Republic of the Philippines

NUEVA VIZCAYA STATE UNIVERSITY

College of Arts and Sciences
Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya

At the end of the discussions, the students are expected to:

1. identify the roles and functions of the United Nations;

2. discuss the challenges of global governance in the twenty-first century; and
3. explain the relevance of the state and globalization

Introduction

This module discusses the essential role of the United Nations Organization for
multilateral negotiations represented by the General Assembly. Its existence in the current
state of the world affairs has affected a lot of nations. While the Assembly is empowered to
make only non-binding recommendations to States on international issues (including concerns
and issues on Globalization) within its competence, it has, nonetheless, initiated actions-
political economic, humanitarian, social and legal-which has affected the lives of millions of
people throughout the world. It also covers the challenges of global governance and the voices
of individual states through the Assembly of the United nations.

History and Principles of the United Nations

Prior to the United Nations (UN), the League of Nations was the international
organization responsible for ensuring peace and cooperation between world nations. It was
founded in 1919 "to promote international cooperation and to achieve peace and security." At
its height, the League of Nations had 58 members and was considered successful. In the
1930s, its success waned as the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) gained influence,
eventually leading to the start of World War II in 1939.

The term "United Nations" was then coined in 1942 by Winston Churchill and Franklin
D. Roosevelt in the Declaration by United Nations. This declaration was made to officially state
the cooperation of the Allies (Great Britain, the United States, and the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics) and other nations during World War II.

The UN as it is known today, however, was not officially founded until 1945 when the
Charter of the United Nations was drafted at the UN Conference on International Organization
in San Francisco, California. Representatives of 50 nations and several non-governmental
organizations attended the conference, all of which signed the charter. The UN officially came
into existence on October 24, 1945, after its charter's ratification. The principles of the UN are
to save future generations from war, reaffirm human rights, and establish equal rights for all
persons. In addition, it also aims to promote justice, freedom, and social progress for the
peoples of all of its member states.

Organization of the UN Today

To handle the complex task of getting its member states to cooperate most efficiently,
the UN today is divided into five branches.
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1. The first is the UN General Assembly. This is the main decision-making and
representative assembly and is responsible for upholding the principles of the UN
through its policies and recommendations. It is composed of all member states, is
headed by a president elected from the member states, and meets from September to
December each year.
2. The UN Security Council is another branch and is the most powerful. It can authorize
the deployment of UN member states' militaries, can mandate a cease-fire during
conflicts and can enforce penalties on countries if they do not comply with given
mandates. It is composed of five permanent members and 10 rotating members.
3. The next branch of the UN is the International Court of Justice, located in The Hague,
Netherlands.
4. Next, the Economic and Social Council assists the General Assembly in promoting
economic and social development as well as the cooperation of member states.
5. Finally, the Secretariat is the branch headed by the Secretary-General. Its main
responsibility is providing studies, information, and other data when needed by other
UN branches for their meetings.

Membership

Today, almost every fully recognized independent state is a member of the UN. To
become a member of the UN, a state must accept both peace and all obligations outlined in
charter and be willing to carry out any action to satisfy those obligations. The final decision
on admission to the UN is carried out by the General Assembly after recommendation by the
Security Council.

Functions of the United Nations Today

As it was in the past, the main function of the UN today is to maintain peace and security
for all of its member states. Though the UN does not maintain its own military, it does have
peacekeeping forces that are supplied by its member states. On approval of the UN Security
Council, these peacekeepers are, for example, sent to regions where armed conflict has
recently ended to discourage combatants from resuming fighting. In 1988, the peacekeeping
force won a Nobel Peace Prize for its actions.

In addition to maintaining peace, the UN aims to protect human rights and provide
humanitarian assistance when needed. In 1948, the General Assembly adopted the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights as a standard for its human rights operations. The UN
currently provides technical assistance in elections, helps to improve judicial structures and
draft constitutions trains human rights officials, and provides food, drinking water, shelter,
and other humanitarian services to peoples displaced by famine, war, and natural disaster.

