A PROJECT SUBMITTED IN FULFILLMENT OF COURSE

‘INTERNATIONAL LAW’, 5th SEMESTER DURING THE

ACADEMIC YEAR 2018-19
TOPIC:- ROLE OF THE UN IN GLOBAL GOVERNANCE
SUBMITTED TO:-

MS. SUGANDAHA SINHA

FACULTY OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

SUBMITTED BY:-

MD AATIF IQBAL

BBA LLB

ROLL NO.- 1630

CHANAKYA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY

,MITHAPUR , PATNA
1
 DECLARATION
The researcher hereby declares that this research paper is prepared by the
researcher with the help of only those sources which are mentioned in the
bibliography part of this paper, foot notes on the last of each page. This research
paper is not a copy of any one’s research paper as per the knowledge of the
researcher.

This research paper is firstly presented to Ms. Sugandaha Sinha, the faculty of
International Law in The Chanakya National Law University, Patna. Before this,
this paper has never been submitted to any other teacher/professor or any other
school/college/university.

MD AATIF IQBAL

ROLL NO.- 1630

2
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I owe a great many thanks to many great people who helped and supported me
during the completion of the project.

My deepest thanks to lecturer Ms. Sugandaha Sinha , the guide of the project for
guiding and correcting various documents of mine with attention and care . She has
taken pain to go through the project and make necessary correction as and when
needed. I would also thank my Institution and my faculty members without whom
this project would have been a distant reality. I also extend my heartfelt thanks to
my family and well-wishers.

MD AATIF IQBAL

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: .................................................................5

1. INTRODUCTION: ..................................................................6

2. GLOBAL GOVERNANCE……………………..7

3. FIVE GLOBAL GOVERNANCE GAPS…………………………….10

3.1 KNOWLEDGE GAPS……………………………10

3.2 NORMATIVE GAPS…………………………….11

3.3 POLICY GAPS…………………………..12

3.4 INSTITUTIONAL GAPS………………………………13

3.5 COMPLIANCE GAPS………………………….15

4. IMPORTANCE OF MULTILATERALISM………………………..18

5. UN IDENTICAL ROLE IN GLOBAL GOVERNANCE………..21

6. CONCLUSION:........................................................................................24

BIBLIOGRAPHY:.............................................................................25

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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:
Objective: Its objectives include maintaining international peace and security,
promoting human rights, fostering social and economic development, protecting
the environment, and providing humanitarian aid in cases of famine, natural
disaster, and armed conflict.

Scope and Limitations:

Through this write up, the author has tried to study the United Nation. It has also
tried to get an overview of the position of real scenario of nature of work of United
Nations.

Sources:
The author has used both primary sources and secondary sources for the research.
The primary sources include mainly the provisions of International Organizations
bodies. The secondary sources include mainly books by prominent authors,
research papers and journals on criminal law. The research is purely doctrinal in
nature.

Mode of Citation:
The author has followed a uniform mode of citation.

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 INTRODUCTION
The world has changed enormously since the creation of the United Nations. There
are four times as many state actors, a correspondingly greater number and
proportion of non-state actors, and a tremendous diversity in the types of state and
non-state actors compared to 1945. There has been a matching proliferation in the
number, nature and types of threats to national security and world peace alike.
Consequently, the growing number and types of actors in world affairs have to
grapple with an increasing number, range and complexity of issues in an
increasingly networked, deeply intertwined but also more fragmented world.

The security problematique has morphed from defusing and defeating national
security threats to risk assessment and management and being prepared –
normatively, organizationally and operationally – to cope with strategic complexity
and uncertainty.1 That being the case, the overwhelming challenge is to structure
the institutions of international governance such as to make them more robust – so
that they can withstand both exogenous and endogenous shocks; resilient – so that
they can bounce back when they do buckle in the face of some shocks; and flexible
and adaptable – so that they can deal with the rapidly changing nature and source
of threats, including black swans.

