Forlag: Stanford University Press, Fjordager (USA, Danmark)
(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
In September 2024, the UN General Assembly document The Pact for the Future with 56 recommendations for action. This happened in a situation where the world has hardly ever needed global leadership more, but where a UN – despite its adoption – is unable to interact and set a comprehensive global agenda, let alone conduct a comprehensive risk and vulnerability analysis on behalf of the civilization currently ruling.
From January 2025 and two years onwards, Denmark now a member of the UN Security Council and must try to contribute to developing or re-establishing respect for the UN's mission – as enshrined in the preamble from 1945. This involves striving to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war" and further, obviously with a number of supranational institutions, to seek to develop a system for regulating the economy and trade as well as 'development'. The stock market crash of 1929 and its aftermath, including the Second World War, should not be repeated.
With the book Liberating the United Nations – Realism with Hope (Richard Falk and Hans von Sponeck) the authors' intention is to explore the disturbing paradox that we have a FN, but in reality only 'on paper' – and what can we do about it?
Two world wars
Europe was the site of two world wars. Therefore, a botanization of the causes can naturally start here. While the First World War was basically a result of a struggle between European countries for global markets in the colonies, the subsequent Treaty of Versailles resulted in one great humiliation for Germany.
The loss and suffering of World War II motivated new thinking about global governance. At the end of World War II, the victors divided the world among themselves into spheres of interest, while the UN Charter emphasized the sovereignty of nations.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, large resources – previously tied up in armaments – became available. Rather than massively supporting former colonies in a new form of Marshall aid, the 'West' seized the opportunity to intervene in the Russian sphere of interest – justified by the sovereignty of nations. Who would find confirmation here in George Kennan's 'containment theory' (containment, 1947), which first concerned the Soviet Union and later included China.
With the claim that Iraq were in possession of weapons of mass destruction invaded USA in 2003 Iraq – bypassing the UN – which led to further marginalization of the UN.
Reforms of the UN system
The authors thus describe the UN's 'fall' from Dag Hammerskjold's leadership as UN Secretary-General (1953-61) with, among other things, a focus on the decolonization of African countries; as well as on New Public Management; and neoliberalismns transparency of the development work for problematic peacekeeper operations. They exposed corruption and the absence of a UN culture. What the authors do not mention, however, are the consequences of the strong economic growth with opaque consequences for people and the environment. This made Club of Rome pay attention to the book Limits to Growth (1972). The NGOs pushed for an environmental agenda but refrained from raising a coherent systemic planetary agenda.
The UN organization proved active in many areas of society, which is why New York with the UN building during this period became the home of many types of conferences and meetings. From 1990 onwards, Human Development Reports and a UN language is developed based on an extensive network of UN employees.
The UN was moving further and further away from its original purpose.
with the UN.
The growth in the number of supra-governmental UN institutions and the establishment of new global institutions (G7, World Economic Forum, Bilderberg Group) contributed to demands for reform of the UN system. The gap between the increasingly supra-governmental UN and global civil society, not least in the 'developing countries', became unbearable. FN moved further and further away from what was originally the whole purpose of the UN. And the plans for a UN parliament elected by direct democratic elections had to be abandoned. September 11 and the US's "war on terror" marked a new attack on the whole idea behind the UN.
A future for the UN
Russia's comeback on the world stage, like the invasion of Ukraine every day reminds us, began at the Munich Security Conference in 2007, where a humiliated Putin heralded a showdown with an alleged unlawful Western intrusion into the Russian sphere of interest. As for China, this great power, with its one-child policy and high growth rates, had managed to bring many people out of poverty, which not least resonated and gave a new status to China in Africa.
The authors admit that the UN was established on the basis of Western ideas. They insist on a future for the UN. This must be secured through extensive new investments in the organization, through a reform of Security Council and its composition with a future active participation of civil society. In addition, by a sharper focus on securing peace by, among other things, peacekeeper operations.
But the world today is different than it was at the end of World War II. Although the growth paradigm with CO2 emissions is challenged, the world has not made a decisive change, despite the Paris Declaration, a financial agreement in relation to the South and 17 Global Goals, all adopted in 2015. In addition to the wars, which also include the Middle East and wars in Africa, digital developments with artificial intelligence and quantum computing, in addition to extensive globalization, have contributed to the image of an uncertain future. New social media influences, even manipulates, the formation of opinion. Climate and biodiversity are a threat to civilization.
Despite the fact that the growth paradigm with CO2 emissions is challenged, the world has not decisively changed its mind, despite the Paris Declaration, a financial agreement in relation to the South and 17 Sustainable Development Goals, all adopted in 2015.
In a technological race between the US and China, Europe is falling behind with an aging population – with new challenges, including uncertainty about continued US support. At the same time, a new epicenter for development and cooperation is sprouting in the East, with ramifications across the globe. BRICSThe countries, together with five other countries, are thus in the process of developing a new system of international institutions as an alternative to the Bretton Woods institutions, founded at the end of World War II.
In retrospect, the war in Ukraine is hardly surprising – again without UN participation in any peacekeeping operations. The world has been in a mess since – as when an old world is dying and the new is struggling to come into being. In this light, one must ask what the adoption of the Pact of the Future heralds? There is a need for global democratic leadership with a focus on the planet’s borders.
The world, life and the future
In the book Life Democracy – a voice for the future, the world and life on earth Jakob Jespersen rejects national representative electoral democracy in the form of “one citizen, one vote.” Instead, the author chooses as his starting point the three axes of planetary justice – the world, life and the future – as a framework for the coexistence of humans and nature on earth.
The establishment of this framework is justified partly by ethics and partly by the current Anthropocene era, where human activities dominate the development of the planet. Far back in history (England in 1295) Jespersen finds evidence that «those who are affected must also be heard», including those potentially affected. In a deep respect for humans and other species' life forms, it should apply within the categories of geographical location, nationality, generation and species. Jespersen thus concludes that those potentially affected are future generations, the entire world and life on earth – and that those affected as a consequence, must have political power where political decisions are made, including in national parliaments.
15.000 years ago it was obvious that we as humans were part of nature. With the mindsets, systems and objects we surround ourselves with today, it is difficult to understand. «The earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth», the author states. Therefore, the ethical position also implies that both future generations and people outside our national geographical borders and nature have value and must therefore be considered in the national decisions that affect them.
Decentralized global network management
Based on this, a system for a decentralized global network management for the common good in space, time and forms of life as a powerful and popular supplement to supranational cooperation under, for example, the auspices of the UN.
For both Falk and von Sponeck, as for Jespersen, the popular forces in the national and global civil society potential to drive the development of a different social paradigm. Whether this task in the fight against manipulative artificial intelligence and quantum computing can be won, only history will tell.
