UN & Global Health Security, Op-ed

The global security has been into a major structural crisis due to the Corona pandemic, while the concept of collective security is about to  collapse or alter.

Questions, therefore, arise over the real role of the United Nations in putting an end to conflicts all over the world, to preserve the international peace and security conception in face of contemporary challenges.

What we observe is that the United Nations is not moving quickly enough to settle these disputes, especially as we know that health security is an integral part of world peace and security.

The World Health Organization, which is one of the United Nations agencies, is looking to be the actor that is playing the least role in dealing with its relevant international crisis. Away from being late in announcing "a global epidemic", we have not noticed any integrated international strategy at WHO to counter the virus.

What turned things worse is that this organization has been barred from an essential part of its budget following the decision of US President Donald Trump to stop funding the organization. A decision which would affect WHO's work in the poorest countries.

It is true that in the past weeks, the General Assembly adopted resolutions on Coronavirus, including its decision on international cooperation to ensure the right to access to medicine, vaccines and basic medical supplies for all around the world.

It also issued another resolution on "Global Solidarity to Combat the Corona Virus", in which it affirmed its commitment to international cooperation and multi-lateralism and its strong support for the pivotal role the United Nations system plays in countering the Corona pandemic at the global level.

It also stressed the need for full respect for human rights, and intensified international cooperation to contain, mitigate and defeat the pandemic, including by exchanging information, scientific knowledge and best practices and applying the relevant guidelines recommended by the World Health Organization.

All of this was adopted in accordance with the decision taken on 27 March and titled "Procedures for General Assembly Decision Making during the Corona 2019 Pandemic (Covid- 19)", as the President of the General Assembly after consultation with the General Committee sent a letter stating the draft resolution proposed by one or more countries to all the 193 member states of the Assembly.

Those countries have a specific period, at least 72 hours, and if none of them breaks the silence, that is, they did not send a letter of objection before a specified hour, then this means that the decision was adopted ... but all these decisions remain weak and have no impact on the world order or hundreds of very difficult problems it suffers from ...

The way the United Nations works is a legacy of the Second World War, and the world order changes day by day, and it is impossible for it to be marked by stability with the nature of new problems in the global system and the components of old and new actors in contemporary international relations ..

Also, the reform of the United Nations is a sensitive and difficult topic that troubles those involved in international relations and those following the accelerating events in the international arena.

This international organization was established in 1945 and this establishment was built on the power relations inherited from the Second World War that made the five major countries (the United States of America, Russia, China, Britain and France) have a veto that they could use whenever they want and according to their criteria or even their diplomatic mode.

After 1945, several geostrategic developments took place, which could be written in thousands of books on history and/or international relations without any parallel development or tangible reform of the United Nations Charter.

The Charter of the United Nations was supposed to develop according to historical developments, but all this did not happen, because any serious reform attempt to the United Nations Charter collides with Article 108 of this Charter.

The article says: "Amendments to this Charter apply to all members of the" United Nations "if Issued with the approval of two-thirds of the members of the General Assembly and ratified by two-thirds of the members of the United Nations, including all permanent members of the Security Council, according to the constitutional conditions in each country.

This means that any reform with the presence of this article is difficult or even not possible as long as this remains subject to the veto of the five permanent members of the Security Council.