APPROACHES TO THE REFORM OF RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE AND THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE MAIN BODIES OF THE UN

The UN is the most universal system regulating modern international relations, the supreme holder and guardian of modern international law and as such enjoys the highest moral authority. During its existence, the United Nations has shown both strengths and weaknesses. In the first four decades, the UN really sought to function as an international institution of peace and security, but in the last 30 years its achievements have been insignificant; the negative prevails over the positive, and in some cases the UN simply looked helplessly at violations of international law by its members.The article discusses modern and relevant approaches to reforming the relationship and reciprocal influence of the main UN bodies. Furthermore, the author analyzes the positions of experts and politicians – members of the UN, reflected in their interviews and public speeches of recent years. At the same time, based on significant differences of opinion in the international arena on the reform of the UN Security Council, specific approaches are proposed for the revitalization of the UN.

APPROACHES TO THE REFORM OF RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE AND THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE MAIN BODIES OF THE UN

Keywords: UN, the main bodies of the UN, the UN Charter, The General Assembly, The Security Council, international organizations, reform, international peace and security, globalization, veto.

Usmon Aliev, Lawyer, Management development institute of Singapore in Tashkent, Master’s student, University of World Economy and Diplomacy E-mail: usmon.aliyev090698@gmail.com ORCID: 0000-0001-9806-2071

The UN is the most universal system regulating modern international relations, the supreme holder and guardian of modern international law and as such enjoys the highest moral authority. During its existence, the United Nations has shown both strengths and weaknesses. In the first four decades, the UN really sought to function as an international institution of peace and security, but in the last 30 years its achievements have been insignificant; the negative prevails over the positive, and in some cases the UN simply looked helplessly at violations of international law by its members. The article discusses modern and relevant approaches to reforming the relationship and reciprocal influence of the main UN bodies. Furthermore, the author analyzes the positions of experts and politicians – members of the UN, reflected in their interviews and public speeches of recent years. At the same time, based on significant differences of opinion in the international arena on the reform of the UN Security Council, specific approaches are proposed for the revitalization of the UN.

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I. Introduction The discussion on the reform of the UN began even before the official opening of this organization [1]. In the following decades, steps to reform it were taken and are being taken constantly. Nevertheless, the issue of UN reform became acute after the adoption of the Millennium Declaration, which called for intensified efforts to carry out a comprehensive reform of the UN. In 2003, the UN Secretary-General established a group on the issue of UN institutional reform, which included representatives of Iran, Spain, Sweden, the USA, Hungary, South Africa, etc. The group was headed by former Brazilian President F.E. Cardoso. The report prepared by the Group contains a number of interesting proposals for reforming the UN. At the 59th session of the UN General Assembly in 2004, the issue of UN reform (mainly the expansion of the Security Council) was raised in the speeches of the leaders of more than 120 delegations [2], and the discussion reached a special acuteness in 2005 at the 60th session (as well as at the summit preceding it), when the initiative was discussed UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to expand the Security Council to 24 members. But this, apparently, is the specificity of modern international relations, in which the UN is organically embedded. Something is dying, taking its place in the annals of world history, something, on the contrary, arises depending on the needs of the actual situation. The main goal of the reform is to adapt the UN to new challenges so that it continues to successfully fulfill its main statutory function – to maintain peace and security. Unresolved territorial disputes are of increasing concern to the world community. The events in Kashmir, the clashes between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Israel and Lebanon, the civil war in Afghanistan, as well as events in the countries of Arab Africa (Egypt, Tunisia and especially Libya) require the prompt operational intervention of the

UN Security Council. Given the fact that Afghanistan is historically and geographically part of the Central Asian region, Uzbekistan is extremely interested in establishing peace and stability in the neighboring state as soon as possible [3]. Therefore, “Uzbekistan fully supports the efforts of Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to reform the UN in accordance with the requirements of the time. Today, the Organization faces urgent tasks that are of crucial importance for all mankind. These are conflict resolution, the fight against international terrorism and extremism, overcoming the consequences of climate change, countering the spread of epidemics and pandemics, ensuring sustainable socio–economic development,” Shavkat Mirziyoyev said in his message addressed to the participants of the international forum on cooperation between Uzbekistan and the United Nations in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals held on June 26, 2020.) [4].

II. Research results and discussion Today, many researchers, politicians, public figures talk about the need to reform the UN, highlighting such institutional weaknesses of the Organization as: - The inability of the General Assembly to effectively focus on the most pressing issues; - The Security Council needs more legitimacy and representativeness; - the existence of difficulties in solving the problems faced by countries in a state of tension or emerging from conflict: such States often suffer from a lack of attention, political leadership and resources; - the need to create mechanisms to eliminate economic and social threats to international security; - the need for a more organized secretariat, more capable of making coordinated decisions [5]. Critics of the existing UN speak of the need to empower the UN with new authorities, to change its structure.