1
Besley, Timothy, and Louise J. Cord, eds. (2007). Delivering on the Promise of Pro-Poor Growth: Insights and
Lessons from Country Experiences. Washington, D.C.: World Bank; Basingstoke, United Kingdom: Palgrave
Macmillan.

6
The Aims of the United Nations:

• To keep peace throughout the world.

• To develop friendly relations between nations.

• To work together to help people live better lives, to eliminate poverty,disease and
illiteracy in the world, to stop environmental destructionand to encourage respect
for each other's rights and freedoms.

• To be a centre for helping nations achieve these aims.

The Principles of the United Nations:

• All Member States have sovereign equality.

• All Member States must obey the Charter.

• Countries must try to settle their differences by peaceful means.

• Countries must avoid using force or threatening to use force.

• The UN may not interfere in the domestic affairs of any country.

• Countries should try to assist the United Nations

Global Governance

Traditionally governance has been associated with ―governing,‖ or with political

authority, institutions, and, ultimately, control. Governance in this sense denotes
formal political institutions that both aim to coordinate and control interdependent

7
social relations and that also possess the capacity to enforce decisions. In recent
years, however, scholars have used ―governance‖ to denote the regulation of
interdependent relations in the absence of overarching political authority, such as
in the international system.2 These may be visible but quite informal (e.g., practices
or guidelines) or temporary units (e.g., coalitions). But they may also be far more
formal, taking the shape of rules (laws, norms, codes of behavior) as well as
constituted institutions and practices (formal and informal) to manage collective
affairs by a variety of actors (state authorities, intergovernmental organizations,
civil society organizations, and private sector entities). Through such mechanisms
and arrangements, collective interests are articulated, rights and obligations are
established, and differences are mediated.

Global governance can thus be defined as the sum of laws, norms, policies, and
institutions that define, constitute, and mediate trans-border relations between
states, cultures, citizens, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations,
and the market. It embraces the totality of institutions, policies, rules, practices,
norms, procedures, and initiatives by which states and their citizens (indeed,
humanity as a whole) try to bring more predictability, stability, and order to their
responses to transnational challenges—such as climate change and environmental
degradation, nuclear proliferation, and terrorism—which go beyond the capacity of
a single state to solve.

In addition to interdependence and a growing recognition of the need for collective

action to face what former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan aptly called
―problems without passports,‖ the other explanation for the emergence of global
governance stems from the sheer growth in numbers and importance of nonstate


2
Weiss, Thomas G.; Daws, Sam, eds. (2009) [2007]. The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations. Oxford
University Press.

8
entities, which also are conducting themselves in new ways. Civil society actors
participate as advocates, activists, and also as policymakers in many instances.
They play increasingly active roles in shaping norms, laws, and policies at all
levels of governance. Their critiques and policy prescriptions have demonstrable
consequences in the governmental and intergovernmental allocation of resources
and the exercise of political, military, and economic power.3

State-centered structures (especially those of the UN system) that help ensure

international order now find themselves sharing more and more of the governance
stage. Depending on the issue-area, geographic location, and timing, there are vast
disparities in power and influence among states, intergovernmental organizations
(IGOs), TNCs, and international NGOs. Consequently, today’s world is governed
by an indistinct patchwork of authority that is as diffuse as it is contingent. In
particular, the IGOs that collectively underpin global governance are not only
insufficient in number but are inadequately resourced, lack the requisite policy
authority and resource-mobilization capacity, and sometimes are incoherent in
their separate policies and philosophies.

Despite its shortcomings, however, the United Nations is the most universal and
legitimate organization with the greatest potential for expansion. Although the
world body cannot displace the responsibility of local, state, and national
governments, it can and should be the locus of multilateral diplomacy and
collective action to solve problems shared by many countries. ―Good‖ global
governance implies, not exclusive policy jurisdiction, but an optimal partnership
between diverse types of actors operating at the local, national, regional, and global
levels.4

3
Mires, Charlene (2013). Capital of the World: The Race to Host the United Nations. New York University Press.
4
Commission on Global Governance,Our Global Neighborhood,New York, Oxford University Press, 1995

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 Five Global Governance Gaps

In Global Governance and the UN, Weiss and Thakur identify five gaps between
the nature of many current global challenges and available inadequate solutions.
These gaps pertain to knowledge, norms, policy, institutions, and compliance. The
extent of the UN’s success in filling these gaps has varied both within and between
issue areas. In general, the world body has been more effective in filling gaps in
knowledge and norms than in making decisions with teeth and acting upon them.

