rwandans in 1997.
  

World Health Organisation 

• The WHO has been dependant on donor funds – mainly from rich countries and foundations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – rather than through secured funding from countries.
• As a result, currently, 80% of WHO’s funding is tied to programs that donors choose. Work programs that are vital to WHO’s mandate remain underfunded as they clash with the interests of big donors, especially of rich and developed countries.
• Consequently, WHO’s role as a leader in global health has been supplanted by other intergovernmental bodies such as the World Bank, and increasingly by big foundations.
• The organisation’s efficacy has come under question, especially after its inadequate performance in containing West Africa’s Ebola epidemic of 2014 and the current Covid Pandemic.
• Most of the humanitarian assistance, developmental work, and budgets of the specialised agencies are based on voluntary contributions. There are calls for increasing public-private partnerships. This is not a satisfactory arrangement.

Vaccine Nationalism

• Even though vaccine nationalism runs against global public health principles, there are no provisions in international laws that prevent pre-purchase agreements.
• The major drawback of vaccine nationalism is that it puts countries with fewer resources and bargaining power at a disadvantage.
• World Health Organization (WHO) warned nations that hoard possible Covid-19 vaccines while excluding others would deepen the pandemic but the call has fallen on deaf ears.

World Trade Organisation

• Stalled Negotiations.
• The World Trade Organization is mandated to expand the free trade agenda and a standard-bearer for open and efficient global markets.

North-South divisions

• WTO talks are mainly seen as a showdown between the North and the South. This is particularly so with the growth in strength of the developing countries and their regional and continental groupings.
• Because of this, no agreement is happening over the issue of agriculture subsidies despite several rounds of talks

Plurilateralism Vs Multilateralism

• Plurilateralism represents a reaction to the failure of multilateralism when some countries not willing to move forward with the liberalisation process. A plurilateral agreement implies that WTO member countries would be given the choice to agree to new rules on a voluntary basis.

Protectionism Vs Free Trade

• The trade war between US and China despite both being a member of WTO. This negates the core non-discriminatory principle of WTO
• US and China have imposed counter-productive duties, accusing each other of harming their domestic interests.
• WTO has not been able to prevent the trade wars despite best efforts and has been labelled as a talk shop.
• The organisation has often been sidelined in regards to major trade agreements, like the EU ignoring WTO ruling on stopping illegal subsidies for Airbus. Countries are now getting into bilateral or regional trade deals as opposed to global agreements. The concern of the only global international organisation, which was formed to ensure that global trade flows smoothly and freely, is evident.
• The uncertainty created by a proliferation of trade-restrictive actions could place economic recovery in jeopardy especially in a post-pandemic world.

Agreement on Agriculture

• It was negotiated during the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and entered into force with the establishment of the WTO on January 1, 1995.
• The agreement focuses on the elimination of the so-called ‘trade-distorting’ agricultural subsidies.
• The agreement has garnered fixed commitments from all WTO nations on three aspects of agro supply chain namely – Improving market access (by removing trade barriers), capping subsidies (given for enhancing domestic production) & providing export doles. 
• The most controversial of all these is the domestic subsidies for production enhancement, as it is the one that most directly affects the livelihoods of a large chunk of the population in the developing world.

Dispute settlement mechanism

• While WTO’s dispute settling mechanism allows aggrieved parties to file cases against member-states. But some of the cases and issues have remained unresolved for a long time
• Recent WTO report shows that there is a rapid increase in dispute between the member nations. It is being alleged that developed countries deliberately weaken the dispute resolution mechanism within WTO

The strong influence of Corporate

• The WTO essentially protects multinational corporations based in the North and acts as a tool of rich and powerful countries – notably the US, the EU, Japan and Canada.
• The advanced countries are determined to promote the kind of corporate-friendly rules that align with their own economic interests and are indifferent to the Doha Development Agenda.

Conclusion

As the world’s only truly global organization, the United Nations has become the foremost forum to address issues that transcend national boundaries and cannot be resolved by any one country acting alone. However, the challenges of 21st century are way different and complex than what it was during the establishment of the organisation in 1945. Geopolitics and climate today is different. For the UN to stay relevant, there is dire need for reforms in the organization as a whole. There is also a need for proper representation of developing countries including those in Asia, Africa and South America.