The Global Governance Dilemma of the United Nations

« Forum at Lake Ohrid 2024 »

Ohrid (North Macedonia), 12 October 2024
RE/29617c-is

Since after the end of World War II, the United Nations Charter was meant to provide a framework of rules and practices by which international peace and security would be maintained. However, the collective security architecture under Chapter VII of the Charter has been dysfunctional since the very founding of the organization. Today’s calls for a rules-based international order by those who have condoned or exploited this state of affairs during almost 80 years are frankly disingenuous. The voting privileges of the UN Security Council’s permanent members (P5) have been the root cause of the UN’s paralysis in all matters where the national interests of the P5 or their allies are involved. The ongoing armed conflicts in Europe, the Middle East and Africa – with the world organization as impotent bystander – are sad testimony of this predicament of “global governance” under UN auspices.

This was the assessment of Dr. Hans Köchler, President of the International Progress Organization, at the 15th session of the “School for Young Leaders,” which was held at Lake Ohrid in the Republic of North Macedonia.  Under the motto “Leadership for Peace,“ youth and NGO leaders together with diplomats and politicians from Europe, Asia and the United States discussed issues of post-conflict reconciliation, international security and sustainable development.

Concluding his speech, Dr. Köchler said that the international rule of law requires a system of norms and regulations that is free from contradictions – unlike the UN Charter where the principle of sovereign equality of states strangely coexists with inequality in terms of voting rights in the Security Council and where the principle nemo judex in causa sua (no one shall be judge in his own case) does not apply in the most important area of the UN, namely the maintenance of international peace and security. In Köchler’s assessment, it borders on the absurd that the rules of the UN Charter, in connection with the provisions of the Statute of the International Criminal Court, enable a constellation where the Security Council has the power to authorize the Court to investigate and prosecute crimes of aggression anywhere on the globe, while citizens of the Council’s five permanent members are effectively immune from prosecution for such acts. One should not be surprised if, under these circumstances, inter-state relations will increasingly be shaped by a strategy of self-help, not by a commitment to the rule of law, Dr. Köchler said..

The debates at Lake Ohrid were hosted by Professor Gjorge Ivanov, former President of North Macedonia. On the sidelines of the meeting, the High Representative of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC), Miguel Ángel Moratinos, former Foreign Minister of Spain, took part in a special session on the relevance of the Alliance for global peace.

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* Panelists 

* I.P.O. on United Nations reform

* "Sovereignty and Coercion: The United Nations in the Web of Power Politics"