The United Nations’ Purpose and Problems: An Interview with Samantha Twietmeyer
Kyla Velonic, External Affairs
January 21, 2021
The United Nations is widely recognized as a governing body that works to maintain international peace and security on both the national and transnational levels. However, the organization’s efforts have been heavily scrutinized by scholars. Many high-profile academic experts within the realm of International Relations explicitly question the organization’s effectiveness in maintaining peace on the global stage while simultaneously protecting individuals’ human rights from a national and international viewpoint. To further investigate this criticism, The Observer’s External Affairs Branch brings you an interview with Queen’s University’s Political Studies Professor Samantha Twietmeyer. Twietmeyer is a Doctoral Candidate specializing in conflict management and settlement negotiations and teaches multiple courses dedicated to the United Nations, global justice, and world politics. Twietmeyer offers insightful observations on the United Nations’ efforts on both a national and transnational level based on her expertise in power-sharing and federalism: where countries worldwide work in unison to discuss global issues while representing their individual state, illuminated throughout her course.
Can the United Nations influence domestic policy?
Global governance is difficult to put into practice because the United Nations cannot change a state's internal policies without its consent. For this reason, among others, it can be problematic when global issues such as climate change demand universal action from the UN’s members. For example, The United States has described climate change as a hoax, slowing down environmental protection policymaking. This poses a significant challenge for the United Nations because it requires every state to alter its environmental policies. Otherwise, climate change may not be appropriately addressed and corrected. To combat this effect, the UN can influence a country’s domestic policy through influence. The UN encourages the states’ citizens to engage in protests or other forms of awareness-raising of specific issues in hopes that citizens will pressure their government to amend or abolish its actions that abuse human rights such as neglecting the environment. Climate change is a prevalent and serious issue that negatively affects people throughout the world. An example of this notion is rising sea levels threatening the human rights of those living in Island nations to an adequate standard of living. For instance, residents of the Philippines have reported experiencing record devastating typhoons since 2006 that are becoming increasingly deadly, illuminating the need for countries worldwide to address issues of climate change. Therefore, the United Nations cannot directly interfere with domestic policy but can utilize citizens' morals to pressure governments into behaving accordingly. An example of the UN conducting this notion is its support of Canadian Indigenous groups protesting against the construction of the Trans-Mountain Pipeline operation. In its efforts, the UN created more awareness for Indigenous concern, encouraging massive protests and action to prevent building the Trans-Mountain Pipeline.
Overall, it is evident that the UN tries to reform issues at the national level by influencing a nation’s citizens to protest against unjust policies or actions imposed by the state. International leaders have debated about whether the UN should use more coercion to enforce government compliance regarding human rights policies. However, this could likely result in states withdrawing from important treaties such as the Paris Agreement, which would increase the adverse effects of climate change as states would blatantly ignore their duty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, since the UN cannot impede on a nation’s sovereignty without its explicit consent, it can be argued that the UN is trying, to the best of its abilities, to enforce and protect human rights standards in the domestic realm.
What are the power relations between the Global North and Global South within the United Nations’ operations?
The Global North (GN) is defined as a combination of northern industrialized states who have benefited greatly from the industrial revolution, resulting in these countries being socioeconomically advanced. The Global South (GS) refers to countries that have been historically exploited for their raw materials. These countries have become or are in the process of being industrialized at a slower rate than GN countries, creating an unfair socioeconomic disadvantage.
Individuals often believe the Global North primarily drives the United Nations (UN), but the Global South holds significant voting power in many important decisions within the General Assembly. Professor Twietmeyer notes that “everything the United Nations does is driven by Global South decision-making" because, within the General Assembly, the GS overpowers the GN in voting power due to its surplus in numbers. However, the Global North creates an uneven balance with the GA by having a significant portion of GS Leadership educated in the GN, where neoliberalism: a system of government that supports free-market capitalism, deregulation, and reduced government spending, is favoured. Industrialized countries have preferred this economic system because it supports the free-market: an economic system where commodity prices are determined by private companies competing for consumer dominance. At the United Nations, many leaders are strongly influenced by this Western standard of global governance and advocate for neoliberal policies rather than other forms of administration that are culturally-specific to Global South governance. This notion is due to political leaders generally being educated in predominately-Western universities and colleges whose socioeconomic and political curriculum favours neoliberalism. Leading to political representatives at the United Nations having a biased framework because of a lack of politicians attending universities in the GS, diversifying the economic ideas being discussed in meetings. Professor Twietmeyer discusses another factor that emphasizes this divide between the GN and GS is having a significant dollar-vote to contribute to the United Nation's financial budget. Specifically, the United Nations prioritizes countries that donate a significant amount of funds to the organization as it helps finance its various agencies and bodies. Twietmeyer emphasizes that the global economic system is not properly involved in the United Nations though it is supposed to be in conjunction with the organization. Twietmeyer states that their cooperation is not going well due to the United States always winning the dollar-vote on debates about resource allocation since it donates the most money to the United Nations. An example of this phenomenon is the Bretton Woods regime, which established a collective international currency exchange rate based on the U.S. dollar. Further, as a result of these systems, GN countries can obtain hegemony by "moving outside of the box" to obtain consent from GS countries such as threatening to impose sanctions unless said country cooperates with their proposed ideas, negatively affecting the latter despite their voting power.
There is a clear issue regarding power-relations between the Global North and South that the UN must address. To balance influence and power between the GN and GS, it is paramount for representatives within the UN to expand their knowledge from favouring neoliberalism to other forms of governance.
How has the United Nations affected global affairs?
The United Nations has both succeeded and failed in changing the world's perspectives on specific global issues and excels at drawing public attention to dire concerns. For instance, the UN did an excellent job in generating global awareness for the Ozone Crisis. Scientific studies recognized that the ozone layer had depleted 33% in 1975, and if drastic measures were not implemented globally, permanent damage and loss of our stratosphere were inevitable. The United Nations gathered world leaders, stressed the seriousness of this issue, and gained the acceptance and recognition that was needed for preventative measures. The UN successfully achieved wide support from states to phase out Chlorofluorocarbons and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to be replaced with a safer alternative. This is just one example of the organization's benefit of building worldwide recognition for global issues that can be resolved.
An example of one of the UN’s failures in establishing international support for a global issue is climate change. The United Nations has made slow progress throughout the last few decades in generating international support for climate-risk policies such as the Paris Agreement. However, states are not obliged to sign and commit to agreements and can withdraw without cause. For example, the United States withdrew from the Paris Agreement on November 4th, 2020, causing nervousness among the UN, as other states are debating following the U.S.’ actions. Overall, the United Nations does a great job of raising worldwide recognition, which reflects in its successful cases. Professor Twietmeyer believes that “the UN is beneficial to the world, but it directly contributes to global tensions and can worsen the present situation. In general, the UN does good for peace and prosperity for the world, but can contribute to global issues such as favouring Western government and economic ideals”. Twietmeyer’s commentary illuminates the UN’s potential to achieve international peace and security and generally improve civilians’ quality of life from the national and international levels. The UN’s successes derive from influencing a country’s citizens to pressure their government to solve global issues appropriately. Thus, it is paramount that the United Nations pressure states to commit to policies that help sustain international peace and security.
Professor Twietmeyer brings to light various issues and benefits of the United Nations. From reflecting on her thoughts and opinions, it is evident that the UN intends to help maintain peace and security but contains faults stemming from a historical preference for Western ideals. From Twietmeyer’s commentary, it is clear that the UN must improve its efforts to incorporate both GN and GS policies and ideas in international debates and discussions about global issues.