For five and a half decades, the United Nations has served the international community as a major, indeed the principal, guarantor of world order. Two factors were essential in allowing the United Nations to fulfil this mission. Firstly, it was the only all-inclusive forum for consultations and interaction by countries -- big and small. Secondly, it created and embodied a set of rules and norms of international behaviour that became accepted virtually worldwide. From principles of conflict resolution to development criteria, to standards of environmental safety and labour rights, the United Nations and its affiliate agencies establis! hed a set of guidelines that reflected an international consensus of values, which are supposed to be followed by every nation that cares about its place in the world community. This was the United Nations biggest historical achievement that by all means ought to be sustained.

Until the last decade of the twentieth century, the United Nations operated in a well-structured and clearly demarcated environment, characterized by the existence of "two poles" and "three worlds" which balanced each other in the global arena. It is true that this pattern could eventually prevent the Organization from operating efficiently; indeed, sometimes it found itself in a deadlock. However, every major actor in the international arena had a certain interest in the smooth operation of the United Nations as a set of institutions able to constrain the ambitions of their rivals.

The end of the East-West division opened a new era in the development of the international system, but did not br! ing about "the end of history". Indeed, the risk of a global nuclear conflict has diminished, if not disappeared altogether, but lower-scale conflicts and hostilities have proliferated over many areas. Instead of one big cold war, we now have numerous small hot wars. They seem easier to start and more difficult to contain. The constraints of the old international system do not exist any longer, but the world risks becoming even more divided than in the past.

While the ideologically-motivated power struggle on the international arena is becoming increasingly irrelevant, the future seems to be shaped by the growing gap between prosperous and less successful societies. In the long run, the impact of this gap over international politics could be dramatic.

It is in this context that the United Nations has to define itself and its mission in the emerging new world. In this world, the idea of equilibrium is becoming unclear, familiar boundaries are eroding, and the very not! ion of a sovereign nation-the membership unit of the United Nations and historically the building block of the international world order -- is increasingly questioned by the forces of globalization.

Indeed, globalization seems to be the most serious single, in fact all-embracing, challenge to the evolving international system. This phenomenon unleashes powerful forces operating in the direction of unprecedented information developments, technological innovation, economic growth and increasing homogeneity of the world. At the same time, the international community is becoming increasingly dominated by privileged clubs of rich and powerful countries that act as agents of globalization, along with the largest transnational companies and international bureaucratic institutions, as well as informal clubs of powerful individuals and interest groups.

Against this background, some see extremely worrisome trends in what they call the "unipolar tendency" of the post-cold-war w! orld-the growing concentration of military might, and the political and economic power in the hands of the United States and a few of its allies. In a broader sense, many major actors, while professing their loyalty to global institutions and values, do not feel constrained any more by UN limitations and requirements. Meanwhile, global values of the highest order, most of all humanitarian values, may be seriously threatened, and their legitimacy cast into doubt if they are perceived as an instrument for the powerful countries and blocs to violate the national sovereignty of the weaker nations. Contradictions between global values and actors may well become the source of most pressing international conflicts in the twenty-first century.

These challenges are bound to play the definitive role in the debate over the United Nations future. It is a matter of fact that these days international institutions of a less than comprehensive membership and with a single core of domina! nt nations -- Group of Seven, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, International Monetary Fund, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, World Trade Organization -- function by default as elements of global governance. Should the United Nations be weaving itself into this institutional web and accept whatever functions are allocated to it in this new order which is far from democratic by any standards? Let us recall that the United Nations was designed not as an instrument or a part of world government, but as an avenue for expressing national will and reaching collective decisions by sovereign nations. Its primary responsibility in the years to come would be to act as a counterweight to those excesses of both globalization and "unipolarity" that weaken the national sovereignty of UN members and therefore jeopardize the democratic accountability of their Governments.

One of the specific directions for speedy UN response would be to consider the legitimacy of! decisions by regional blocs and individual countries unilaterally extending areas of responsibility of their military forces to include other, especially non-aligned, nations without their consent. Another important avenue would be to devise a system of coordination for addressing the issue of international organized crime and shadow economy and, yet another, to set up a global system for managing speculative capital flows, including those circulating via Internet channels.

This brings to the fore the problem of the enforcement mechanism that has been traditionally weak at the United Nations. It pertains not only to decisions made by official UN bodies, but also to the initial obligations of the States stemming from UN membership, from financial contributions to restrictions upon the use of force by national governments and regional alliances.

Weak and poor nations that constitute the majority of UN members are clearly unable to ensure compliance with these rules a! nd norms, while the most rich and powerful nations often have no incentives and particular desire to do so. As a result, the major responsibility for the maintenance and smooth functioning of international institutions falls upon middle-sized powers that have both the interest and the resources required for this purpose. The international community would be right to expect these nations to play the leading role in designing an enforcement mechanism for UN decisions, which may include the setting-up of an international law enforcement unit subordinated to the Security Council.

Any major reform strengthening the international authority of the United Nations would be expected to face opposition, both from powerful nationalist forces in major States and from international interests of an exclusionary nature. Advocates of a stronger United Nations will need to mobilize international public opinion in favour of change, and work out the rules that would provide it with some in! stitutional base within the UN structure. In this regard, much will depend upon personal initiatives of the Secretary-General and other senior officials.

One can only agree with the view of French President Jacques Chirac that the globalization process ought to be made more participatory and socially inclusive, and that it is up to the United Nations to design the appropriate mechanisms. Non-governmental actors are playing an increasingly important role in the global community, and one would expect their position gradually to be institutionalized within the UN system. For this purpose, innovative forms of democratic representation need to be designed for internationally significant social and political forces.

In the longer term, one would expect the United Nations to take the lead in setting up a democratic system of global governance that would be fully accountable to sovereign nations and based on the rules of the game favouring the majority of the world populatio! n while guaranteeing the unalienable rights of minorities.

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