Peacemaking. Prevention of conflicts, including nuclear ones. The necessity of UN involvement in settling conflicts on CIS territory. The overall necessity of UN reinforcement, confirmation of the UN Security Council’s exclusive right to sanction the use of force in international relations, recognition of the SC’s main responsibility for effective functioning of the twenty-first century collective security system, and a radical reform of the UN to reach this aim. A special role for preventive diplomacy in the prevention of conflicts. These were the main theses of Leonid Kuchma’s speech at the Millennium Summit. The speech was hardly revolutionary: all this has already been mentioned more than once. But such words have not yet yielded even one basic result, which sometimes raised serious doubts in the ability of the UN to carry out its functions. Leaders of the five permanent UN Security Council members — the US, Russia, France, Great Britain, and China, on which it depends to a large extent if the UN can expect the world to trust it as the planet’s main peacemaker — have so far released only a joint statement, in which they stressed the need to strengthen the financial basis of the Security Council’s peacekeeping operations. The five leaders seem to have failed to make even a tentative deal about radical reform of the Security Council, such as increasing the number of permanent and non-permanent members along with abolishing the right to veto, without which any talks about its new role in the new world circumstances simply makes no sense. Meanwhile, it is these five countries that more and more often take the flak for monopolizing the right to make serious decisions.
Mr. Kuchma said the system of international sanctions had proven ineffective, and he is right. Neither UN sanctions (old and new) against Belgrade, nor the sanctions (already canceled) against Libya and Iraq, have ever caused the downfall of dictatorial regimes or forced states to revise their policies; instead, they dealt a painful blow to the population, instilling in them serious mistrust in any good intentions the UN and international community might profess. Bulgaria and Romania have been awarded moral compensation for the losses caused by anti-Yugoslav sanctions: these countries were named as candidates for EU membership. Ukraine and Russia have got nothing but losses. Any attempts to speak about compensation in the UN bumped into the unwillingness of many to discuss this subject.
Preventive diplomacy has been the subject of UN forums for almost a decade, since the beginning of third wave of Balkan wars, also without any success. For last year’s Kosovo adventure can hardly be called a success. Thus the proposal to map out a worldwide conflict-prevention strategy still looks like wishful thinking. Also ephemeral is the proposal for the UN to try to settle conflicts in Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Transnistria, but it is at least a way of attracting attention to them.
