mercoledì 24 settembre 2014

From the United Nations to Obama's jungle

United Nations Charter Article 1
Though the world is now looking at the General Assembly in NY for the climate change issue, it is no secret that the United Nations has been losing power in the last decades.
Though there was no legal basis for the attack on Afghanistan in 2001, it has been 2003 war in Iraq which really had a negative impact on the image and credibility of the United Nations. Since then, right after Kofi Annan finished his mandate in 2006, the United Nations has disappeared from the international scene, especially in conflict issues management (like conflict prevention, peacekeeping and peacebuilding). Furthermore, financial problems and continuos funding gap, together with the lack of an outstanding Secretary General, turn out to be the coup de grace on the Wilsonian world order built after WWII was over. 
Now, as ISIS is gaining ground in Syria, and Al-Qaeda is back on the scene, the hesitating world community is putting together a coalition of countries whose mission and objectives are not so clear. A coalition formally led from Obama's United States and France, without any UN blessing at all. 
At least, in 2001 (Afghanistan) and 2003 (Iraq) the UN was somehow called to have a prominent role on both issues. Even if the Charter's principles were not respected.
On top of that, while at that time the Security Council monopoly on the use of force -whose only exception is given by Art.51 of the UN Charter- was clearly violated, at this time an international legal basis to attack ISIS existed. Nevertheless, countries keep playing their own military strategies careless of international treaties and agreements which, now yes, would allow them to defend Iraq and Syria (UN Member States), and also the whole region, from an international security threat. 
This can only mean one thing for our beloved international organization: that once again, the UN is failing to prove itself as the keystone of world order. 
Heading to a multipolar world, as suggested by many international relations theories, probably means going in the direction of a world without any specific country leadership (neither the US nor China). We know Obama is a supporter of a new multipolar world order, and his foreign policy proves it; but if things keep working just like this, with a weakened United Nations and America on the edge of a new wave of isolationism in international politics, what we will have, more than a multipolar world, will be a jungle. 

AV