Today, Explained - You can’t spell “dysfunction” without the UN

Episode Date: September 19, 2022

The war in Ukraine has demonstrated just how dysfunctional the United Nations is. Uri Friedman, managing editor at the Atlantic Council, explains how to fix it. This episode was produced by Jillian Weinberger, fact-checked by Serena Solin, engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey, and edited by Matt Collette and Noel King, who also hosted. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained   Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The United Nations General Assembly is meeting in New York this week. There will be a lot of talk about Ukraine, about stopping the war there. And with all those world leaders gathered, it might seem like this is the place and now is the time. But probably nothing will change. Vladimir Putin isn't coming. Russia will likely keep on doing exactly what it is doing. Because the United Nations Security Council, the 15-nation body with five permanent members, including Russia, that's meant to stop wars of all kinds, to be the world's policeman and peacemaker, has a really bad track record.

Ukraine has been all but begging the Security Council since February to do something. It is the responsibility of this body to stop the war. So I call on every one of you to do everything possible to stop the war. Coming up on today explained why the world's peacemakers cannot get anything done. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started.

It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King. Ori Friedman is Managing editor at the Atlantic Council and a contributing writer to The Atlantic. And after Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Ori wrote about how to reform the U.N. Security Council because the U.N. Security Council tried and failed at the start of the war to prevent Russia from doing what it was doing. Ori, can you talk through what happened in February? Yeah, this was a defining moment for the UN Security Council. For me, it was really a tale of two spectacles.

The first was the Russian ambassador to the UN happened to have the rotating presidency for the UN Security Council. And we witnessed the spectacle of that ambassador presiding over a Security Council session as Russia invaded Ukraine in flagrant violation of the UN's founding principles. Russia's clear attack on Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity is unprovoked. It is an attack on Ukraine's status as a UN member state. It violates a basic principle of international law and it defies our charter. Then shortly after that, Russia vetoed a resolution, a condemnation of Russia's action and full-scale invasion of Ukraine as a violation of UN principles and the UN Charter and the demand, a call for Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine.

It would condemn the aggression that you launch on my people. There is no purgatory for war criminals. They go straight to hell, Ambassador. And you saw very, very vividly just how much when a permanent member of the UN Security Council decides to be an aggressor, how they can use the body as a shield and wield the Security Council in a way that becomes totally ineffectual as a means of stopping war. So that was the first stark illustration of the fact that it just was not up to the job of stopping the war. But the second was that Ukraine's president went around and did a world tour. He spoke to Congress, he spoke to many other legislative bodies and world leaders. And he actually said the UN

Security Council and organizations like it are not able to solve the problems that we're facing today. The war of the past have prompted our predecessors to create institutions that should protect us from war. But they unfortunately don't work. We see it. You see it. So we need new ones, new institutions, new alliances. He proposed this idea of a U24 coalition of countries that come to the aid of other nations within 24 hours of a crisis breaking out. A union of responsible countries that have the strength and consciousness to stop conflicts

immediately. I couldn't believe he was proposing this. It was like someone whose house is on fire proposing changes to fire regulations. You know, how do you think about UN Security Council reform in a moment like this? But I think he felt that way because he and his country had been failed by international institutions like the UN Security Council. And the need for something new, the urgent need for something new was so obvious to him. Was there really a chance that the UN Security Council could have prevented Russia's invasion? Or was that always kind of damned from the beginning? You'd think an institution named

the UN Security Council should be able to stop an invasion like this, right? But the answer is no. The Security Council is really struggling right now to respond to contemporary challenges. But this is really important and almost counterintuitive to keep in mind. Some of it is by design. You know, when the UN Security Council was created, it was not designed to turn its sights inward on its own members. And so where it's most vulnerable is when a permanent member of the Security Council, the most powerful members, when they decide to violate international law, when they decide to be aggressive, it can do very little to stop its own permanent members from acting that way. And so in some ways, this is, it's a feature, not a bug of the Security Council. And we saw that all too vividly in the war in Ukraine.

