India and Reformed Multilateralism
Multilateralism is in crisis. With every turn of events, multilateral systems and international organisations are being debilitated almost always at the cost of the Global South. The United Nations stands paralysed. Even as, on the one hand, international laws and agreements are adopted to strengthen the rules-based international order, on the other hand, these are being violated with impunity without accountability.
But the problem is much deeper. Majority of developing countries have become bystanders in the unravelling of the world order. Their only insurance i.e. universal participation in decision-making, is vanishing. Instead, they are being presented with two differing, even opposing, world views which they have been asked to subscribe to.
Almost all current problems, whether in the UN, WTO, IMF or the World Bank, can be traced back to the inability of the multilateral system to accommodate the new and emerging powers in the post-World War 2 architecture. Multilateralism is caught between those who fight to preserve the status-quo of 1945 and those who demand reform to reflect current realities which is more multipolar.
India has been the biggest votary of strengthening multilateralism over the years. But, in a changed world, if the most populous country and the fifth largest economy, with a track record of multilateralism, democracy and a civilizational ethos of humanity, cannot be given its due in global governance, then there is need for reform. In fact, it was at the 10th annual summit of the BRICS in 2018 in Johannesburg, South Africa, that Prime Minister Modi proposed for the first time his vision of "reformed multilateralism" to give major emerging powers a voice in global governance.
India's track record in the recent past and its two-year stint in the UN Security Council (2021-2022) have numerous examples, if at all examples are required, of how we bridged or overcame differences to build a more inclusive multilateral world. Accosted with global challenges like covid, climate change, digital and AI divide, terrorism etc, and sprouting of conflicts which threaten international peace and security, India has become indispensable in finding solutions.
Lest we forget, when the world was reeling under covid, and countries were hoarding vaccines for themselves, it was India which came forward to produce and distribute vaccines. For our Vaccine Maitri, we prioritized small and vulnerable countries and saved numerous lives.
In December 2021, in UN Security Council (UNSC), we successfully thwarted a move to wrest climate change from the inclusive UN Framework Convention on Climate Change-led process (UNFCCC), where all countries are present, and bring it under the ambit of UNSC - effectively putting climate action at the mercy of five permanent members (P-5), who are the major historical polluters. India underscored that the draft resolution "seeks to hand over that responsibility to a body which neither works through consensus nor is reflective of the interests of the developing countries." The draft was defeated through a vote since India voted against, while Russia exercised the veto. If it had succeeded, climate change architecture would have, by now, kept out the voice of the Global South, especially the most vulnerable and the Small Island Developing States. India yet again came on the side of inclusivity and multilateralism. It was in the same vein that India was instrumental in setting up the International Solar Alliance which now has 100 member countries.
G20 is now an influential plurilateral group consisting of major economies taking decisions on global economic and developmental issues which impact all other countries as well. However, a glaring lacuna was that it was not fully representative of the smaller and medium sized states of the Global South. To bridge this gap, when India took over G20 Presidency (2022-23), Prime Minister Modi convened the Voice of Global South Summit where 125 developing countries participated. The Summit's outcome was channelized into G20 discussions during India's Presidency making sure that G20 took informed and inclusive decisions affecting the vast majority. In addition, India lobbied and inducted African Union into G20 - a huge step for a continent which has not been adequately represented either in G20 or UNSC or in other international bodies.
Needless to add, India has been at the forefront of efforts to reform the UN Security Council. Dealing with conflicts is the business of UNSC but inability to deal with them has become its hallmark. When the UN was established, there were 51 member states. Now we have 193. But we still have only five permanent members, who are polarized and have paralysed decision-making in the Council. The days when a small group of countries decided what the world should do are over. The logical fall-out of an unreformed Security Council is the emergence of other power centres to challenge it leading to fragmentation of the world order. Unless there is legitimate, representative and permanent representation of the Global South, especially that of the largest country India and a continent of 54 countries Africa, we cannot have meaningful decisions in the Council.
Our support to the developing world was reinforced during India's stint in UNSC, where we stood for their territorial integrity, increased humanitarian assistance, correcting historical injustice, reform, development partnership, fighting terror and for peaceful resolution of disputes.
However, it was India's independent and proactive stand during the Ukraine war which acted as a catalyst in helping other developing countries voice their dissatisfaction on a military solution being pursued and call for diplomacy and dialogue even in the midst of intense fighting and high emotions, when all levers were being weaponized. In effect, this was India saying that we do not have to choose sides between warring blocs however big or important they may be. This was India saying that we stand for another world view which seeks the path of dialogue over war, seeks an inclusive world over polarization and fragmentation, seeks independence of policy-making over coercion of small and medium states in their decision-making, seeks territorial integrity over occupation and seeks reformed multilateralism over status-quo or unilateralism.
Ambassador (Retd.) T.S. Tirumurti is a former Indian Ambassador and presently Professor at IIT Madras
India's effort to make the multilateralism more inclusive
The Global South and the Summit of the Future
by Ambassador (Retd.) Asoke Mukerji
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) is scheduled to convene for a "Summit of the Future" in New York on 22-23 September 2024. The outcome of this meeting of world leaders will be the adoption of a "Pact for the Future". During the past year, the details of the Pact have been discussed among the 193 UN member-states under the co-facilitation of Germany (representing the developed countries of the North) and Namibia (representing the developing countries of the South). The objective of the Pact is "to safeguard the future for present and coming generations".