Knowledge Gaps

The first is the ―knowledge gap.‖ With or without institutions and resources, there
often is little or no consensus about the nature, causes, gravity, and magnitude of a
problem, either about the empirical information or the theoretical explanation. And
there is often disagreement over the best remedies and solutions to these problems.
Good examples are global warming and nuclear weapons.

The United Nations has played a role in filling two knowledge gaps that are
important for contemporary notions of global governance. For many global issues,
there are well-defined ideological stances, and empirical data may or may not be
sufficiently powerful to call into question positions that often have been formed
and hardened long before information has been gathered and experiences
registered. The role of the state sector in the development process and in
controlling market forces is a good example.

There are also issues like population in the 1970s or global warming in the 1990s
that appear on the agenda because of a previously unknown or undervalued threat,
and about which we do not have sufficient information—or we have conflicting
information—in order to make informed decisions. This constitutes a different type

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of knowledge gap for decision makers, but presumably one for which new
information can more easily have an impact than in the face of rigid ideologies.

At least partially filling the knowledge gap is essential for dealing with the other
gaps in global governance. If we can recognize that there is a problem and agree on
its approximate dimensions, then we can take steps to solve it. While in a few cases
the UN has generated new knowledge, more often it has provided an arena where
existing information can be collated and collected, a host of interpretations can be
vetted, and differing interpretations of competing data debated. Depending on the
strength of political coalitions and entrenched ideologies, there may be more or
less room for the actual increase in knowledge to make a difference in terms of
policy recommendations.5

In the past, the First and Second UNs played a relatively more important role both
in generating data and in creating and disseminating theoretical explanations than
did civil society. This is not to say that they do not continue to play these roles; but
civil society actors—such as universities, research institutes, scientific experts,
think tanks, and NGOs— currently are playing a growing role in filling knowledge
gaps.6

Normative Gaps

The second is the ―normative gap.‖ A norm can be defined statistically to mean the
pattern of behavior that is most common or usual—or the ―normal curve,‖ a widely
prevalent pattern of behavior. Alternatively, it can be defined ethically, to mean a
pattern of behavior that should be followed in accordance with a given value
system—or the moral code of a society, a generally accepted standard of proper

5
Deininger, Klaus, and others (2010). Rising Global Interest in Farmland: Can It Yield Sustainable and Equitable
Benefits? Washington, D.C.: World Bank.
6
Independent Working Group on the Future of the UN System,The United Nations in Its Second Half-Century.

11
behavior. In some instances, the two meanings may converge in practice; in most
cases, they will complement each other; but in some cases, they may diverge.

Norms matter because people—ordinary citizens as well as politicians and

officials—care about what others think of them. This is why approbation, and its
logical corollary shaming, is often effective in regulating social behavior. It is also
why the United Nations and especially its Secretaries-General have often relied
upon the bully pulpit.

The UN is an essential arena in which states actually codify norms in the form of
resolutions and declarations (soft law) as well as conventions and treaties (hard
law). As a universal organization, it is an exceptional forum to seek consensus
about normative approaches to address global challenges. Problems ranging from
reducing acid rain to impeding money laundering, from halting pandemics to
anathematizing terrorism are clear instances for which universal norms and
approaches are emerging.

At the same time, the UN is a maddening forum because dissent by powerful states
or mischief by large coalitions of even less powerful ones means either no action
occurs, or agreement is possible only on a lowest-common denominator. The main
source of ideas to fill normative gaps is therefore quite likely to be civil society7,
the Third UN whose members often affect change by working both with and
through the other two United Nations, member states and secretariats.

