UN: an institution to be reformed on the federal model

Is the UN brain dead? ¹

This is the question posed by a large number of magazines and daily newspapers in 2022 and 2023 following the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, drawing parallels with the now-famous phrase used by French President Emmanuel Macron in 2019 during an interview with the weekly The Economist regarding NATO.

Faced with Russian aggression against Ukraine and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, both still ongoing in 2024, the UN is failing to take the necessary measures to restore international peace and security . Such a violation of the San Francisco Charter that founded the institution in 1945 should indeed have prompted a strong collective response. However, the Security Council, its main organ, is once again paralyzed by the game of vetoes , which many countries have tried to abolish without success because they call into question the UN adage: “one state, one vote.”

It is indeed worth remembering that the UN was intended, when it was created, to establish an egalitarian concert of States . However, from the outset, the specific role entrusted to the five victors of WWII, namely the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the USSR and China, appointed as permanent members of a security council and endowed with a right of veto capable of blocking at any time decisions contrary to their interests or those of their protégés, thus led to States that were less equal than others . The UN system appeared over time to be increasingly out of step with the realities of the world marked by the return of rivalries between major powers. In 1974, Déwé Gorodey, a Kanak politician, discovered that “the UN is a Western, bureaucratic, and bourgeois institution, controlled by American capitalism” (cf. CHAPPELL David, The Kanak Awakening, The Rise of Nationalism in New Caledonia, UNC-Madrépores, 2013, p.159).

However, these geopolitical tensions further distance developing countries from the efforts led by the West to bring them closer to the BRICS group ² and the new multipolar world order desired by the Russian Federation and its president, giving them renewed hope of the realization of some of their interests ³ , as was the case with “third-worldism” ⁴ , a concept invented in 1955, or the “global South” in the early 1980s which designated the countries for the most part colonized or formerly colonized which attributed the “underdevelopment” of the South to the colonial domination which continued, despite independence, in different forms, such as for example “françafrique” ⁵ . In September 2023, a summit, called G77, a group formed within the UN , unlike the G7, G8 or even G10 which represents the richest and most industrialized nations, was held in Cuba with around a hundred countries from Asia, Africa and Latin America in order to demand a less “unjust” international order .

This injustice is also found for non-self-governing territories, such as New Caledonia , which are still present on the list of territories not yet decolonized established by the UN since its creation. If these territories, as well as the new States, yesterday still colonized but today independent, put pressure on the last 3 States holding colonies, namely France, the United Kingdom and the United States , the supreme position of the latter within the Security Council means that despite the incessant appeals of the various Secretaries General, the General Assembly and the Special Committee on Decolonization, the situation has remained at a standstill for almost 30 years . It should be noted that none of the 3 States mentioned above are members of this committee ⁶ . Concrete gestures are becoming rarer. The UN remains discreet ⁷ . It must be said that overseas territories, even small ones, can have great strategic importance. It is also worth recalling that the anti-colonial declaration of Resolutions 1514 and 1541 of 1960 combined the affirmation of the universal right to self-determination with another according to which the “national unity and territorial integrity” of nations had to be respected, implying that in the process of decolonization, the right to self-determination could only be exercised if it did not violate the ” territorial integrity” of a national entity. Thus, the ambitious objectives of the UN often clash with some of its principles such as the territorial integrity of States and the defense of their sovereignty.    

The case of the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean is a case in point . Colonized by the French, ceded to the British after the Napoleonic Wars and then made available to the United States from the 1960s onwards for a period of 50 years, the archipelago remains to this day a British overseas territory. In 2019, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution calling on the United Kingdom to return the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius, which claims it. The United Kingdom did not comply with this resolution, nor with the advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) calling on London to end its administration of the Chagos “as soon as possible” ⁸ . This institution believes that the United Kingdom “illegally” separated the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius after its independence from England in 1968. As was the case with France for Mayotte during the independence of the Comoros, for the scattered islands after that of Madagascar and which almost was the case for the island of Santo during the independence of Vanuatu. The latter, with the help of Papua New Guinea, arrested and expelled for secession between 1,000 and 2,000 French and Vanuatu supporters to New Caledonia.

