Experts discussed a recently finished draft for a new United Nations Charter, which seeks to address some challenges the UN faces in a changing world.
Nearly 80 years have passed since the United Nations Charter was written in 1945. The charter’s aim was maintain international peace and security, and establish cooperation between countries on security, economic, social, and humanitarian issues.
Since then, the world has changed dramatically and no longer reflects the power status quo at the end of World War Two. Furthermore, societal norms have advanced on issues such as gender equality, and climate change is an increasingly pressing threat to long-term human survival. Meanwhile, armed conflicts continue to rage across the globe and the current structure of the United Nations increasingly seems dated and dysfunctional. As such, many experts in a wide range of fields believe that the time has come for a reformed UN Charter. A group of such experts have recently written a draft titled “A Second United Nations Charter: Modernizing the UN for a New Generation.”Experts discussed a recently finished draft for a new United Nations Charter, which seeks to address some challenges the UN faces in a changing world.
The Global Governance Forum hosted a launch event for the Second Charter draft on September 19 in New York City at Baha’i International Community Offices. Three panels discussed normative changes from 1945 to the present, upgrading and updating existing institutions, and new institutions and arrangements.
The first speaker was Joshua Lincoln, a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Law and Governance at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Global Affairs. Lincoln said that when the experts wrote the Second Charter draft, there were two normative changes. The first, he said, was to delete the World War II enemy states language, including references to the enemy nations of Japan and Germany. The draft also excludes the “now defunct” two chapters on trusteeship, Lincoln said.
“The second charter embeds more firmly the idea of a living charter. It anticipates that revisions, reforms, amendments to the charter, would continue,” he continued.
Lincoln also discussed issues with the UN Security Council.
“The paralysis we’ve seen over a matter of decades now accelerating in the double context of Gaza and Ukraine, has basically had the added value that absolutely everybody now concedes, agrees that the Security Council is not meeting its fundamental responsibility,” he said.
Lincoln explained that this comes with a “long-simmering discontent with respect to the membership council, elected and permanent members, and an unresolve around there.” He went on to say that the Second Charter draft seeks to rebalance the role of the two principal organs, the Security Council and the General Assembly, and put peace and security “a little bit back in its lane,” bringing the General Assembly back into security.
Ann Linde, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden, argued that the current UN Charter does not address normative changes, such as how gender equality and women’s empowerment are viewed. Linde said that studies have shown that higher levels of participation by women improves the process of decision-making at the UN, and yet women are “chronically underrepresented” at the UN. She said that the Second Charter draft uses stronger language calling for gender equality.
“In Chapter 3 about the organs, the present very passive text in Article 8 reads ‘the UN shall place no restrictions on the ability of men and women to participate in any capacity under conditions of equality’” she said. “It’s now changed considerably in the new text. The group proposed that the UN shall ensure equity under all of its principal and subsidiary organs. It shall ensure gender equality in all areas representative of the UN organs.”
Another proposal in the draft that Linde says will “shake things up” is that no three consecutive assembly presidents can be of the same gender.
Linde also noted that the current charter does not take into account how widespread gender-based violence (GBV) is.
“That is why the second charter proposes an amendment to the Article 55 in Chapter 9, and that amendment reads ‘To guarantee the universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedom of all, without distinction to race, language, religion, or any other category, and the elimination of all forms of gender-based violence, sexual harassment, and human trafficking,” she said.
Patricia Rinaldi, an associate professor of international relations at Faculdades de Campinas in Brazil, discussed the need to connect peace and socio-economic issues. She said that she and other experts proposed three changes to the charter concerning the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)
The first recommendation, she said, was to get rid of the overlapping functions between ECOSOC and the General Assembly, and create a clear division of labor. The second recommendation was to address the lack of coordination of the UN system, and make ECOSOC a real coordinator between different UN agencies and subsidiaries. ECOSOC could provide a space for dialogue, collaboration, and integrating activities, she said.
“So we tried to make ECOSOC a real coordinator that could provide general guidance and focus on integration of activities, instead of UN agencies and subsidiaries starting to fight against each other for agendas and financial resources.”
The last recommendation that Rinaldi discussed was to expand the role of ECOSO as a revolving door for civil society and other stakeholders engaging with the UN, including groups representing marginalized populations such as women, indigenous people, and youth, among others.
Tara Abhasakun
Tara Abhasakun is a journalist in Bangkok. She has reported on a range of human rights issues involving youth protests in Thailand, as well as arts and culture. Tara's work has appeared in several outlets, including Al Jazeera and South China Morning Post.
