Reforming the United Nations

摘要

Any organisation established in the aftermath of the Second World War obviously cannot fulfil its functions, in a world that has changed so dramatically, without adapting itself to the contemporary realities of international politics and economics. When the United Nations Charter was promulgated on 26 June 1945, it reflected the immediate post-war situation and most importantly the international political balance of power that existed in 1945. Today's new international reality is determined by globalisation, privatisation and above all a new global balance of power. The drafters of the United Nations Charter could not have envisaged such a metamorphosis of the international system over 65 years, which gained momentum after the end of the Cold War in the last decade of the 20th century. Political domination and military might still influenced the United Nations structure but they are moderated by economic and financial clout. Threats to international peace and security, which were mainly military and political in the early stages of the United Nations, have been replaced by new dangers. Not long after the end of the Cold War, the United Nations Security Council began to warn against non-military threats to security such as terrorism, AIDS, global climate change, humanitarian issues and intra-state conflicts. As the president of the Security Council said in his Declaration of January 2002: 'Non-military sources of instability in the economic, social, humanitarian and ecological fields have become threats to peace and security'.