UN ‘largely irrelevant’ to major global conflicts, Jaishankar says, calls for reform

New Delhi: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar called for reform in the United Nations, saying the global body has become "irrelevant" to the decision-making on major global issues, including the conflicts in Ukraine and the Gulf.

He said this in response to a question during an interactive session held at the 5th Kautilya Economic Conclave here on Monday.

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Jaishankar last month addressed the 81st session of the UN General Assembly in New York.

At the conclave, the external affairs minister (EAM) was asked what in his view is the future of the UN, and the future of multilateral institutions in the world.

"Where the UN is concerned, I think it's obvious to everybody by now that the UN is gridlocked. If you look at the big issues of the day, whether you look at the conflict in the Gulf, whether you look at the conflict in Ukraine, whether you look at other issues in Africa, whether you look at Covid, actually, the United Nations has been largely irrelevant to the decision-making," Jaishankar said.

"I think, again there's a widely held view that a lot of it is because the (UN) Security Council is gridlocked, that the Security Council no longer represents the entirety of the global interest," he said.

Jaishankar, in the past too, has taken critical view of the UN at multiple fora.

"The world has evolved into a smart, interconnected and multipolar arena and its members have increased fourfold since the UN's inception. Yet the UN remains a prisoner of the past," he had said at the 2nd Foreign Ministers meeting of G20 Brazil 2024.

At the conclave in Delhi, the EAM reiterated that the UN started with 51 members, and it's got almost four times that number today.

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"So, if you have grown four times, and you want to keep the old board of management, it's not going to work. I mean, it's common sense," he said.

Jaishankar, without naming any country, said the problem is that there are "a few players, a few countries who are resistant to the reform of the UN, and, they are using the name of Africa, they are using Africa's interest as an argument to block the reform of UN".

And the irony is Africa actually now has a clear position. Africa has actually come to the intergovernmental negotiations and indicated what they would like to see. They've laid out their position, he added.

"So, I think we need to see whether, we will continue to watch, in a sense, the irrelevance, or I would say ineffectiveness, a better word, of the UN. And it's an important question, because we need the UN. The UN has done a big service to the international community," he said.

He argued that our job must be to "fix the UN, not to work around the UN", adding the UN itself has to help with that process.

The flagship event's theme was 'Resilience in an Age of Flux'.

Jaishankar shared the dais with former foreign minister of Singapore, George Yong Boon Yeo, during the closing session of the three-day conclave.

On the international financial architecture, the EAM said, "I do think, not just the financial system, but more important the trade system...There's a widespread feeling in the world that the system is broken. That at the heart of the issue is we created a system for market which is based on market principles."

"And we today have very substantial non-market practices which have not been called out. And the non-market practices today have distorted the international economy. So, this struggle between a market norm and the non-market reality, I think is at the heart," he added.