During the Cold War, the United Nations Security Council was hampered by its efforts at conflict prevention and resolution due to the rivalry between the superpowers. Subsequent to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the shift in the international balance of power, co-operation and general unity in Security Council resolutions — even during the height of the allied war against Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait — raised the hope that there was an important role for the UN as the world’s peacekeeper. The use of the veto by the permanent five members in Security Council votes stopped and while abstentions were used if no compromise could be reached, negotiations before voting generally allowed consensus to be reached on important resolutions.

This accord allowed the UN to begin to fulfil its function as, in the words of the Secretary-General, "a guarantor of international peace and security." However, the role of the UN as the only organisation in the world that can authorise the use of force against another country, has been reduced over the past several years. Beginning with the intransigence of Iraq to comply with the UN Special Commission, the United States again became set against Russia. This eventually culminated in the isolation of the UN in the current NATO action against Yugoslavia.

The reason behind marginalising the UN Security Council in the current Serb invasion of Kosovo was clearly aimed at skirting the danger of a veto by Russia and China over the use of force. As events unfold in Kosovo and it becomes more apparent that NATO has underestimated the determination of Slobodan Milosevic and his forces to hold out against the bombing campaign, it becomes questionable whether the right path for peace has been chosen. As the UN Secretary-General said recently, "peace is not true or lasting if bought at any cost; only peace with justice can honour the victims of war and violence and without democracy, tolerance and human rights for all, no peace is truly safe."

Southern Africa has also played a role in the marginalisation of the UN. In accordance with the UN Charter, which binds all the members of the region, the decision by members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to intervene militarily in Lesotho and elsewhere should have been approved by the UN Security Council. Apparently more through ignorance of international obligations rather than by design, South Africa and Botswana, acting under the auspices of SADC, forged ahead, side-stepping the UN and neglecting their responsibilities as members of this body.

Both the NATO and SADC decisions to proceed alone without the support of the UN threaten to undermine the world body’s ability to be the keeper of peace and the preventer of conflict. In the case of Kosovo, the Secretary-Genera has been reduced to calls for a political settlement while unable to bring together the adversaries. The irony of the current situation in the Balkans is that UN agencies have been the ones to provide humanitarian assistance, a task that NATO cannot undertake.

Is this the start of a new trend in which the UN must be on stand-by, not to provide peace negotiators or keepers, but to be ready with humanitarian relief to take over from military alliances that are unable to provide this support? If so, it may signal the return to the time when the UN was the world’s ‘talkshop’. This should not be allowed to happen. Countries must be aware of their responsibilities under the UN Charter and should all consider what kind of UN is desirable: one that works or one that waits?