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Experts, with all their restraint on the issue of UN reform, do not deny the problems and note: “The mechanism of joint problem solving in the Security Council does not always work effectively, not all its resolutions are implemented, opportunities are not used enough” [6]. Furthermore, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in April 2018 that the UN Security Council no longer reflects the real picture of the world and inevitably loses the ability to resolve major international crises. In September 2017, the United States announced a new UN Reform Declaration, which was signed by more than 130 countries [7]. This document, consisting of 10 paragraphs and posted on the official website of the US Mission to the UN, contains nothing but well-known statements: the need for reform as such; the need to reduce duplicate UN bodies; support for the Secretary-General’s aspirations in this direction, etc. However, despite the broad support of the majority of countries, some of the most influential states refused to sign this document, referring to the fact that global changes in the system cannot be made with empty declarations, but it is quite possible to shift the political positions of some countries.

International law should also be gradually improved. In the same natural way, when the necessary conditions are created for this, the reform of the Security Council may occur, primarily associated with a certain increase - but only within reasonable limits - in the number of its members.

Artificially forcing this process to please the ambitions of certain states, which may even be fair in some ways, but are not supported by the majority of member states required by the UN Charter, is obviously counterproductive, since it does not lead to strengthening the UN, which should be the measure of any reform of this organization, but to its weakening, in particular what no responsible state can be interested in [8].

Many modern authors agree on the relevance of the study of peacemaking, that “international organizations and institutions are increasingly interfering in domestic political problems, such as the settlement of intra-state conflicts, respect for human rights.” From this point of view, the historical period currently being experienced - this is a period of transition to a new international order regulated by institutions whose legitimate rights will consist of a voluntarily alienated share of the sovereignty of all participants in international relations [9].

Some experts note the inability of the UN to ensure the implementation of general principles of behavior in the world due to the incorrectness or deliberate omission of the interpretation of conflict of laws norms in international law. And other researchers come to the conclusion that today the UN remains the only unique international structure capable of uniting the efforts of different countries in the event of conflicts in different parts of the world.

It should be noted that the UN would change over time: the bodies that have served their service and become ineffective will die off, new and more advanced ones will appear instead. At present, we are talking about a major reform of the UN, since the reform will affect all its main bodies to a greater or lesser extent.

What steps should be taken on the path of reform?

The management structure should be rationalized, in this case it will be possible to free up some of the resources, primarily financial, and direct them to activities for development. In other words, the UN should ideally be “results-oriented, both in terms of staffing and in terms of resource allocation” [10]. Therefore, much more needs to be changed both in the activities of the executive bodies — the Secretariat and the wider United Nations system — and in the work of the intergovernmental bodies of the United Nations:

The General Assembly: The General Assembly should take decisive measures to streamline its agenda and speed up the discussion process. It should focus on the main substantive issues of today and create mechanisms that would fully and

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systematically deal with civil society issues. The Security Council: The founders of the UN entrusted the Security Council with the primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security. The Security Council was designed so that it could take decisive measures to prevent and eliminate threats. Since the Council was established, threats and challenges to international peace and security have changed. However, the Security Council is changing slowly. Decisions cannot be implemented only by members of the Security Council, but require broad military, financial and political participation of other States. As L.E. Grishaeva notes: “the reform of the Security Council, at the moment, is one of the key areas of UN reform” [11]. Such a reform cannot be carried out without the broadest support of the UN members. However, it is not possible to solve this problem ideally, so the adoption of some intermediate or temporary model of reform is the most acceptable [12]. The issue of the reform of the Security Council has been studied in the science of international law from various positions. However, as a rule, the authors touch upon the problems of exercising the powers of the Security Council, expanding its membership and using the right of veto when making substantive decisions (O.Y. Sorokina [13], S.V. Dodonova [14], R.A. Kalamkarian [15], D.Y. Kapustin [16], S.N. Snegina [17], Yu.N. Maleev [18]). In this regard, the development of the issue of using the tools of regional security organizations in the process of reforming the mechanism of the Security Council to ensure international peace and security is based primarily on the analysis of international treaties and other UN acts. As we can see, despite the presence of quite constructive considerations, no changes are taking place yet. However, it is impossible not to note the readiness of States to start negotiations on reform, which was demonstrated at the intergovernmental negotiations at the UN headquarters in New York on February

