 Welcome to another episode of the international relations capsule for the Shankar IAS Academy. Today we discuss global governance. This subject has come up again after the recent failure of the United Nations Security Council to even ask for a ceasefire when there was a conflict between Israel and Hamas or Palestine or Gaza. Because of the veto of the United States, they could not even discuss it openly till about three or four days later. This had happened earlier last year on the occasion of the pandemic. Because of the Chinese veto, the Security Council could not even meet. So that time itself, many questions were raised about global governance. Are the existing structures adequate? Is there a global governance at all? In fact, if we look at what we call global governance, we'll realize that is an idealistic concept because the world is firmly founded on the sovereignty of individual states, whether big or small. So when you say global governance, it is an idealistic expectation or even a misnomer. Because to have global governance in the direction of a of a world government, then the member states will have to surrender a lot of their sovereignty to that model. But what we have today in the form of the United Nations is a shadow global government, which seeks only to arrive at some international processes of consensus building without any erosion of sovereignty of the individual states. But the surrender sovereignty for the sake of global commons is the concept of the United Nations. So you exercise your sovereignty but at the same time concede part of your sovereignty to the United Nations so that those energies can be directed towards the common good rather than the individual interests of the countries. So every decision declaration that United Nations have made, at least there are some countries do not agree with it. You can have any number of resolutions which are recommendatory, but when it comes to mandatory resolutions like in the security council, then it does not work because each country, particularly the permanent members, what they do is to insist on their sovereign right. In this particular case we are talking about the United States as a particular interest in Israel. United States is not interested in finding out who is right or who is wrong. So just as China was insistent that the security council should not deal with the pandemic because of their own interests. So the global government is telling a story about other institutions like the World Bank and the IMF. So since all these governing structures have been designed to protect the sovereignty of each country, we really do not have an effective global governance system. Consensus is possible on many issues, but those are issues on which there is no compulsiveness about the implementation of these resolutions. So we are conceptual resolutions in the general context of them, but they do not amount to a global governance system that the world should have. So through the end of the Cold War, after the United Nations was set up and all these specialized agencies came into being, considerable discussion has taken place. Of course, it is a valuable thing for the countries of the world to get together and discuss issues and understand each other, that by itself avoids conflict, that by itself leads to some arrangement, some kind of consensus on certain issues. But a homogeneous system in which countries work together for the sake of the world and not for themselves is something which is a dream till today. So it did not change throughout the Cold War. After the end of the Cold War, when the United Nations was able to wage a war in the Gulf because of the unanimity of the government members, one of the very rare occasions, people thought the world had changed. And therefore, at that time, the Secretary General, Mr. Boutros Ghali, came up with what is called an agenda for peace and made an effort to establish that the days of absolute sovereignty were over and that member states must make the United Nations more powerful. It is not a new idea. But since this was not possible during the Cold War, he felt that maybe this is the time to do this. But he was very disappointed because his suggestions were not acceptable to the General Assembly as a whole. His idea was that the Secretary General should have the power to enforce peace if there is a conflict. For that, he even wanted an army for himself. But the world countries and the members of the United Nations will contribute to create an army which will be at the disposal of the Secretary General, even to that extent. Because today's system is when the United Nations has to use the army, then you invite member states to send proposals. And it takes four to six months before a force can be organized and precious time is lost. So the Secretary General, Mr. Boutros Ghali, the former Egyptian foreign minister, proposed that the countries must surrender more sovereignty to the United Nations and the Secretary General should be able to enforce peace if necessary. But it did not work out. The decisions taken on his proposal were really rejection of those proposals because for member states, in spite of what happened during the Gulf War, for the member states sovereignty was like oxygen. It was vital for them and they were not giving the surrender to the Secretary General. In fact, the joke at the UN at that time, I was there, we used to say we want only Secretary General, we do not need a general. Now, after some years, it has taken a turn for the worse because sovereignty has assumed the nature of extreme nationalism and even globalism has been called in this system. I'm talking about the time because the Republican Party in the United States was always skeptical about the UN and President Trump was not just skeptical. He was opposed to the idea of the UN inside because for