Policy Gaps

The third is the ―policy gap.‖ By ―policy‖ we mean the interlinked set of governing
principles and goals, and the agreed programs of action to implement those

7
_ (2011a). The State of the World’s Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture: Managing Systems at
Risk—Summary Report. Rome.

12
principles and achieve those goals. ―UN policy‖ documents may consist of
resolutions or international treaties and conventions.

UN policymakers are actually the world body’s principal political organs, the
Security Council and the General Assembly. In these intergovernmental forums the
people making policy decisions do so as delegates of national governments. And
they make these choices within the governing framework of their national foreign
policies, under instructions, on all important policy issues, from their home
governments. Or member states may make the policy choices directly themselves,
for example at summit conferences.

It is worth noting a major disconnect in global governance. While the source and
scale of most of today’s pressing challenges are global, and any effective solution
to them must also be global, the policy authority for tackling them remains vested
in states. The implementation of most ―UN policy‖ (as determined by the First
UN) does not rest primarily with the United Nations Secretariat itself (the Second
UN) but is kicked back upwards to member states.

Institutional Gaps

The fourth is the ―institutional gap.‖ Institutions are normally thought of as formal,
organizations but they may also be informal entities. If policy is to escape the trap
of being ad hoc, episodic, judgmental, and idiosyncratic, it must be housed within
an institution with resources and autonomy.

There are international institutions that deal reasonably well with a problem area,
and those that are most effective often deal with specific issues and have well-
embedded norms and consensus among member states. Many institutions actually
do make a difference to global governance: the International Atomic Energy

13
Agency (IAEA)8, the UN Children’s Fund (better known by its acronym,
UNICEF), the International Telecommunication Union, and the World Health
Organization, to name but four. Positive examples thus should figure in
contemporary discussions along with laments about those that fall short, for
example the late Commission on Human Rights that was replaced by the Human
Rights Council.

Institutional gaps often exist even when knowledge, norms, and policies are in
evidence. They can refer to the fact that there may be no overarching global
institution, in which case many international aspects of problem-solving may be
ignored—for example, the control of nuclear weapons. Or it may be impossible to
address a problem because of missing key member states—e.g., the World Trade
Organization (WTO) before China’s entry. One of the most obvious explanations
for institutional shortcomings, or gaps, is simply because the resources allocated
are incommensurate with the magnitude of a problem.

A second major disconnect in global governance is that the coercive capacity to

mobilize the resources necessary to tackle global problems remains vested in
states, thereby effectively incapacitating many international institutions. The
institutional gap is especially striking within the UN system because there are
neither powerful, global institutions with overarching authority over members nor
even flimsy ones whose resources are commensurate with the size of the trans-
border problems that they are supposed to address. Even the most ―powerful‖
institutions such as the Security Council, the World Bank, and the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) often lack either appropriate resources or authority or both.

8
Bellard, Celine, and others (2012). Impacts of climate change on the future of biodiversity. Ecology Letters, vol.
15, No. 4 (April), pp. 365-377.

14
Although states establish institutions and pay the bills (sometimes), networks of
experts pushed by activists in civil society usually explain the impetus behind their
emergence. Consensus among experts has been central to restructuring the UN
system and to the creation of new institutions to meet newly recognized needs.

However, the source of ideas about filling institutional gaps is still more likely to
be governments and IGOs than nonstate actors. The absence of international
political will means that many of these organizations are only partially constructed
or remain largely on drawing boards with only a small prototype to address
gargantuan threats.

Compliance Gaps

The fifth and final is the ―compliance gap,‖ which has three facets:
implementation, monitoring, and enforcement. Recalcitrant or fragile actors may
be unwilling or unable to implement agreed elements of international policy. Even
if an institution exists, or a treaty is in effect, or many elements of a working
regime are in place, there is often a lack of political will to rely upon or even
provide resources for the previously established institutions or processes. Second,
who has the authority, responsibility, and capacity to monitor that commitments
made and obligations accepted are being implemented and honored? Third,
confronted with clear evidence of non-compliance by one or more members amidst
them, the collective group may lack the strength of conviction or commonality of
interests to enforce the community norm.