Faced with this broken global governance, the UN must undergo structural reform . A first UN summit on the subject was organized in 2005. Two priorities were put on the table, namely on the one hand the expansion of its Security Council with the integration of new permanent members (India, Nigeria, South Africa, Germany, Brazil) in order to better reflect the state of the world and on the other a reform of the right of veto, which could be suspended in the case of genocide, massive crimes against humanity or even for countries breaking the basic rules of the Charter. These reforms, blocked for the time being, remained pious hopes.

Besides the veto power, the main reform is that of the Security Council . Composed of 15 members, 10 elected and 5 permanent, it constitutes the decision-making body of the United Nations. It plays a major role, particularly in conflict resolution. It votes on resolutions that can propose arbitrations and establish the law. It can decide on sanctions against a State or even the sending of blue helmets in peacekeeping operations. All other UN institutions revolve around this council, which constitutes the heart of the organization.

The problem with this council is that it is not representative of the world population. With nearly 8 billion inhabitants in 2023, the planet could be summed up as follows: 1 white, 1 Latino, 1 Arab, 1 black and 3 Asians. However, the UN Security Council is composed of 4 whites and 1 Asian, for the 5 permanent members, with a right of veto . In order to change this, it would be appropriate for each of these permanent members to initially designate 1 new permanent member who is part of a federal group or is itself a federal state, bringing the permanent number of the council to 10 and then why not to 15 in a second phase in view of the distribution mentioned below.

Indeed, after study, it appears that at the global level there are 15 large groups spread over an almost identical territorial area with an average of nearly 9.2 km² . Some of these groups are already present within the council, such as the United States, China, Russia ⁹ , the European Union. ¹⁰ To these, it would be appropriate to integrate Canada, Brazil, then representatives of the other groups constituted in supra nations indicated on the map below with:

– 1 representative for Central America and the Caribbean,

– 1 representative for the rest of South America,

– 1 representative of the Arab League,

– 1 representative from sub-Saharan Africa,

– 1 representative of the Bantu countries,

– 1 representative from Central Asia,

– 1 representative for Southeast Asia,

– 1 representative for Oceania,

– and finally a last representative in order to obtain the 15th member who would be dedicated to the so-called land of Canaan composed of the States of Israel, Palestine and Lebanon, which today bring together the religions of nearly 4 billion believers.

All of these members would be permanent members, partially solving the problem of injustice mentioned above.

If the United States, Brazil, Canada, China and the European Union are already clearly identifiable, the ^{supranational} or international organisations in which some of the other States are located would allow their representatives to be designated fairly quickly .

For Oceania, this would be possible through the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), for example. The Arab League already exists. For Central America and the Caribbean, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Central American Integration System (SICA) would appoint a representative. For Central Asia, this would be the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO). For Southeast Asia, this would be the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Mekong-Ganges Cooperation (GMC), and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multisectoral Technical Economy (BIMSTEC). For the Bantu countries, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Community of Central African States (ECCAS). For Sub-Saharan Africa, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Finally, for the representative of South America, the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), the Forum for the Countries of South America (PROSUR), the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).

It is interesting to note that the majority of the existing members of the Council come from federal structures. Other major groups should draw inspiration from these structures in order to resolve the injustice mentioned above and rebalance the forces at the global level.

It should be remembered that the ancestor of the UN, namely the League of Nations (SDN), created in 1920, without means of action and having great difficulty in producing decisions, was inaudible during the rise in tensions during the 1930s, not preventing the 2nd World War, which led to its replacement by the UN in 1945. If a new Cold War has entered into force with the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, it would be appropriate to avoid a 3rd World War in order to apply the basic principles of the UN cited above aimed at establishing real equality between all States, grouped why not in a federation.

The problem is that the UN Charter stipulates that any change to the statutes must first be voted on by the General Assembly. At least two-thirds of the states and nine out of 15 members of the Security Council must decide whether to hold a UN General Conference. The reform proposals made by this body must then be approved by two-thirds of the member states and by the five countries that currently have a veto. It is very difficult to hope to achieve this.