Despite Complex Global Landscape, Deputy Secretary-General Urges International Studies Students Not to ‘Lose Sight’ of Organization’s Guiding Principles

Following is UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson’s lecture, “A Conversation on the United Nations in the New Global Landscape”, as prepared for delivery, at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, in Washington, D.C., today:

I am very pleased to be here with you this evening.  It is a particular pleasure to be welcomed by my friend Shirin Tahir-Kheli with whom I served at the United Nations in the 1990s.  It is also good to be here in Washington at SAIS [School of Advanced International Studies].  The United Nations has many SAIS alumni among our staff.  I hope some of you here will go on to work with us in developing solutions to some of the global problems we will be discussing this evening.

When we look at the world around us, we could be forgiven for feeling that we are living through an unusually uncertain, troubled and difficult period.  More people — 60 million — are displaced than any time since the end of the Second World War.  An arc of instability and conflict stretches from the Sahel, across the Maghreb and into the wider Middle East.  Around the world, too many people still struggle to feed their children, find decent work and live a life of dignity.  The migration and refugee crisis stemming from unsolved conflicts and horrific living conditions is a dramatic sign of the times.

But there is also hope.  Just over a month ago, a historic agreement was reached in New York on the Sustainable Development Goals:  17 goals to which every United Nations Member State has signed up.

This new “2030 Agenda” is our blueprint to leave no one behind — to ensure that every man, woman and child can see an end to poverty; freedom from hunger; access to health and education; gender equality; access to clean water, sanitation and energy; decent work; effective institutions; and peace and justice.  The new goals are universal.  Every country has agreed to be bound and led by them.

These goals also have at their core the basic idea of sustainability.  In one month, in Paris, world leaders will come together again after the summits in Addis and New York.  This time they aim to reach an agreement on tackling one of the biggest threats of all — climate change.

Time has almost run out for us to limit global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius, the threshold beyond which the world could face runaway climate change.  It has taken a long time for world leaders to face seriously this threat.  But we are finally on the threshold of a low-carbon transformation of the global economy.  Many countries have submitted their national plans for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  The private sector is growingly making long-term investments in a low-carbon future.

Together the Sustainable Development Goals and a new, universal climate agreement represent a historic commitment to collective action on the most important challenges of our time.  That Member States can come together like this, at a time of great turbulence, sends a powerful message to set a new course for the road ahead.

At the same time, we must address the acute conflicts and instability around the world which threaten to block progress and reverse the gains we have made.  So what are the factors driving today’s turmoil?  And what role can the United Nations play in addressing them?

Let me share some reflections and observations with you.  The world today is more interdependent and interconnected than ever before.  People communicate across time zones at the tap of their fingers, sharing ideas, information, knowledge and skills.  Economies and markets are deeply intertwined.  Goods and people move across borders with greater ease than ever.

But so do diseases and weapons, illicit financial flows and extremist propaganda.  For every opportunity that this new world has produced, there is an equally important challenge or risk.  And as the line between “national” and “international” has become blurred, it means that almost any issue being debated at the domestic level — migration, health, energy, water, terrorism — also has an international dimension.

Governments simply cannot deliver stable, prosperous societies at home without international cooperation.  We therefore need to create the space for constructive, open dialogue between Member States so that good international solutions can be identified.  All Governments must recognize that such international solutions are in their own national interest.

So what does this mean for the UN?  What role can a multilateral organization of nation States play in this new and complex world?  The challenges we face today are a severe test of multilateralism.  Many people question whether international institutions deliver sufficient results on the ground.

The strains at the international level mirror the strains Governments are feeling at the national level.  I think about the erosion of trust in their ability to deliver and impatience among people with the speed and results of their decision-making.  The United Nations is a reflection of the world as it is.  But it is also a reflection of the world as it should be.  Our job is to close that gap, or at least reduce it.

Let me share with you how we are trying to do this across the main three pillars of our work.  The United Nations was established, as the Charter states it, “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”.  There is an argument that the UN, by its very existence, has been successful in helping to prevent a third world war.  It has allowed the great Powers to meet and address many disputes that might otherwise have gotten out of hand.

The UN has also contributed to resolving many smaller-scale inter-State and civil wars over the years with tools such as peacekeeping, mediation and sanctions.  But the nature of warfare keeps changing.  Today, we face a new set of peace and security challenges.

First, a number of conflicts such as those in Syria, Yemen or Ukraine have to a great degree become proxies for larger geopolitical tensions.  This means that when we turn to the Security Council for the strong response needed to underpin our diplomatic efforts, we often find deadlock and dysfunction instead of a clear, unified voice.  Here, I think very much about the Syrian nightmare with enormous ramifications on regional and international security.

Second, there is increasingly a sectarian or ideological dimension to many conflicts.  This makes traditional diplomatic tools much less effective, and can also make the conflict far more intractable.  Perhaps most dramatically, we see the dangerous rise of violent extremist groups with territorial ambition and cross-border reach.  Non-State actors in the internet age are able to communicate instantly, mobilize quickly, and export their propaganda to a global audience.

