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Subject: United Nations,Agencies,Adjacent Bodies

  • [30th September 2026] The Hindu OpED: The United Nations’ long road to restoring trust

    [30th September 2026] The Hindu OpED: The United Nations’ long road to restoring trust

    Question (2025, GS2 – 15 Marks): “The reform process in the United Nations remains unresolved, because of the delicate imbalance of East and West and entanglement of the USA vs. Russo-Chinese alliance.” Examine and critically evaluate the East-West policy confrontations in this regard.
    Linkage: Directly addresses why comprehensive UN structural reform remains stalled—attributing the paralysis to major-power rivalry, veto misuse, and the unwillingness of the P5 to concede influence.

    [2026] Which of the following international conventions have NOT been ratified by India?
    1. Employment Policy Convention
    2. Abolition of Forced Labour Convention
    3. International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families
    4. Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War
    5. Convention on Reduction of Statelessness
    (a) 2 and 4 (b) 1 and 2 (c) 3 and 4 only (d) 3, 4 and 5

    Mentor’s Comment

    The UN was built to create trust between states, and it now has to earn trust from the people it serves. Delivery is not the problem, since 98 million people were reached. The problem is that funding power, opaque oversight and skewed leadership make delivery look partisan. Each reform the article implies shifts power away from those who hold it. Donors would lose influence over recruitment and programmes. Permanent members would lose freedom on the veto. Headquarters cities would lose posts. Restoring trust therefore depends on the actors who benefit from the current arrangement agreeing to constrain themselves.

    Why in the News

    The 81st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) held its high-level week under the theme “Restoring Trust, Managing Transformation: a UN that delivers for all”. The word “restoring” concedes that trust in the UN has collapsed, and global surveys confirm the fall.

    Why does trust matter to the UN, and how far has it fallen?

    1. Why the UN exists: Set up after the Second World War, the UN makes states’ conduct more predictable through dialogue and international law, like agreed rules in a game rivals play.
    2. What went wrong: Over three decades, the UN went from building trust between parties in peacebuilding to needing to restore trust in itself.
    3. Falling confidence: Edelman Trust and Pew surveys found declining trust. In a UN Foundation poll, 52 per cent want deep structural reform, saying the UN struggles to deliver.
    4. Doubts on leadership: Only 58 per cent think the UN can lead on global problems (Rockefeller Foundation and Focaldata poll), possibly a historic low.
    5. The takeaway: The UN’s authority rests on states and publics trusting it, so falling trust weakens its ability to broker peace.

    What are the four reasons for the loss of trust?

    1. Security Council deadlock: UN Security Council (UNSC) paralysis eroded the Assembly’s trust, so it passed resolution A/76/262 requiring permanent members to explain each veto.
    2. Integrity and oversight gaps: Scandals were blamed on individuals, and systemic accountability was seldom addressed:
      • a procurement scandal in Afghanistan (2013);
      • sexual exploitation and abuse cases involving peacekeepers (2017);
      • contracts for non-existent housing projects in Ghana and India (2021).
    3. Donor capture: A few countries give extra-budgetary grants, voluntary money outside the regular budget, and use them to place their nationals and back cherry-picked programmes:
      • the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), the UN’s top financial watchdog, found one government sponsoring eight of nine experts in one agency;
      • spending data reach donor governments, not beneficiary publics;
      • fear of upsetting donors has made staff risk-averse on conflict prevention.
    4. Global South under-representation: Most programmes run in the Global South, where trust is higher, but power sits elsewhere:
      • developing nations hold 84 per cent of the world’s population but 44 per cent of UN civil service leadership posts;
      • only a third of UN leaders in Africa are African, and two-fifths of UN headquarters cities are in the Global South;
      • posts moved out of New York and Geneva in 2025 to cut costs largely bypassed Global South cities.

    Where does the UN still deliver, and where does it fall short?

    1. Humanitarian reach: The UN aided and protected 98 million people in 2025-26. Aid quality and funds reaching local actors remain weak.
    2. Tactical wins: In the wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Iran, the UN kept Black Sea grain exports flowing and prevented a Red Sea oil spill.
    3. Peacemaking gap: It could not turn that goodwill into mechanisms for belligerents to talk, because peacemaking initiative is centralised at the top of the bureaucracy.

    Challenges

    1. Costless vetoes: Explaining a veto carries no penalty, so permanent members keep blocking action. Eg. Ukraine and Gaza.
    2. Liquidity crisis: Unpaid assessed contributions, members’ compulsory dues, deepen dependence on earmarked donor funds.
    3. Weak accountability: No independent system holds senior managers answerable for systemic failures.
    4. Minilateralism: States bypass the UN for smaller groupings. Eg. the Quad, BRICS.

    Way Forward

    1. Public transparency: UN entities should publish programme spending to beneficiary publics, not only to donors.
    2. People-centred ties: The UN should rebuild ties with people, not only governments.
    3. Equitable staffing: The Secretariat should set Global South leadership targets and relocate posts to Global South hubs.
    4. Decentralised peacemaking: The Secretary-General should let field envoys open talks without waiting for headquarters.

    Conclusion

    The UN’s crisis of trust stems less from failed delivery than from how it is governed: who decides, who pays and who answers for failure. Whether the promised “transformation” opens UN leadership and finances to the Global South will decide if trust returns.

    About UN Security Council reform

    1. G4 bid: India, Brazil, Japan and Germany seek expansion of both permanent and non-permanent seats.
    2. Amendment hurdle (Article 108): An amendment needs two-thirds of the Assembly and ratification by two-thirds of members, including all five permanent members.
    3. Rival blocs: The Uniting for Consensus group, including Pakistan, Italy and Mexico, wants only non-permanent seats added. Africa’s Ezulwini Consensus seeks at least two permanent seats with veto.
    4. Stalled talks: The 2026 session of the Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN) ended without consensus on a framework for expansion.

  • A declining United Nations is not good news for a rising India

    Why in the News

    India’s standing is rising while the authority of the United Nations (UN) falls, and the second movement works against the first. Rivalry among major powers opens room for manoeuvre and makes agreements harder to trust at the same time, which is a poor bargain for a power that needs commitments to hold when relations sour. This year’s General Assembly session will not resolve that, because the governments whose consent the UN needs are often pursuing the very objectives it was established to restrain. Indian diplomacy therefore carries two tasks at once. It must win more influence over UN decisions, and it must help make those decisions matter, and the two pull against each other when the organisation’s own members are the ones weakening it.

    Why does a weakening United Nations hurt a rising India rather than free it?

    1. Durability of agreements: India needs arrangements that hold when relations sour, and an organisation that cannot enforce its own decisions cannot supply them.
    2. Sovereignty and rule making: New Delhi has long defended sovereignty and resisted intrusive international rule making. Constraints imposed by powerful countries can leave it with even less say than a negotiated rule would.
    3. Who writes the rules: The operative question is not India’s size but its influence over who sets the rules it will have to live under.
    4. Multilateral arrangements as leverage: They give India a voice in those negotiations and room to cooperate with countries it disagrees with elsewhere.
    5. Limits of economic weight: A larger economy will not by itself remove the vulnerability. In a world split into rival financial and technological systems, access to a market or a technology could increasingly require accepting the conditions of one camp.

    What has left the Security Council unable to restrain its strongest members?

    1. The design assumption: The Council was built to work when the major powers could agree, and the veto gives each permanent member the means to block action when they cannot.
    2. Live conflicts: Ukraine, Gaza and the war involving Iran and the Gulf expose the Council’s inability to restrain its strongest members and their clients.
    3. The cost of neglect: Sudan demonstrates what follows where the Council does not engage at all.
    4. Charter enforcement: Appeals to the UN Charter have little effect when the states expected to uphold it can prevent its enforcement.

    How does economic coercion reach Indian businesses without a Council decision?

