Disrone League of Nations

Gleb Bogush, Alexander Sushko, Alexander Tevda-Barmuli: What is the UN crisis and world institutions?

Sergey Medvedev: The UN is in a crisis. We remember how in April 2022, in the first weeks after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Zelensky urged to dissolve the UN Security Council or exclude Russia from it. More recently, the Czech defense ministry Yana Chernokhov called on Prague to leave the UN, who could not condemn Hamas aggression against Israel. And in fact, the UN, it seems, is so far in powerless in the face of such aggression. At the same time, we can talk about the crisis of other international institutions - the OSCE is paralyzed, Hungary sabotes the policy of the European Union and NATO. Is the entire system of international relations of the last 75 years decaying? Who can cope with the growing world mess?

Video version of the program

With us, Gleb Bogush , an international specialist, a researcher at Copenhagen University . Is the current crisis unprecedented? Or the entire 75-year-old history of the UN goes from the crisis to the crisis and each time they predict a fast end?

Gleb Bogush: The condition without a crisis is rather an exception to the UN. Many conflicts between different states and, of course, in the Middle East from the very beginning were constantly accompanied by the unsuccessful efforts of the UN to resolve them.

Sergey Medvedev: The Security Council is an absolutely path situation: Russia and China are blocking America, America is blocking ... And the paradox is formed: Russia attacked Ukraine, but at that time it presides in the UN Security Council.

The condition without a crisis is more an exception for the UN

Gleb Bogush: The Security Council system was not designed for situations related to its permanent members. All the mechanisms that are spelled out there: to impose sanctions, even introduce troops (though this is a non -working norm) are designed for states that are not permanent members. Everywhere where there is either a permanent member or an ally, for example, such as Israel, the situation is virtually insoluble. The states themselves and those allies that this situation are beneficial to the dismantling of this system do not agree to the dismantling of this system. Even where it was possible to make certain decisions, for example, by North Korea, in many African conflicts, everything goes until the moment when the serious interests of China, Russia and so on are touched upon.

Of course, it cannot be said that the solution of any issues is paralyzed. Even in the last year, a number of resolutions of the Security Council were adopted unanimously. But these are those resolutions that do not directly affect these conflicts.

Gleb Bogush

Sergei Medvedev: In fact, the UN played a constructive role only at the moment when Russia could not object (relatively speaking, operation in Kosovo, Yugoslavia) or when Russia was not mistaken when voting, respectively, could not block and vet. But with the current confrontation in the system of international relations, no positive decision of the UN in acute conflicts can be made.

Gleb Bogush: The solution consists in critical changes in permanent members. If it were not for the current situation associated with such a crazy course in foreign policy, which harms primarily the interests of Russia itself, and following the fairway of other powers, such as the PRC, behaving more carefully, cunningly and subtly, but acting, in fact, the same role for a number of situations ... Here you can still cope with one permanent member, but when these two permanent members are united by a whole series questions, and followed by huge economic, military and other potentials, it is very difficult to fix.

Sergey Medvedev: Does the UN go through the League of Nations , which has not coped with the advent of peace to the Second World War and ceased to exist?

The UN Security Council system was not designed for situations related to its permanent members

Gleb Bogush: There are a lot of parallels. The most obvious is the indulgence of aggression, that is, the impossibility of quickly taking those measures that, by the way, the League of Nations could take: there were no permanent members. The USSR was not a permanent member, but was quite promptly expelled from the League of Nations. However, when Austria was captured by Hitler in a few days (many compare this with the occupation of Crimea), only the Mexican ambassador was indignant, everyone else agreed.

Pessimism is justified here, but there is no need to talk about the end of the UN, about the lack of potential. This potential is in changes both in states and in the organization itself: when the states will change, the organization itself will change. By the way, there were a lot of proposals of this kind: do not reduce everything to the Security Council, to the problem of the notorious veto. It can be, for example, about the establishment of new bodies. One of the ideas that would improve the organization is a democratic element, for example, the establishment of a parliamentary assembly. Now the most effective and popular bodies are those where people, not states are included. An example is an international court, which is now loaded as never before, despite all the difficulties of penetration there.

Yes, Russia ignores even those decisions that are legally mandatory for it: for example, the order of the International Court on interim measures to terminate the so -called "military operation". We see how Russia pays for this. For example, a Russian citizen for the first time after 1945 did not join the court, received an insufficient number of votes in the elections. For the first time, a permanent member of the Security Council (Russia) will not be represented by its member in the International Court.

Sergey Medvedev: What is happening in the International Criminal Court in The Hague since the arrest warrant was issued ? Since then, Putin has perfectly gone to a summit in China, and is present in Central Asia. How effective is this system?

Gleb Bogush: Mus has been investigating the situation in Ukraine since March 2022. During this time, except for these two orders, we, unfortunately, do not hear anything about how this investigation is moving. Questions can and should be asked the prosecutor. 43 states gave him this situation for the investigation, it received additional funding. Unfortunately, in the Mus there is also an inertia of bureaucratization, a tendency to lack internal and external responsibility for their actions.

Sergey Medvedev: Alexander Sushko , Executive Director of the International Renaissance Fund , join us. How does the current situation with the UN see from Kyiv?

Russia ignores even those decisions that are legally required for it

Alexander Sushko: Skepticism, which exists in the world about the UN, is even brighter in Ukraine. Indeed, an organization created to protect the basic principles of international security and order is not able to fulfill its function. But there are roles that continue to make the UN relevant. In particular, this is the place where you can see global trends, that is, the support of certain positions in the international arena, which is expressed in the vote of the General Assembly. This is the only place where you can personally imagine the dynamics of world trends. At the same time, in Ukraine, no one has special illusions that the UN is able to resolve crises.

