The UN at 75. How Today’s Challenges Will Shape the Next 25 Years
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24201/fi.v61i3.2849Keywords:
United Nations, UN, peace and security, international development, humanitarian aid, Human rightsAbstract
Against the backdrop of the 75th anniversary of the United Nations Organization (un), celebrated in 2020, this paper takes stock of the situation and seeks to show how the strength lost by multilateralism in many of the most pressing issues on the global level has had a negative impact on several of the organization’s fundamental activities. The situation is evaluated in four of the United Nation’s major fields of activity: peace and security, international development, humanitarian aid and human rights. The paper argues that several of the significant advances made in each area now face the risk of setbacks or dilution. In each of these major issues, the main challenges facing the organization are analyzed, while proposing a number of lines of action that should be developed or towards which the UN should reorient its work.
This review is of considerable relevance given the challenges the world faces today—particularly those related to climate change, but also the enormous demographic changes of the decades to come, and the impact of technology—can only be addressed through collective action, and the United Nations should play a central role in this regard.
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