Matt Reeder, Dalhousie University, Halifax, February 19, 2019<\/p>\n
For more than 70 years, the United Nations has linked the many countries of the world together through its extensive patchwork of conventions, treaties, agencies and decision-making structures.<\/p>\n
But politics and pessimism increasingly threaten to undermine the global body\u2019s ability to act in the face of pressing crises and concerns, said Canadian humanitarian Stephen Lewis in the Shaar Shalom lecture at Dalhousie earlier this month.<\/p>\n
The United States has actively disengaged from the organization, failing to even send a new ambassador after the last one\u2019s term ended, he noted. And nationalists around the world consistently question the organization\u2019s very political legitimacy. Meanwhile, humanitarians have grown particularly frustrated with the paralysis of the UN\u2019s political wing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is where much of the disaffection and much of the public concern stems from,\u201d he said, referring to the Secretary General, Security Council and General Assembly. \u201cIt\u2019s obvious that we grind down in a kind of abattoir of inflexibility when dealing with tremendous human concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 600 people turned out to the McInnes Room in the Student Union Building for Lewis\u2019s talk, an annual event established by the Shaar Shalom Synagogue<\/a> and Dal\u2019s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences<\/a> as a way to explore the broad themes of tolerance, multiculturalism and diversity.<\/p>\n Lewis touched on a wide range of critical issues on which the UN has failed to show leadership in recent years, including climate change, mass migration, natural disasters and humanitarian crises in countries such as Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Venezuala and Myanmar.<\/p>\n Lewis, who served for years as Canada\u2019s ambassador to the UN and in various senior roles in the organization, painted a picture of a global body desperately in need of strong moral leadership.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need leaders who are not afraid to take on issues that are disputatious and where there will be disagreement, but where principle will ultimately prevail because they gather around them a sonorous voice of agreement. It is so desperately required,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has spoken out on some of the critical issues but doesn\u2019t seem to have the \u201cgravitas\u201d or influence to \u201cbring other countries into the fold.\u201d<\/p>\n Further complicating Canada\u2019s ability to provide independent leadership at the UN is the country\u2019s current campaign to secure a seat on the Security Council in the 2020 elections, said Lewis.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything we do is premised on whether or not our positions will enhance our opportunity to be elected to the Security Council,\u201d he said, calling it an \u201cobsession.\u201d<\/p>\n The “other” United Nations<\/strong><\/p>\n Lewis tempered his pessimism slightly when he spoke about the work of the \u201cwhole other half of the United Nations\u201d that people sometimes forget about \u2014\u00a0namely funds, programs and agencies such as the United Nations Development Program, the World Health Organization and the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), where Lewis spent four years as deputy executive director in the mid-to-late 1990s.<\/p>\n \u201cI have to say these funds and programs do magnificent work and they uphold the conventions [such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, for instance] which countries so often ignore,\u201d said Lewis, who also spent five years as the Secretary-General\u2019s Special Envoy for HIV\/AIDS in Africa.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd if and when you\u2019re traveling on the ground through developing countries as I did constantly when I had been given the privilege of working on HIV for the UN, that\u2019s all they talk about,\u201d he added. \u201cThey are not interested in what goes on at the Security Council, even though that may imperil the world. What they are interested in is what the agencies are doing on the ground to help their people and to work in concert with community-based organizations in those countries.\u201d<\/p>\n Lewis also spoke of efforts to reform the United Nations to make it more functional and less subject to the political calculus underpinning international affairs, but said meaningful reform is tough to achieve given the veto power of the Security Council\u2019s five permanent members (China, Russia, the U.S., the UK and France).<\/p>\n A question-and-answer period following Lewis\u2019s talk drew audience questions on everything from if the UN should be replaced (it\u2019s \u201cworth saving\u201d) to how to measure success when even good leaders can\u2019t achieve much change there (\u201cyou judge success by occasional progress\u201d).<\/p>\n In the end, he said during his talk, it\u2019s all about leadership.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what\u2019s needed,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople who, in a principled and compassionate way, want to change the world and save the United Nations in the process.\u201d<\/p>\n Lewis is the board chair of the Stephen Lewis Foundation<\/a>, a non-governmental group that assists AIDS- and HIV-related projects in Africa. He is also co-founder and co-director of AIDS-Free World in the United States.<\/p>\n