65 Years UN Charter: Time for a Review Conference
June 25, 2010
In an opinion piece published by the German weekly DIE ZEIT on the occasion of the G20 summit in Toronto and the 65th anniversary of the signing of the UN Charter on 26 June 1945 in San Francisco, Committee Chairman Andreas Bummel and Hermann Ott, Member of the German Bundestag, argue that the UN and the system of international organizations should be reconsidered at an international world order conference. According to Mr Bummel and Mr Ott, such a review conference could be based on article 109 of the UN Charter.
Charter conference of the United Nations in San Francisco, June 1945 (UN photo)
The authors notice that global governance is in a “severe crisis”. They suggest that the structures of global decision-making need to be modernized and have to reflect the demographic realities of the world in a better way. A means to do so, they argue, is the establishment of a world parliament. “A revitalized and democratized United Nations Organization actually could be made a centre where the international community defines and coordinates its political, economical and social objectives,” Mr Bummel and Mr Ott state with an eye toward the “serious coordination problems” in the current system of international organizations.