Reforming the United Nations to Save the Planet: The Threat of Global Climate Change Making Reform Inevitable

Abstract

The UN, which is to a great extent the end product of the World War II, and the UN Security Council, its most important organ with five permanent member states responsible for sustaining international system’s security, is highly incapable of solving the global problems that the mankind faces today. The five permanent member states’ veto right about the UN Security Council decisions concerning enforcement decisions and military interventions mostly due to their global interests, decreases the operational power of the UN with regards to protection and formation of peace. In this context, this article will first assess the current status of the UN and its reform attempts, and subsequently, it will analyze the global climate change as a new parameter that started to make the reform of this international organization with evolving supportive international law and enforcement power, highly inevitable.

Keywords

UN Reform, Global Governance, Paris Agreement, Global Climate Change

Citation

Kirval, Levent and Süner, Münir, “Reforming the United Nations to Save the Planet: The Threat of Global Climate Change Making Reform Inevitable”, International Relations, Volume 14, No. 54, 2017, pp. 71-85.

Affiliations

• Levent Kirval, Assoc. Prof. Dr., Social Sciences Division/Basic Sciences Department, Maritime Faculty, Istanbul Technical University
• Münir Süner, Lecturer Dr., Marine Engineering Department, Maritime Faculty, Istanbul Technical University