Editorial 1 : The UN the world needs
UN Special Global Summit
- PM Modi will travel to New York later this month to address the special global summit hosted by the United Nations on September 22-23.
- Ambitiously named “The UN Summit of the Future”, the summit intends to forge a new international consensus on how to deliver a better present and safeguard the future.
- Considering where the world stands today this is a laudable theme.
Issue with the UN
- UN looks weary in today’s time and comes out as an ineffective and inefficient instrument in tackling contemporary challenges.
- It is struggling to keep up to its role in the face of growing geopolitical tensions, wars and competing national interests.
Need for reforms
- Rebuilding Trust and Reigniting Global Solidarity was the theme of the UN 78th session held in September 2023.
- In his address last year UN Secretary-General Antony Guterres stressed the need for reforming and modernising the multilateral system that dates back to the Second World War.
Inherent problem with the UN
- The dominant idea of superiority of the Anglo-Saxon ethnic identity propelled Roosevelt and Churchill to lay the foundations for the UN in 1941.
- A majority of the first 50 countries that had signed up for the UN in 1945 were from the English influenced sphere.
- This false idea of Anglo-Saxon ethnic superiority continued in different forms. Sometimes it was called “liberal internationalism” and at other times a “concert of democracies”.
- This complex of ethnic domination became the nemesis of the UN.
- As the non-English-speaking countries rose in power and influence and started asserting themselves in world affairs, the dominant powers found a way to bypass the institution rather than making it more democratic and representative.
Inability of UN
- looks helpless in containing wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
- It is also looking helpless in imposing rules on the developed Global North over issues of food security and other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the developing Global South and in forcing the industrialised North to compensate for climate compliance by the developing South.
- The paralysis in the UN system is evident from the fact that the WTO’s dispute redressal mechanism has come to a grinding halt since December 2019 due to the refusal of the US to ratify the appointment of new judges.
Conclusion: The established powers (P5) are in no mood for reforms that will undermine their power. UN needs to reflect on its commitments and reforms, rather than just talking about the future of the world.
Editorial 2 : Calling out the Parrot
Context: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s bail.
Supreme Court: Guarantor of Personal Liberty
- In its recent judgements the Supreme Court has upheld the principle of bail as rule and jail as exception.
- The court underlined the sacrosanct nature of the individual’s right to personal liberty guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.
- The court emphasised that the process of justice must guard against turning into the punishment.
- The court’s judgements ask important questions about the state’s power to arrest an individual, lay down the necessity of due process and fairness, and emphasise the role of the courts in ensuring that investigations are not used as a tool of harassment.
Question mark on CBI in Kejriwal’s arrest
- In the recent judgement, SC bench points to a sequence that is incriminating for the agencies including CBI whose responsibility it is to take forward the justice process.
- CBI’s role in the case
- CBI registered the case against Kejriwal in August 2022, filed four chargesheets, named 17 as accused but did not name Kejriwal.
- Only when a Special Judge granted regular bail to Kejriwal in an ED case nearly two years later that “the CBI activated its machinery and took him into custody”.
- Even on the date of his arrest by the CBI Kejriwal had not been named as an accused.
- Such action on the part of the CBI raises a serious mark.
Justice Bhuyan’s judgement and statements
- Justice Bhuyan highlighted that “Power to arrest is one thing but the need to arrest is altogether a different thing…”.
- He points to higher courts lobbing the ball to the lower courts, and to courts playing safe on bail.
- His judgment is a strong indictment of the CBI. “It is important that the CBI dispel the notion of it being a caged parrot. Rather, the perception should be that of an uncaged parrot”.
Conclusion: CBI and those who pull its strings, must heed the court because the concepts of fair investigation and fair trial are inseparable from, and are essential to, the just balance between the expansive powers of the state and a citizen’s rights, protected by the Constitution.