    1. Unilateral coercive measures: Restrictions imposed by one state extend the problem out of the diplomatic arena and into everyday commerce.
    2. The commercial chokepoint: An Indian company may be free to trade under Indian law and still find that a foreign bank will not process its payment or an insurer will not cover its cargo.
    3. Weaponised interdependence: Control over financial, insurance and technology networks lets powerful states project national restrictions far beyond their borders without authorisation from the Security Council, which leaves Indian businesses exposed to rules their government had no part in writing.

    What does the United Nations still deliver, and who is hollowing it out?

    1. Universal membership: It gives smaller countries a claim to be heard without a major power’s invitation, which no plurilateral grouping replicates.
    2. Agency work: UN agencies deliver relief, document the human cost of crises and organise the scientific assessments used in climate negotiations.
    3. A forum for the strained: As climate shocks and widening inequalities press on developing countries, the UN gives them a place to press claims on climate finance and sustainable development.
    4. Secretariat inefficiency: The organisation still falls short too often, and the Secretariat must simplify procedures, cut duplication and spend carefully.
    5. Member state behaviour: Governments weaken the organisation they invoke when convenient. They assign tasks they do not fund, delay payments they owe and cut assistance while expecting the UN to absorb the damage.
    6. Mandate against resources: A peace operation given an ambitious mandate and inadequate resources is being set up to fail.

    Why is artificial intelligence a test of who writes the rules that matter?

    1. Warning from the scientific panel: The UN’s independent scientific panel has warned that Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents could become harder for humans to control.
    2. Industry at the Council table: Technology executives briefed the Security Council on the risks of AI on 23 September, and the Council has a role wherever AI threatens international security.
    3. Limits of that table: Companies bring essential expertise and commercial interests together, and the reach of AI into employment, education and development needs wider consideration than a security body can give it.
    4. India’s stated position: Safety standards and access to technology should be negotiated where developing countries have a voice, because permanent members and a few technology firms cannot represent everyone whose future those rules will shape.

    How can India widen its influence before Council reform arrives?

    1. Partners for Multilateralism: India helped launch this coalition, known as P4M, with Brazil, Canada, Kenya, the European Union, Australia and Barbados, a group that deliberately spans different diplomatic camps.
    2. The coalition’s declaration: It records that economic interdependence is being used to exert pressure, disrupting trade, supply chains and development finance.
    3. Value of mixed partners: Each partner holds relationships that could help India persuade countries it might not otherwise persuade. Joint proposals on climate finance or on protection against economic coercion could attract wider support without waiting for agreement on the more contentious questions of reform.
    4. The permanent membership claim: India rests its case on being the world’s most populous democracy and a major economy, and Africa’s exclusion from permanent membership makes the case for Council reform harder to ignore.
    5. Why the claim stalls: Regional rivalries obstruct agreement on expansion, and Charter amendments require ratification by all five permanent members.
    6. The elected seat: India is seeking support at this Assembly for an elected Security Council seat for the 2028 to 2029 term, against Tajikistan, which has never served on the Council, in the June 2027 election.
    7. The peacekeeping record: A founding member in 1945, India has contributed more than 275,000 personnel to UN peacekeeping, and can use that record to argue for mandates troops can carry out and for affected countries to be heard before the Council acts.

    Challenges to India’s bid for a larger role at the Security Council

    1. China’s withheld endorsement: China is the only permanent member that has not backed India’s candidature for a permanent seat with a clear commitment. Eg. It has also blocked India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
      The Fix: Pursue issue specific bargains where Indian and Chinese positions already converge, so the reform bid is not the only channel through which the relationship is tested.
    2. Organised opposition from the Uniting for Consensus group: A bloc of middle powers lobbies for expansion in the non permanent category alone, which keeps regional competitors out of a permanent seat. Eg. Pakistan, Italy and Mexico have consistently pressed that position.
      The Fix: Build the General Assembly numbers first, since any expansion needs a two thirds majority there before ratification is even reached.
    3. Negotiations without a text: The Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN) on Council reform have run for over a decade without producing a single negotiating text to amend. Eg. The 2026 session ended without consensus even on the framework for expansion.
      The Fix: Press for one consolidated negotiating text carrying a fixed review date, so the process yields a document rather than another round of statements.
    4. Standing outside the non proliferation treaties: Critics cite India’s position outside the two central nuclear treaties as a disqualifier for permanent membership. Eg. India has stayed out of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) while maintaining a voluntary moratorium on further nuclear explosive testing.
      The Fix: Anchor the bid in the non proliferation record and the peacekeeping record rather than in treaty signatures, and press for criteria based rather than membership based tests.

    Conclusion

    India’s stake in the United Nations is not sentimental, it is contractual. A rising power that cannot make its agreements hold gains freedom of manoeuvre and loses predictability, and predictability is the scarcer of the two. The unresolved question is whether India’s growing weight can be converted into influence over who writes the rules, or whether it will keep being governed by rules made where it has no vote. The test will come when a rule India helped write obstructs the choices of a state powerful enough to ignore it.

    About United Nations Reform

    1. Expansion of the Security Council: Reform proposals seek to increase both permanent and non permanent seats to bring in India, Brazil, Japan, Germany and African representation.
    2. Veto restructuring: A voluntary code of conduct would limit use of the veto in cases of mass atrocities or genocide.
    3. Empowering the General Assembly: The Assembly’s role in security matters would be strengthened for occasions when the Council is deadlocked.
    4. Inclusive multilateralism: Regional blocs such as the African Union would be formally institutionalised within the UN Charter.

    Government Initiatives for United Nations Reform

    1. The G4 grouping: India, Brazil, Germany and Japan support each other’s bids for permanent seats and press a common reform model.
    2. The L.69 Group: A cross regional grouping of developing countries from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, including small island developing states, which India leads in pressing for expansion in both membership categories.
    3. Voice of Global South Summit: Convened by India since 2023 to aggregate developing country positions and carry them into the G20 and other bodies. It is a consultation mechanism rather than an institution.

    Back2Basics: Elected Seats on the UN Security Council

    1. Composition: The Council has 15 members, five permanent and ten elected.
    2. Election and term: Elected members serve two year terms and are chosen by the General Assembly by a two thirds majority, with the ten seats distributed across regional groups.
    3. Voting weight: An elected member votes on every resolution but holds no veto, and a substantive resolution needs nine votes in favour with no permanent member voting against.
    4. India’s record: India has served eight terms as an elected member, most recently in 2021 and 2022.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2025, GS2, 15 marks] “The reform process in the United Nations remains unresolved, because of the delicate imbalance of East and West and entanglement of the USA vs. Russo-Chinese alliance.” Examine and critically evaluate the East-West policy confrontations in this regard.”

  • Should permanent membership, veto powers of the UNSC be abolished?

    Should permanent membership, veto powers of the UNSC be abolished?

    Why in the News

    A proposal at the current session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) would have the use of the veto in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) “regulated” in humanitarian crises and in cases of genocide. It presents the veto as a matter of “responsibility” rather than of “privilege”. The proposal revives the French Mexican initiative of 2015, under which permanent members would voluntarily refrain from using the veto in mass atrocity situations. That initiative itself grew out of a 2013 proposal for a code of good conduct, made after Chinese and Russian vetoes blocked any Security Council resolution on the Syrian civil war. The contested point is that voluntary restraint leaves the veto itself untouched, so the privilege survives the reform meant to discipline it.

    What is the French Mexican initiative on veto restraint?

    1. The commitment: First launched in 2015, the initiative has permanent members voluntarily refrain from using the veto in situations involving genocide, crimes against humanity and large scale war crimes.
    2. Legal character: It is not an attempt to abolish the veto or to amend the United Nations Charter. It is an exercise in self restraint by the P5, the five permanent members of the Security Council: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China and Russia.
    3. Support base: France and Mexico have announced that 128 states now support the declaration, with 21 joining in the last four months. The United Kingdom has joined France in accepting the principle, so two of the five permanent members have now committed to this form of restraint.

