Up next in 10
The US stalemate with Iran and Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine have exposed the 'limits of superpower might', UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said.
Matt Frei is joined by former UN deputy Secretary-General Lord Malloch-Brown to react to the statement, and to analyse the UN's role in a world of turmoil.
Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp
#mattfrei #unitednations #russia #america #trump #putin #ukraine #europe #politics #LBC
LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK.
Join in the conversation and listen at https://www.lbc.co.uk/
Sign up to LBC's weekly newsletter here: https://l-bc.co/signup
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
Okay, so we mentioned the fact that the UN is looking for a new boss sometime soon
0:04
but also we wondered whether the UN still has a role to play in all this
0:08
as the world seems to be coming apart at the seams. The UN was set up precisely to avoid the kind of road to a third world war
0:16
that many people and sober-minded military people seem to be detecting is taking place right now
0:23
So let's talk to someone who knows the UN inside out, Lord Mark Malik-Brown, former Deputy Secretary General at the UN under Kofi Annan
0:30
Good morning, Mark. Good morning, Matt. So the world needs the UN more than ever before, you could argue, or more than since its creation
0:39
But the UN is unable to do the job it was cut out for
0:43
Is that true? Well, yes, in a way it is true. In that I don't think it starts with the effectiveness or not of the UN
0:53
I think it starts with the state of the world. The UN is in some ways like a mirror you hold up to the world
0:59
And when the world's fragmented, the mirror's broken too. And, you know, in that sense, it's the breakdown of the system of international relations that was established in 1945
1:11
for which the UN was an enforcement mechanism. but the system itself depended on governments obeying the rule of law
1:19
agreeing to settle their disputes peacefully, etc., etc. And that system painfully constructed out of the ashes of the Second World War
1:31
by Roosevelt and Truman and leaders here and in Europe, you know, has really come asunder
1:38
And the UN shows that. So do we need a mechanism for making peace
1:44
Absolutely, you're right, more than ever. Can the UN rise to the occasion
1:49
We've got to see because it's facing much greater hurdles, arguably, than even during the Cold War years
1:56
when the world was very divided as well. Because in those Cold War years
2:01
we had, you know, almost a permanent veto in the permanent five from Russia
2:06
or from China, for that matter. the UN almost immediately after its inception was unable to function in the way that its idealists had wanted it to function because of the Cold War divisions But what you got now is the United States going very wobbly on the UN and they been there before but never as much as they have been under Donald Trump
2:27
I was there last year at the UN General Assembly when Trump basically told his hosts that it was a useless, you know, organisation of losers
2:35
And it was an incredibly rude, but typically Trumpian thing to do
2:39
So what does the UN need to do under Trump in order to regain America's trust and the world's trust
2:47
What kind of reform is necessary for it to get rebooted? Well, look, I mean, it is, as you said, Matt, you know, it's a fundamental disruption when you have an American president who simply doesn't respect the rule of international law, you know
3:03
sends a squad into Venezuela to capture its leader, launches an attack on Iran
3:13
which doesn't meet any standards of international law, doesn't even think of going to the UN Security Council for approval for that
3:20
So you've now got two rogue nations at the very top of the world's sort of pillar, if you like, both the United States and Russia
3:30
So it is a hugely challenging moment. I think the way back for the UN is in the beginning a new Secretary General to really get some early wins on the scoreboard by dealing with a range of conflicts which are not directly engaging the US or Russia
3:47
And there are plenty of them. There are more interstate wars in the world today, 62 by the latest count, than at any time since 1945
3:56
So you have places like Sudan or Yemen or the conflict inside Burma, Myanmar now, which, you know, actually could be much more effectively mediated by a more activist UN leadership than we've had in recent years
4:15
And I think if you started to solve some of those and started to turn the tide and make the world get a bit more peaceful and took on some of the big humanitarian issues at the same time and brought some end to the suffering of people in many places then I think you see authority
4:37
returning to the UN and they'd get to a place where they might, you know, start to take on
4:42
the big port powers a bit more directly about their shortcomings and breaches of the rule of law
4:49
I see your point. So it's, you know, it's show, not tell. Start with the smaller stuff. So then
4:54
you send the right signal, which might in the end allow you to solve some of the bigger issues
4:59
But the problem is you've got America shutting down USAID. So the American aid budget, which was
5:05
huge, is basically gone, thanks to Elon Musk. You've got the United States in arrears with the
5:12
United Nations on the money it owes. And is it true that if they don't pay up by a certain date
5:19
they could use their veto rights. Is that correct? That is absolutely correct
5:24
And, you know, that has never been done before. And the US has a history of falling into arrears
5:31
But, you know, it is certainly... But they always pay up at the deadline, right? When the deadline comes, they finally cough up. They've come pretty... Yeah
5:36
But the point is, I think, really, that, you know, people have not wanted to force that point in the past
5:42
But I think this time, it's not impossible. It will get forced because there is a sense
5:47
that the US has become such a blocker, such an unconstructive partner
5:52
that there are a lot of middle powers who are really starting to say enough's enough
5:57
And I think, you know, it goes to the much wider point that, you know, in the first half of his second turn
6:04
Trump was a daunting world force. Everybody from the then British Prime Minister
6:09
Keir Starmer, were racing to win his praise and to go pay homage to him
6:15
We've now turned a corner where, you know, he's seen more as a sort of a bit of a broken joke in some ways by many leaders
6:24
at least privately, behind closed doors. And so I think the power of Trump to stop the world
6:31
getting together around common problems even without the US at the table is frankly going to be considerably diminished in the two years to go of his last term But even with those two years to go of his last term does the United Nations can the member
6:47
states muster the political will and the financial means in order to reform, you know, the permanent
6:55
five or the security council, all these things, which, you know, many would argue are simply
6:58
outdated because that world was created in 1945. And the world of today is vastly different
7:04
yeah i mean look the the constantly the membership of the security council and particularly the vetoes
7:11
held by the p5 are increasingly anachronistic and have been a source of real grievance to many other
7:17
states for a very long time it requires you know change in the charter to do it and getting there
7:24
is quite problematic one day we will get there but i think in the meantime what you may see is
7:31
even within the existing arrangements, the so-called group of middle powers, and I would say Brazil is a particular leader in this
7:40
are really going to say, enough's enough, let's find ways of working around the US
7:45
Let's use the General Assembly more than the Security Council. Let's have a more empowered Secretary General
7:51
who has more ability to act on her own capacity and not be tied to the permissions of the P5
8:03
And so I think you're going to see a gradual reordering of the sort of where power lies in the organisation
8:10
as people literally find workarounds to the US. Quick one. Donald Trump suggested rather glibly the other day
8:18
that Gianni Infantino, if he's ever kicked out of his FIFA job, might become UN Secretary General
8:23
Good joke or bad joke? I think a typical Trump joke it was done before Infantino
8:29
was quite as discredited as he's been now but I think was
8:33
more around drawing attention away from perhaps some of the other candidates that he would like to see get there
8:39
but you know again the Americans have really not made it clear who they're going to support for
8:45
Secretary General partly because that will be a red rag to most other countries they will not
8:51
want a candidate who's the first choice of Donald Trump
news