The United Nations ended its 73rd General Assembly session on Monday, carrying the theme “Making the United Nations Relevant to All People.”
Led by a fervent defense of national identity, by President Donald Trump, many of the world’s heads of government used the platform to argue that, no, the U.N. is not relevant or useful to most people, and will soon become obsolete without significant reform.
Below, statements from eight speakers at the U.N. General Assembly this year – from free states, developing countries, war-torn regions, and totalitarian rogue regimes – demanding the United Nations either play a more constructive role in the resolution of international problems or step out of the way.
Japan
In one of the General Assembly’s most optimistic speeches, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan dedicated most of his time to defending the virtues of free trade and association in a continent increasingly threatened by Chinese Communist Party belligerence. His only true negative remark came at the end of the speech, after the words “in closing,” where he introduced an entirely new critique of the U.N. Security Council that he did not mention anywhere else in his remarks.
In closing, I will state that in light of the lack of progress in reforming the Security Council, the significance of the United Nations in the 21st century world is already being starkly questioned. But that is precisely why Japan will never let up in its contributions to the United Nations.
I will end my address with a pledge that Japan, together with Secretary-General Guterres, will push forward with the reform of the Security Council and the reform of the United Nations.
The Security Council features five permanent members, two of which – Russia and China – are embroiled in territorial disputes with Japan and often use their veto powers to prevent the other three – the United States, United Kingdom, and France – from taking action against their actions destabilizing regions like Ukraine, Syria, and the South China Sea.
Ukraine
In that spirit, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko dedicated much of his speech to decrying the lack of action by the Security Council to prevent Russia from continuing to fund separatist rebel violence in the nation’s east, as well as the U.N.’s general lack of response to Russia illegally colonizing Crimea.
“As I deliver my speech, reports have brought a sad news about another human life just lost on the frontlines of the war inflicted upon my country by the permanent member of the UN Security Council,” Poroshenko told the audience. “Moscow turns Ukrainian to orphans. It tortures our patriots in its prisons. Over 1.5 million people became internally displaced persons. They still can’t return to their homes.”
“Efficiency of international actions often falls short of expectations and the relevance of the United Nations itself is questioned,” Poroshenko continued. “We must admit that the responsibility for fixing the current state of affairs rests with all of us collectively and each of us individually. If we are committed to building peaceful/equitable and sustainable societies, we protect the U.N. Charter, uphold its norms and principles, take resolute action to restore justice.”
Without naming Russia directly, he accused some permanent Security Council members of “the abuse of their veto rights,” calling it “a brake that does not allow our organization to really act.”
Many assumed that the respect for peace and international law is a constant given. Developments on international stage over the last decade have seriously undermined this confidence. Appeasement and quick fixes to difficult problems have proven to be a false option.
“Our Organization is only as strong as we want and allow it to be,” Poroshenko warned.
America
In many ways, President Trump’s speech was a complete rejection of the founding principles of the United Nations. He urged listeners to embrace their patriotism over multilateralism and defined America as a country that “will always choose independence and cooperation over global governance, control, and domination.”
“I honor the right of every nation in this room to pursue its own customs, beliefs, and traditions. The United States will not tell you how to live or work or worship. We only ask that you honor our sovereignty in return,” Trump said.
Yet the President, amid his criticisms, also stated the U.N. has “unlimited potential,” harnessed if only the leaders of the organization would stop doing business as usual.
President Trump referred to the U.N. Human Rights Council, which he withdrew from, as a “grave embarrassment to this institution, shielding egregious human rights abusers while bashing America and its many friends.” He added that the International Criminal Court (ICC), set up to try individuals for crimes like war crimes and crimes against humanity, “has no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority.”
“We will never surrender America’s sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy. America is governed by Americans. We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism,” President Trump asserted.
Egypt
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi spoke on the same day as Trump and Abe, making similar dismissive remarks on the current usefulness of the United Nations.
“With such solid belief in the values and role of the United Nations, and in all frankness, we have to admit that there is a flaw in the international system which negatively affects its performance and casts a shadow over its credibility in the eyes of many peoples, particularly in the Arab and African regions wherein Egypt lies,” Sisi told those assembled.