    Which three questions does the veto debate conflate?

    1. Use of the veto: Whether a permanent member casts a veto at all in a given situation.
    2. Accountability for the veto: Whether a permanent member must explain and defend a veto it has already cast.
    3. Reform of the Security Council: Whether the Council’s size, its membership categories and its decision rules should change.
    4. What the current proposal reaches: The initiative addresses only the first of the three. Its claim is that even where the veto remains, there must be circumstances of exceptional human suffering in which a permanent member agrees not to exercise it.

    Why did the Syrian deadlock produce the first restraint proposal?

    1. Paralysis in 2013: Chinese and Russian vetoes made it impossible for the Security Council to pass any resolution condemning Syria during the civil war there.
    2. The Ghouta trigger: A chemical weapons attack at Ghouta in August 2013 was followed in September by the then President of France proposing a “code of good conduct” for the Council.
    3. Design intent: That was the first proposition that the permanent members could voluntarily restrain veto use in cases of genocide, crimes against humanity or larger war crimes. The attempt was to skirt amending the United Nations Charter and still make the Council more contemporaneous.

    What other mechanisms exist short of Charter amendment?

    1. Liechtenstein initiative, adopted by the UNGA in 2022: It does not prevent a permanent member exercising the veto. Whenever a veto is cast the General Assembly is convened within 10 working days to debate the issue, so the member concerned must explain and defend its action on the Assembly floor.
    2. Accountability, Coherence and Transparency code of conduct: The Accountability, Coherence and Transparency (ACT) Initiative reaches beyond the permanent members. It asks all members of the Security Council, including the non permanent members, not to vote against credible action designed to prevent or halt genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
    3. Nature of their force: The strength of both instruments is moral and political rather than legally coercive.

    Why will the permanent members not go beyond voluntary restraint?

    1. Charter amendment requirement: Formal abolition of the veto would require an amendment of the United Nations Charter and the consent of the very permanent members whose privilege is being removed.
    2. Relative weight inside the P5: The United Kingdom and France are not the heavyweights among the permanent members, so a principled position on regulating the power costs them least.
    3. Stated purpose of regulation: Better management of how the power is used is presented as the way to keep the Council from being paralysed and to let it act.
    4. No permanent member proposes elimination: None of the five is talking of eliminating the veto power it holds. There are multiple versions among them of how the Council should be reformed.
    5. Five overlapping approaches, not a binary: The debate is not simply retain or abolish. It runs across abolition, extension of the veto to new permanent members in the name of equality, voluntary restraint in mass atrocity cases, political accountability after a veto is cast, and broader structural reform of the Council itself.
    6. Why the pragmatic route is preferred: The current proposal seeks to change the political behaviour of the five without rewriting the Charter, which makes it reformist rather than revolutionary.
    7. Accountability as the achievable discipline: Requiring a permanent member to justify a veto on the Assembly floor would not prevent action where real national self interest is at stake. It would make that member more cautious, since it would know it must account for the decision.

    Can sovereign equality survive the way power is actually distributed?

    1. The stated ideal: The world is held to be one of sovereign equality among states.
    2. The survival constraint: Because of the way power is distributed, no international organisation can survive, let alone become effective, if it takes a decision against the fundamental interests of a major power.
    3. The veto’s textual status: The word veto is not mentioned in the United Nations Charter. It was created through a separate mechanism.
    4. Word against spirit: Every United Nations member brings its own interpretation of each conflict to the Assembly and to the Council, which leaves a standing gap between the words of international law regimes and their spirit.

    Challenges to voluntary veto restraint

    1. A political commitment binds no one: A declaration of restraint carries no legal obligation, so a member can endorse it and still cast a veto. Eg. Russia vetoed the renewal of the Security Council panel of experts monitoring sanctions on North Korea in March 2024.
      The Fix: Require a permanent member that vetoes inside the declared categories to file a written justification recorded in the Council’s official proceedings.
    2. Classification of an atrocity is unsettled: Restraint applies only to named categories of atrocity, and the Council itself decides whether a situation falls inside them. Eg. Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya was taken to the International Court of Justice by The Gambia in 2019 rather than characterised by the Council.
      The Fix: Route the classification question to a standing determination by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, so the trigger does not rest with the body being restrained.
    3. The Assembly’s response carries no enforcement: Debating a veto in the General Assembly produces a recommendation and nothing that binds. Eg. Emergency Special Session resolutions on Ukraine from 2022 onward carried large majorities and no enforcement power.
      The Fix: Pair each post veto debate with a named follow up instrument, such as a commission of inquiry with a reporting deadline.
    4. Expansion without restraint multiplies the block: Extending the veto to new permanent members in the name of equality would raise the number of states able to stop the Council acting. Eg. The Group of Four, India, Brazil, Germany and Japan, seeks permanent seats, and the Uniting for Consensus group opposes new permanent seats altogether.
      The Fix: Settle the veto question before the membership question, so an enlarged Council does not inherit a larger number of vetoes.

    Conclusion

    The question has moved from whether the veto should exist to whether its use can be disciplined without touching the Charter. Restraint pledges and post veto debates change the political cost of blocking action, and they leave the legal power exactly where the Charter placed it. The unreconciled point is that the only route to abolition runs through the consent of the states whose privilege would be abolished. The marker to watch is whether a permanent member that has endorsed the restraint declaration casts a veto inside the declared categories, since that is the test the pledge has not yet faced.

    About Reform of the United Nations Security Council

    1. About: Reform of the Security Council covers changes to its size, to its categories of membership and to the veto, so that a body designed at the founding of the United Nations reflects the present distribution of states and power.
    2. Composition: The Council has 15 members. Five are permanent and hold the veto, and ten are non permanent, elected by the General Assembly for two year terms without a veto.
    3. The amendment route: Article 108 of the United Nations Charter requires an amendment to be adopted by two thirds of the General Assembly and then ratified by two thirds of the members, including all five permanent members.
    4. The record of change: The Council’s size has been changed once, from 1965, when the non permanent seats were raised from six to ten. Talks on further change have run in the Assembly’s Intergovernmental Negotiations process since 2009.

    Government Initiatives

    1. Group of Four: India coordinates with Brazil, Germany and Japan on a joint claim to permanent seats, with each supporting the others’ candidature.
    2. L.69 group: India works with this grouping of developing countries from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, together with small island developing states, which presses for expansion in both membership categories.
    3. Text based negotiations: India has pressed for the Intergovernmental Negotiations to work from a single consolidated negotiating text rather than from open ended discussion.
    4. Non permanent membership: India has served eight terms as a non permanent member, most recently in 2021 and 2022, chairing the Council’s Taliban sanctions and counter terrorism committees during that term.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2015, GS2, 12 marks] Discuss the impediments India is facing in its pursuit of a permanent seat in UN Security Council.”

  • Global order is under stress, we need reformed multilateralism: Jaishankar

    Why in the News

    India has called for “reformed multilateralism”, stating that the global order is “under stress” from extreme competition and geopolitical tensions, and that the “4F crisis of fuel, food, fertiliser and finance” needs “frameworks and guardrails”. The External Affairs Minister said this at the first-ever Partners for Multilateralism, International Law, Peace & Prosperity (P4M) Summit, held on the margins of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA). The call comes days after the US President signed the Russia sanctions Bill, taking the authority to impose tariffs of up to 100 per cent on countries that continue to buy Russian oil and gas, India and China among them. The position therefore asks for rules-based cooperation at the moment a leading power has armed itself with a unilateral tariff instrument aimed partly at India.

    What is the P4M Summit?

