The myth of equality in United Nations

The United Nations(UN) is an international organisation to act as a watchdog of development and peace of the world which was formed after the Second World War as a successor to the League of Nations which clearly failed to maintain peace after the First World War is hypocritically non representative of the present scenario.

The UN consists of many organisations within it including the General assembly, Security council, etc. Out of all these, the most powerful is the United Nations Security Council(UNSC) as it has an exclusive mandate to maintain peace in the world. It is endowed with many powers such as imposing economic sanctions on nations, military interventions, peace keeping missions, imposing a ban on terrorist financing and activities, terrorist organisations and restricting their movements and the like. This institution which has wide range of powers is not truly representative. It has in total 15 members out of which 5 are permanent members. The five members are USA, UK, France, Russia and China. These countries are permanent members while the other countries are non permanent and change every two years. The permanent countries enjoy a disproportionate, irrational and non democratic veto power. Using this, they impose their own agenda on the nations. The proposals brought by the non permanent nations are just vetoed if it affects in any way the permanent members. This kind of veto power has been used time and again by the permanent countries to arm twist other countries and push their own vested interests while affecting the overall security or even sovereignty of other countries.

India along with other countries like Brazil have been on the forefront for reforms in UNSC by abolishing the veto power and to be more representative, logical, reasonable and equitable. While there is an another grouping called the Coffee Club led by Pakistan and others which do not want any changes in the UNSC.

This year, India has been elected for the eight time consecutively to the UNSC as a non permanent member. So since the term of non permanent members is 2 years, a country gets to chair twice once elected. So India can set the agenda of the deliberations when it chairs the UNSC. While India has to continue its much needed reform agenda in the UNSC, it is also important to discuss about the after effects of pandemic, economic recovery, maintaining peace in the world considering the aggressive stand of China and economic kickback. China is one of the permanent member of UNSC. Having such a huge responsibility, China must act to maintain peace and tranquility in the world. The aggression of China in South China Sea, conflict with its neighbours and debt trapping of nations are not conducive to peaceful and equitable development. China needs to rethink its strategy and the way it deals with its neighbours.