“For how can we blame an Arab who questions the credibility of the United Nations and the values it proclaims, at a time when his region is threatened by the disintegration and collapse of the nation state, to give way to a wave of terrorism and sectarian conflicts that deplete the capacities of the Arab peoples?” Sisi asked. “Can we consider an overstatement an African’s complaint regarding the ineffectiveness of the world order, when his continent suffers from an economic order that perpetuates poverty and inequality, reproduces social and political crises, and provides no prospects for progress and development?”
“We need to address the major shortcomings in the international community’s handling of human rights issues. The credibility of the United Nations cannot be restored as long as millions continue to suffer from extreme poverty, live under foreign occupation or fall victim to terrorism and armed conflict,” Sisi concluded.
Cuba
The communist state of Cuba, which holds a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council despite an over-half-century-long history of brutal human rights crimes, found a way to be offended by the actions of the U.N. – namely, that the United States gets a say on the U.N. Security Council.
Rather than criticize the rogue members of the Council – Russia and China, who have long acted as patrons for the Castro regime – Cuban President and Raúl Castro subordinate Miguel Díaz-Canel urged the General Assembly to act to weaken the power of the Security Council as a means to weaken America’s international influence.
“Why don’t we just implement the promised strengthening of the General Assembly as the main organ of deliberation, decision and representation?” Díaz-Canel asked. “The reform of the Security Council must not be delayed or prevented, as this organ is in need of adjusting to the times by democratizing its membership and working methods.”
The Cuban regime representative accused the United States of an “abusive use of the veto power in the Security Council in order to impose their political agenda,” warning that America’s presence in the U.N. at all “pose[s] huge challenges and threats within the United Nations itself.”
The Philippines
Standing in for President Rodrigo Duterte, a common target of U.N. criticism, Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano stopped just short of calling the entire U.N. stupid.
“Albert Einstein defined stupidity as ‘doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,'” Cayetano remarked. “While certainly there is no stupidity in the U.N., yet a tendency to just keep doing the same thing seems to plague us all.”
“Trying new things is a challenge, it might or might not work but we shouldn’t be afraid of trying, not be afraid of failing,” he continued. “What we should fear is stagnating – that we as a community of nations end up accepting failure and make ourselves feel better by doing something, even if this something is the same thing that precisely failed to address the issues and solved the problems.”
“Faith without action is dead,” Cayetano warned. “And the United Nations is not a place to bury our dead, it is a place to rise up, to resurrect our hopes and dreams of a better world.”
Turkey
Islamist Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a longtime critic of the fact that Turkey does not have a permanent place on the Security Council, repeated his complaints in a speech immediately following President Trump.
“The massacres in Bosnia, Rwanda, Somalia, recently in Myanmar, and in Palestine as we speak, have all taken place before the eyes of the Security Council,” Erdoğan argued. He repeated his use of the slogan “the world is bigger than five,” a condemnation of the permanent member status granted in the aftermath of World War II to nations as inconsequential on the world stage as France.
“When we say ‘the world is greater than five,’ we are becoming the voice of the common conscience, of the whole human race … There is a need to increase the efficiency of this organization which I deem fundamental,” Erdoğan added.
“If we want to make the U.N. a source of justice instead of cruelty, we have to dedicate ourselves more fully to the tasks upon us,” he concluded. “Let us establish a global administration system that serves as a shield to the oppressed and victimized.”
North Korea
As the premier global violator of international law, North Korea was the only state to complain that the U.N. has taken too much action against international criminals, not too little.
Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho, representing dictator Kim Jong-un, expressed outrage at United Nations sanctions on his country for its illegal nuclear weapons program and repeated threats to use nuclear weapons to annihilate Japan, the United States, and South Korea.
“The UNSC [Security Council] poured down on us numerous ‘sanctions resolutions’ making issue of our nuclear tests and rocket test launches,” Ri complained. “But even today, when one whole year has passed since such tests have been stopped, even a word in those ‘resolutions’ remains unchanged to say nothing about being totally removed or eased.”
“Worse still, the UNSC is taking very concerning stand by rejecting the proposal by some of its member states to issue presidential statement that welcomes the DPRK-U.S. summit and the Joint Statement,” he continued. “As for the ‘U.N. Command,’ it is merely a ‘command of allied forces’ beyond the control of the U.N. that only obeys the orders of the U.S., but the problem is that it is still misusing the sacred name of the U.N.”
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