    1. What it is: The inaugural summit of Partners for Multilateralism, International Law, Peace & Prosperity, a grouping formed around the defence of international law and multilateral practice.
    2. Co-sponsors: India co-sponsored it along with Australia, Barbados, Brazil, Canada, the European Union and Kenya.
    3. Where it sat: It was held on the margins of the 81st session of the UNGA, which put it alongside the annual gathering of world leaders rather than inside the UN’s own machinery.
    4. Who attended: The co-sponsors were represented at the level of the President of the European Council, the President of Kenya, and the Prime Ministers of Australia and Barbados.

    What case did India make for reformed multilateralism?

    1. Rebalancing versus rupture: For some decades the world has witnessed a steady rebalancing, described as a long-expected structural evolution. Extreme competition, geopolitical tensions and actual conflicts have given that rebalancing an entirely different character.
    2. The stated consequence of inaction: Left unchecked, this would call into question the very spirit of international cooperation, which is why multilateralism must assert itself strongly at this juncture.
    3. Observance of law as the precondition: Multilateralism is best served when international law, rules and norms are scrupulously observed.
    4. Two named reforms: More participative deliberations and more transparent decision-making were both described as overdue.
    5. Advocacy and practice together: For multilateralism to move ahead, both its advocacy and its practice have to be strengthened, so reform is put as an institutional task and not only a rhetorical one.

    Why does the ‘4F crisis’ need frameworks and guardrails?

    1. Nature of the risk: The crisis of fuel, food, fertiliser and finance cannot be left to itself, and where new capabilities and concerns arise there is a powerful case for frameworks and guardrails.
    2. Chokepoint dominance: Where there is a threat of chokepoint dominance and disruption, de-risking and diversifying must be encouraged.
    3. Coalitions of the like-minded: Where there is a compelling cause, the like-minded must have the confidence to come together, which accepts smaller groupings as a route when the universal body is blocked.
    4. Conflicts addressed in parts: Specific dimensions of ongoing conflicts can be addressed in parallel with the search for a broader peace.
    5. What is at stake: The issues named as real were the future of peace and international security, climate justice, countering terrorism and strengthening supply chains, all of which depend on a “will to cooperate”.

    Where does the Security Council reform question stand?

    1. A polarised Council: The 15-nation UN Security Council (UNSC) remains deeply polarised, with sharp divisions among its five permanent, veto-wielding members, China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
    2. India’s claim: New Delhi has been pitching for a seat on the Council to reflect the realities of today’s world.
    3. Support from Central Europe: The Visegrad Group backed India’s inclusion as a permanent member, with Slovakia’s Foreign Minister saying India “must be at the table” as a permanent member.
    4. Reform on the bilateral agenda: Council reform was among the multilateral issues taken up with the French Foreign Minister.

    What did the India-Visegrad meeting and the bilaterals produce?

    1. A first meeting: India held its first foreign ministers’ meeting with the four-member Visegrad Group of Central European countries, which was described as a “new historic occasion”.
    2. What the group is: The Visegrad Group (V4) is a cultural and political alliance of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia that aims to advance cooperation in military, economic, cultural and energy affairs.
    3. Agreed outcome: India and the group agreed to step up political, economic and defence cooperation.
    4. Bilaterals held: Separate meetings were held with the counterparts from Ukraine, France, Moldova and Hungary.
    5. Substance with France: Regional and global issues were discussed, specifically the Ukraine and Gulf crises, along with multilateral issues.
    6. Substance with Ukraine: The discussion covered peace efforts and the situation in the Black Sea, with restoring freedom of navigation identified as critical for global food security.

    Challenges to reformed multilateralism

    1. The amendment threshold: Changing the Council’s composition requires a UN Charter amendment ratified by two-thirds of the membership including every permanent member, so each of them holds a veto over reform itself. Eg. The Council has been enlarged only once, in 1965, when the elected seats went from six to ten.
      The Fix: Pursue an interim category of longer-term renewable elected seats, which enlarges participation without touching the veto.
    2. Incompatible claimant blocs: Rival groupings press models that cannot both be adopted, so the negotiation has no single text to amend. Eg. The G4 of India, Brazil, Germany and Japan seeks new permanent seats, and the Uniting for Consensus group opposes any new permanent members.
      The Fix: Move the Intergovernmental Negotiations onto a single negotiating text with positions recorded against each clause, so movement between sessions is visible.
    3. Financing concentrated in a few states: Assessed contributions are concentrated among a handful of members and arrears interrupt operations, so budget leverage substitutes for votes. Eg. The UN has run repeated liquidity crises from unpaid assessed contributions, forcing hiring and spending freezes at the Secretariat.
      The Fix: Shift a larger share of the regular budget onto multi-year assessed commitments, so operations do not turn on the timing of one member’s payment.
    4. Enforcement resting on the states to be restrained: Council decisions bind all members, and implementation rests with the same powers whose own conduct is contested. Eg. Draft resolutions on the war in Ukraine were blocked in the Council and moved to the General Assembly, whose resolutions are recommendatory.
      The Fix: Build on the requirement that a vetoing member explain itself before the General Assembly, making the Assembly’s recourse automatic whenever a veto blocks action.

    Conclusion

    India’s argument rests on two claims. The first is that the existing order cannot absorb the competition now running through it. The second is that energy, food and supply risks need standing frameworks rather than case-by-case responses, which is a demand for machinery and not only for representation. Backing from a group of Central European states adds a voice to the reform demand without altering the arithmetic that governs it. The External Affairs Minister addresses the General Debate on September 26, which is where the case is put to the full membership rather than to co-sponsors.

    Back2Basics: UN Security Council

    1. Founding: It was created under the UN Charter in 1945 as the organ carrying primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.
    2. Elected members: Ten non-permanent members are elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms, with no immediate re-election.
    3. Binding force: Its decisions are binding on all UN members, which distinguishes them from General Assembly resolutions.
    4. India’s record: India has served eight terms as a non-permanent member, most recently in 2021-22.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2015, GS2, 12.5 marks] Discuss the impediments India is facing in its pursuit of a permanent seat in UN Security Council.”

  • Members call for cooperation over pathogen research, access

    Why in the News

    The New Delhi Declaration adopted at the 18th BRICS Summit calls for constructive engagement in negotiations for the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS) Annex to the World Health Organization (WHO) pandemic agreement. The Declaration attaches a condition to that call, reaffirming the sovereign rights of States over their biological resources and the sovereign right to legislate and implement laws, including national access and benefit sharing legislation. The pandemic agreement itself was adopted at last year’s World Health Assembly, and this one annex is what still holds it short of ratification. The unresolved question is whether a country that shares a dangerous pathogen sample must be guaranteed a share of whatever is developed from it.

    What is the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing Annex?

    1. Purpose of the Annex: The PABS Annex will set out a roadmap for the sharing of dangerous pathogens and of the medicines, diagnostics or vaccines developed from them.
    2. Status as an annex to the pandemic agreement: It is an annex to the WHO pandemic agreement rather than a standalone instrument, so it has no effect independent of that agreement.
    3. The remaining bar to ratification: Once agreement is reached on the PABS Annex, the pandemic agreement can be approved or ratified by member states.

    Why is one annex holding up an adopted agreement?

    1. The parent agreement was already negotiated: Amid the Covid-19 pandemic the WHO planned a legally binding pandemic agreement for better response to any future pandemic, and it was adopted during last year’s World Health Assembly.
    2. Adoption is not ratification: One annex continues to hold the agreement hostage, and member states cannot approve or ratify until it is settled.
    3. The single disputed question: Countries are yet to agree on whether the sharing of pathogen samples should be linked mandatorily with the sharing of the benefits developed.

    What position did the New Delhi Declaration take?

    1. Call for constructive engagement: The Declaration calls for constructive engagement in the PABS negotiations rather than endorsing either side of the mandatory linkage question.
    2. Sovereign rights over biological resources: It reaffirms the sovereign rights of States over their biological resources.
    3. The right to national access and benefit sharing law: It reaffirms the sovereign right of States to legislate and implement laws, including national access and benefit sharing legislation.
    4. Effect of the combined position: A call for engagement paired with an assertion of sovereign control keeps the option of conditioning sample sharing on domestic law open.