What is the purpose of the UN Security Council? What is their job? The job description plainly is to be the world's main and most powerful body for addressing threats to international peace and security. And one thing to keep in mind is the UN Security Council has powers and no other entity in the United Nations has. So it can initiate military action. It can institute peacekeeping operations. It can implement international sanctions. Its resolutions are binding on all U.N. members.

So if the United Nations as a whole is like the world's most principal international body, the UN Security Council is its teeth. If the point of the UN Security Council is to prevent threats to peace, then I'm imagining who should be on it. And it's like definitely Switzerland, definitely Sweden, who just stays out of stuff. Costa Rica does a great job of staying out of stuff. Who is on the UN Security Council? And how is it set up in terms of who holds power?

So the way it works is there are five permanent members of the UN Security Council, the United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom. It's basically a snapshot in time of the powers that defeated the Nazis and Japan after World War II. And that is why it is those countries. If we had had this charter a few years ago, and above all, the will to use it, millions now dead would be alive. And then they have a kind of hallowed place within the Security Council because they can wield a veto. So nothing can pass the Security Council without their acquiescence or affirmative assent. Then there are 10 members that rotate and they're elected to two-year terms. And so here you get more geographic representation.

So there are countries from every region of the world. You could have a country like you mentioned, like Switzerland or Costa Rica, be a part of that. But these change all the time and they do not have a veto power like the five permanent members do. Okay, why was the Security Council set up this way? With the U.S., France, the United Kingdom, China, and Russia, all famous troublemakers put in positions of veto power. So I mentioned World War II, but the story really begins in the 1920s. The draft covenant was adopted by 42 states.

On the 15th of November, 1920, the first assembly of the League of Nations was held in Geneva. Many people will be familiar with the League of Nations, which was established in an effort to try to prevent a world war, a conflict like that from ever happening again. Geneva was to become the clearinghouse for the agreements and disagreements of the world.

But the League of Nations failed, catastrophically, in the lead up to World War II. And the idea here was, can we build something better than what the League of Nations was in order to prevent a third world war from ever happening? A history-making moment, as Lord Halifax calls for a standing vote on the approval of the Charter of International Organization and the heads of the 50 United Nations delegations rise to be counted. The vote is unanimous.

One of the goals they had after World War II is how do we get the buy-in of the world's major powers? And of course, Germany had just been defeated. Japan had just been defeated. Italy as well. So when they thought about world powers, they thought about the ones who prevailed in the conflict. And really, the price of admission to get these powers to buy in, including most particularly the United States and the Soviet Union, was to give them veto power, to say nothing big can happen without your support. And that got all of the powers on board. But once that kind of power is given, it's very

hard to change anything. And so that frozen in time decision has stayed this way really up to the present day. Tell me about the years after World War II. We never did end up having a World War III. So something went right. Was it the influence of the UN Security Council that has gotten us this far? Not fully. I wouldn't credit the United Nations with fully stopping a World War III, but I think it has played a role in that. Part of the design of having these countries have a veto power is an effort to stop World War III in the sense that they can all work together to try to be the world's policemen, but they are prevented because of the veto power from using the Security Council to go after each other. And some people argue that even though that is really frustrating in the case of something

like the war on Ukraine, what it does do is it prevents these countries from using the UN Security Council to pass resolutions that could spark a World War III. So that is one argument in the favor of this very frustrating system. But another was that the designers at the end of World War II had a misperception about the trajectory of international relations. You know, they thought these were the powers that have worked well together during World War II. And they thought, well, they can work together to act as the world's policemen. But very quickly, that was undermined. The Cold War started months after the system was set up. And these countries really stopped being able to work productively together very shortly after the inception of the

council. So for example, in 1959, the UN Security Council passed just one resolution the entire year. There were months where they didn't meet at all. During the 70s and 80s, the Security Council really drifted, all because of Cold War tensions. And more recently, there have also been a lot of struggles. Everything from the u.n security council's failure to stop the rwandan genocide the international community together with nations in africa must bear its share of responsibility for this tragedy as well to its failures to really meaningfully intervene in the Syrian civil war. We need some solidarity and unity of purpose, particularly among the prominent members of

