By Saifullah Mustaqueemi,
With United Nations consistent failure to resolve diplomatically issues concerning international peace and stability, it is time that an alternative media prioritizing diplomacy to war be searched for.
No longer a serious conflict between two nations remains confined but affects, and indeed engulfs other nations creating blocks thus leading to volatility in relations even among nations not directly associated with the conflict.
United Nations in principle has acted more as final authority responsible for maintaining certain global order than a medium coordinating sustenance and creation of a peaceful world. It is engaged more to forward the interest of powerful elite than to serve the purpose of its creation.
Because of politico-economic co-operations, the arena of international politics today involves supranational union as common players supporting and opposing the states of their interest.
Keeping this ground reality into focus, it is required that we search for an organization that would enhance diplomacy among supranational unions to reduce chances of outbreak of war.
The purpose of this article is to put forth the conception of inter-supranational union as a substitute to United Nations.
Inter-supranational union as the name suggests would be an organization consisting of supranational unions like African Union, NATO, ASEAN and so on. The purpose of this platform would be to resolve, through diplomacy, international issues concerning supranational unions. This platform can also be guided to resolve issues among nations represented by different supranational unions.
Today the states are fast merging on cooperative grounds to shield their political and economic state as well as advance in their field of concern. This growing tendency of states towards unionization for creation of bigger platform for cooperation is not only for co-development but also a measure for territorial security and safeguard of sovereignty from alarming powers.
Since supranational unions now have started to play even out of their principle boundaries especially in case of war, therefore, there is substantial attempt in strengthening supranational unions by member states.
With ever increasing influence of supranational unions, it is not surprising that in future out of conflict of interest the war between nations would ultimately turn into war between unions. The proof to this stand comes from recent shoulder rubbing between NATO and African Union on Libya issue. It is therefore required that a platform for enhancing diplomacy between these unions should be searched for. And this can be effectively done by inter-supranational union comprising of these unions.
In the following paragraphs two recent conflicts will be considered and the role this hypothetical organization might play in that particular situation.
Consider recent NATO aggression over Libya that finally engulfed African union apart from other secondary nations.
African union to the last breathe of Gadhafi regime opposed any strike over the nation and also declined to recognize the new government.
While NATO since the beginning of civilian uprising demanded ouster of Gadhafi and finally poached in leading to death of thousands of civilians and huge capital destruction. The difference could have brought NATO and African Union to the loggerhead if they were comparably powerful.
Though NATO acted on UN’s consent but United Nations being an international organization did not legitimately act by approving the interest of a group of nations i.e. NATO and defying to recognize that of the other i.e. African Union.
If inter-supranational union existed, through effective diplomacy concerns of both NATO and AU could have been addressed and simultaneously the military aggression, possibly, could have been avoided.
The organization would coordinate to bring to a single platform both NATO and AU and would mediate to bring them to terms. And then both NATO and AU could have acted in coordination to find a better solution, than war, to Libya problem.
Now let us consider the Iranian imbroglio. The conflict concerning Iranian nuclear program today is verbal and attack-from-behind-the-door type. But possibility of it turning into a full fledge war is not insignificant enough to be ignored. Ultimately, the war if breaks will not be confined to strait of hormuz. Indeed it will engulf most part of the middle east.
Given the military capability of Iran, which no matter how insignificant relative to those of United states, Israel and the West, the war will no longer remain one sided. It is therefore required to search for a platform to initiate effective diplomacy then for anything else and for this we need to peep into arenas out of United Nations, for United Nations with all its means and influence has failed to resolve the issue.
And the proneness of conflict to turn into war is fast materializing. In future if war comes out to be the ultimate solution then it will be only at the behest of United Nations which failed to find other solutions.
Today the world is threatened more by war initiated under curtains of Iranian nuke program than the nuclear Iran. Thus Iranian nuke program need to be settled to avoid war.
An effective step in this regard was taken in May 2010 by Turkey and Brazil. They, diplomatically, reached an agreement with Republic of Iran to ship the material of concern out of its boundary. This highly appreciated agreement failed only because the world powers did not approve of it.
If inter supranational organization existed and played a lead role in reaching consensus with Republic of Iran then signed agreement would not be that easily deemed vague. Reason, the diplomatic cable will include not only the friends of iran as was the case with turkey-iran-brazil agreement but even suspicious nations like Israel, U.S. and E.U members. So any agreement would include consensus of both sympathizers as well as detractors.
Moreover, with supranational unions as influential players in resolution of conflict the states with close ties to iran would spontaneously become part of diplomatic cable and this will surely lead to profluent diplomacy. Thus inter supranational union has more prospect in resolution of Iranian issue then United Nations.
Acknowledgement: I am highly thankful to Mohammed Azeemullah, opinion writer(Tripoli post, Libya) and lecturer(English) at College of Education, University of Al-Merghib, Libya, for checking this article and clarifying some of the points.
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Author is a student of Jamia Millia Islami, New Delhi.