    Challenges to the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing Annex

    1. Sharing and benefit are separated in time: A sample is needed within days of an outbreak while a vaccine takes many months, so a country is asked to give first and trust later. Eg. Indonesia withheld H5N1 avian influenza samples from the WHO network in 2007 after finding that vaccines developed from them were priced beyond its reach.
      The Fix: Write a pre agreed allocation percentage of real time production into the Annex itself, so entitlement is fixed before the sample is shared rather than negotiated after a product exists.
    2. Genetic sequence data escapes any physical sharing rule: A pathogen’s genome can be uploaded and used to design a product without the physical sample ever changing hands, which makes a sample based obligation easy to bypass. Eg. Covid-19 vaccine design began from a published genome sequence rather than from a transferred isolate.
      The Fix: Bring genetic sequence information expressly within the Annex’s definition of pathogen material, with database access conditioned on the same benefit sharing terms.
    3. Manufacturing capacity is concentrated in a few countries: A guaranteed share of output is worth little to a state that cannot produce, fill or distribute the product it is promised. Eg. Most African countries imported nearly all Covid-19 vaccines rather than producing any.
      The Fix: Pair the benefit share with a technology transfer obligation through the WHO mRNA technology transfer hub model, so capacity is built alongside the entitlement.
    4. A sovereignty first reading can slow outbreak response: Treating pathogens as national property lets a state delay sharing while it negotiates terms, and an outbreak does not wait for that negotiation. Eg. The Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit sharing was drafted for genetic resources generally and its permit procedures were not designed for an epidemic timeline.
      The Fix: Create a standing fast track permit under the Annex, valid on notification of a public health emergency, so sharing proceeds while the commercial terms are settled separately.
    5. Compliance rests on no enforcement mechanism: A treaty annex binds only those who ratify it, and a manufacturer outside a ratifying state carries no obligation at all. Eg. The pandemic agreement takes effect only once member states ratify it, and ratification is voluntary.
      The Fix: Route access to the WHO coordinated laboratory network through a binding contract with each participating manufacturer, so the obligation attaches to the user of the sample rather than only to its government.

    Conclusion

    The agreement is complete except for the one question that decides who benefits from it, which is why the annex and not the treaty is where the negotiation now sits. The grouping’s formal position does not resolve that question, since a call for constructive engagement alongside an assertion of sovereign control over biological resources is compatible with either outcome. What it does record is that a large bloc of developing countries will not accept an unconditional sharing obligation. The marker to watch is the next World Health Assembly, since the annex has to be settled there before any state can ratify the pandemic agreement.

    Back2Basics: World Health Assembly

    1. The WHO’s decision making body: The decision making body of the World Health Organization, attended by delegations from all WHO member states.
    2. Meeting schedule and venue: It meets annually, usually in May, at Geneva.
    3. Functions of the Assembly: It determines WHO policies, appoints the Director General, supervises financial policies and reviews and approves the programme budget.
    4. Relevance to the PABS Annex: It is the forum that adopted the pandemic agreement and the forum in which the PABS Annex has to be settled.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2020, GS2, 10 marks] Critically examine the role of WHO in providing global health security during the Covid-19 pandemic.”

  • ‘Distorted power relations in the world make Security Council non-operational’

    Why in the News

    The United Nations Secretary General has stated that distorted power relations have rendered the Security Council completely non operational, and that global superpowers have not recognised that there are limits to their power. The same assessment was extended to the Bretton Woods institutions, on the ground that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) do not correspond to the reality of emerging economies that remain underrepresented in them. The prescription put on record is not reform but an overhaul, meaning a readjustment of the power systems and governance mechanisms of the world to the reality of today rather than that of 1945. The tension is that the officeholder making the diagnosis also holds that the organisation is not broken, since its humanitarian machinery continues to function, so the failure is located precisely in the one organ with coercive authority.

    What is the Secretary General’s diagnosis of the Security Council?

    1. Eighty one years without a world war: The United Nations has guaranteed that there has been no third World War in 81 years, and the absence of two superpowers fighting each other is attributed largely to its work.
    2. The geopolitical divide inside the organisation: A strong geopolitical divide now runs through the organisation, and superpowers that have not accepted the limits of their power enter adventures that produce damaging results.
    3. Legitimacy and effectiveness as separate failures: A Council that no longer corresponds to the world of today creates a problem of legitimacy and a separate problem of effectiveness.
    4. Distorted power relations: The question is power, and power relations in the world being distorted is what makes the Council, the central entity for the preservation of peace and security, completely non operational.

    Why is the prescription an overhaul rather than reform?

    1. Operational reform is already under way: A significant amount of reform is being carried out in the operational aspects of the organisation, which is not what is at issue.
    2. Bretton Woods representation of emerging economies: The Bretton Woods system does not correspond to the reality of the emerging economies, which remain underrepresented in the World Bank, the IMF and several other institutions.
    3. Governance mechanisms still set to 1945: Power systems and governance mechanisms need to be readjusted to the reality of today’s world instead of the reality of 1945.
    4. Overhaul against reform: What is being recommended is described as more than a simple reform, and as an overhaul, meaning a change to the distribution of authority rather than to procedures inside it.

    What does the organisation still do?

    1. Institutional survival after the funding cuts: No United Nations institution has collapsed, even with fewer resources and after the funding cuts that were made.
    2. Humanitarian delivery continues: Its agencies go on working and supporting people in the most dangerous places in the world.
    3. Self reform of working methods and structures: The organisation is described as able to inclusively reform its own ways of work and its own structures, which is precisely what it cannot do to the Council.

    Where does the enforcement gap lie?

    1. Absence of a punishment mechanism: No instrument exists in the international community to guarantee that violations of international law are effectively punished.
    2. Divided major powers and state calculation: With the major powers divided, individual states calculate that they can act without consequence.
    3. No power to stop the exclusion of officials: Asked what happens when a state excludes United Nations officials and tens of thousands die, including large numbers of children, the stated position is that the organisation does not have the power to stop it.
    4. Israel’s exit and the persona non grata declaration: Israel has exited many United Nations institutions and declared the Secretary General persona non grata, which means no visa would be issued to him, and he did not request one.
    5. Genocide as a determination for the courts: Genocide is a legal definition belonging to the courts and in principle to the International Criminal Court (ICC), so the organisation describes events in Gaza as a dramatic violation of all principles under international law without offering that legal definition itself.

    What is being attempted on freedom of navigation?

    1. Capture of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait: Houthi and other groups have captured the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and oil prices are expected to rise sharply as a result.
    2. Freedom of navigation: Freedom of navigation is fundamental and must be respected.
    3. The Black Sea Grain Initiative precedent: The organisation has proposed mechanisms under which a blockade makes exceptions at least for the transport of food and fertilizers, as was done through the Black Sea Grain Initiative in the Russia Ukraine conflict.
    4. The Strait of Hormuz fertilizer offer: A similar offer has been made for the Strait of Hormuz to allow fertilizers through, and Iran has not accepted it.

    Where does India figure in this assessment?

    1. Ukraine and the Gulf in the India discussion: Both the war in Ukraine and the situation in the Gulf were discussed with the Indian Prime Minister, on a common perspective that peace and absolute freedom of navigation are needed.
    2. The assessment of India’s mediation: India’s mediation efforts and its contacts with Moscow and Kyiv, aimed at creating conditions for trust to be re established, were described as valuable, with the position taken that no country is better placed to act as a bridge builder.
    3. No mediation between India and Pakistan: The organisation is not directly involved in any mediation process between India and Pakistan, since mediation requires the agreement of both parties and that agreement does not exist.

    What was said about the United Nations map controversy?