Finally, the UN plays an integral part in social and economic development through its
UN Development Program. This is the largest source of technical grant assistance in the world.
In addition, the World Health Organization; UNAIDS; The Global Fund to Fight AIDS,
Tuberculosis, and Malaria; the UN Population Fund; and the World Bank Group, to name a
few, play an essential role in this aspect of the UN. The parent organization also annually
publishes the Human Development Index to rank countries in terms of poverty, literacy,
education, and life expectancy.

Millennium Development Goals

At the turn of the century, the UN established what it called its Millennium Development
Goals. Most of its member states and various international organizations agreed to target

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goals relating to reducing poverty and child mortality, fighting diseases and epidemics, and
developing a global partnership in terms of international development, by 2015.

Millennium Development Goals by 2015

1. To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.

2. To achieve universal primary education.
3. To promote gender equality and empower women.
4. To reduce child mortality.
5. To improve maternal health.
6. To combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases.
7. To ensure environmental sustainability.
8. To develop a global partnership for development.

A report issued as the deadline neared noted the progress that had been made, lauding
efforts in developing nations, and noted shortfalls as well that need continued focus: people
still living in poverty without access to services, gender inequality, the wealth gap, and climate
change's effects on the poorest people.

The Search for Consensus

Each Member State in the Assembly has one vote. Votes taken on designated important
issues, such as recommendations on peace and security and the election of Security Council
members, require a two-thirds majority of Member States, but other questions are decided by
simple majority.

In recent years, a special effort has been made to achieve consensus on issues, rather
than deciding by a formal vote, thus strengthening support for the Assembly’s decisions. The
President, after having consulted and reached agreement with delegations, can propose that
a resolution be adopted without a vote.

The UN and the Challenges of Global Governance

Globalization is a subject that has been on the agenda of the United Nations system
and its component organizations for a considerable period of time, both from analytical as well
as normative and operational perspectives. The said report is not meant to be an analysis of
the nature, dynamics or manifestations of globalization per se, nor a description of current
work of individual organizations of the system in relevant areas. Rather, the report seeks to
clarify the ways in which the complex phenomenon of globalization affects development and
the implications of this interaction for the development role of the United Nations.

While the principal focus of the report is on the core issues of finance and trade raised
in Assembly resolution 53/169, it seeks also to identify ramifications of globalization processes
in other areas and to explore ways of enhancing the coherence of the United Nations system=s
response to these interrelated challenges. The document aims to identify and further enhance
the role of the United Nations system in designing and implementing a response, both at
national and international levels, to the challenges posed by globalization. The analysis at the
global level is supplemented by a review of country-level trends based on responses to a
questionnaire from a number of resident coordinators.

The Challenges of Globalization and Interdependence

Identifying the nature and contents of globalization, in particular from the development
perspective, is imperative for developing effective policy responses to its challenges. There
are different ways of looking at globalization.
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a. Some of them emphasize the increased mobility of factors of production, goods and
services across borders and the resultant emergence of a truly global market,
b. others see primarily the results and future potential of an explosive progress in
information technology,
c. while still others view globalization primarily from societal and cultural perspectives.

While all these reflect certain aspects of globalization, from the development perspective
the quantum change brought about by it is not internationalization of production per se,
nor the telecommunications revolution, nor the emergence of uncivil society etc. It is the
impact and cumulative implications of all these processes on policy making and policy
implementation, both at the national and international levels that present the two principal
challenges of globalization as far as United Nations development activities are concerned.

The UN sees that the forces of globalization affect all aspects of people’s lives, the policy
responses to globalization must be both comprehensive and coherent. National and
international policies affecting trade, finance, social and environmental aspects must be
formulated keeping in view the interrelatedness of these issues and the cumulative impact
of globalization.

