서강대학교

초록/요약

The question of institutional reform in changed troubled times represents one of the most critical issues in current political discourse. There is a chronic problem with the United Nations, notably with its most powerful body, the Security Council which is mandated to neutralize all threats to international peace and security. The problem has been diagnosed as its incapacity, inability or unwillingness to perform its duties, even so effectively. New global threats to peace and security have amplified the challenges and adapting to them effectively requires more decisive, more targeted and more collective responses. For close to two decades, however, efforts that seek to redress this ailment have been met with futility as no substantive progress has been made. This study focuses on two critical questions: Why is Security Council reform proving unattainable though for long there has been consensus on the urgent need to reinvigorate it so that carries out its duties more effectively. What alternative path is there for its reconstitution that can best address the need for its effectiveness in adapting to the security threats of today? Seeking answers to these questions is important given the global expectation that in an international environment of new and evolving threats, the UNSC needs to be more credible, legitimate, representative and enhanced in its capacity and willingness to act in defense of the common peace. Through an empirical review of both the reform process and existing reform ideas, the study finds that contrary to the widely held view that reform has been held hostage by the overzealous desire of the current permanent members of the SC (P-5) to retain the status quo, lapses in both the UN’s original framing of the reform discourse and the procedure pursued are more inhibitive of successful reform. All current efforts that have come against serious impediments focus on innovative approaches to resolving the issue of numeric representation at the SC in isolation to that of effectiveness and legitimacy. Using three cases, the study finds that the hope of making the SC effective by resolving a deficit in its representation may be less sufficient if this does not go together with two other important considerations: (1) a more dynamic decision making mechanism and (2) a comprehensive structure for eliciting SC accountability in its decisions and actions. Thus the study concludes that to reform the SC in a way that it can cope in a more attenuated manner with the critical security challenges of today, a dynamic mix of criteria that take into account multiple characteristics related to effective and legitimate decision making is worth considering. For effectiveness, these criteria should significantly emphasize state economic power, its contributions (required and voluntary) to the UN accounts, general contributions to international peace and security, democratic nature of its government and the degree to which it can exert strategic influence from outside the Council. Meanwhile for legitimacy, two factors are critical: structuring membership in a way that reflects in a broad sense the majority of states and people likely to be most affected by the Council’s decisions, and instituting a mechanism that sanctions the Council’s decisions and actions. Had the UNSC been reconstituted along the lines of the above modest guidelines, though it still might not have been capable of fully preventing some of the high profile security crises like the September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S, the Rwandan genocide and the North Korean Nuclear threat, it is possible that it could have been more effective in managing the deteriorated post crises situations. A change in approach is therefore needed to increase the chances of expedited and effective reform. It should primarily seek to broker international consensus on the definitive indicators linked to each of the recommended reform variables.