UN Security Council bid: Campaign intensifies

Ireland’s bid to win a fourth term as a member of the United Nations’ security council intensified yesterday when Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Tánaiste Simon Coveney officially launched Ireland’s campaign in New York.

They hope to win a two-year term beginning in 2021.

The bid, an effort to follow terms in 1962, 1981 and 2001, comes at an opportune moment as the 60th anniversary of Ireland’s first mission as a UN peacekeeper has just been marked.

That 1958 mission to Lebanon was the first of many that established Ireland as an active, positive UN member.

Like all transnational corporations, the UN has its critics and its weaknesses.

It may not always be as forceful as it might wish and it may not always deliver on promises it makes — primarily because pledges of financial support from member states don’t always materialise.

I’m in New York with @simoncoveney to launch Ireland’s campaign for a seat on the UN Security Council. It’s a great opportunity to put Ireland at the heart of UN decision making & an important part of #GlobalIreland 2025 our plan to double the impact of our international presence pic.twitter.com/OUScmyfQBV

— Leo Varadkar (@LeoVaradkar) July 1, 2018

Despite all that, or because of all that, it was never more important to have a cohesive, unified forum where some of the world’s tragedies might be resolved.

Any such forum can have only a limited impact — as Israel’s defiance of motion after motion shows.

American partisanship on that issue — just as other member states’ bias on other issues — also shows how such a process can be undermined.

The UN remains a force for good and optimism in a world where those qualities are in short supply.

Hopefully, Ireland can continue to make a contribution to that process.