NEW YORK (AP) – Visiting hosts and criticizing the way they do things is unorthodox as a general rule. That is, unless you’re helping to pay your rent.
World leaders have done it at the United Nations for the past week, convening each other at their grand headquarters and those who manage the planet’s most prominent global institutions, telling them that the foundation pillars are cracked, outdated and not working well.
Some versions of this happen every year. It’s part of the entire theater. The leader points out the UN’s flaws and points to sit down and get things done. Then, at the end of the speech, they congratulate them on their important work and effectively say “good story!” and go home. The conversation will be suspended for a year.
However, in recent years, as the United Nations has become one of its members’ favourite subjects at the General Assembly, the turns of certain phrases have been emerging more and more from the mouths of world leaders, targeting the United Nations itself. It can be mapped like this: we need you and we will support you…
And this year, with Secretary General Antonio Guterres himself Set dark and critical tones After his team Major reforms proposed for the 80th anniversary of the Institution, They find criticism from dozens of countries that “will deal with this August’s parliament” to be even more pronounced and pointed than usual. Over the past week, this concept brings out that it comes up in a harsh relief.
“We have to ask ourselves today. How has the United Nations been able to live up to expectations? And we just look at the state of the world,” said Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Minister of Foreign Affairs of India. “Did the United Nations actually make a difference?”
And from Guinea Foreign Minister Amara Kamala: “The best years of our shared organization may be behind us.”
Maybe that’s really true?
A broad sense that the United Nations is not maintaining its potential
Much of the criticism focuses on the UN failing to get things done in general, with Michael Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Michael Drew effectively quarreling multiple small, quiet countries and bent their knees to what undermines them, calling them “booth and loud.” The mission of multilateralism. However, there are also certain repeated complaints.
Among them is the unfair expression of the UN Security Council, where Africa has certain beef. For 30 years, they have sought a permanent veto seat on the Security Council, which has only five permanent members while other countries are spinning. Every year, African leaders express their dissatisfaction with what Botswana President Dumas Boko calls “unfriendly indifference.”
“We must release the Security Council from this humiliating paralysis,” said Malaysian Foreign Minister Mohammad Hasan. “Reformation is no longer a choice. It’s essential.”
Important rhetoric came from all regions. Every day, the leaders after the leaders found that they didn’t like the United Nations and its operations, even if they often couched it.
“We have reason to honor what has been achieved: rights have been expanded, we have escaped poverty, and medicines and measures have moved across the border,” Drew said. “But alongside those victory, we are the truth that we do not hide: partial pledges, procrastination, and enduring practices of adding profits before people. When progress was made, it was too often fragmented.
Like so many organizations, much of the most notable work continues behind the scenes and even off-site. The United Nations has hundreds of programs all over the world for many people facing challenges of all kinds. And the nature of the performance of the UN General Assembly can make it politically convenient to criticize the UN when things in the world get worse. Certainly, it was US President Donald Trump, who has not been a UN fan for many years. He did it in his own speech.
“What is the purpose of the United Nations?” he said. “It has a very incredible, incredible potential, but most of the time they don’t even live with it. At least for now, all they seem to do is write a letter that is really strongly expressed in words and then never lasts. The empty words don’t solve the war.”
He also pointed out: “What I got from the United Nations is An escalator along the way It stopped in the middle. ”
However, in the critique there was a lot of approval for different kinds of responsibility – that of the countries that belong to it. “The UN is just the sum of that part. The lack of shock lies at the feet of the member states. The solution is not to abandon it, but to fix it,” said Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis.
And from German Foreign Minister Johann Wadefl: “It’s up to us – member states. We are the United Nations. We want these United Nations to be strong.”
Probably the idea itself is the main result.
Multilateralism, Since its establishment after World War II, the main UN threads remain the cornerstone of the organization. It is a particularly strong concept for less powerful states, relying on the United Nations to level the playing field between small states and dominant forces.
But Trump’s almost total rejection of multilateralism set the tone this kind of broad frustration that this year is a bloated feature that the UN doesn’t actually fix things.
“Reform isn’t just about structure. It’s about reliability. And reliability lives or dies with multilateral trust,” said Maldives Foreign Minister Abdullah Karel. “That trust is eroded.”
Lurking behind many comments are the ghosts of the League of Nations, a post-World War I prototype for the United Nations that did not hinder World War II, which was replaced by the United Nations in 1946.
Ultimately, the United Nations may be Ambitious institutions Above all. Yes, it is an embodiment of the past of the times, but it is a constant dream that people may be able to stop fighting by working together. Even if the house is always there, and to some extent, the company is not ready. And while that, speaking up openly about such a chaotic epoch issue stands as one way to fine-tune the path forward, even if it requires some serious pork.
“What the UN has achieved so far is no small feat. They are the essence of our shared humanity,” said Brunei Foreign Minister Dato Eli Pehi Yusov. “But we will be dishonest to speak only of success.”
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Ted Anthony has been writing about the Associated Press’ international affairs since 1995 and oversees coverage of the UN General Assembly’s annual leadership conference since 2018.