The source of ideas to fill enforcement gaps is mixed: it is just as likely to be

governments and intergovernmental organizations as it is civil society. The source
of monitoring is as likely to be civil society actors, for example Human Rights
Watch, and states, for example the United States vis-à-vis Iran’s and North Korea’s

15
compliance with Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations, as it is to be
international organizations, for example the IAEA. The source of implementation
is also likely to be mixed. The past six-and-a-half decades of UN history are the
story of the never-ending search for better compliance mechanisms within the
constraints of no overriding central authority.

One of the main institutional tactics within such constraints has been
―embarrassment,‖ which can result when either UN secretariats or NGOs, generate
information and data about non-compliance. With the exception of the Security
Council, UN bodies can only make ―recommendations.‖ Hence, monitoring and
then publicizing information about non-compliance mixed with the use of the bully
pulpit has been a central dynamic in efforts to secure compliance.

The cumulative challenge—some might say the fatal shortcoming—of filling

global governance gaps is demonstrated by the extreme difficulty in ensuring
actual compliance. Indeed, this last gap often appears as a complete void because
no ways exist to enforce decisions, certainly not to compel them. Depending on a
country’s relative power, this generalization may vary because influential
organizations (especially the WTO, IMF, and World Bank) can make offers to
developing countries that they dare not refuse. The more relevant and typical
examples, however, are in the area of international peace and security. Even
though the UN Charter calls for them, there are no standing UN military forces and
never have been. The UN has to beg and borrow troops, which are always on loan,
and there is no functioning Military Staff Committee.

In the area of human rights, whether it is hard or soft law, there is often no
enforcement capability. Ad hoc tribunals and the International Criminal Court are
institutional steps that have led to some indictments and convictions, while

16
assiduous efforts to monitor and publicize mass atrocities have, on occasion at
least, secured an enforcement response from the Security Council in the form of
collective sanctions, international judicial pursuit, and even military force.

In the area of international trade and finance, the WTO is considered a relatively
effective enforcement mechanism although it is among the youngest of IGOs.
While it undoubtedly is an improvement from its predecessor, the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)—that is, the WTO has some teeth—
international trade disputes are still largely regulated bilaterally. Monitoring by the
Second and the Third UNs has led to changes in policy and implementation by
some governments and corporations—that is, voluntary compliance by good
citizens.

And finally, in the area of environment and sustainability, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol
created binding emission targets for developed countries, a system whereby
developed countries could obtain credit toward their emission targets by financing
energy-efficient projects and clean development mechanisms in less-developed
countries, and emissions trading (trading the ―right to pollute‖). Back-tracking,
however, began almost before the ink was dry on the signatures. As the world
hurtles toward an irreversible tipping point on climate change, there is no way to
ensure that even the largely inadequate agreements on the books are respected.

Each of these cases illustrates hesitant but insufficient progress toward ensuring
compliance with agreed objectives. This progress has been easier to see in the
areas of human rights and trade. In the areas of security and the environment,
regimes are in flux, and progress is more difficult to ascertain. The planet will
remain hard pressed to respond to current and future challenges without more
robust intergovernmental institutions.

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 The Importance of Multilateralism

Multilateralism refers to collective, cooperative action by states – when necessary,

in concert with non state actors – to deal with common problems and challenges
when these are best managed collaboratively at the international level. Areas such
as maintaining international peace and security, economic development and
international trade, human rights, functional and technical cooperation, and the
protection of the environment and sustainability of resources require joint action to
reduce costs and bring order and regularity to international relations.9 Such
problems cannot be addressed unilaterally with optimum effectiveness. This
rationale persists because all states, as well as some nonstate actors, face mutual
vulnerabilities and intensifying interdependence. They will benefit from and are
thus required to support global public goods. Even the most powerful states cannot
achieve security nor maintain prosperity and health as effectively acting
unilaterally or in isolation. We have seen this demonstrated again and again, and so
the international system rests on a network of treaties, regimes, international
organizations and shared practices that embody common expectations, reciprocity
and equivalence of benefits.

