Security Council's relevance

Is the United Nations, particularly its Security Council, losing its relevance? The way that big powers, particularly the United States and France, deal with the issue of disarming Iraq of its alleged weapons of mass destruction is pivotal in answering this question. With the two countries drifting further apart after Friday's report by the UN weapons inspector Hans Blix to the Security Council, the question that has been very much in the minds of many people is whether the UN is disintegrating.

The United States is accusing France of undermining the authority of the Security Council for not supporting its plan to use force in disarming Saddam Hussein. Washington says that because France endorsed Security Council Resolution 1441 in November -- which warns of "serious consequences" if Baghdad does not comply with the long-standing UN demands to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction -- Paris should not stand in the way of the U.S. plan to use military force.

France is opposed to the use of force against Iraq, and has made it clear it would veto such a resolution if it were brought before the Council. Paris insists that the UN inspectors be given more time to do its work, pointing out that Blix's report indicated that there has been some progress and that Iraq was cooperating, albeit not fully, with the UN team. The use of force, France says, should only be a last option.

The same accusation about undermining the Security Council could be leveled against the United States, should it go ahead with its plan to attack Iraq without UN authorization. Such an attack should be construed as a violation of the sovereignty of a UN member state, a clear breach of international laws. The United Nations may not be able to stop the United States from launching the war, but the attack on Iraq would certainly undermine the credibility and authority of the world body.

The question to outsiders therefore becomes, who is undermining the Council's authority. Whichever way you look at it, the future of the Security Council, and of the United Nations, is very much at stake. U.S. officials are not far off in suggesting that the United Nations is now on the verge of being reduced to the League of Nations, which failed to prevent World War II. But they are not necessarily correct in their assessment of what led to this current state of affairs.

Ultimately, whether or not the UN remains relevant is in the hands of the big powers, especially the five permanent members of the Security Council with veto power. Britain, another member with veto right, sides with the United States on the Iraqi issue, while China and Russia have been wavering, but essentially they are also for giving more time to UN inspectors to do their job.

As important as the Security Council role has been in maintaining global security, it is not exactly a respected institution to begin with. It is, at the end of the day, nothing more than an elite club for the five permanent members to exercise their privileges primarily to serve their interests first and foremost, and global security second, if at all.

This is not the first time either that a Council resolution has been ignored. Besides Iraq, Israel has consistently violated many resolutions passed against it, and each time, it got away without serious recriminations. But if the United States did launch the attack on Iraq without Security Council authorization, it would be the first time that a permanent member is breaking the law it is supposed to oversee and enforce. If that was to happen, then the authority and credibility of the Security Council would simply be destroyed.

Since the Security Council is not exactly governed by democratic principles, its disintegration would not be such a big deal, at least as far as most of the world is concerned. The biggest losers would be the permanent members themselves. They are also the ones with the power to prevent this from happening.

A premature dissolution of the Security Council, on the other hand, creates a rare opportunity for the United Nations to reform its organization and structure into one that reflects global reality and one governed by democratic principles. Reforming the United Nations has been on the agenda for more than a decade, but progress was always blocked by the five Security Council permanent members who did not wish to give up their privileges.

After Friday, the Security Council may appear to be divided evenly between those who are for the use of military force against Iraq, and those who are against, but the massive antiwar protests across the globe at the weekend tells us of the real mood of the majority of the people around the world: They are united against a war, any war.

The protests also tell us that some of the countries who sit on the Security Council - the five permanent and 10 non-permanent members -- themselves do not truly represent the aspirations of their own people. That alone is enough to suggest that the Security Council is not relevant.

Good riddance? Maybe.