The Doctrine of Lapse: Lessons From the UN Era | Part 1|

The Raisina Podcast

This year the UN celebrated its 77th Anniversary amidst an unprecedented COVID 19 pandemic, the Afghanistan political crisis and the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war. In the first part of this two-part Raisina Dialogue episode, we analyse the significance and influence of institutions like the United Nations in a multipolar world which is facing multilateral challenges. With the ongoing crises, the UN has come under serious criticism for failing to demonstrate a positive image of its role.

“The UN is just a little more than the sum of the power dynamics of the most influential member states, so how they act or not is going to determine the effectiveness of the UN” states Laksmi Puri, Former Assistant Secretary-General, United Nations, India.
Will the UN go the way of its predecessor, the League of Nations, and sink into the abyss of history as an irrelevant failure or will it aggressively reform and respond to the challenges of today?

Speakers:

Ararat Mirzoyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Armenia

Daniel Carmon, Senior Research Fellow, International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Israel; Former Ambassador of Israel to India

Lakshmi Puri, Former Assistant Secretary General, United Nations, India

Charles Kupchan, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations; Professor of International Relations, Georgetown University, United States

Jane Holl Lute, Former Deputy Secretary, Department of Homeland Security, United States

Moderator: Shashi Tharoor, Member of Parliament, India

The Raisina Dialogue is a multilateral conference committed to addressing the most challenging issues facing the global community. Every year, global leaders in policy, business, media and civil society are hosted in New Delhi to discuss cooperation on a wide range of pertinent international policy matters.

The conference is hosted by the Observer Research Foundation in collaboration with the Government of India, Ministry of External Affairs.