OPINION — According to the Geneva Academy of Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, as of May 2024, there were more than 120 ongoing armed conflicts in the world, involving 60 countries and 120 non-state armed groups, the highest number since World War II. The last three years have been the world’s most violent of the last three decades. A quarter of humanity – some two billion people – live in places affected by armed conflict.
The wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Myanmar, Haiti and other armed conflicts are in the news every day, with the prospects for peace and reconciliation often appearing more remote and unachievable.
The United Nations came into existence on July 28, 1945, after 29 nations had ratified the organization’s Charter on June 26 of that year, in San Francisco. The U.N. Charter is considered an international treaty and is binding on the 193 member states of the United Nations. Chapter one, Article 2 of the Charter reads: “All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. The Organization is based on the principle of sovereign equality of all its members.”
The 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly will be meeting on September 10, 2024, and the general debate is scheduled for September 24-30, preceded by what the U.N. calls a Summit of the Future that will focus on the three pillars of the United Nations: Sustainable Development, Peace and Security, and Human Rights. Indeed, these are the issues the United Nations should focus on during this session, given the absence of peace and security for those 2 billion people affected by armed conflict.
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There is understandable skepticism as to the true value of the United Nations, given that the world’s wars and conflicts continues to proliferate – and escalate – while annually, at the U.N. General Assembly gathering, heads of state parade in front of an international audience and speak eloquently about fixing a world in disarray. All too often, their words ring hollow.
Hopefully, the United Nations focus this year on the Summit of the Future, and its deep dive on peace and security, will finally some bring positive change to the organization, with the creation of a United Nations entity established for one purpose: helping to peacefully resolve at least some of those many armed conflicts that continue to killing, maim and displace millions of innocent people.
Article 23 of the United Nations Charter established the Security Council, consisting of 15 members of the U.N. – the permanent members China, France, Russia (the seat then was held by the Soviet Union), the United Kingdom and the United States, and ten non-permanent members, five of which are elected each year by the General Assembly for a two-year term. The Security Council might logically be tasked with establishing this United Nations entity dedicated to one job: negotiating for the peaceful resolution of armed conflicts affecting a quarter of humanity. There should be no “veto” power option on the part of any of the five permanent member states, as members of this negotiating team.
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Of course, the unfortunate irony is that one of the Security Council’s five permanent members is the Russian Federation, which has blatantly violated the United Nations Charter’s prohibition of the use of force in its aggression against Ukraine, an independent sovereign nation. The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine recently said that civilian suffering in Ukraine was mounting because of Russia’s disregard for basic principles of humanitarian law and its human rights obligation. Thus, dealing with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine while trying to establish a United Nations entity dedicated to negotiating for the peaceful resolution of issues dealing with armed conflicts will have to be addressed.
How can the U.N. actively pursue peace and stability in a world convulsed with conflict and wars, when one of the permanent members of its Security Council is an aggressor, in violation of the United Nations Charter? That fact should not absolve the United Nations from the desperately needed, noble task of actively participating in efforts to peacefully resolve these armed conflicts that are affecting so many nations, and killing so many innocent people.
And if the United Nations is not capable of actively contributing to peace and stability in a world in disarray, convulsed with wars and conflicts, then it is failing to contribute to its principal mission –peace and security for all nations — and the annual platitudes we hear are worthless.
This column by Cipher Brief Expert Ambassador Joseph DeTrani was first published in The Washington Times
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