Shashi Tharoor, United Nations under-secretary-general for communications and public information, posed the question "Does the United Nations Have a Future?" to a crowded Fleishman Commons Thursday for the 2007 Terry Sanford Distinguished Lecture.
Tharoor, who came second in the 2006 race to succeed Kofi Annan as the U.N. secretary-general, discussed the current issues facing the U.N. and its role as an international forum for cooperation.
"In 2007, I would argue that the need for a universal means for global governance, a mechanism for international cooperation, indeed for a United Nations, is stronger than ever," Tharoor said.
Tharoor traced the history of the U.N. and emphasized its many successes. Although he acknowledged that the U.N. has failed at times, Tharoor said the 20th century with the U.N. has been more peaceful than the 20th century without the U.N.
"[The allied leaders'] idea was to create an international architecture that will foster cooperation among states, create consensual global norms and establish predictable, universally applicable rules to the benefit of all," Tharoor said. "And the keystone of that architecture was the United Nations."
Tharoor pointed to trends toward democratization, decolonization and development as indicators that the U.N. has succeeded.
He added that the U.N. is the only legitimate avenue for international intervention in a world that is faced with increasingly global problems.
Issues like terrorism, globalization and human rights transcend national borders and demand U.N. involvement, Tharoor said.
"The U.N. enjoys the support of governments precisely because it does not belong to any single one of them," he said. "Because of its universality, the U.N. enjoys a standing in the eyes of the world that gives its collective actions and decisions a legitimacy that no individual government enjoys beyond its own borders."
This need for international cooperation makes the U.N. more "indispensible today than it was in 1945," he said.
Tharoor, noted, however, that the U.N. must change in order to better respond to a changing geopolitical reality.
"The U.N. needs to be reformed because it has succeeded enough to be worth investing in," Tharoor said.
Tharoor proposed several changes to the U.N. including increased accountability and a reform of the U.N. administration. But he added that the U.N. must continue to focus on development and peacekeeping.
Following the speech, Tharoor fielded questions from the audience that touched on topics such as the U.N. Security Council, human rights and global warming. Several questions focused on the future makeup of the council and the usefulness of the body.
"If [change] doesn't come, what looks anomalous today, will look downright bizarre in 20 years time," Tharoor said, referring to the composition of the council.
Audience members said Tharoor's outline of U.N. history and his views on the future were enlightening and insightful.
"I thought it was very important to give a historical perspective about the U.N., which better answered some of the current issues," Chapel Hill resident Judy Glasser said. "I thought he was absolutely phenomenal."
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