him, America was first and which undermined even the rudimentary concept of global governance by riding roughshod over the UN and withdrawing from international treaties unilateral. You know those treaties that he pulled out of like the Paris accord and the Iran nuclear deal etc. So even multilateralism was all but abandoned except for wielding power of the weaker generations. So for the Americans or the big powers or the permanent numbers, United Nations has simply become an instrument by which they can control the others but when it comes to their own adjusting themselves to the common good it retreated during President Trump. So they use these multilateral structures like the World Bank, the IMF and the UN itself to impose conditionalities on the developing world. So they say, yes, we will assist you for your development but you have this kind of abolish corruption. You should all be honest. So they put those conditions and said, since you are not fulfilling these conditions, therefore we do not view the way. So it was some kind of a neo-colonialism was established by the international institutions. So particularly after President Trump took over, the global governance system, particularly its most important component that is the United Nations and the specialized agencies came under very serious stress and therefore the process was initiated to reform multilateralism. Since the old multilateralism which was set up by the Americans themselves after the Second World War was not working, why not try and reform multilateralism, bring in some new ideas and concepts which would make global cooperation more possible. But as I mentioned earlier when it came to the question of COVID-19 in 2020 and there was this even now there is an existential threat to mankind which of course is a function of the Security Council to keep peace and remove threats to international peace and security. So there is no greater peace to threat to international peace and security than COVID-19. And so the United Nations should have woken up and done something. But the Chinese veto paralyzed the Security Council and the World Health Organization was dancing to the tune of the Chinese and made international cooperation an impossible case. And as a result of which even regional organizations did not work. So we saw every country, US in its own way, Italy, North Korea, the UK in its own way. Even Europe did not work together as Europe. For the other parts of the world, in Asia there was no structure at all. And so the COVID-19 was handled badly because there was no international coordination. India tried to call this a heartbeat. We asked Saudi Arabia to hold a G20 meeting and many processes were initiated by us. But since there was no coordinating agency to do all this, United Nations simply did nothing. It was all left to the WHO, which is a public health organization. This is not related to international peace and security issues. Even when the previous pandemics or epidemics arose, Security Council would judge like in the case of HIV AIDS or in the case of Ebola and so on. So some people even suggested and myself suggested that the United Nations must have a health-keeping force like the peace-keeping force with blue berries, blue caps, let us have a health-keeping force with red berries. And this was a suggestion seriously made because that would have enabled us to coordinate the relief efforts because this is not an isolated incident. The pandemic is global and so it needs global cooperation in order to deal with it. But that did not happen and that is why we are still in the stage of fighting this no coordination about production of vaccines or distribution or pricing. So many things that would have been done to avoid the kind of situation we are in was not done. Even regional organizations did not do anything and individual countries left to themselves. If there was an international consortium for production and distribution of vaccines, for example, that would have made a difference. In fact, the former Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, when he was asked what was the biggest achievement of the United Nations on the occasion of the 70th anniversary, he said, we vaccinated the world's children against infectious diseases. What he said was, the UN may not have prevented wars. So some deaths may have happened. People may have died in small wars. But the lives we have seen by immunizing the children of the world by UNICEF was more beneficial to humanity than prevention of war. So that was the kind of pride that the United Nations had. But today, the UN has blood on its hands as millions of people fall victim to the ravages of the pandemic. So one of the uncertainties of the post-war war is the state of multilateralism. Everybody is talking about the post-COVID work. Of course, we do not know when the post-COVID work will come because the end is not in sight and how many more waves will come we do not know. But we are talking about the various ways in which global governance can be improved. One idea was supposed to reform the security policy because behind every problem that the United Nations faces, the issue is a matter of the veto of the permanent powers because the United Nations is not able to act because of the veto. So therefore, search started in as early as 1979 to reform the Security Council to make it more representative, more effective, did not work. So other important bodies were looked at the search of alternative for the United Nations because you cannot remove the veto from the Security Council permanent members unless they agree. So this process which started on 79 has not reached any kind of agreement. As a result, the current thinking is to look for alternatives, including a new United Nations because if you cannot change the rules of the United Nations by the provisions of the