The UN in Crisis? | Livestream with @theglobalgambit

The last week of September 2024 saw the start of the annual regular session of the United Nations General Assembly. But as world leaders gathered in New York, what were the main highlights (and lowlights) of the week. More generally, with growing global problems, is the UN still fit for purpose? Here, we discuss why the UN General Assembly is important, why the UN still matters, the highlights of the week, and some of the other key issues on the UN agenda, including possible candidates to be the next Secretary-General.

#UN #internationalrelations #jameskerlindsay

[MrMordechaiAnilevich]

Professor JKL looks refreshed. Which is probably good when International Relations seem to be heading towards more difficult times.

[VaucluseVanguard]

I have worked in the UN peacekeeping world for several years. The system is totally f**ked. It has become the self-licking lolly that simply exists to keep the people already in it in a job and to provide a revenue stream for developing nations. The organisation is in need of root and branch reform that requires not only a reform of the Security Council and the General Assembly, but a huge slimming down of the Secretariate. There is a need for a forum in which countries can get together and do ‘stuff’, but this does not require the huge UN bureaucracy. Much more should be done through bi-lateral and multi-lateral arrangements rather than the Secretariate acting on behalf of everyone.

[VladTevez]

Yes, UN is in crisis. Erdogan last week completely disregarded and mocked all Cyprus related UN Resolutions, within the UN chamber, and not only will bear no consequences, but Guterres will likely take another smiling photo with him. UN cannot be taken seriously if it can't enforce its Charter and its Resolutions

[WorldTravelerCooking]

Another aspect of the UN that people don't see are the organizations that just do things like interoperability in the modern world such as the International Postal Union and the International Telecommunications Union. I would even love to see an International Banking Union that could among other things replace SWIFT but be geopolitically neutral absent security council imposed sanctions.

[Cybernaut]

Despite of the UN's flaws, perhaps the UN is an international chatroom for diplomatic purposes.

[KoopstaKlicca]

The UN is such a grand, idealistic achievement in human history, and while understandable, the cynicism online gets me sad sometimes

[eliassolomou]

What i took away from this, James's clothes iron is obviously more energy efficient than his camera .
EAC /AHK is relieved.

[MisterSplendy]

Being a New Yorker, who has family and friends in diplomatic corps and positions, the UN in my opinion is broken. How no Muslim country has a permanent seat at the SC, same for India, Latin America, Africa, Japan, Indonesia, etc.is beyond me. It's 2024, not 1949. I do love the General Assembly, however. NYC is more NYC when there's so many different languages on the street.

[WorldTravelerCooking]

For a neutral place I would suggest putting it next to the headquarters of the Nonaligned Movement.

[dhdh]

I feel the UN and the EU are both being severely limited thanks to the veto power. Do you think implementing something like qualified majority voting (QMV) for many things that the UNSC needs to approve could work in the UN?

[andrigeogiou]

Mr.James !
You are so right about .
It was only a few days ago that we heard Turkey's president addressing the UN security council .
Asking about all the values and principles of the UN, blaming Israel, on its fight against " terrorism ".
While, on the same time, his country. Turkey, for 50 years now, is half almost occupies the north part of Cyprus.
Kicked out the local population, been replaced them till on our days mainly by Turks setlers from its mainland.
Ignoring of all of the UN resolutions about peace and justice for the island.
He asked them all, to give recognition to this occupied areas of Cyprus.
Without, NOT a single member, to try to put this man in the right order.
Only the Cypriot president, gives him a rightful answer..with the Greece priminister as well...

[WorldTravelerCooking]

I think Gutierrez has an even harder job being from the West because of the fact that one element that we are seeing in the current world is the West (G7 and friends) vs the Rest. Portugal also used to be a colonial power and so that I'd riding on his shoulders as well. I think he is doing about as good of a job as possible under the circumstances.

[adamski-lw]

This is awesome. I’m part sorry I missed this live (not good 🇦🇺 time zone). But I know so little about the UN I can’t even ask semi intelligent questions. So viewing it 8 hours later is fine.
Thank you for posting.👍
Shout out to Pyotr’s cat!

[CedarHunt]

I'd be fine with getting rid of the veto as long as it is understood that we don't consider ourselves bound by resolutions that we have voted against. We're not going to be lectured and outvoted by losers in the third world.

[existentialvoid]

Adding more countries into the UNSC would make the UN less functional.
I have worked in several UN organizations in Africa and the Middle East - it's a disaster and a massive waste of money.
It was geo-politics played out in boardrooms and missions.

It may be wise for both of you to actually speak to Israelis and the Arab States - get a little closer to the ground rather then sounding like Ivory tower academics who sound really disconnected. . . It really shows how little you both understand about Middle Eastern politics. It reminds me of the UN actually. . . disconnected and deaf.

I say this as someone who stood in a village in NWFP in Pakistan in 2011 with a satellite phone in hand talking to a woman in Geneva who would not release funds already earmarked for seeds that were already in Karachi, for a program that took months to set up )involving bribery, village elders and Mullahs through a flood destroyed country. . . ), to get seed in the ground to avoid mass starvation.
While I was successful in getting the seed finally moving (thank you Mercy Corp.) I knew then that the UN was an awful place. . . I have stories from Jordan UNHCR camps, from Zambia involving malaria clinics, from DRC with former child solders. . . I have yet to touch a UN program that was not just politics.

I understand the desire to hold on to the idea of international cooperation - but to make the UN more democratic will only make it an oppressive institution of majoritarian governance. The UN needs to get back to basics - international aid and education - and get rid of it's overextension - human rights, international law and military things. . .

[RobFeldkamp]

dude, please shut off your webwhatsapp sound and stop looking at your phone this much. It is very distracting.

[thomasbootham]

Hi James could you do a video on whether you think the United Kingdom could become a federation like Canada or Australia with England broken up into 9 or 10 regions with their own assemblies? and do you think this would help get rid of the current tensions and current dissatisfaction felt with the union across the 4 nations of the uk? and if you think it would help resolve current tensions how likely is it that this could happen? since it’s been suggested by Blair, Gordon brown and Churchill in the past.

[nahomyihdego]

He should let you speak and he should use better equipment/network. He lowering your standard we all got used to 😅

[joshua_ch]

Why would Russia or the US give up their veto ? Frankly, I don't think taking away the veto is a good idea. Let's say, Russia was frozen out of Ukraine discussions would that make them end the war ? I think it would just make for a very unstable world. If major powers don't get things their way they can inflict a lot of pain and upend any global system. Idealism of reforming UNSC is fine but it must be based on real power considerations and accommodating major players.

[paxdriver]

Point of order @35:00 ... Gadaffi's UN speech didn't sound half as crazy as 8 years of bush or 4 years of Trump, and Libya didn't have a security council veto with the world's largest armed forces, credit markets, or allies. Objectively, gadaffi's speech was by far the more salient voice in comparison if coherent grievances are the yard stick.

The disparity between the harms caused by collateral damage to sponsored policy is measured in orders of magnitude, they are not similar in kind at all. Much like Trump and Harris often get compared as if relative, but they're not even speaking the same language, or using the same system of arithmetic. They're not exchanging differences of views, they are display differences of kind entirely. Casually acting like two things are similar is a gross misrepresentation even if you don't necessarily say anything untrue, it's still disingenuous at some extreme point. I think several orders of magnitude of separation meet that qualification universally in any domain for any reasonable person.