    1. The disclaimer on United Nations maps: There is no such thing as a United Nations map with borders, and it is not for the organisation to define borders.
    2. The “Correct the Map” resolution: The “Correct the Map” resolution passed by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on 3 September is not a map. It records that there are distortions in the representation of landmasses, traces those distortions to power relations of the past, and seeks to replace the Mercator projection with maps following the “equal area” principle.
    3. The status of the disputed document: The map published by UN Geospatial on 1 July and later discussed at the General Assembly remains on the organisation’s website, and is described as not an official map but the contribution of a non governmental organisation, indicative rather than definitional.
    4. The Line of Control and Aksai Chin depiction: That map showed the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir as a dotted line with an explanatory note, while depicting Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin without the Indian and Chinese claim lines that earlier maps carried, and with no note explaining the omission.
    5. India’s recorded position: India voted for the resolution in support of the principle of equal area representation, has taken note of the anomaly in the map, and is taking it up with the organisation.

    Challenges to reform of the United Nations Security Council

    1. The permanent members hold a veto over their own dilution: Any change to the Council’s composition requires an amendment to the Charter ratified by all five permanent members, so the beneficiaries of the current structure control the exit from it. Eg. Charter amendment under Articles 108 and 109 requires ratification by all permanent members.
      The Fix: Pursue working method reform inside the existing Charter first, such as a binding commitment to withhold the veto in mass atrocity situations, since that route does not require ratification.
    2. The claimants cannot agree among themselves: Aspirants for permanent seats are blocked as much by regional rivals as by the incumbents. Eg. The Uniting for Consensus group opposes new permanent seats in the same round in which the G4 countries press for them.
      The Fix: Negotiate on an intermediate model of longer term renewable seats without veto, which separates the question of representation from the question of privilege.
    3. Text based negotiation has never begun: The Intergovernmental Negotiations process has run for over a decade without producing a single negotiating text to amend. Eg. The process continues to operate on convened position papers rather than on a draft resolution.
      The Fix: Fix a deadline by which the General Assembly President must table a consolidated single negotiating text, so positions are recorded against clauses rather than restated annually.
    4. Regional representation gaps are structural, not incidental: Africa and Latin America have no permanent seat, which is the specific defect the 1945 composition has carried forward. Eg. The Ezulwini Consensus records Africa’s claim to two permanent seats with veto and five non permanent seats, and has been outstanding since 2005.
      The Fix: Settle the African allocation first as a distinct package, since it is the one claim with an agreed continental position behind it.
    5. A reformed Council changes nothing without an enforcement instrument: Enlarging the membership does not create any means of penalising a state that ignores a Council decision. Eg. There is no instrument in the international community to guarantee that violations of international law are punished.
      The Fix: Strengthen the General Assembly’s residual authority through the Uniting for Peace route and link non compliance to automatic referral to the International Criminal Court.
    6. Financial leverage sits with the states least interested in change: Assessed contributions are concentrated among a few members, so budget pressure can be applied against reform. Eg. Cuts to the organisation’s resources have already forced its agencies to operate on reduced funding.
      The Fix: Broaden the assessed contribution base and build a reserve fund from voluntary contributions by emerging economies, so operational continuity is not hostage to a single contributor.

    Conclusion

    The assessment on record separates two things that are usually argued together: the organisation’s capacity to deliver, which is defended, and the Council’s capacity to decide, which is written off. That separation narrows the reform question from the institution as a whole to the single organ where authority and legitimacy have come apart. An outgoing officeholder’s recommendation carries no procedural weight, and the change he describes requires the assent of the states it would constrain. The thing to watch is the selection of the next Secretary General, since the terms on which that appointment is settled will show whether the membership treats the Council’s composition as a live question or a closed one.

    Back2Basics: Black Sea Grain Initiative

    1. The Black Sea Grain Initiative: An arrangement permitting the export of grain and foodstuffs from Ukrainian Black Sea ports during the Russia Ukraine conflict, negotiated in July 2022.
    2. United Nations and Turkey as brokers: It was agreed through the United Nations and Turkey, with Russia and Ukraine signing parallel agreements rather than a single joint text.
    3. The Istanbul joint coordination centre: A joint coordination centre in Istanbul inspected vessels in both directions along an agreed maritime corridor, so cargo could move without either party treating the ships as combatants.
    4. Precedent for a humanitarian exception to a blockade: It is the working precedent for carving a humanitarian exception out of a blockade, and it is the model behind the offer made for the Strait of Hormuz.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2015, GS2, 12 marks] Discuss the impediments India is facing in its pursuit of a permanent seat in UN Security Council.”

  • Arunachal and Aksai Chin between ‘unspecified’ claim lines on UN-endorsed map

    Why in the News

    A new world map endorsed at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) shows Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin as distinct regions lying between Indian and Chinese “claim lines”. The endorsement came through the “Correct the Map” resolution adopted on 4 September 2026, which India backed and voted for. The External Affairs Ministry has stated that its vote covered the underlying principle of promoting equal-area cartographic representation. The Ministry has also stated that the resolution constitutes no endorsement of any specific map, projection or depiction of national boundaries. The contest is over what the vote carried with it. A resolution India supported has put into circulation a boundary depiction India rejects, on a document multilateral institutions worldwide will use.

    What is the “Correct the Map” resolution?

    1. About: It is a UNGA resolution endorsing the Equal Earth cartographic projection, a method that renders every landmass at its true relative area rather than inflating the higher latitudes.
    2. The document it endorsed: The accompanying draft world map was authored by the UN Geospatial office on 1 July 2026 and taken up in informal UNGA consultations.
    3. Its legal weight: The map binds no state, and it will still be used by multilateral institutions worldwide as their reference outline.

    Why did African states push for a new projection?

    1. The founding demand: The African Union supported the Equal Earth projection in March 2026 on the ground that it represents Africa more accurately than the projection then in use.
    2. The framing used: The African Union called this approach “cognitive justice”, treating a distorted world image as a distortion of political standing and not only of geometry.
    3. The route to the Assembly: Togo prompted UNGA consultations on the map in April 2026, and the Assembly opened informal consultations in July 2026.
    4. The sponsorship: Togo sponsored the resolution with African Union support, so the campaign’s centre of gravity sat outside the states whose frontiers the map redraws.

    What does the map show along India’s contested frontiers?

    1. Arunachal Pradesh: The map marks the State’s southern border with Assam as the Chinese line and its northern border as the Indian line, and it eliminates the State’s border with Nagaland altogether.
    2. Aksai Chin: The eastern borders of the region are shown as the Indian line and the western borders as the Chinese line, leaving it as a zone between two competing depictions.
    3. The labelling change: These lines continue earlier UN maps, and unlike the 2011 UN map they are not specified as “claim lines” anywhere on the July 2026 sheet.
    4. Jammu and Kashmir: The map uses a dotted line for the Line of Control (LoC), with a printed note recording that the dotted line represents approximately the LoC agreed upon by India and Pakistan and that the final status of the region has not yet been agreed by the parties.
    5. Kalapani: The depiction runs in India’s favour on the Nepal frontier, reflecting India’s control over the Kalapani-Lipulekh-Limpiyadhura region that Nepal claims.

    Why does India’s vote sit uneasily with the map it endorsed?

    1. The stated basis of the vote: The External Affairs Ministry has framed India’s support as a vote on equal-area representation as a principle, detached from any boundary depiction.
    2. The standing red line: The Ministry’s position is that India’s sovereign territory, including Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, must be depicted in accordance with India’s official map, and that any inaccurate or misleading depiction is unacceptable.
    3. The gap the map leaves: No note on the map explains why Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin alone were placed between two claim lines, so the depiction carries no stated cartographic reasoning a state can answer.
    4. The asymmetry in treatment: The disputed status of Jammu and Kashmir is written out in a note on the map, and the northern frontier lines carry no equivalent qualification.