In an interdependent, globalized and networked world, multilateralism will

continue to be a key aspect of international relations. Limitations do and always
will exist. The utility and effectiveness of formal multilateral institutions are,
inevitably, conditioned and constrained by the exigencies of power. Powerful
states may work through or around multilateral institutions at their pleasure and
selectively. Some issues may defy multilateral approaches. Changing normative
expectations may cast doubt on the constitutive values of specific international
9
Anderson, K. and R.Blackhurst, eds, 1993, Regional Integration and the Global Trading System, New York:
StMartin's Press.

18
institutions. But the theoretical rationale of institutionalism – that all states benefit
from a world in which agreed rules and common norms bind the behaviour of all
actors – is broadly intact and indisputable.

All actors depend upon multilateralism and the underwriting of regularity and
public goods in the international system. But if they are to remain viable,
international organizations and the values of multilateralism embedded in them
must be reconstituted in line with 21st century principles of governance and
legitimacy. Just as importantly, they must be capable of addressing contemporary
challenges effectively. This may involve moving beyond the original roots of
multilateralism, reassessing the values on which multilateralism is based and
promoted, and recognizing that contemporary and prospective challenges call for
more agility, nimbleness, flexibility, adaptability and anticipatory rather than
always reactive solutions.

At the centre of the existing multilateral order is the United Nations. Of course one
part of the United Nations is an international bureaucracy with many failings and
flaws and a forum often used for finger pointing, not problem solving. Too often
has it demonstrated a failure to tackle urgent collective action problems due to
institutionalized inability, incapacity or unwillingness.10 Yet the world body
remains the embodiment of the international community, the focus of international
expectations and the locus of collective action as the symbol of an imagined and
constructed community of strangers. Moreover, the UN record since 1945
demonstrates an under‐appreciated capacity for policy innovation, institutional

10
Balwin, Richard and Venables, Anthony, 1995, "Regional Economic Integration," In Grossman, Gene and Rogoff,
Ken, Handbook of International Economics Volume III, North Holland, Amsterdam.

19
adaptation and organizational learning, for example with respect to peacekeeping
missions.11

That said, without continual structural and procedural reforms, the legitimacy and
performance deficits will accumulate and there will be an intensifying crisis of
confidence in the world’s system of organized multilateralism centred on the
United Nations. The values and institutions of formalized multilateralism as
currently constituted are neither optimally effective nor legitimate. The chief
multilateral organizations do not meet current standards of representivity, consent,
juridical accountability, rule of law, broad participation, and transparency – and
therefore political legitimacy. This is an acute problem precisely because
international organizations play an increasingly important and intrusive role in
people’s lives. The more this happens, the more people will realize that
multilateralism is value‐laden, connoting fundamental social and political choices
regarding the balance between the market and equity, human rights, governance,
and democracy. A range of public policy decisions and practices have been
transferred to the international level, raising a number of pressing normative
challenges to the Westphalian foundations of multilateralism as citizens become
rights holders and states are deemed to have responsibilities of sovereignty.

That is, the challenge to the values and institutions of multilateralism results not
merely from any particular distribution of power, but also from systemic factors
like the nature of the state, the nature of power, the nature of security and threats to
international security, the actors who drive security and insecurity, and the global
norms that regulate the international behaviour of state and nonstate actors alike.

11
Deardorff, Alan and Stern, Robert, 1994, "Multilateral Trade Negotiations and Preferential Trading
Arrangements," in Deardorff, A. and Stern, R., eds., Analytical and Negotiating Issues in the Global Trading System,
Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

20
 The UN’s Ideational Role in Global Governance

The United Nations plays four essential roles as an intellectual actor. These are
managing knowledge, developing norms, promulgating recommendations, and
institutionalizing ideas.