Charter, which means two-thirds majority of the UN unanimous votes of the permanent members, then what do you do? Like the League of Nations was abandoned and United Nations was created. So it may happen, that world may have to look at a a different body to perform these functions, G7 maybe, G20 maybe. So these are all being thought about, but as you know these changes cannot be brought about in a day and the urgency is very much there. So what we will come into is to seek individual countries and groups of countries seeking alliances. So from a global body aiming at the global governance, we are now breaking up into groups who are like-minded and who have common interests. So the new Cold War between the United States and China has become a reality because of this. So there is a feeling that there will be dominant powers as regional groups or even as part of the United Nations and therefore you have to be with the most powerful nation. That is why already we have a new Cold War between the United States and China. And what happens when there is a Cold War? We already seen it. The countries align themselves with whichever powerful nation. But this exercise is also not very easy at this time because the new Cold War has not taken a shape. We do not know which one is going to be absolutely powerful. The China going to be more powerful. Has the United States suffered on account of COVID and will be less powerful? All these we do not know. So the tendency today in global governance is look for alliances. What are the problems in there? Maybe a trade problem, maybe a pandemic problem, it may be a peace problem, it may be a conflict, it may be a dispute. In all these alliances are going to be more important and therefore you will have a new situation. But nobody wants to take a decision. If they ask one country, beside are you with United States or are you with China? Nobody will say anything. We know probably what their inclinations are. So the global scenario or will there be a non-aligned moment? Will there be countries grouping themselves like during the first Cold War? But we know that it will be in a state of flux and there are many swing states countries wondering what to do. And therefore multiple alliances will take place but the shape of it is not yet visible. Let us take for example the negotiations on climate change. In 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, we felt that we had reached a consensus which will help the developed and developing countries. And it was a threat to mankind therefore intense international cooperation was turned into an instrument for the preservation of the preservation of the existing inequities in the world. So in Rio in 1992 it appeared that climate change would come a binding factor in international affairs to develop countries seeing the imperatives of cooperation for their own survival. But a secret understanding between the US and China undermined their consensus of Rio and created the new regime manipulated by the two of them. I am referring to the Paris Accord. We all praise Paris Accord. The Paris Accord is nothing but the compromise reached between US and China because US did not want to have commitments, binding commitments and China also wanted to escape it because they were under pressure. And so they said let us not have any binding commitments for everybody. And in Copenhagen it was decided that everybody would pledge how much reduction they can bring about and to look for a zero carbon. But we saw what happened. Many countries pledged various measures to control emission of greenhouse gases. But when it was added up we found that this was not going to help because it had to be within 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius. Only the global temperature should rise. But if you make the calculations of the commitment made under Paris Agreement we will know that it should be something like 3 degrees Celsius which will be disastrous for the world. So what we are seeing is the kind of struggle for a new talents in the world. And we know that Americans and the Chinese are the two centers to the left. But more important is our vision that there should be multipolar world not just these two. So we would rather not join either of them. Though some compulsions may require us to join quad and stay close to the United States because the Chinese are after us or is a war situation with China. So naturally we may incline ourselves to anti-China group. But at the same time we are reluctant to become part of any alliance. As far as India is concerned we were very committed to multilateralism. Prime Minister Nehru always looked at India's issues or India's problems as the problems of the world. So while pursuing our own security and our own right to place in the world community we participated in global governance activities to contribute to the experience and insights rather than to seek any benefits. Because India did not seek anything from India. Our purpose was to contribute our experience so that the world can work together. So we championed the issues like decolonization, disarmament, equitable distribution of wealth and human rights as universal goals. We had to gain from all this. Disarmament is good for us because we don't have to build these armies. Decolonization is important because the power countries should not be kept under colonial administrations. Human rights were very important and economic issues were very important. And therefore we worked really for the world rather than for ourselves. So if there was a role model of a country which was willing to surrender its sovereignty in order to help the world, India was one of them. But India also got into trouble unexpectedly. The first was that we had to go to the Security Council to resolve the problem of passionate. So we went there with a purpose. We wanted