Radical reform of UN is a necessity but you are only going to get incremental change for now: Jaishankar

The theme of the Global South getting a raw deal at the current multilateral institutional system isn’t terribly new. But the realities strike home each time the topic is raised at any forum. For S Jaishankar, the case for a radical revamp of the prevalent United Nations structure, built after the Second World War when the organisation had 50-odd members, is “common sense” but as a realist, he also understands that the dire necessity of radical changes notwithstanding, what we are likely to get is a “long period of incremental changes” that leads eventually to a radical shift in the current power structure.

This was by far the most profound observation made by the external affairs minister at a session on whether the Global South and the West may collaborate to rebuild trust in the institutional system, or is a patchwork of plurilateral agreements a fait accompli?

The panel also featured Hanke Bruins Slot, The Netherlands foreign minister, January Yusuf Makamba, minister of foreign affairs, Tanzania, whose views on the imbalance inherent in the current structure were even more vehement than that of Jaishankar, Jorge Quiroga, former Bolivian president, and Anwar bin Mohammed Gargash, diplomatic advisor to the UAE President. The session was moderated by Network18 Managing Editor Palki Sharma.

The remarks by Jaishankar that are more likely to make the headlines, however, were when he spoke about how multilateralism had failed India on Kashmir, since at its core, despite the rhetoric on “values”, countries have always put interest over values.

“Look at our example,” said the minister. “In the first year of Independence, we put our trust in multilateralism and took the Kashmir aggression issue to the UN, and others made it into an accession issue, and they did it for geopolitical reasons… So, if you say people are playing multilateralism, they always did. We’ve grown up,” Jaishankar added, with maybe the hint of a jibe at India’s early naivete.

But unlike Makamba, the Tanzanian foreign minister, who felt the UN has repeatedly failed the African nations and called for “reorder” instead of “reform”, Jaishankar was of the view that “the word broken may be too strong… The batteries are discharged and are running on low energy. You need a different framework. You need to take the bits the work.”

On the rules-based order, however, the Tanzanian and Indian views were similar, which points to the fact that India has more commonality with the Global South in terms of lived experience than perhaps pretenders such as China, one of the key stumbling blocks to India’s UN Security Council ambitions.

While Makamba said that on the question of the so-called rules-based order, it is important to ask ‘whose rule’ and ‘who makes the rule’, Jaishankar, who had just been to the Munich Security Conference, said “there’s a larger global rebalancing that’s bigger than the UN.

“…while the lack of results demonstrates a case for reforms… I think there is a larger global conversation and global rebalancing as well which is bigger than the UN, which is really about whose rules, how does it work because in many cases is the rules have been gamed.”

“The world trading rules have been gamed and we also have a lot of challenges today emanate from how countries have used those for their benefit,” he added.

Despite the conversation that has now been mainstreamed over the dire need for reformation of the multilateral structures that do not reflect the current realities or the power equation of the world (Jaishankar pointed out that from 50-odd members in the 1940s the UN now has four times that number of members), the question remains why hasn’t clamour for change brought any shift in ground realities.

To the minister, the answer is obvious.

“The sentiment for changing UN is very strong. The problem is, in many cases the very people who are the problem are also people whose concurrence you need to do that reform. If you are going to ask five countries, would you mind changing the rules so that you have less power? If they were wise the answer would be something else. If they are short-sighted the answer is what it is today,” Jaishankar said.

But he observed that “because the system today isn’t working, it’s not that life will come to a standstill. Countries will go ahead”. India, for instance, is part of 36 different alliances and coalition groups…

“What’s happening today is there’s a logjam up there and everybody is doing their own thing… finding new friends, making their own groups, picking their own issues and creating new realities. The new reality is going to be much less disciplined, more fragmented in many ways, but it will still be effective because if the guys up there aren’t delivering, you’ve got to do your own thing.”

Can results be achieved only if there’s a solid middle ground? Jaishankar, the pragmatist, disagrees.

According to him, while “it will be everybody’s endeavour to find middle ground, reality is middle ground won’t be found on some issues. We will find some ground, some common ground.”

“But the idea that everybody would agree on the most important issues of the day is a bit of a fantasy. The fact is competition is for real. You spoke about camp politics. Sometimes there’s a logic to it. In addition to the old issues there are new issues,” he said, adding, “Take the big debates of the day: connectivity, debt, trade…"

“Now… how these are leveraged today. These are not necessarily all coming out of the West. The West as a dominant force earlier is largely responsible for what has happened, but the new players haven’t helped. If you take UNSC reform, the biggest opposer is not a western country,” he said, hinting at China.