Keeping the United Nations Relevant in the 21st Century

For thoughts on this topic based on her book "Collective Security Within Reach", please go to the following link of an NPR interview of Sovaida Ma'ani Ewing broadcast live with call-in questions on October 14, 2011:

http://www.wuft.org/conner-calling/

The International Community Cannot Continue to Abdicate Its Responsibility

As events in North Africa and the Middle East unfold in quick succession, it is becoming increasingly apparent that it is time for the international community to step up to the plate and assume responsibilities that it has abdicated for too long.

When the UN Security Council was created in the aftermath of the Second World War, it was accorded the distinction of being the principal organ of the new United Nations and was given the responsibility for maintaining and restoring peace in the world: its mandate was to act to ensure peace if it found that one of three events had occurred: that there had been a threat to the peace, a breach of the peace or an act of aggression. In any of these circumstances, the Security Council was empowered to act using a variety of tools including economic sanctions and even the use of force.

As we witness the outbreaks of government-endorsed violence in countries such as Libya, and hear the outcry of peoples around the world railing at such injustice, is it not time for the international institutions to which we have entrusted the very responsibility for maintaining peace to step in and act? Do not the circumstances that we are witnessing amount at the very least to a 'threat to the peace' or a 'breach of the peace?' If not under these circumstances, then when should we act? Words alone, will not suffice. Action is required.

And if we find that what is standing in the way of timely, decisive and effective Security Council action to restore the peace is the absence of a standing international force that is truly representative of the community of nations and that acts in accordance with clearly delineated rules agreed to in advance by all nations, then is it not time to set about finally creating such a force? Surely in a world that is advanced in so many ways, we can succeed if we bend our minds to crafting an international system of collective security that is effective.

The time has come to put away our excuses for inaction and get on with the job of re-vamping our global institutions to ensure that they adequately meet the needs of our time.

What ought we to do when one nation illegally sends troops into another?

On September 2nd, the New York Times reported that during the course of a four-hour meeting in Brussels, European leaders had criticized Moscow's military offensive in Georgia but yet had failed to settle on concrete measures that might deter Russia from similar action in the future. 

Indeed, one would think that with the magnificent achievements of the human race in so many fields, including some complex scientific and technological ones, our community of nations would have been able to figure out by now what to do when one country breached the territorial integrity of its neighbor.  

Isn't it time for us as an international community to come together and agree upon some firm rules about the consequences that are to follow if one nation takes the belligerent step of sending troops into another?  Should not such an action be viewed as a "threat to the peace" in the language of the United Nations Charter (Ch. VII, art. 39), giving the Security Council the right and indeed imposing on it the obligation to take steps to maintain or restore the peace, up to and including the use of force, if necessary?  Perhaps if our system were more rule-based, with all nations being on notice of the rules in advance along with the consequences for their breach, it would be easier for our international institutions tasked with maintaining the peace to act swiftly and decisively.  

In addition to establishing a set of clear rules and consequences, the world community would also need to create an international standing force that would operate at the beck and call of the Security Council and on behalf of a unified community of nations.  With such an enforcement mechanism in place, individual nations would be less tempted about acting with impunity, knowing that they would have to face a unified international response.