This is a challenge for the affected countries and the regions.  It is also a challenge for the international community as we try to find the levers to constrain these groups.  Increasing exposure to asymmetric threats — terrorist groups that are targeting civilians, United Nations personnel and humanitarian workers — has also put UN peacekeeping operations in a more defensive posture in many places.

The Secretary-General has committed to tackling these challenges and making UN peacekeeping fit for purpose in today’s world.  To this end, he recently commissioned a high-level panel to review our peace operations and make recommendations on how to adapt them for our new realities.

That panel submitted its report in June.  We are now embarking on consultations with Member States on how to implement the important ideas in this and the other related reports on peacebuilding and on women, peace and security (Security Council resolution 1325 (2000)).

This is why, in spite of the challenges, I feel a real sense of hope about our work in peace and security:  we have recognized the changing nature of the challenges and are working hard to adapt our tools to them.  Above all, I hope we will develop a culture of prevention, acting on early signs of conflict and identifying root causes.

Let me now turn to the second pillar of our work, development.  I have already mentioned the ground-breaking nature of the Sustainable Development Goals.  It took a mammoth political effort to arrive at these goals.  But the world’s leaders were motivated by the daunting challenges faced in development — poverty, hunger, discrimination against women, lack of access to education, water, sanitation and energy.

At the same time, we have had to ask ourselves questions that simply did not occur to earlier generations:

• How much growth can our global economic system sustain?
• How can we decouple economic growth and carbon emissions?
• How do we counter the trend of rising inequalities and the growing concentration of wealth in private hands?  Oxfam predicts that the richest 1 per cent could own more than 50 per cent of the world’s wealth by 2016.  This inequality stunts growth and rightly leaves people feeling voiceless and marginalized with dangerous social and political consequences.

The Sustainable Development Goals and the climate agreement we hope will be reached in Paris represent a transformative approach to sustainable development.  But Governments alone cannot bring about change of this magnitude.  Success will require all actors to mobilize — the private sector, non-governmental organizations and civil society, as well as the academic and scientific communities.

The new agenda is the product of the most wide-ranging consultation process in UN history.  It will be vital to keep people engaged, keep coalitions together, and work tirelessly to meet the crucial test of implementation.  To reach these goals we cannot rely on “business as usual”.  We have to mobilize broadly and deeply in our societies and our interested organizations, not least the United Nations.

The global landscape may be changing, but the values that underpin our work remain as relevant as they were in 1945.  These purposes and principles are enshrined in the UN Charter and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  They are captured in the extensive body of international humanitarian law.  And they are made tangible in the daily lives of people through the rule of law.

Yet, tragically, we are witnessing a serious erosion of respect for these core principles.  This is happening not only in the places we may first think of — fragile States where law and order have broken down or where civilians are at the mercy of violent extremists.  It is also happening in countries that have long been stalwarts of international law, where new challenges such as refugee flows have caused some to call into question some of these basic obligations.

It is vital, even as we adapt to keep pace with a changing world, that we do not lose sight of the fundamental principles that guide us.  To that end, the Secretary-General and I have been working to ensure the primacy of human rights through our Human Rights Up Front initiative, which reflects our conviction that violations of human rights are the best early warning signs of instability and conflict.  Why should we wait to act for mass atrocities to occur when we see serious human rights violations?

A deeper appreciation of human rights must inform our responses to the threat of terrorism and violent extremism.  We must not be provoked or play into the hands of those who thrive on hatred and division, who compete in brutality in order to instil fear in our societies, dividing us into “us” and “them”.

I want to end — as I began — on hope.  I mentioned the Sustainable Development Goals and the climate agreement as reasons for hope.  Let me mention some more.

• The empowerment of women.  It is real. It is a remarkable moment where key candidates for the next President of the United States and for the next Secretary-General of the United Nations are women.
• There are more young and well-informed people in the world than ever before, which offers great potential.
• In spite of painful transition problems, inclusion and accountability are becoming more deeply rooted in many countries around the world.
• There are remarkable advances in science and technology, not least in the areas of health and environment.
• The agreement between Iran and the P5+1 countries [China, France, Russian Federation, United Kingdom, United States and Germany] reminds us that even the most intractable issues can be resolved by patient and skilful diplomacy.

We are not naïve.  These hopeful signs are only part of a story.  Too many people across the world still live in poverty, conflict or despair.  The refugee and migration challenge will be with us for a long time, with far-reaching political, economic and social effects.

In our complex world, it is important for us to keep a wider perspective and recognize the longer-term trends.   Dag Hammarskjöld always underlined the importance of having a clear vision, a horizon.  But he also noted that equally important is the step you take tomorrow which moves you towards that vision.

It is sometimes said that the darkest hour is before the dawn.  There are indeed times when the world around us seems very dark.  But then I remember how many reasons we have for hope and I look forward to that dawn.  Thank you.