Source: BBC Radio 4: Today
URL: N/A
Date: 25/09/2015
Event: UN and other international institutions are "in real trouble"
Credit: BBC Radio 4
People:
James Naughtie: There's a big gathering in New York at the United Nations, as always, for the General Assembly in September. It's particularly big this year - the President of the United States, the Chinese President and the Pope, to cap it all - and there's a special summit there to set new goals to follow up the UN's Millennium Goals. But how well is the United Nations performing? And moreover, what about other international organisations, the EU - well, we've been hearing a lot about that from UKIP this morning, of course - the International Monetary Fund. It doesn't seem to be a particularly good era for many of the multilateral bodies, most of which were set up in the immediate period after the Second World War. We're joined in the studio by Sir Christopher Meyer, former British Ambassador in Washington, among many other things, and from Newfoundland - it's not often we get the chance to say that - by the distinguished historian Margaret Macmillan, among whose books is Peacemakers, the story of what happened in the Treaty of Versailles in the aftermath of the First World War, in general. Can I just start by asking you both, briefly, um - it's a question expecting the answer "Yes", but - international organisations do seem to be in a pretty weak state, don't they, Christopher Meyer?
Christopher Meyer: Well, I think there's a great unravelling of the international institutions that were set up after the Second World War, and indeed there's some unravelling - and Margaret is much better equipped to talk about this - of stuff done after the First World War. But you're quite right - if you look at the UN, which is completely paralysed in its Security Council, and this great jamboree that they'll have next week, which is the annual thing, it's more interesting for the meetings that take place in the margins than for what is discussed in the main auditorium. IMF, World Bank - World Trade Organisation hasn't done a global trade deal, I think, for 21 years. So all these organisations, which were basically created under American and British domination at the end of the Second World War, are fading from view, none more than the United Nations, and none more dramatically than what is happening inside the European Union.
James Naughtie: Do you agree with that rather sort of morbid assessment, Margaret Macmillan?
Margaret Macmillan: Well, I'm rather afraid I do. Um, I think that the international institutions, the big ones, are in real trouble, and I think it's partly because time has passed and we've forgotten - or subsequent generations have forgotten - why we needed them. In the aftermath of the First World War and the Second World War, people knew that they needed international organisations, they needed new ways of doing international relations to prevent disaster. And I think we've forgotten that. And, you know, the only optimistic side I see, or the upside, is there are now a whole host of international organisations and links, so that possibly we have a system which collectively still is resilient. But I do share the pessimism.
James Naughtie: You mentioned the paralysed Security Council, Christopher Meyer - how much has that got to do with the Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, who - I don't know quite how to put this - but I think is generally thought of as being a weak leader of the UN?
Christopher Meyer: Well, I think he is a weak leader of the UN, and I think he was designed to be a weak leader of the UN, because there are a number of big powers around, not least the United States, that doesn't like strong Secretary-Generals of the United Nations. but you can't lay everything on his shoulders - for example, the UN's total inability to get to grips with the Syrian civil war. You can't put everything on his shoulders, because -
James Naughtie: It's only as strong as its members, isn't it.
Christopher Meyer: Well, that's - that was going to be my point. If the members are themselves split, the permanent members of the Security Council, to be precise, then there's not much that a Secretary-General can do.
James Naughtie: It's interesting, with the public attitude to such organisations, Margaret Macmillan - we talk about the EU, for example, which you know is obviously the focus of great political interest here, at the moment, people sometimes say "Look, in the '50s, when the whole enterprise began, it was clear it was to stop France and Germany fighting each other." There was then a great momentum to have a free market across Europe, which even Mrs Thatcher wanted to see. There was then the business of sorting out eastern Europe after the Wall came down. Now, if you say "What's its point?" people say, "Well, its point is just to sort of carry on". It doesn't seem to have a focus. Is that fair?
Margaret Macmillan: Well, I think it is, um, and I think that's because I think the only part of the project that's ever been realised - and whose fault that is, is of course a matter of great debate - I mean, the European Union was meant to be about much more than allowing the free movement of trade and goods and people across the continent. And somehow it hasn't managed to do that, it hasn't managed to put down deep roots. I mean, I think if people have to always talk about the democratic deficit in the European Union - and I think that's becoming very apparent now, this feeling that there's this remote body sitting somewhere in Brussels, or meeting every so often in Strasbourg - I think for a lot of people, doesn't seem to mean very much to their ordinary lives. I think there's also a danger that we take it for granted and we assume it's always going to be around so we can be as rude about it as we like, and sort of make complaints. That may not be the case.
James Naughtie: Do you sense, Christopher Meyer, that this is a moment of real, um, uncertainty, transition?
Christopher Meyer: I think it is. I mean, I have never been more troubled, in my adult life, about what is going on, around the world, including especially in Europe, than I am right now, because if we look at the European Union, going on from what Margaret has just said, you see that it has essentially been a fair-weather organisation. While things are going well, while economies are prospering, they paper over the cracks. But now that stuff is really getting difficult, such as the Greek financial crisis and now immigration, you see everybody reverting to their nation-state - this is becoming an angry, rancorous group of - what is it - 28 member states, instead of the union of solidarity, which is what you always heard being preached from Brussels. Um, and I think it actually now faces - the EU, that is - an existential threat.
James Naughtie: Margaret Macmillan?
Margaret Macmillan: Yeah, I have to agree, and I think what's become very clear - and I think it's really the refugee crisis more than the Greek -
Christopher Meyer: Yeah, absolutely.
Margaret Macmillan: - and Eurozone crisis, that, somehow it's been fundamental challenge to European values, and it's become quite clear that European values - a) there's no consensus on what European values are and there's some pretty nasty European values out there.
James Naughtie: Cheery thought. Margaret Macmillan, Sir Christopher Meyer, thank you both very much.
Christopher Meyer: Thank you.
Margaret Macmillan: Thank you.