The UN and Regional Organizations in Global Security: Competing or Complementary Logics?

Abstract

What is optimal relationship between global bodies and regional agencies in international security? This question has been intensively discussed at various junctures during last century, including at establishment of United Nations in 1940s. Indeed, regional approach was loser at this juncture, when the Charter made provision for a dimly conceived and vaguely apprehended regionalism. (1) Today debate between UN and regional organizations has resurfaced--among policymakers as well as research community--as one of most issues in global security architecture, including reform of UN Security Council. The long-standing prevailing view of global-regional relationship in security matters has posited that a dominant UN would delegate tasks to subordinate regional institutions. In this conception, region is simply an intermediate actor that undertakes tasks determined at multilateral level. The main purpose of regional agencies, according to this perspective, is to contribute to a multilateral system controlled by UN Security Council. Even if it is to improve relationship between UN and regional organizations, dominant approach neglects degree to which UN-led approach and regional security governance tend to follow different logics and as a result are potentially competing structures. The UN model is based on a Westphalian nation-state logic, whereas regional approach, at least in longer term, is more consistent with a post-Westphalian world order. With rise of so-called new regionalism in recent decades, regional organizations have become actors in their own right. A number of them--including European Union (EU), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and Southern African Development Community (SADC)--have acquired some kind of institutionalized mechanism for conflict management. Regions, through their regional agencies, have transformed from objects into subjects, making their relationship to UN much more complex than current policy and academic debates tend to recognize. This complexity is not likely to decrease in future. The greater actor-ness of regional bodies needs to be recognized. It is more realistic to think of relationship between multilateralism and regionalism in more horizontal and reciprocal terms, compared to orthodox approach where regional agencies are subordinated to UN Security Council. Orthodoxy: The UN Delegating Mandates The UN Charter was made compatible with so-called regional arrangements or agencies. What organizations fall into this category is not precisely defined. As a result, a variety of transnational associations (e.g., Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries), continental bodies (e.g., Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe [OSCE]), and subregional institutions (e.g., Economic Community of West African States [ECOWAS]) have been regarded as classifiable under Chapter VIII of charter. Not surprisingly, idea of regional contributions to UN security operations has resurfaced in recent times with emergence of a new post-Cold War security environment and multiplication of failed states. In 1992, UN secretary-general's Agenda for Peace called for involvement of regional organizations in such activities as preventive diplomacy, peacekeeping, peacemaking, and postconflict reconstruction. Over next thirteen years UN head convened six high-level meetings with regional organizations from all continents involved in security matters. In 2005, secretary-general's In Larger Freedom stated that the United Nations and regional organizations should play complementary roles in facing challenges to peace and security. (2) Likewise, High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, set up by secretary-general to reflect on UN reform, acknowledged in its 2004 report that regional groupings have made important contributions to stability and prosperity of their members. …