1. The challenge of bringing coherence to policy-making is thus among the first

and foremost challenges posed by globalization. Given its universality, democratic
character and broad mandate, the United Nations has a clear comparative advantage
in promoting such coherence both at the national and international levels. Moreover,
while the United Nations is an organization of sovereign member states, the
Organization by necessity finds itself more and more often in a role of promoting,
formulating and implementing policy responses that must go beyond national actions
to be effective. Indeed, globalization tends to erode one of the principal marks of
national authority, namely complete and exclusive control of the national currency and
associated financial markets. Globally circulating monies have greatly complicated
national management of money supply, exchange rates and interest levels.
On the whole, the power of global financial capital is such that Governments have
felt constrained to respond to the markets with sometimes severely restrictive policies
often with painful consequences for the vulnerable segments of the population. Also,
credit-rating agencies which assess the creditworthiness of many countries can exercise
a significant influence on macroeconomic policies. National economic policies must
therefore respond to world markets and the power of such market forces is so great
that only coordinated and comprehensive responses can have the desired impact on
market behavior.
2. All States are increasingly vulnerable to erosion of their ability to act
effectively and with authority. Many transnational processes impinge on national
sovereignty. Besides trade and finance and other macroeconomic policies, one may
think about global environmental degradation, the increasingly massive refugee and
migrant flows, and such epidemics as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).
These issues are varied, but they have in common that none of them can be
solved by means of solely domestic policies. Individually, nation States can do little
more than control the symptoms. Getting at the cause demands coordinated
international action. Globalization thus has promoted increased multilateralism in some
areas, for example in responding to financial crises, but much less in others. And even
many of the multilateral responses have been ad hoc and time limited.
3. Institutional or governance deficit is another challenge of globalization. The
globalization of production by transnational corporations, the globalization of
international finance, globalization of information, large-scale movements of people and
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greatly increased cultural flows have not been matched by a corresponding reshaping
of institutions and regulatory mechanisms.
The crisis the world faces is the outcome of the fact that our institutional
arrangements for economic governance have fallen way behind the realities of the
growth and interdependence that we call globalization. This institutional or governance
deficit is the second great challenge of globalization. Increasingly, effective public action
to manage the economy needs to be coordinated among States and, as in the case of
trade, an open and rule-based system, overseen or implemented by such bodies as the
World Trade Organization (WTO). Such concerted action does not necessarily weaken
States; rather it can strengthen them by stabilizing the external economic environment
and thus giving them greater scope to pursue national goals.

Role of the United Nations

The United Nations is uniquely suited to assume normative leadership for a globalization
with a human face. It can do so by promoting a broader vision of human development. As a
first step in this direction, it needs to help devise an effective response to the twin challenges
of globalization: the need for greater policy coherence and institutional capacity-building at
the national, regional and global levels.

This implies that the development work of the United Nations, both at the analytical
and normative level, and its operational activities need to be more sharply focused on meeting
those challenges than is currently the case. It also implies that the United Nations will need
to work very closely with key partners-the Bretton Woods institutions and other organizations
of the system, Governments of both developed and developing countries, the corporate and
financial sectors and civil society institutions at large-to build the necessary consensus around
the need for change in policies and institutions.

As noted above, the potential benefits of globalization are vast, yet many developing
countries are and will remain ill positioned to partake in these benefits unless a concerted
effort is made by the international community to facilitate their integration into the world
economy. Trade and finance are the two most prominent channels through which such
integration occurs. But with an increasingly knowledge based world economy, technological
know-how, in particular information technology and its concomitant human skills, is essential.
With goods and services and capital moving increasingly frictionless and unencumbered,
movements of people between countries will become more and more difficult to regulate and
transnational crimes, as manifested through money-laundering, more and more difficult to
contain.

The well-worn phrase “no nation State can go it alone” has to move from slogan to
practical action. Practical action means foremost agreeing on the “rules of the game” and
building institutional oversight capacity, be it in trade, finance, technology transfer, migration
or transnational crime-fighting, to stay with the issues raised in the present report.

