[CONTEMP] Lesson 4: The United Nations and Contemporary Global Governance

Russia

During 2014, ________ invaded Crimea which caused global worry and controversy.

Global Governance

Multiple intersecting processes that generate a resemblance of world order.

International Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs)

Though not having a formal state power, can lobby individual states to behave in a certain way.

Powerful Transnational Corporations

Can have tremendous effects on global labor laws, environmental legislation, trade policy, and more.

United Nations (UN)

• The most prominent intergovernmental organization today.

• Closest to a world government.

Internal Organizations (IOs)

• Commonly used to refer to international intergovernmental organizations or groups that are primarily made up of member-states.

• Scholars refer to groups such as the UN or institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank.

• International NGOs are sometimes considered IOs.

• Always in a precarious position.

• Groups of sovereign states.

• Organizations with their own rationalities and agenda.

IOs are merely amalgamations of various state interests.

One major fallacy about IOs.

Just venues where the contradicting but sometimes intersecting agenda of countries were discussed— no more than talk shops.

During the 1960s and 1970s, many scholars believed that IOs were _________.

Take on lives of their own.

in the recent years, it is evident that IOs can _______.

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

Able to promote a particular for of economic orthodoxy that stemmed mainly from the beliefs of its professional economists.

Michael N. Barnett and Martha Finnemore

International scholars who listed the following powers of IOs.

1. IOs have power of classification.

2. IOs have the ability to change the meaning of the words.

3. IOs have the power to diffuse norms.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

• Defines what a refugee is.

• Since states are required to accept refugees entering their borders, this power to establish identity has concrete effects.

Security

Not just safety from military violence but also safety from environment harm.

Norms

Accepted codes of conduct that may not be strict laws but produce regularity in behavior.

Global Standards

IOs do not only classify and fix meanings, they also spread their ideas across the world, thereby establishing ____________.

“Missionaries“ of our time

Their power to diffuse norms stems from the fact that IOs are staffed with independent bureaucracies, who are considered experts in various fields.

World Bank economists

• Come to be regarded as experts in development, and thus, carry some form of authority.

• As a result, they can establish standards for the implementation and conceptualization of development projects.

Nobel Prize winner and economist Joseph Stiglitz

Publicly condemned the IMF for adopting a “one-size-fits-all” approach in making recommendations for developing countries.

Countries that worried about another global war began to push for the formation of a more lasting international league— thus, the creation of UN.

What happened after the collapse of the League of Nations at the end of World War II?

1. The General Assembly (GA)

2. Security Council (SC)

3. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)

4. International Court of Justice

5. Secretariat

Five Active Organs of United Nations

General Assembly (GA)

• Main deliberative policymaking and representative organ.

• Most represented body in the UN.

Two-thirds majority of the GA

According to UN Charter, decisions in important questions, such as those on peace and security, admission of new members, and budgetary matters require a ____________.

Simple majority

Decisions on other questions on UN’s GA are done by _________.

One-year term of office

Annually, the General Assembly elects a GA President to serve a __________.

193

Number of member-states in UN which have all seats in the GA.

Carols P. Romulo

A Filipino diplomat who as elected as a GA President from 1949 to 1950.

1949 to 1950

When was Carlos P. Romulo elected as the GA President?

Security Council (SC)

• Believed by the critics to be the most powerful.

• In charge of evaluating whether a threat to the peace or an act of aggression exists.

• It encourages the concerned parties to resolve their differences through peaceful ways and suggests measures for adjustment or terms of settlement.

• In some cases, it can resort to imposing sanctions or even authorizing the use of force to maintain or restore international peace and security.

• Heir to the tradition of “great power“ diplomacy that began with the Metternich/Concert of Europe system.

States need to obtain the approval of the SC

States that seek to intervene militarily in another state need to ___________.

A military intervention may be deemed legal.

An immense power where with the SC’s approval, _________.

15

Members of the Security Council

two-year terms

Ten of the fifteen members of the SC are elected by the GA for ___________.

1. China

2. France

3. Russia

4. United Kingdom

5. United States

Members of the Permanent 5 (P5)

Permanent 5 (P5)

• Have permanent seats on the SC.

• Each country holds veto power over the council’s decisions.

• Only takes one veto vote from a P5 member to stop an SC action dead in its tracks.

They are consist of the major Allied Powers that won World War II.

Why are these countries the member of the P5?

Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)

The principal body for coordination, policy review, policy dialogue, and recommendations on social and environmental issues, as well as the implementation of internationally agreed development goals.

54

Number of members in ECOSOC

Three-year terms

Number of terms for the elected members of ECOSOC.

Sustainable development

ECOSOC is the UN’s central platform for the discussions of __________.

International Court of Justice

Their task is to settle, in accordance with international law legal disputes submitted to it by states and to given advisory opinions referred to it by authorized United Nations organs and specialized agencies.

Disputes between states the voluntarily submit themselves to the court of arbitration

Major cases of the court of International Court of Justice is consist of ____________.

International Criminal Court

• Where international criminal cases are heard.

• Independent of the UN.

The states have explicitly agreed to place themselves before the court’s authority.

The International Court of Justice’s decisions are only binding if ___________.

P5’s veto power

The SC may enforce the rulings of the ICJ, but remains subject to the _______.

Late 1960s

When did the diplomat Salvador P. Lopez became the chairman of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

Salvador P. Lopez

A diplomat who became the chairman of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

Any citizen of any state may petition the UN to look into human rights violations in a country, which still exist until today.

• Therefore, Human Rights are not foreign impositions.

What system did Lopez and other Filipinos designed in the UNCHR?

Secretary-General and tens of thousands of international UN staff members who carry out the day-to-day work of the UN as mandated by the General Assembly and the organization’s other principal organs.

UN’s Secretariat is consist of _________.

Secretariat

• It is the bureaucracy of the UN.

• Serving as a kind of international civil service.

UN employees

Members of the secretariat serve in their capacity as __________, not as state representatives.

Issues of security

The United Nation’s greatest difficulty may be _________.

Security Council

Responsible for sanctioning international military intervention.

Slobodan Milosevic

A Serbian leader who was committing the acts of ethnic cleansing against ethnic Muslim Albanians in the province of Kosovo. Hundreds and thousands of Albanians were victims of massacres, mass deportations and internal displacements.

Late 1990s

When did the United States sought to intervene in the Kosovo War?

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

Members of the _______, led by the UN, sought SC authorization to intervene in the Kosovo War on humanitarian grounds.

China and Russia

Countries that threatened to veto any action, rendering the UN incapable of addressing the crisis during the Kosovo War.

Russia

Has threatened to veto any SC resolution against Syria in which the UN has done very little to stop state-sanctioned violence against opponents of the government.

Bashar al-Assad

The Syrian President who is an ally of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, and the latter has shield away from any policy that could weaken the legitimacy of the former.

220,000 people dead and 11 million displaced

As a result, the UN is again ineffectual amid a conflict that has led to over __________.

2001

Year when the United States sought to invade the Iraq.

Saddam Hussein

It was claimed that he had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) which threatened the world.

Russia, China, and France

Countries of P5 who were unconvinced and vetoed the UN resolution for intervention, forcing the United States to lead a small “coalition of the willing“ with its allies.

37

Number of instances when the permanent members of the Security Council exercised their right to veto resolutions.

25

Times that Russia and China exercised their right to veto resolutions.

12

Times that the United States exercised their right to veto resolutions.

Middle East

The majority of the vetoes pertained to the volatile situation in the __________.

International Organizations

Most visible symbols of global governance.

Tension

It is this ____________ that will continue to inform the evolution of these organizations.