the Security Council. When they are divided, it's extremely difficult for the United Nations to deliver. Stop the second Iraq war. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies. To stop Russia's invasion of Crimea before this latest invasion. Russia's actions in Ukraine since 2014 have led to approximately 13,000 conflict-related deaths. And the Security Council has also really struggled to address and respond effectively to security threats that are not traditional, but really affect human security

these days. Things like climate change and pandemics. It's been really a bit player there too. When was the golden age of the UN Security Council? Yeah, so the UN Security Council's darkest days have been long, and its moments in the sun have been very short-lived. I would identify probably as the golden age, this period after the Cold War, when the United States was the world's preeminent power. In 2018, I went to go meet UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. And he had this glint in his eyes as he talked about that period. He was remembering a time where there was violence in the former Portuguese colony of East Timor after there was a vote for independence from Indonesia. And he was recalling how as soon as the U.S. president, who at the time was Bill Clinton, decided that an intervention, a peacekeeping

intervention there was necessary, everything happened. The U.N. Security Council acted. It sent in a peacekeeping operation. It stabilized the situation. Antonio Guterres kind of wrung his hands and looked visibly upset. And he said, that kind of thing, it just doesn't happen anymore. It can't happen anymore. The reason that was a golden age was because the United States was the unrivaled power and Russia and China were not yet at a point of power or tension with the United States where they would really push back against everything that the United States wanted to do. It certainly was a period in which it probably acted most effectively for the longest period of time. Is there any country out there saying,

guys, we got to reform this. We got to figure out a way to do this differently. Oh, yeah, there are a bunch. And I would put the reforms into three buckets. One bucket is global representation. So as I mentioned, especially the permanent members on the UN Security Council are really a frozen snapshot in time from 1945 and power dynamics then. So there's a lot of reforms that go about, you know, trying to increase the representation, whether permanent members or non-permanent members of the Security Council. For example, there's no Latin American representation, no African representation, no representation from South Asia. No reform of the UN will be complete without the reform of the Security Council. And often you hear countries that really feel they have a real reason to be better represented in the Security Council proposing changes. So for example, India or Brazil or Japan. We seek the expansion of both the permanent and

non-permanent categories of membership to enhance the council's legitimacy, effectiveness, and representativeness. The second bucket of reforms is more leadership changes. So, you know, we should change the way the UN Secretary General is selected. We should empower the president of the UN General Assembly more. And the third bucket of reforms is more about the veto. So one really intriguing proposal that has gotten a lot of support from UN member states is something proposed by France and Mexico, which is that in the case of mass atrocities, mass human rights violations, the permanent members should voluntarily relinquish their veto

and say, we're not going to use it. The thing is, the key word there is voluntarily. And it's very hard to actually convince these countries to voluntarily give up their veto. It sounds good in theory, but in practice, I'm kind of skeptical that it can actually get traction and that the UN Security Council permanent members would actually voluntarily give up the power they wield. Thank you. unlimited photos and videos directly from your phone to the frame. When you give an AuraFrame as a gift, you can personalize it, you can preload it with a thoughtful message, maybe your favorite

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If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. It's Today Explained. We're back with Ori Friedman, who recently wrote for The Atlantic about how to fix the UN Security Council. Ori, I wonder, has the UN ever successfully committed reform in these ways that people have been asking for? Yes, there have been reforms in its history, but I want to manage expectations here. These are not spectacular scintillating reforms. Okay. So there have only been five changes to the UN Charter in its entire history, and none has happened since 1973. So it's been a long time since we actually changed the UN Charter. I will point to one change that happened as a result of the war

in Ukraine, which is that the tiny nation of Liechtenstein championed an effort to make it so that if a permanent member of the UN Security Council vetoes a resolution, like Russia did in response to the war in Ukraine, Now it is mandatory that the UN General Assembly hold a debate and discussion about the veto within 10 days of it happening. The resolution is non-binding and nothing prevents the veto-wielding power from declining to comment on its decision and explain itself to the General Assembly.