    Challenges to the UN world map’s boundary depiction

    1. A non-binding map still becomes the working outline: Agencies reuse a United Nations base map in reports, datasets and briefings long after the political moment that produced it. Eg. China issued a “standard map” in 2023 placing Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin within its own boundary, and India rejected the depiction formally.
      The Fix: Press for an explicit cartographic note recording the northern lines as unsettled claims, on the pattern the same map already applies to other disputed frontiers.
    2. Third party cartography hardens bilateral disputes: A published depiction gives each side a document to cite in a boundary question only the two states can settle. Eg. Nepal amended its Constitution in 2020 to adopt a map including Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura, and India rejected the amended map.
      The Fix: Route objections through the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs and the India-Nepal Boundary Working Group rather than through the publisher alone.
    3. Depiction is settled in expert bodies, not in the plenary: Boundary conventions are prepared by geospatial specialists and arrive at member states as a finished draft. Eg. Cartographic standards are developed through the UN Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management rather than by a floor vote.
      The Fix: Place Indian surveyors and cartographers inside those expert bodies so a depiction is contested at drafting stage rather than after adoption.
    4. Domestic map rules carry no force on foreign publishers: India regulates how its boundaries are shown within its own jurisdiction and holds no equivalent leverage over a document issued abroad. Eg. Foreign platforms have repeatedly shown Jammu and Kashmir with dotted boundaries in editions sold outside India.
      The Fix: Publish the Survey of India’s official outline as a free machine readable dataset, so the authoritative version is the cheapest one for an international user to adopt.

    Conclusion

    A cartographic reform demanded on grounds of equity has produced a frontier depiction India does not accept, on a document India voted to endorse. The projection question and the boundary question travelled together, and only the first was ever put to the Assembly. What to watch is whether the External Affairs Ministry secures a labelling correction from the UN Geospatial office before the map settles into routine multilateral use. The second marker is whether India’s objection is recorded on the sheet itself rather than in a statement alongside it.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2025, GS2, 15 marks] “The reform process in the United Nations remains unresolved, because of the delicate imbalance of East and West and entanglement of the USA vs. Russo-Chinese alliance.” Examine and critically evaluate the East-West policy confrontations in this regard.”

  • India votes in favour of UNGA resolution on new world map

    Why in the News

    India has voted in favour of a United Nations General Assembly resolution aimed at correcting the world map to promote a “more accurate representation” of continental landmasses. The 193-member Assembly adopted the resolution “Correct the map: rebalancing global cartographic representation and promoting equitable representation of the world’s regions, particularly Africa”, which was sponsored by Togo. It encourages governments and institutions around the world to replace the traditional Mercator map with the Equal Earth projection, which “shows locations more accurately”. The resolution carried 164 votes in favour, with a lone vote against from the United States. The question the vote raises is whether a projection designed in the sixteenth century for navigation should continue to set how the world’s regions are seen.

    What is a map projection, and what does the Mercator do to area?

    1. The underlying problem: A projection is the rule for transferring a curved surface onto a flat sheet, and no flat map can preserve shape, area, distance and direction at the same time. Every projection therefore chooses which property to keep and which to sacrifice.
    2. What the Mercator keeps: It preserves angles, so a line of constant compass bearing plots as a straight line. That property is what made it a navigator’s map.
    3. What it sacrifices: Scale grows with distance from the equator, so landmasses near the poles are inflated and those near the equator are compressed. Eg. Greenland reads as roughly the size of Africa, though Africa is about 14 times larger.
    4. What Equal Earth does instead: It is an equal-area projection, so every region occupies its true share of the map’s surface. The cost is a controlled distortion of shape rather than of size.

    What did the Assembly actually adopt?

    1. The instrument is a recommendation: The resolution encourages governments and institutions to switch projection. A General Assembly resolution of this kind carries no binding force on any member state.
    2. The sponsor and the stated purpose: Togo sponsored the text, and its stated aim is the equitable representation of the world’s regions, and of Africa in particular.
    3. The campaign behind it: It carries forward an African Union-backed campaign to limit use of the Mercator map on the ground that visual under-representation reinforces a perception of the continent as peripheral.
    4. India’s vote: India voted in favour, placing it with the large majority rather than with the abstaining or dissenting group.

    What does the voting pattern show?

    1. The scale of support: 164 of the 193 members voted in favour, which is an overwhelming margin for a text with a contested premise.
    2. The single dissent: The United States cast the lone vote against.
    3. The abstentions: Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine abstained.
    4. What a wide margin does not settle: Adoption records agreement on a principle. It creates no obligation on any national mapping agency, publisher or platform to change what it prints.

    Challenges to replacing the Mercator projection

    1. No projection is politically neutral, and equal-area maps distort in their own way: Preserving area forces a distortion of shape, so a switch trades one visual misrepresentation for another. Eg. The Gall-Peters projection was promoted on the same equity argument in the 1970s and 1980s, and it stretched Africa vertically enough that seven North American geographic bodies passed a joint resolution in 1989 against rectangular projections of that kind.
      The Fix: Pair any recommendation with published guidance on which projection suits which purpose, so a navigation chart and a thematic world map are not held to one standard.
    2. The digital map layer is locked into Mercator by design: Web mapping tiles use a Mercator variant because it keeps north upward and shapes locally correct at every zoom level, which is what makes seamless zooming possible. Eg. Web Mercator underlies the standard tile schemes of the major online mapping services.
      The Fix: Require default map interfaces to switch to an equal-area view at continental and global zoom levels, where the distortion is largest and the navigation property is not being used.
    3. The change has to travel through textbooks and curricula, which move slowly: School atlases, examination material and classroom wall maps are procured on multi-year cycles, so a resolution adopted in one year reaches a classroom several later. Eg. Boston’s public school district switched its classroom maps to an equal-area projection in 2017, and the change stayed confined to that district.
      The Fix: Route the recommendation through national survey agencies and curriculum bodies, which specify the base maps that textbook publishers are obliged to reproduce.

    Conclusion

    The vote settles a question of principle that was never seriously contested and leaves the operative one untouched. What people actually see is set by the default projection of a handful of digital mapping services and by the atlases that education departments procure, and none of them is bound by this text. The measure of the resolution is therefore not the margin it passed by. It is whether a national mapping agency or a major platform changes its default in the year that follows.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “With reference to the United Nations General Assembly, consider the following statements : 1. The UN General Assembly can grant observer status to the non-member States. 2. Inter-governmental organisations can seek observer status in the UN General Assembly. 3. Permanent Observers in the UN General Assembly can maintain missions at the UN headquarters. Which of the statements given above are correct ? (a) 1 and 2 only (b) 2 and 3 only (c) 1 and 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3”

  • ‘UN Convention on the Law of the Sea is still the constitution of oceans’

    ‘UN Convention on the Law of the Sea is still the constitution of oceans’

    Why in the News

    The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) remains the governing framework for the world’s oceans, in the assessment of Tommy Koh. He presided over the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, and led more than 150 nations to adopt the Convention in 1982. He is among this year’s Ramon Magsaysay award winners. He puts the number of parties at 172 and treats that as near universal. The United States has never ratified the Convention and still regards it as the authoritative law of the sea. Iran is not a party either, and the regime of transit passage binds it as customary international law. The Convention’s authority is therefore being tested in the Strait of Hormuz against a state that never accepted the treaty.

    What is UNCLOS?

    1. What it is: A comprehensive treaty setting the legal order for the world’s oceans, adopted in 1982 after nine years of negotiation and in force since 1994.
    2. What it allocates: It fixes the maritime zones a coastal state may claim and the rights it holds in each, running outward from the territorial sea to the exclusive economic zone, the continental shelf and the high seas.
    3. What it does with the deep seabed: Part XI treats the deep seabed and its minerals as the “common heritage of mankind”, to be administered for all states rather than claimed by any one of them.
    4. Why it is described as a constitution: It settles jurisdiction, resource rights and dispute settlement in one instrument, so later ocean agreements are negotiated inside its framework rather than beside it.

