The UN’s challenges

I’ve been in New York since Thursday, unable to tweet or blog due to inexplicable wireless router problems at the home of friends, where we were staying.  My focus was naturally on the UN, where the renovation of the Secretariat building is said to be nearing completion but you wouldn’t know it from the way it looks.  I hope the people who move back in are feeling more renovated than the facility.

Here’s a quick list of things I’ve learned:

1. Lots of angst at the UN about its expanding role in peace enforcement operations.  In Somalia, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Mali, UN forces are being asked to go beyond impartiality to combat bad guys, some of whom may not be a lot worse than the folks the UN is helping.  Life is complicated.
2. The war in Syria is presenting enormous difficulties to the UN observers in Golan, where  the UN staff is subject to threats, intimidation, kidnapping and murder.  Troop contributing countries are withdrawing their soldiers, the rebels are using the neutral zone to mount operations and the Syrian army is lobbying artillery shells that occasionally land in Israel.
3. Some countries are nevertheless pledging troops conditionally for post-war Syria.  Lakhtar Brahimi will stay on as a personal representative of the Secretary General to help prepare contingency plans while possibly resigning his more formal mandates from the Security Council and the Arab League, which has seated the Syrian opposition coalition in Damascus’ place.
4. Some folks think it would be a good idea to keep the UN out of stabilization operations altogether:  it lacks understanding of local situations, imposes insensitive, standardized approaches, is opaque and unaccountable and leaves behind pathologies like prostitution and trafficking, not to mention the warlords it helps install in power and teaches the finer arts of corruption by shortcircuiting proper procurement procedures in the name of urgency.
5. In any event, everyone is expecting financial stringency as a result of the American sequester.  I expect the Americans, if they can overcome their ideological distaste for the UN, to load it up with more tasks, not fewer, as they do triage and and toss the lower priorities in the UN’s direction whenever the Security Council permits.  It was pretty clearly a mistake not to have a beefier UN mission in Libya, for example, to help with demobilization and retintegration of the militias that are wrecking havoc with the transition, aided by a disappointing performance from the parliament elected last summer.

The UN reminds me of the High Line, New York’s elevated freight railroad spur now converted to an elongated park (where I spent an hour this morning, see the photos below).  Created under different conditions for different purposes, the High Line has been repurposed and is now playing a starring role as a people magnet, attracting tourists and New Yorkers alike.

The UN was created in San Francisco to ensure post-World War II peace and security and to that end:

1. to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;
3. To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and
4. To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.

The circumstances were very different in 1945, but these purposes remain valid, far more so than during the Cold War.  What the UN needs more than repurposing is reform to ensure that it has the knowledge, talents and resources to meet its high purposes in a 21st century environment.