| From The Newspaper (6) UN |
October 27, 2022
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| "For the reformation of the United Nations, negotiation should be started in 2024 ~the Prime Minister will have a speech today, criticizing Russia, and emphasizing the authority of International Law." The news article read that the Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will deliver a speech to the General Assembly at the United Nation in New York during the afternoon of the 20th (Japanese time, the morning of the 21st). He will criticize Russia saying that its invasion of Ukraine is shaking the 'United Nations centric order'. In order to reform the Security Council, he will call for starting negotiations to create a draft resolution for its reformation. He will also emphasize the importance of International Law. He said at his office to reporters before leaving for America that in 2024, the 'U.N. Future Summit' will be held and it is a good chance to start to review how the U.N. should operate. The article stated that on that day, the U.N. General Discussions had begun and the Secretary General Guterres said in his opening remarks that separation among countries has made the world functionally disordered because of the "Ukraine Crisis", as well as the "Food Crisis", and "Climate Change". He thought that 'functional disorder' did not describe the world, but only the United Nations. Actually, on the same day, an article in the Bloomberg magazine captioned in its title, 'U.N. helpless in the face of Russia's war'.  The article went on to say, "The helplessness of the United Nations in the months leading up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine are impossible to ignore at the annual marquee event of international diplomacy. For an institution born out of war in order to preserve peace, its struggle for relevance in the face of the worst conflict in Europe since World War Ⅱ revives an existential question: If it couldn't stop the numerous clashes that have arisen since its formation -most recently Russia's attack on its neighbor, a modern democracy -then what is its purpose?"The Bloomberg article then mentioned 'veto'. 'Veto' is the right to refuse. Only five countries, 'the permanent members of the Security Council', America, England, France, Russia and China, can use 'veto', and if one of those uses 'veto', new plans and rules which were proposed by the secretariat would become void. As a lot of new plans and rules have been refused by one of those countries, other countries have been feeling helpless. This is the biggest and most basic problem of the U.N. So, why can't 'veto' be taken from the U.N. Security Council? A couple of years ago, he studied 'veto' on the internet. It read that after WWⅡ, they thought about why the former international organization, the 'League of Nations' couldn't stop the beginning of WWⅡ. Their answer was that some nations like Japan left the League of Nations, and then started the war. If so, the organization should be an organization in which powerful countries wouldn't leave so easily, so the 'veto' system was born. If they take the power of the 'veto' away from Russia, or China, or the other countries, they might leave the U.N., when they were forced to agree with a certain policy. He could understand this theory. "But, in that case, what should they do?" The United Nations has a lot of workers and a big budget. But, can't they do anything to solve a crisis? When he thought of this, he remembered the World Health Organization. A couple of years ago, when COVID-19 started, he was irritated about the WHO's slow action. When he was watching an NHK program on TV, an announcer asked a specialist about the same question and the specialist answered, "Do you know the budget of WHO? It is less than your budget." After the program, he checked. The specialist was right, NHK's annual budget was about $7 billion, while WHO's was about $3 billion. This time he checked about the U.N., it was about $3 billion! He checked Taiwan's budget, because Taiwan was refused membership to the WHO and U.N. It was $90 billion. So, maybe Taiwan has never expected the help of either the WHO and U.N. When he checked more, he found that this was a little different. The U.N. has another budget for Peacekeeping Operations, it was $3 billion. And, the U.N. has a lot of umbrella organizations, like UNESCO and IAEA. WHO is one of them. Their budgets are separate from the U.N. For example, UNHCR (to help refugees, $8 billion), WTO (to work for international trade rules, $2 billion), UNESCO ($3 billion), IAEA ($ 4 billion). Two or three decades ago, he heard a journalist ridicule the United Nations, by calling it the "United Nothing". He thought that we can't afford to ridicule the U.N. any more. |
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No. 493
*centric :中心の
*reformation :改革
*Security Council :安全保障理事会
*resolution :決議
*disorder :機能しない
*caption :表題を付ける
*marquee :集客力のある
*void :無効の、効果のない
*veto :拒否権
*League of Nations :国際連盟
*ridicule :からかう