Wind of change

The Philippines has added its voice to the call for an overhaul of the United Nations (UN) and its agenda as it has become irrelevant — except as a debate club — amid the rising global conflicts.

At the general debate at the 79th session of the General Assembly, Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo raised the need to reform the concept of multilateralism that the UN embodies to enhance the organization’s ability to address international crises and meet global development goals.

Member states have adopted a so-called “Pact for the Future” which is wrapped in diplomatese but is an urgent call for the UN to reorient its agenda and processes as its presence is hardly felt as the world deals with conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, and recently in Lebanon.

Manalo’s statement, stripped of niceties, underscored the need for change since the UN remains “the only viable platform for collective action.”

A foreign relations expert said the UN is outdated, weak, and often ineffective.

But, he added, the alternatives, unfortunately, are even worse.

He shared Manalo’s view that the UN remains the sole place where the entire world is represented.

He noticed, however, that many leaders have skipped the annual General Assembly in recent years.

“One reason is the existence of other major global forums such as the G20. But these bodies do not have the institutional or legal power that the UN has, especially via the Security Council,” he said.

Manalo, short of raising before the assembly a protest against China’s aggressive actions in the West Philippine Sea (WPS), expressed an unwavering commitment to the international rules-based system.

He said the rule of law must prevail for multilateralism to flourish amid current global challenges.

The country’s chief diplomat underscored that the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and the binding 2016 Arbitral Award on the South China Sea constituted the foundation of the Philippines’ stand on the WPS.

The UN has avoided incensing China which holds a powerful financial sway over the organization. Beijing is the second biggest contributor to the UN, standing at 15.25 percent of the UN’s 2022 to 2024 budget cycle.

The UN’s obsolescence is also a heated topic when discussions turn to the Middle East conflict, particularly Israel’s unanswered call to reform the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

UNRWA employees were involved in the 7 October massacre but were exempted from prosecution by virtue of their immunity as United Nations employees.

Questions were raised on how an organization claiming to stand for humanitarian values could shelter those complicit in terror. “This is not just a failure of the UN, it’s a betrayal,” the foreign affairs expert said.

The terrorists in UNRWA are active facilitators of violence, hiding behind UN protections that were never meant to shield those responsible for atrocities.

“Immunity should be reserved for those committed to peace and neutrality — not for those aiding in acts of terrorism,” the expert added.

Nations with a hostile agenda brush aside the existence of the UN.

The argument is that if it cannot be held accountable for its actions, then the UN has no right to continue existing in its current form.

Another worry for the UN is that calls to defund it are getting as loud as the global discontent over its gross ineffectiveness.