19, 2009 [19], after that, negotiations on the substance of the reform began on March 4. Under strong pressure from troopcontributing countries, the Council’s working methods have become more transparent, and the Council itself is somewhat more accessible to non-member States, but its reliance on informal consultations rather than open meetings as a decision-making venue remains noticeable [20]. Of course, the difficulty of solving the raised issue is due to the clash of political interests of various States. But, on the other hand, many options for implementing the reform have been proposed in the scientific and journalistic literature, and most of them may indeed be acceptable only for part of the world, but not for all or at least most states. In this regard, we will try to consider the most common points of view on the reform and collect the key provisions in one visual table. For convenience, we will sort these proposals based on three key criteria: the composition of the Security Council, the question of the status of the veto, and “tools” for implementing Security Council decisions. It seems that the solution to the problem lies in the most universal formula from the combination of these proposals. Similarly, the Military Staff Committee has been in the shadow for decades, which, according to the UN Charter (Article 47), is called upon to advise and assist the Security Council on all issues related to the military needs of the Security Council in maintaining international peace and security, and the use of troops placed at its disposal. ECOSOC: The current situation in the world requires the Economic and Social Council to participate effectively. Responsible for the consideration and analysis of global social, humanitarian and economic problems, the ECOSOC should play a more significant role, which is assigned to it by the provisions of the UN Charter. To participate more effectively and persistently in the work of international

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institutions that ensure the security of States within their competence [21]. The International Court of Justice: The problem of reforming the International Court of Justice in this work touches upon the general problems of international justice. Thus, the President of the International Court of Justice of the United Nations, Rosalyn Higgins, expressed concern in one of her speeches about the rapid growth of international justice bodies, various kinds of international tribunals and courts, which could lead to the establishment of double standards in international law. In her opinion, this could undermine the integrity of the international legal system and violate the consistency in the interpretation of legal norms [22]. According to the opinion of scientists and the members of the Court themselves, including the Chairman, it is proposed to carry out the following reforms in order to improve the effectiveness of the International Court of Justice: to assign five judicial seats to representatives of the UN Security Council member states; to increase the number of judges of the International Court of Justice; to introduce expert knowledge in the field of not only international law as an additional requirement for candidates for the position of judge, but also national law; consider the possibility of introducing an additional official unit in the form of a General Counsel [23]. The Trusteeship Council: Due to the fact that the Trusteeship Council fulfilled the tasks assigned to it by the Charter and all 11 territories under trusteeship gained independence, the Council decided that it should be convened only as necessary (Article 90 of the UN Charter) [24]. Therefore, the issue of the future of the Council was discussed at the 50th session of the General Assembly and in the Special Committee on the UN Charter and strengthening the role of the Organization. Among the proposals made are the transformation of this body into the Environment and Development Council, etc. [25]

Secretariat: The Secretary-General will take steps to align the structure of the Secretariat with the priorities outlined in the report and establish a cabinet-type decision-making mechanism. It requests Member States to provide it with the authority and resources to implement a one-time incentive program for early retirement of staff in order to update and change the composition of staff based on current needs, to cooperate with it in conducting a comprehensive review of budgetary and personnel rules and to organize a comprehensive review of the work of the Office of Internal Oversight Services to strengthen its independence and authority. Further priorities include ensuring system-wide coherence by strengthening the role of resident coordinators, concluding more effective standby arrangements for the humanitarian response system and ensuring more reliable protection of internally displaced persons. It is necessary to intensify support for the activities of regional organizations, in particular the African Union. The Charter itself also needs to be updated and deleted. Further articles referring to “enemy States”, as well as articles concerning the Trusteeship Council and the Military Staff Committee, which are outdated. Other priorities include ensuring system-wide coherence by strengthening the role of resident coordinators, concluding more effective standby arrangements for the humanitarian response system, and providing more reliable protection for internally displaced persons. There is a need to step up support for the activities of regional organizations, in particular the African Union. The Charter itself also needs to be updated and articles referring to “enemy States”, as well as articles concerning the Trusteeship Council and the Military Staff Committee, which are outdated, should be deleted from it [26]. III. Conclusion Thus, having considered the history of the reform of the main UN bodies and their reform at the present time, it can be concluded that the Organization has indeed

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undergone significant changes throughout its existence: each of its component parts has changed in its own way, adapting to the realities of modernity. Now is the time to also meet the challenges of globalization and give an impetus to the further development of the Organization. However, for the successful functioning of the Organization in the era of globalization, it is necessary to carry out a deep reform of its central bodies. In this context, the main, but at the same time the most difficult and controversial is the reform of the Security Council, a body that occupies an exceptional position in the entire system of an international organization, since it is responsible for maintaining international peace and security on Earth. The decisions under consideration and the mandates adopted often lack a real approach, resources and political determination to complete their implementation. At the same time, the expanded composition of the Security Council would help to ensure that its decisions are more balanced and verified. But to date, the UN is still far from a consensus decision on issues such as the expansion of the Security Council, in particular the increase in the number of permanent members and the problems of the veto.