Sergey Medvedev: We are talking about the crisis of the entire system of international organizations inherited from the world after 1945. We also see the absolute paralysis of the OSCE: Russia and Belarus actually blocked its work, do not give them money to the budget, the OSCE has been working without a budget for two years.

Alexander Sushko: I would not generalize. Interest in participating in many organizations, assemblies, institutions (international, global, regional) is preserved. The interest of Ukraine in a variety of international sites, organizations, associations is growing.

Alexander Sushko

Sergey Medvedev: How much does Ukraine are happy with the dynamics of NATO relations during the war ?

Alexander Sushko: This dynamics is ambiguous: there is no decisive breakthrough to membership that Ukraine would need, but it cannot be expected in war conditions, since most member countries are not ready to subscribe to an immediate obligation to protect Ukraine, which follows from the fifth article of the Washington Treaty . Here, the objective unpreparedness of the countries works to make decisions that directly draw them into the war. The calculation is going to receive a variety of assistance from the countries of the alliance and the coordination of the help that Ukraine receives through the line of security and defense. But in relations with the European Union, Ukraine during the great war committed a tremendous breakthrough. In the history of the EU there are examples of the entry of countries with open territorial conflicts (recall Cyprus). Ukraine needs to become a full -fledged part of Western institutions, therefore, both NATO and the EU are the right choice.

Surely one of the conditions of productive reintegration of Russia in the world will be the issuance of war criminals

Sergey Medvedev: Do you believe that you will see Russian war criminals on a bench in the Hague?

Alexander Sushko: Yes, this is possible, but not the fact that in the near future. This question is linked to the question of the possibility of collapse of the current Russian regime, and then the next regime will act already in other historical conditions. Surely one of the conditions of productive reintegration of Russia in the world will be the issuance of war criminals.

Sergey Medvedev: Political scientist Alexander Taevda-Barmuli joins us. It seems that Putin’s plan for the creation of international chaos works for the collapse of the system of international organizations.

Alexander Tevda-Barmuli: I see at least three contours that determine the collapse of the current system. The most banal, educational circuit is a purely real policy, associated with the fact that any system of international relations is based on the establishment of a balance of forces as a result of a certain sample of these forces. In 1945, the UN and the entire system of international institutions took into account the current balance of power. After 1989, the bipolar system collapses, the new balance of power is not installed, the new actors enter the system and try it for strength. In this sense, until the new balance of power is established, and we do not know what it will be, the new system will not arise. This is a classic of the genre.

But here I see two more contours, which are also important. First of all, it is a structural contour. In the 45th and subsequent years, the main actors were national states. By the present day, the important stakeholder of the system of international relations are non -governmental, non -state stakeholders - these are TNCs and the Network ... And as these important stakeholders, which obviously affect international relations, should be taken into account in the emerging system of international relations, no one understands. This adds chaos. In a sense, the system of international relations creeps into the stage of such neo-feudalism, if you like.

Alexander Taevda-Bourmuli

And the third moment I would call discursive. The 1945 system was created so that there is no more Holocaust. The current UN can not resolve the issue within itself: how does it relate to the problems of the current aggravation of anti -Semitism and, in general, to the problems of the one who is subject to protection. There is a big question related to the fact that, as it were, the progressive aspiration of the 45th year and the UN system has somewhat exhausted themselves to date. The world is tired of the dictatorship of international organizations, no matter how good or bad they are, and, in general, it gravitates more to localization ... In these conditions, the system of international institutions that should be created, in a sense, contradicts itself. And then either we create supranational structures and transfer part of the powers to the supranational level, or we are frightened by the WHO, the inaction of the UN, UNESCO and other structures, we abandon these organizations and build something completely different.

Until a new balance of power is established, the new system will not arise

Sergey Medvedev: You record a very dangerous situation. We will assume that international organizations exist in the conditions of the balance of forces, that is, in the unique system of international relations that has developed according to the results of the Second World War, according to the results of the possession of a number of nuclear weapons, a unique division into opposing blocks. All this is gone. In fact, we come to some kind of dominant, pre-week state of the system of international relations, when chaos will reign when there is no external frame that would endure these institutions. Calls have not disappeared: migration, illness, international hunger, radical extremist ideologies - but there are no institutions.

Alexander Tevda-Barmuli: in itself, the fact that bipolarity is replaced by multipolarity is not an obstacle to the creation of institutions. Rather, the problem is that any system of international relations as a whole implies a certain consensus ideal of the nearest present. It was in the Vienna system, it was in the 45th year in the Yalta-Potsdam, I note that this was not in Versailles, so Versailles were covered with a copper basin.

Sergey Medvedev: Therefore, they came to war.

Alexander Tevda-Bourmuli: I do not want to simplify, but there is an obvious correlation here. Therefore, the point is not only that the final beneficiaries of this chaos have not been determined now. The problem is that they should minimally decide on what this system is moving towards.

Sergey Medvedev: So this is the muddy water in which a hybrid fisherman like Putin and catches his fish? In fact, in the Kremlin it was more or less calculated, and does it play in their hands?

Alexander Tevda-Burmuli: Yes, there is a specific fisherman, but he is not alone. In general, this is the natural state of the system during its turbulence. There is a common problem. We know now that, presumably, Russia, on the one hand, acts rather as an audio player than as a player who wants to preserve the status quo. On the other hand, Russia is categorically not interested in revisionism, it is interested in maintaining the status quo in the UN. This is a very great contradiction and the deep weakness of this whole position.