India's approach towards the UN's Summit of the Future was articulated by Indian External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar in 2023. He emphasized the need to demonstrate "genuine solidarity" to generate "real trust" and integrate the "sentiment of the Global South" in preparing for the Summit. During the discussions in the UNGA in May 2024, India cautioned that if these essential elements were missing from the process, the Summit of the Future would become a "Summit of the Past", condemning the United Nations "to a perilous vicious cycle of fading into irrelevance."
The Global South consists of developing country member-states of the UNGA, many of them former colonies of European powers in 1945 who did not negotiate the UN Charter. Their membership of the United Nations began with the historic process of decolonization that began after India's independence from British colonial rule in August 1947.
The Global South became a majority in the UNGA, propelled by the Decolonization Resolution of December 1960. The first visible expression of solidarity of the Global South in multilateralism was the successful adoption by a two-third majority vote of UNGA resolutions in December 1963 to amend the UN Charter. These amendments resulted in expanding the representation of the Global South in the UN Security Council (UNSC) that controls decisions on peace and security, and the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) that controls UNGA decision-making on socio-economic issues.
Since 1960, the process of consolidation and prioritization of Global South priorities has been marked by several negotiating landmarks in multilateral institutions. This was due to the solidarity and sentiment of the Global South, based on trust in the effective and equitable functioning of the interlinked post-war multilateral system.
Among the Global South's achievements have been the creation of the non-aligned movement in September 1961 which today brings together 120 member-states in the UNGA; the establishment of the Group of 77 (or G-77) in 1964 which today represents 134 out of 193 member-states in the UNGA; the creation of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) by the UNGA in 1965; the adoption of the G-77 Charter of Algiers in 1967 calling for a New International Economic Order; the Decision on Differential and More Preferable Treatment (also known as the Enabling Clause) for developing countries in the GATT (precursor of the World Trade Organization) in 1979; the UNGA Declaration on the Right to Development (DRTD) as an inalienable human right in 1986; and the Common but Differentiated Responsibility (CBDR) provision of international law, codified by the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992.
Through patient and forward-looking negotiations in the UNGA between 1960-2015, the Global South/G-77 has succeeded in bringing "development" into the mainstream of multilateralism. The unanimous adoption of Agenda 2030 by the UNGA in September 2015, with its 17 Sustainable Developmental Goals (SDGs) is an acknowledgement of this fact. Agenda 2030 converges the common interests of the Global North and Global South into an integrated human-centric framework, in which peace, security, and development are interlinked. This is the sentiment that the Global South seeks to integrate into the vision of the Summit of the Future.
The UN's SDG Summit in 2023 held to assess the implementation of Agenda 2030 warned that "numerous crises" since 2015 were derailing this vision. Three broad trends may be seen as contributing to these crises.
The first is a revival of the North-South divide, which undermines trust in the equitable functioning of multilateral institutions. During the Covid pandemic the World Health Organization was unable to ensure the adequate supply of vaccines to the Global South, due to stockpiling in the Global North. The World Trade Organization was forced by the Global North's dominant hold on intellectual property rights on vaccines to postpone a decision on waiving these rights to enable manufacture of vaccines in the Global South.
The second is an increasing recourse to the use of armed force, instead of diplomatic negotiations, to resolve conflicts. The ineffectiveness and inadequacy of the UNSC's authority due to the veto power of the P5 has been exposed by the large-scale human suffering and destruction in the violent conflicts caused by the use of armed force in recent years. Even existing unanimous resolutions of the UNSC for the political settlement of conflicts such as Afghanistan (UNSCR 2513), Ukraine (UNSCR 2202), and Palestine/Israel (UNSCRs 242, 1860) have not been enforced. A corollary to this is a gradual usurpation of UN Charter provisions for enforcing UNSC decisions, such as economic sanctions and use of armed force, by non-UN bodies like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This impacts directly on peace, security, and development in the Global South.
The third is the weaponization of interdependent economic interlinkages, which have been painstakingly negotiated on the basis of agreed principles of special and differential treatment, as listed above, by the Global South in multilateral institutions and specialized bodies. A powerful combination of governments and corporations based in the Global North have actively sought to circumvent these interlinkages through the extra-territorial application of their domestic laws and policies. This has implications for the sovereign participation of the countries of the Global South in multilateral cooperation. It has also tangible increased socio-economic costs on the implementation of Agenda 2030.
Unless checked, these three trends can have a deleterious impact on the Global South, particularly on the application in a human-centric manner of new digital technologies to accelerate the implementation of Agenda 2030. The Summit of the Future's consideration of a Global Digital Compact requires special attention to these sentiments of the Global South, in order to bridge existing digital divides enumerated during the UNGA review of the UN's Tunis Agenda on an Information Society in December 2015.
At the 75th anniversary meeting of the United Nations in 2020, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi had emphasized:
"We cannot fight today's challenges with outdated structures. Without comprehensive reforms, the UN faces a crisis of confidence. In today's interconnected world, we need a reformed multilateralism-that reflects today's realities, gives voice to all stakeholders, addresses contemporary challenges and focuses on human welfare."
This is the reason why the Global South's focus during the Summit of the Future must be to seek effective multilateralism on the ground. A decision to convene a UN General Conference, as provided for in Article 109 of the UN Charter, to review the UN Charter in September 2025 would be an appropriate way to mark the 80th anniversary of multilateralism by integrating the aspirations of the Global South.