The United Nations is the pre-eminent body to launch the discussions on setting those
rules, norms and standards and to build consensus around the institutional arrangements
needed for applying them. It does not follow that the Organization in each and every instance
will actually formulate or implement those rules. In many cases those will be prepared and
negotiated in other more technical forums. However, there is no other institution better placed
than the United Nations to give the political impetus and legitimacy to the devising of rules,
norms and standards, because it is universal and democratic in its membership and it has a
broad deliberative function which allows it to consider all aspects of development issues in
their political context. With this in view, the observations set out below are intended to
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stimulate reflection on the directions that can be pursued by the United Nations in promoting
development in the context of globalization are the following areas:

1. The Assembly could encourage a deepening of reflection on global economic governance

in the context of globalization.
2. As far as policy coherence and institutional capacity-building are concerned, the
biannual high-level General Assembly meetings on the renewal of dialogue should
provide an important opportunity for a broad-based dialogue on such issues.
3. The themes and issues identified in the reports of the Secretary-General on the renewal
of dialogue (A/50/480 and A/52/425) could be used as a frame of reference for
structuring the dialogue for the next three or four rounds.
4. Similarly, key events, such as financing for development, UNCTAD X and the five-year
reviews of global conferences, if approached as a series of interrelated forums rather
than separate events, should serve to advance the overall agenda of strengthening the
capacity for economic governance.
5. The Assembly could also encourage the Economic and Social Council to discuss the
possibility of establishing a task force on this topic, with developing and industrialized
countries and civil society representation. Such a task force could focus on the ways
and means of promoting policy coherence and related institutional changes and report
to the Council, IMF, the World Bank and WTO.
6. Given its system-wide coordination functions, the Economic and Social Council can
make an important contribution to enhancing policy coherence. To this end, the Council
could be encouraged to deepen its dialogue with the Bretton Woods institutions and
WTO. It could encourage the United Nations system to develop integrated policy
responses and a set of mutually reinforcing actions to address globalization, based on
the outcomes of the major United Nations conferences. The Council should build on the
momentum created by its efforts to promote a coordinated system-wide response to
these conferences.
7. With regard to trade, notwithstanding that its regulatory aspects fall under the umbrella
of WTO, the United Nations and in particular UNCTAD should continue to focus attention
on issues of concern from a development policy perspective. These relate to the
difficulties that developing countries, especially the least developed African countries,
continue to face in market access and in diversifying their production and exports, the
problems that are likely to arise when preferential access comes to an end, as well as
the inability of poor and small countries to effectively participate in multilateral
negotiations and to take advantage of WTO dispute settlement mechanisms.
8. Following the adoption of the ministerial declaration on market access by the Council at
the high-level segment of its substantive session of 1998, the Assembly could
encourage continued deepening of trade liberalization by developed and developing
countries, in particular in sectors of export interest to developing countries.
9. Appropriate arrangements for consultations between the Council and the WTO Council
could also be considered to examine how to better integrate the developmental
perspective into the trade arena.
10.Consideration could also be given to creating an independent legal aid facility and an
ombudsman to support developing countries in WTO.

Stronger public action is also needed to support the development of new technologies for
human development and the eradication of poverty. The Economic and Social Council at the
high-level segment of its substantive session of 2000, when it considers the role of information
technology, could examine ways to ensure that developing countries-interests are addressed
in the decisions on and governance of global communications and of the Internet in particular.

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It could also consider the launching of an international program to support public investment
in technologies for the needs of poor people and poor countries, based on the model of the
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), as proposed in the Human
Development Report 1999.

Conclusion

Globalization and its impact will remain a central issue on the development agenda in
years to come. There can be no doubt that the United Nations system will play a central role
in grappling with the forces of globalization, particularly, as the present report has argued,
with regard to promoting greater policy coherence and, even more importantly, building
institutional capacity at all levels. These twin challenges are complex and often intertwined.
For the Organization to address them in a meaningful way, it is essential that it continue to
identify issues that not only lend themselves to better structured intergovernmental
deliberations but also lead to tangible results at the global, regional and national levels.

References:

Dacles, Darwin Don M. & Maslang, Kenneth L. (2018), The Contemporary World.
Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya: SMU Publishing House

https://www.thoughtco.com/the-united-nations-p2-1435441/October 16,2018

http://www.un.org/ga/about/background.shtml/ October 16,2018

http://www.un.org/documents/ga/docs/54/plenary/a54-358.htm/ October 16,2018

Prepared by:

MR. FERNANDO C. DEL MUNDO JR.

Instructor

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