Growing polarisation over Georgia, Iran, Kosovo, Darfur or the Middle East is reviving calls for a reform of the United Nations - especially the Security Council, which some say poorly represents today's world.
As the UN General Assembly prepares to kick off its annual general debate this week, fears that the recent conflict between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia and Abkhazia may sour prospects for productive multilateral talks appear to be subsiding.
But the conflict did expose fault lines within the powerful 15-member Security Council, in which the five permanent members have struggled to maintain unity over thorny world issues.
"There is no sugar-coating the fact that we fundamentally disagreed with what they (the Russians) did in Georgia," said US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad on Thursday as he laid out his country's priorities during the Assembly session. "But we also recognise we have other areas of common interest on other issues we should continue to work on," Khalilzad said.
One such issue is the Iranian nuclear stand-off, which joint diplomatic efforts by the United States, Russia, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia have failed to resolve.
Foreign ministers of the six powers are due to meet on Thursday on the margins of the Assembly debate to weigh prospects for a fourth round of UN sanctions against Iran over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment, which the West fears could be used for nuclear weapons.
"We have to work with Russia (over Georgia) and by doing so we hope to ease general tension on some other issues, the Iranian crisis for instance," French ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert said last week.
Within the Security Council, Western efforts to bring peace to Sudan's Darfur region, or foster democracy in Myanmar or Zimbabwe, have often been stymied by resistance from Russia and China in alliance with non-aligned nations such as South Africa and Libya.
"Overall, the UN has been an important instrument in terms of advancing our goals on many geopolitical issues, humanitarian issues," Khalilzad said. "The UN itself needs to be reformed and that will remain a priority in terms of transparency, accountability and efficiency. A lot needs to be done on that score." But others, particularly developing nations, view the role and effectiveness of the UN in a totally different light.
"We will continue to stress that the decentralisation which the United Nations so urgently needs will entail decentralising the power accumulated in a small group of states," said Miguel d'Escoto of Nicaragua, the new president of the UN General Assembly, as he opened the assembly's 63rd session last week. In a veiled dig at Washington, he added: "It makes no sense to wage wars of aggression that kills hundreds of thousands of people with the purported aim of supporting democracy, while at the same time using every imaginable means and pretext to prevent a process to democratise the United Nations itself."
One country which hopes to bring all sides, including rich and poor nations, closer together within the United Nations is Japan, which is pushing to be admitted as a permanent Security Council member. "We are convinced Japan can be a very positive member of the Council," its UN ambassador Yukio Takasu told AFP.
Takasu welcomed last week's General Assembly decision to begin inter-governmental negotiations no later than February 28, 2009 on enlarging the Security Council. The Council currently has 10 rotating, non-permanent members and five, veto-wielding permanent ones (China, United States, France, Britain and Russia). Its makeup has remained largely unchanged since the United Nations was established in 1945.
Calls for enlarging the council to make it more representative and reflective of today's global realities have for years divided the UN membership. In 2005, a so-called Group of Four (G4) - Germany, Brazil, India and Japan - made a strong push to join the council as permanent members, along with two African countries, but without veto rights.
But their bid failed to get the support of key council members and ran into strong opposition from regional rivals such as Italy, Pakistan and Argentina. Takasu said one of the key reasons for the failure of the G4 proposal three years ago was that the sponsors did not pay enough attention to the views of the United States and China.
He noted that Council enlargement requires an amendment of the UN charter and therefore the concurrence of the five veto-wielding permanent council members. "That's why over the past three years, Japan has improved its relations with China and consulted very closely with the US," the Japanese envoy said.
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