Global Commons

"The biggest flaw in the UN system was that governments came to the UN and paid lip service to the tenets of the UN Charter but were unprepared to do what it took to patrol the global commons" - Samantha Power, in Chasing the Flame.

I'm still nowhere near done with Chasing the Flame, but it's an absolutely fantastic book, and I am increasingly drawn in by revelations of what should be obvious. This time, it's that the UN exists for international commons, rather than as a form of world government. The UN then does not supplant order, but it institutes it where none has exists, and where it is in the benefit of the whole international community for there to be order. The obvious commons are international waters, outer space, and Antarctica (the internet?). The more interesting interpretation of this commons is that nations where sovereignty collapses and areas where violence threatens to spill beyond borders are also an international stability concern and an international domain. Great stuff.

Excerpt from "Chasing the Flame"

I just started reading Chasing the Flame. It's good so far, but I may be the target demographic - it is, after all about a career civil servant in the UN. Exactly my cuppa tea. Anyway, here's the best line so far, which is a quote from Sergio Vieira de Mello:

The UN is such a statist organization. If we played by UN rules, wouldn't have a clue what the people with power and guns were plotting.

This is from 1981, with regards to the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon at the time, and it's incredibly relevant today. One of the fundamental problems with the UN, it seems to me, is that it was built to prevent another WWII, a war which was not all about states, but was largely about states. The political necessity has changed and requires the UN (and nations in conflict in general) to move away from a simple nation vs nation understanding of conflict.