the problems to be solved. But we discovered that United Nations is not a judicial body. It's not even a democratic body. So what we took to the Security Council in the 40s still remains there. No solution has been found. It has only actually exacerbated the situation by different people interpreting the U1 position differently. Then as a result of that particular issue in which India developed national interests in dealing with governance issues, we adapted our commitment to the U1 in various ways. Like for example, the idea of self-determination for all people is supposed to be applicable in the U1 charter. But we moved away from there because Pakistan kept saying or some others kept saying that Kashmir is yet to exercise its self-determination. But our position is we believe in self-determination. But that is only when a country or a region is under foreign or colonial occupation. So if you say that self-determination is absolute and is the right of every people and every country and every region, then there will be no peace in this world. India itself has so many divisive movements and many countries look at Burma, 40 to 50% of their land is under insurgency. And many countries that are freedom movements etc. So there will be no so big countries like the United States etc. Do not believe that self-determination can be exercised again and again. The people of Kashmir exercise their self-determination when the Maharaja signed the instrument of accession and Kashmir became part of it. After that there is no question of self-determination. So we also had to dilute our commitment to some of the concepts in the United Nations and that is the problem. So we repudiated the charter provision for self-determination. And again subsequently we decided not to sign the NPT. This again, we moved away from the global consensus. Except for three countries, everyone had signed the NPT. But this became a crucial national issue for us. So I am mentioning that even with the best of intentions, countries are unable to commit themselves to certain principles which were good in themselves. But in the situation that we are in, we may have to push on. And that is why we decided not to sign the NPT. And of course now that has been sold to us on some extent because of the Indo-US nuclear deal and we have been brought back to the nuclear mainstream. But for more than 30 years, India was considered outside the main stream because we did not sign the NPT. But after the US deal, we are a little better off. Still when it comes to important issues like membership of the NSD, etc., we are told that you are still not eligible because you have not signed the NPT. And then the action that we had to take against secessionist movements in Punjab and Kashmir, etc., you know, that was misinterpreted as a violation of human rights. Violation of human rights is not only by the governments. They only talk about the UN talks only about governments violations, about individuals and groups violating and destroying the peace of the country's concern. What do you do? The governments have to take action. So we were also accused of not committing ourselves to human rights because we had to fight terrorism. So now terrorism has come to be accepted as a global mess. But before that, we were accused of not following the humanitarian or human rights instruments that India had committed ourselves to. Then non-intervention in the internal affairs of states is a sacred principle of the United Nations. But some situations which are mounted to aggression by states against their own people, like in the case of apartheid and racial discrimination, the world had assumed the responsibility to protect. This is a complex concept which can jeopardize national sovereignty. Therefore, exercise in rare places. We ourselves raised the question of apartheid in the Security Council and the General Assembly. And people said, no, you are interfering in the internal affairs of states. But we stood our ground till apartheid was abolished. Because we said that this is not a matter of internal affairs. There is a matter of human rights, no, massive violation of human rights. And it was recognized and the UN intervened. And finally, South Africa became free. In the case of Iraq also, after the war, the United Nations changed several things about the disarmament situation, the arms situation in Iraq forcefully. And that also had come to be accepted. But we, our own support of this kind of concept is very limited. We do not think that any human rights issue could be turned into a national international issue. Each has to be judged in its own merit. Because human rights we have seen are being used by several countries to punish other countries. And they make false allegations, sometimes wrong interpretation of what they have done. Like now Sri Lanka is under attack by the United States and others for the crimes committed during the war. Yes, that's an issue. But how much can you force a country like Sri Lanka to do those and leave those things to them? That's why we abstain on that vote because Sri Lanka must resolve its problem itself. So there is a big conflict between internationalizing internal issues and leaving it to the countries concerned to resolve their conflict. So I mentioned the efforts made for the reform of the Security Council. I think you will know all the details. I will not go into that. But it was in 1979. It was India which proposed that the membership of the Security Council should be expanded. And it was not accepted. We are only talking about non-permanent members. But still it was not accepted by the government members. And then when the Cold War ended, Brazil proposed that this is the time to add new permanent members. And India, Germany, Japan, maybe South Africa were considered countries which should be in the Security Council. And