Obstacles in United Nation Multilateralism

03 Nov 2022 Obstacles in United Nation Multilateralism

Significance for Prelims: L69 Group; United Nations

Significance for Mains: Limitations faced by United Nations; Reformed Multilateralism; India’ contribution in reforming United Nations; Steps to make United Nations more inclusive.

News: United States visit of  Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar in September led to bilateral and multilateral diplomacy by India.

Reasons for reforming United Nation:

• Institutional limitations of UN during COVID-19 pandemic: UN’s multilateralism faced weak moments during COVID-19 pandemic when vaccine deployment were interrupted due to supply chain disruptions and countries closed their borders.

• U.N.-led multilateralism unable to prevent wars: Ongoing Russia-Ukraine led to several deadlocks in UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions,West continues to boycott Russia, pushing the veto provision of the U.N.S.C. at a more redundant level than in the past. 

• Another limitation of the U.N.-style multilateralism can be seen through China’s rise, belligerence, and aggression in the South China Sea, the Indo-Pacific region and now globally.
• United Nations failed to evolve with rapidly changing global scenarios as China is carving its own multilateral matrix by economic and strategic circumvention of  the West,and also due  international isolation of Russia and Iran as well as increasing United States’ Taiwan bonhomie.  
• Increase Chinese control  on multilateral organisations, including the U.N.: China shamelessly used veto power against India in the U.N.,recently it blocked a joint India-U.S. proposal at the U.N. to enlist Sajid Mir, a top Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative, as a ‘global terrorist’. China exerted unofficial pressure on Michelle Bachelet(former U.N.’s human rights chief) to stop the release of U.N. Human Rights Council report on the condition of Uyghurs in China. 

India’s push  for  United Nations reform: From the past few years India is consistently pushing for United Nations Security Council Reforms

• Foreign Minister Mr. Jaishankar’s hosted ministerial meetings of the G4 (Brazil, India, Germany, and Japan).
• High-level meeting of the Indian delegation with the L.69 Group, on “Reinvigorating Multilateralism and Achieving Comprehensive Reform of the U.N. Security Council”.
• India is searching  for new frameworks of global governance through other forums:  Foreign Minister recently  participated in Quad (Australia, India, Japan, the U.S.), IBSA (India, Brazil, and South Africa), BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), Presidency Pro Tempore CELAC (Community of Latin American and the Caribbean States), India-CARICOM (Caribbean Community) and other trilateral formats, such as India-France-Australia, India-France-the United Arab Emirates and India-Indonesia-Australia

Way forward for U.N’s reformed multilateralism:

• Integration of best practices  within the institutional ambit of the United Nations: U.N. should be based on burden-sharing mechanisms like multilateral regional organisations.
• U. N. must have clear space for leadership and representation from all over the globe to make it institutionally capable of dealing with global events such as Russia-Ukraine war and Covid-19 pandemic.
• More inclusive UN through reform in the UN Security Council having more representation from the global south.
• Reformed multilateralism with greater regional representation could generate deeper stakes to prevent wars.
• U.N. should have more space for countries like India that stepped up relief efforts, drug distribution and vaccine manufacturing during Covid-19 pandemic. 

Conclusion: Indian delegation’s enthusiastic participation in the High-Level Week at the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly showcased India’ s renewed multilateral diplomacy after Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meets in Samarkand.

Further readings: 

1. United Nations: Envisaged role and actual record; Specialized UN agencies—aims and functioning; the need for UN reforms.
2. Know about Unilateralism, Bilateralism and Multilateralism.
3. Reformed Multilateralism
4. Quad, IBSA and BRICS.

Source: The Hindu

Article: A ground plan for India’s reformed multilateralism(Harsh V. Pant; Vivek Mishra)

Article Link: 

https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/a-ground-plan-for-indias-reformed-multilateralism/article65935206.ece 

Yojna IAS Daily Current Affairs eng med 3rd November

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