Basic research is done in universities, not in the United Nations. Yet the UN is a
knowledge based and knowledge-management organization. Flagging issues and
keeping them in front of reluctant governments are quintessential UN tasks. The
vehicles through which idea-mongering occurs include expert groups, organizing
eminent persons into panels and study groups, and of course the global ad hoc
conferences that were especially prominent in the 1970s and 1990s.

One under-appreciated comparative advantage of the United Nations is its

convening capacity and mobilizing power to help funnel knowledge from outside
and to ensure its discussion and dissemination among governments. UN-sponsored
world conferences, heads of government summits, and blue-ribbon commissions
and panels have been used for framing issues, outlining choices, making decisions;
for setting, even anticipating, the agenda; for framing the rules, including for
dispute settlement; for pledging and mobilizing resources; for implementing
collective decisions; and for monitoring progress and recommending mid-term
corrections and adjustments.

Once information has been collected and knowledge gained that a problem is
serious enough to warrant attention by the international policy community, new
norms need to be articulated, disseminated, and institutionalized. In spite of the
obvious problems of accommodating the perspectives of 192 countries, the First
UN is an essential way to permit the expression and eventual coagulation of

21
official views from around the planet on international norms.12 Similarly, despite
the obvious problems of running a secretariat with a multitude of nationalities,
cultures, languages, and administrative norms, the Second UN is also an ongoing
bureaucratic experiment in opening up the range of inputs to include a wide range
of views.

After norms begin to change and become widespread, a next step is to formulate a
range of possibilities about how governments and their citizens and IGOs can
change behavior. When an emerging norm comes close to becoming a universal
norm, it is time to address specific approaches to problem-solving, to fill the policy
gap. The policy stage refers to the statement of principles and actions that an
organization is likely to take in the event of particular contingencies. The UN’s
ability to consult widely plays a large part in its ability to formulate operational
ideas.13 This is a function that is quintessentially in the job descriptions not only of
member states but also of the Second UN, the staff of international secretariats,
who are often complemented by trusted consultants, NGOs, and expert groups
from the Third UN. Policy ideas are often discussed, disseminated, and agreed
upon in public forums and global conferences.

Once knowledge has been acquired, norms articulated, and policies formulated, an
existing institution can oversee their implementation and monitoring. But if they
are sufficiently distinctive from other problems, cohesive in their own cluster of
attributes, and of sufficient gravity and scale, then the international community of
states might well consider creating a new IGO (or hiving off part of an existing
one) dedicated to addressing this problem area.

12
Advisory Council on International Affairs of the Netherlands, Universality of Human Rights: Principles, Practice
and Prospects, Advice no. 63, published November 2008.
13
José E. Alvarez, “Judging the Security Council,” in the American Journal of International Law, Vol. 90, No. 1
(January 1996), p. 1-39.

22
Institutions embody ideas but can also provide a platform from which to challenge
existing norms and received wisdom about the best approaches to problem solving.
For instance, the generalized system of preferences for less industrialized
countries—which was hardly an item on the conventional free-trade agenda—
grew from both the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and
GATT.

23
 Conclusion

The survival and vitality of international organizations depend on two factors: the
capacity to change and adapt and the quality of their governance. Based on human
solidarity across borders and transcending national perspectives, the United
Nations provides and manages the framework for bringing together the world’s
leaders to tackle the pressing problems of the day for the survival, development
and welfare of all peoples, everywhere. Yet multilateralism is under unprecedented
challenge, from arms control to climate change, international criminal justice and
the use of military force overseas. At such a time, it is especially important to
reaffirm the UN’s role as the principal embodiment of the principle of
multilateralism and the main forum for its pursuit. For it remains our best and only
hope for unity‐in‐diversity in which global problems require multilateral solutions.
It is the embodiment of the international community and the custodian of an
internationalized human conscience. It represents the idea that unbridled
nationalism and the raw interplay of power must be mediated and moderated in an
international framework of rules and norms. This is what makes the United Nations
the centre for harmonizing the ever‐present national interests and forging the
elusive international interest.

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