How to govern without government?

 

What is wrong with the UN; and how can we fix it?
x

While the U.N. today is not broken, it is in trouble. Many fear it is starting to drift into irrelevance as states increasingly avoid the U.N. on the most important questions facing the international community, seeking substantive solutions elsewhere. Many are concerned that the U.N. is being overwhelmed by the major systemic changes and challenges now buffeting the global order. The U.N. has a 20th-century institutional structure and culture that is struggling to adapt to these new 21st-century realities. And if it fails to adapt, the U.N. will slowly slide into the shadowlands. UN has failed to address the latest issues of cryptocurrencies. 

But this drift into irrelevance need not be the case. From its history, we know the U.N. can reinvent itself. Past decades have seen Security Council reform and the creation of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change as well as U.N. Women. There is no point in dreaming that the U.N. can be rebuilt from the ground up. But we can intelligently re-examine its functions, structure, and allocation of resources to make it better equipped to meet the challenges of the future.

To that end, we need a U.N. whose inherent legitimacy and universality are reaffirmed by a formal political recommitment to the fundamental principles of multilateralism by member states.

We need a U.N. that structurally integrates its peace and security, sustainable development, and human rights agendas as a strategic continuum, rather than leaving them as the self-contained, institutional silos of the past.

We need a U.N. that helps build bridges between the great powers, particularly at a time of rising great-power tensions. The U.N. with a robust policy-planning capability, looking into the future several years out, not just at the crises of the day.

We need a U.N. that embraces a comprehensive doctrine of prevention, rather than just reaction, that is directly reflected in the organization’s leadership structure, culture, and resources.

We need a U.N. in the field that finally resolves the problem of its rigid institutional silos by moving increasingly to integrated, multidisciplinary teams to deal with specific challenges.

We need a U.N. driven by the measurement of results, not just the elegance of its processes. A U.N. where women are at the center of the totality of its agenda not just parts of it so that their full human potential can be realized as a matter of social justice. If it fails to do so would further undermine peace, security, development, and human rights.