    Why has the United States never ratified UNCLOS?

    1. The objection was to the seabed regime, not to the law of the sea: The Reagan Administration rejected Part XI as incompatible with free enterprise and private property norms.
    2. It reversed an earlier American position: The stance taken during the Carter Administration was changed under President Reagan, and the demands that followed were rejected by the developing countries.
    3. The 1994 repair did not change the outcome: A separate agreement in 1994 revised the Part XI arrangements to meet those objections, and ratification still did not follow.
    4. Non ratification is not confined to one objector: Iran and a number of other states have also stayed outside the Convention.

    What binds a state that is not a party?

    1. The count itself does the work: With 172 parties, the Convention’s rules describe general state practice rather than the internal arrangements of a treaty club.
    2. Custom reaches the non party: Transit passage through international straits has passed into customary international law, so it binds Iran although Iran never joined the Convention.
    3. The dispute is political rather than legal: There was no trouble in the Strait of Hormuz before the war, so the priority is ending the war rather than rewriting the law that governs the strait.
    4. A fourth conference answers the wrong question: Reopening the Convention to bring the remaining states in would put a settled architecture back on the negotiating table, and near universal participation already exists without it.

    Where does the Convention not reach?

    1. Dark fleet enforcement is happening outside it: States are designating vessels as a “dark fleet” and taking punitive material action against them, including on the high seas.
    2. The forum named for that problem is the IMO: The International Maritime Organization, rather than a law of the sea conference, is where the practice should be addressed.
    3. Boundary disputes are read as application, not failure: Exclusive economic zone and seabed contests in the South China Sea and over Indian Ocean boundaries are treated as arguments inside the Convention’s architecture rather than as evidence that the architecture has stopped working.

    Conclusion

    A treaty honoured by states that never signed it is strong in one sense and weak in another. Its rules describe how states actually behave, which is precisely what turns them into custom. It carries no way of compelling a state that decides to behave differently, because the states outside it are the ones its dispute settlement machinery cannot reach. That gap is where a closed strait sits, and no further round of accessions would close it.

    Back2Basics: International Maritime Organization

    1. What it is: The United Nations specialised agency responsible for the safety and security of shipping and for preventing marine pollution by ships.
    2. When it was established: It was created by a convention adopted in 1948, began functioning in 1959, and is headquartered in London.
    3. What it produces: Its principal instruments are the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) and the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL).
    4. How it enforces: It sets standards that flag states then apply to ships registered with them, so it regulates through member state implementation rather than by direct enforcement at sea.

    [2022] With reference to the United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea, consider the following statements :

    1. A coastal state has the right to establish the breadth of its territorial sea up to a limit not exceeding 12 nautical miles, measured from baseline determined in accordance with the convention.

    2. Ships of all states, whether coastal or land-locked, enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea.

    3. The Exclusive Economic Zone shall not extend beyond 200 nautical miles from the baseline from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured.

    Which of the statements given above are correct ?

    (a) 1 and 2 only

    (b) 2 and 3 only

    (c) 1 and 3 only

    (d) 1, 2 and 3

  • UN panel presents legal case for broad slavery reparations

    Why in the News

    The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has issued a fresh interpretation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, 1965.

    What is a general recommendation, and what weight does it carry?

    1. It is a treaty body’s authoritative reading of the text: A general recommendation is an interpretation of a convention’s provisions issued by the expert committee that monitors it, addressed to every State party rather than to one government.
    2. It creates no new obligation: The instrument does not amend the convention. It states what the committee holds the existing text already requires.
    3. It is unenforceable but not without effect: The findings carry authoritative weight and can inform judicial review, serve courts as an interpretative tool, and be relied on in litigation.

    What does the interpretation require of States parties?

    1. The measures must be comprehensive: States parties are required to implement reparatory measures for people of African descent covering all aspects of remedies.
    2. Three classes of measure are named: Reparatory justice is stated to combine a wide range of measures conceived as monetary, non monetary and structural.
    3. Indirect involvement is included: The duty attaches to States that profited from or facilitated the trade, not only to those that transported and sold people.
    4. Redress is framed as an obligation: The Committee treats reparation as flowing from the convention itself rather than as a policy choice available to a government.

    What is the historical record the finding rests on?

    1. At least 12.5 million Africans were taken and sold: The Committee places that transport and sale between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries.
    2. It is characterised as the largest forced displacement in history: That characterisation is the basis on which the Committee treats the harm as continuing rather than closed.
    3. The United Nations has already classed slavery a crime against humanity: The Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, adopted at the World Conference against Racism in 2001, recorded slavery and the slave trade as crimes against humanity.
    4. A standing forum already exists: The General Assembly established the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent in 2021 as an advisory body on the rights of that population.
    5. The observance period has been extended: The International Decade for People of African Descent ran from 2015 to 2024, and a second decade was proclaimed for 2025 to 2034.

    Challenges to reparations for the transatlantic slave trade

    1. No forum can compel a State to pay: The Committee reviews reports and issues findings, and it holds no power to order a remedy against a State party. Eg. An inter-State claim under the convention reaches the International Court of Justice only where both States accept that jurisdiction, and several former slave trading States have entered reservations to the clause.
      The Fix: Route the claim through a negotiated inter-governmental commission with a fixed mandate and a reporting cycle, so the obligation is settled by agreement rather than left to a forum neither side can reach.
    2. Successor States dispute liability for pre-independence conduct: A modern government argues it is not the legal person that carried on a trade abolished two centuries ago. Eg. The United Kingdom has expressed regret for the slave trade and has declined to accept legal liability for reparations.
      The Fix: Separate acknowledgement from transfer by fixing a development finance commitment tied to identified harms, which avoids the succession question without abandoning the remedy.
    3. Quantifying the harm has no accepted method: Monetary, non monetary and structural measures rest on different bases, and no agreed formula converts historical injury into a present figure. Eg. The Caribbean Community’s Ten Point Plan for Reparatory Justice, adopted in 2013, sets out categories of remedy without attaching a sum to any of them.
      The Fix: Commission a standing statistical exercise on health, education and land outcomes for the affected population, so remedies are sized against measurable present day gaps.
    4. Domestic litigation fails on procedure before it reaches merit: Claims are dismissed on limitation, standing and sovereign immunity rather than decided on the underlying wrong. Eg. Reparations suits filed in United States courts against corporations linked to slavery were dismissed on standing and limitation grounds.
      The Fix: Enact a statutory limitation waiver for historic gross rights violations, which is what allowed residential school and forced sterilisation claims to be heard in other jurisdictions.
    5. A non binding finding can harden a State’s position: A government that rejects the interpretation gains a reason to disengage from the reporting process the Committee depends on. Eg. Treaty body reporting is already years in arrears across the system, with overdue State reports running into the hundreds.
      The Fix: Pair the interpretation with a technical assistance track, so a State that accepts the framing has a route to comply that does not begin with a payment.

    Conclusion

    The Committee has moved reparations from a political demand to a stated treaty obligation. What it cannot supply is the machinery that would make the obligation operate. The unresolved tension is that the same text a claimant will now cite in court is one a government can decline to act on without breaching anything enforceable. The point to watch is whether a national court anywhere treats the interpretation as a live legal standard rather than as commentary.

    Back2Basics: Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

    1. Parent instrument: Created by the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, 1965, which entered into force in 1969.
    2. Composition: Eighteen independent experts elected by States parties, serving in their personal capacity rather than as government representatives.
    3. Core function: It examines periodic reports from States parties on the measures taken to give effect to the convention.
    4. Additional procedures: It operates an early warning and urgent action procedure, and it can consider individual complaints against a State that has made a declaration under Article 14.

    [2017, GS2, 10 marks] What are the main functions of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)? Explain different functional commissions attached to it.”