The restructuring process of the United Nations during the emergence of the New World Order : a successful foundation for the future or a model worth dismantling?

Abstract

The United Nations System is the legacy of war. In actual fact, the conception of the United Nations took place in 1919, at the conclusion of the First World War, following human devastation which up to then had never been seen before. Such excessive human, social, and material destruction brought the leaders of the powers celebrating victory to a very sober reality that war ought to no longer be a traditional solution to international controversies and quarrels. A system of mutual cooperation with the availability of an arena in which this environment of cooperation could be developed and maintained, brought into existence, The League of Nations. Although this League proved worthless in preventing a future major war of destruction among the great powers of that time, the League of Nations, through its hopes for collective security, in fact laid down the foundation for the United Nations System of our time. Throughout its history of more than half a century, the United Nations may have been deficient in many areas of the world where war could not be prevented or halted quickly enough. Yet, it was always there with its doors continuously open urging the parties in conflict to negotiate or at least offering the opportunity for both parties to come face to face - to conduct a tete-a-tete - within a non-partisan arena. Even if the United Nations has not succeeded in all its proposals for peace and stability throughout the world, it continues to provide an environment for the peaceful resolution of its conflicts. Opponents are at times forced to face each other, especially with added pressures induced by Member States for a negotiation process, that has often led to a peaceful settlement. Fifty years after its inception, the United Nations, first under the leadership of former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and now under the new directives of the present Secretary-General Kofi Annan, is facing possibly its greatest challenge within its process of restructuring in the dawn of a new world order. No one yet has been able to grasp what the emergence of this New World Order will entail. Essentially, there are two important fundamental questions regarding this new world order with respect to the United Nations: 1) Will this restructuring process during the time of this new order prove that the future United Nations will be a successful instrument in the prevention of conflict? and 2) Will the restructuring process cause a total halt to the operational effectiveness of the United Nations system as it is known today?