I think it's significant in the sense that it shows that there's ferment in the UN, that there's a desire for change. If you think about shining a spotlight on the veto casting member, it does kind of enhance the brightness of the spotlight, but this is not some elusive cure for the UN Security Council's maladies. This is an important step, but a relatively small one. Without being snarky, Ori, because you've said it's important, although relatively small, there is already a fairly bright spotlight on Russia, reflecting

12 million people who have fled their homes in Ukraine. There are many reporters documenting atrocities. Vladimir Putin is running around inventing history. We would already be paying attention to Russia. Why does it matter that we turn up the spotlight a tick? We know what Russia's doing. The UN knows what Russia's doing. Totally a fair critique. And I agree that it is probably an incremental change, a marginal change rather than a major one. I think one distinction I'd make is that a lot of the critiques you're hearing about Russia's actions are done by Ukraine, certainly, and the United States and its allies. And a debate in the UN General Assembly would at least expand the range of countries that are discussing the veto,

you know, in a case like this. If nothing else, it sends a message to these permanent members that you can't veto with total impunity. It at least extends the period of time that there is scrutiny on this decision, so people don't feel they can cast a veto, block a huge, really important initiative, and just walk away and quietly have it happen and no one pays any attention. And if you were in charge and you could make a simple reform, what would it be? If you had all the power and said, all right, guys, from now on, we're doing it differently. What would your fix be? So as I was looking into this, I didn't want to present like a laundry list of reforms. I really wanted to zero in on one big idea that felt ambitious and

bold, but theoretically doable, even if it would be very hard to actually accomplish. What I ended up feeling was the most intriguing proposal was an idea that the UN General Assembly should be able to override the veto of a permanent member in the Security Council if there is sufficient support for the override. So this should be familiar to many Americans, for example, because it's a bit similar to what happens in Congress. If there is exceptional support for an initiative, Congress can override the veto of a U.S. president. The bill on reconsideration is passed. The objection to the president of the United States to the contrary notwithstanding. The idea would be that if there's a veto cast, the U.N. General Assembly then can have a vote and could potentially override the veto if they have sufficient exceptional support

in ways that would allow it to then pass the U.N. Security Council. And how might your reform happen? How does this get done? Yeah, that's the hard part, but not the, I think, not the impossible part. So the big roadblock here is that this would require a change to the UN Charter. And the way that happens is that two-thirds of UN member states need to approve of the change through their respective constitutional processes. So, you know, in the U.S., that would mean going through Congress, for example. And it also needs to be approved by all the permanent members. My experience of looking into UN reforms is a bit like walking down a promising path and breaking from like a jog into a run and

then slamming into the wall of the permanent members. Because all roads to fundamental reform at the UN lead through the permanent members. Because they wield so much power, they kind of control whether the UN charter is amended or not. There's another problem or challenge that there's 193 members of the UN Security Council. There are at least 193 ideas out there for how the UN and the UN Security Council should be changed. All that said, I do think there is a potential way that the United States could get on board with this. First of all, the United States is the biggest contributor financially to the UN. It has a stake in the international order that it created after World War II, which one of the major elements of that international order is the United Nations. in a time where we are facing existential threats that affect the whole world increasingly. So things like climate change, pandemics, nuclear weapons. That means it is a moment where we need

to cede some power from the permanent members to the broader consensus of the UN's membership. And they could even say, you know, we're not afraid of the consensus of the world's nations on these big issues. We believe our enlightened national self-interest is in line with the interests of the vast majority of nations. And Russia and China, if you're not supporting this, what does that say about you having the interests of the rest of the world in mind. Today's show was produced by Jillian Weinberger with help from Tori Dominguez. It was engineered by Paul Robert Mouncey. It was fact-checked by Serena Solon and Laura Bullard.

And it was edited by Matthew Collette. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.