New UN needed to avert breakdown of law and order

Nothing could have offered a worse backdrop to the opening of the 79th UN General Assembly in New York this week than the news of the massive bombing campaign by Israel against the Iran-aligned Hezbollah in Lebanon. The pictures and live streaming clearly showed Israeli shells and missiles raining down on southern Lebanon — strikes that, in their first 24 hours, killed more than 500 people and injured hundreds more.

This backdrop of yet another flare-up of violence means the risk of an all-out war in the Middle East can be added to the list of other conflicts, adversities and challenges that are raging in our world. It maybe proves that the international order is broken and organizations such as the UN are becoming increasingly redundant, with trust between the big powers at an all-time low. We are now living in a more divided world that is split between the Western countries and their allies on one side and Russia alongside many countries in the so-called global majority, including China, on the other.

All diplomats are most probably working around the clock in New York in an attempt to de-escalate this and other conflicts, but the international organization, it seems, has become entangled in the global rift and therefore has little or no impact, either on Israel or Hezbollah.

It is unclear what progress can be made to defuse the situation in Lebanon, as efforts to broker a ceasefire in Gaza, which Israel has relentlessly pounded since October last year, have come to nothing over the past 11 months.

The UN, it seems, has become entangled in the global rift and therefore has little or no impact

Mohamed Chebaro

It has become clear over the past two decades that the UN as an organization, despite the crucial work of several of its agencies, is becoming irrelevant due to its failure to orchestrate, design and even impose peace.

The last time the world came together to solve a crisis was maybe the financial meltdown of 2008 and those efforts were led mainly by the G20, assisted by several UN agencies and other groupings. There were two key subsequent crises that indirectly sowed the seeds of discord within the international order. Firstly, the Libyan revolution against Muammar Qaddafi in 2011 and the subsequent UN resolution authorizing the use of force to protect civilians, which left key powers, namely Russia, feeling cheated. Moscow viewed the UN-authorized Western airstrikes on Libya as the catalyst that led to the downfall of Qaddafi’s regime. Secondly, the inability of the UN and global powers to present a united front against the Syrian regime in that same period, even after the evident use of chemical and nonconventional weapons against its own people. That was another calamity that may have led to the further erosion of trust in the organization.

The strong words of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who this week warned that impunity, inequality and uncertainty were creating an “unsustainable world,” will no doubt go unheeded by states and people alike. The deepening geopolitical divisions, wars with no end in sight, climate change, nuclear threats and unregulated tech continue to push humanity toward the “unimaginable — a powder keg that risks engulfing the world,” Guterres added.

But it is not just Israel’s war to dislodge Hamas from Gaza and its ramifications that are threatening peace and stability today. The Iran-backed “axis of resistance” in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Syria have entered the fray and targeted Israel as a means of supporting Hamas. The Houthis of Yemen have been attacking shipping in the Red Sea with impunity, while the world has again failed to put forward a unified deterrence to help secure supply chains and world trade. The conflict in Sudan, which was high on last year’s UNGA agenda, continues to burn, alongside the Ukraine war, without any end in sight.

And that is just part of the usual story delegates at this annual meeting are shackled with, as global humanitarian needs continue to grow and the funds to meet them shrink, meaning some 2 billion people live in conflict-affected areas. Many of these decide to search for a better life as refugees or migrants in more stable countries, where they often become a burden and risk instability as a result of their large inflow.

It is not unreasonable to demand a summit or a meeting that reviews the essence of the UN Charter

Mohamed Chebaro

Even the two-day “Summit of the Future,” held before the UNGA meetings, which was supposed to offer some respite and hope from the doom and gloom of our world, was nonbinding and lacked the impetus to rally nations to tackle the challenges of the 21st century, such as climate change, artificial intelligence, equality and women’s rights. Like many other initiatives, its blueprint is likely to become yet another document filed in the UN’s archives.

However, all is not lost just yet. While the world continues to hurtle toward greater discord and more conflicts like a train without any brakes, it is not unreasonable to demand a summit or a meeting that reviews the essence of the UN Charter. This document was endorsed at the San Francisco conference in 1945, but maybe it is time to see if those foundations, which served humanity after the Second World War, are still relevant today.

At the time the UN was born nearly 80 years ago, US President Harry Truman’s reversal of “might makes right” into “right makes might” was enshrined in the UN Charter. But such noble principles no longer feature in a world torn between its ultra-liberal and despotic forces, amid a clear return to “might makes right” as the dominant narrative. If the UN, multilateralism and the craft of diplomacy are to have a second wind as a force for good, world leaders must renew their trust in the organization as a vehicle for ensuring peace, not just talking about it.

Most of the 8 billion inhabitants of the planet today would likely agree that we are witnessing the worst decline in the world order and governance since the establishment of the modern state system. The UN has, for the best part of eight decades, been a talking shop for competing forces. To avert global conflicts and their catastrophic consequences today, an effective world body is needed to promote peace and prosperity. The aging UN could renew itself if the superpowers reached such a conclusion.

• Mohamed Chebaro is a British Lebanese journalist with more than 25 years of experience covering war, terrorism, defense, current affairs and diplomacy. He is also a media consultant and trainer.