since 1979 the size has been going on. Every year it is postponed. And I personally do not see any possibility of this being accomplished in a hurry. Because more important than the agreement of the permanent members of the Security Council, there is this whole issue of two-thirds majority of the General Assembly. Because the majority of the General Assembly, as far as I can see, is against veto itself, permanent membership itself. So in that situation, how will they agree to adding five permanent members with veto? So there is a overall overwhelming consensus for restraining veto and reducing permanent members. And therefore, it is not likely to happen. Two-thirds majority in the General Assembly and the General Assembly must support. And there are so many proposals on the table, including a proposal made by the Secretary-General at that time, Mr. Kofi Annan, which proposed two alternatives. And both do not have the support. There are as many proposals as member states. So though there is a possibility of expansion of the non-permanent membership, maybe a little later, but permanent membership with veto power are not likely to be added. And therefore, the full system of the veto, which has paralyzed the United Nations over the years, is likely to conflict. As far as India is concerned, our qualifications for permanent membership is recognized widely. But I don't think that there will be any possibility of a vote which will give us two-thirds majority in the General Assembly and the support of all permanent members. This is the same about the other candidates also. So UN reform is not likely. And that's why I spoke about veto. In any case, UN reform has to be slightly calmed. It cannot be just one-time reform. Actually, there have been many changes, even though the Charter has not changed. UN has shown itself to be capable of taking on new agenda items, like, for example, terrorism, climate change, HIV AIDS, but not the preoccupations of the UN in 1945. But now they are very important items on the agenda. So the UN has innovated, but also proved resilient in finding out of the work solutions of others. But it is still a conservative organization where it has much to form as to success. The UN or any other institution of global governments cannot be more than what the member states are willing to entrust to it. If anything, most countries have become more reluctant to part with their sovereign rights. More rightist, nationalist, patriotic governments. And therefore, the global governance institutions can only be a discussion bodies where you can try out various ideas, sounding boats of new ideas to learn from each other in the many debates that take place on the threat space by humanity, particularly in the panel. So the international community is not yet ready. My conclusion is that the international community is not yet ready to establish structures that would limit their freedom of action. Each country wants its freedom of action preserved, even when they say that changes are required in work governance. So we are nowhere near fashioning a global governance system. Even in the face of an existential threat of the pandemic, when the pandemic has not changed, the natural instincts of nations to compete rather than cooperate because mankind is another adamant species. We make adjustments here and there. But finally, we stick to our national interests and nationalism. And that is moving away from the fundamental, the rudimentary internationalism, which was there, the UN Charter. Even those cannot be implemented. And therefore, it's going in the different direction. Globalization is not considered acceptable even to developing countries. Of course, developing countries that have posted, but India had accepted globalization. But in our case, we are having second thoughts because we feel that we should have an admirable development. So that again reflects the lack of trust in global governance and global governance in situations. So the best possible thing I see is that more of the same fundamental changes are not likely to take place. Unless, as I said earlier, there is a move to establish a new structure. And then to demolish the old structure, you need the permission of that structure. So how are we going to do that? But after the pandemic is over, after the reality of political power emerges, we will know when that happens. Because pandemic has to be over otherwise till then, there will be no certainty about anything that humanity can do. But after that, the ruby area, just maybe China will become more important than the United States. Others might support China. At the moment, China is in the dock. China is being accused again and again. Even in the last few days, there have been two new evidence or at least scientific suggestion to suggest that China created the COVID-19 virus, or at least they created it, but it kind of by accidently went outside the lab, etc. So China is not having its good time. But at the same time, they are building their influence because they are the second biggest economic power, military power. And what it has is a system which can do things systematically and by force, etc. So this we have to watch. And after that only, we can think in terms of what global government structure we can have. So what we really need are not the present ones, but the structure which will enable countries to cooperate rather than compete. And that is the problem that the world is tackling. So this is something, a continuing discussion. So much has been written, so much has been spoken about this. But nobody seems to have an idea what the world would be, say, two years from now, three years from now. It's going to be the same system, struggling with various concepts. Or is it going to be something which will be able to devote the decade itself to global peace? Thank you very much.