Why UN still matters to Korea
Eugene Lee
Last month, an article in The New York Times by Katrin Bennhold explained why the United Nations still matters to the world. The author rightly pointed out that it matters because in it, the countries did what they were supposed to do — practice diplomacy. Today, the U.N. remains to be the best place on the global level to do just that. And this applies to every state. Many representatives took the stage and made their voices heard, including the U.S. and even Iran. Some even protested and walked out when others spoke. All in all, the U.N. is far less effective at solving wars than its founders hoped. But no other organization has its reach.
What the article didn’t mention was that about a year ago, it was the first time in history that a Korean president has ever chaired the Security Council session. President Lee Jae Myung then compared the challenge of governing artificial intelligence (AI) with the challenge nuclear weapons presented at the birth of the U.N. Last month, he returned to AI at the General Assembly, placing it alongside climate change and energy security in his proposed K-Initiative.
Another thing the article did not mention is the change taking place in the organization, the one that spans across the whole “U.N. ecosystem,” its affiliated bodies and organizations. The biggest one is the UN80 Initiative, and that one deserves the most attention. The U.N. is, in a way, going “Elon Musk” across its offices. On the one hand, it is trying to deliver, but on the other, it is trying to show how much it can cut without jeopardizing its work. This type of “trimming” is not easy, but the U.N. believes it is possible.
I would put it in three parts: consolidate overlapping functions, then shorten the administrative chain of command and finally, and this one is one of my favorites, relocate posts to lower-cost locations. This deserves more attention is because Korea, already home to numerous U.N. bodies in Asia, is very well suited to welcome more of them.
So, if we connect these two developments, the global rise of AI and the U.N. restructuring, then the following should happen: Korea should seek to bring part of the U.N.'s growing AI-governance infrastructure to the country. Yes, the U.N. is trying to reduce its expenditures and staff. Some data project a 21 percent reduction in secretariat staff positions this year. And it is true, Seoul is not the cheapest city in Asia, so cost alone will not win the argument. But Korea has strong digital infrastructure, a major semiconductor industry and growing experience in AI policy.
Talking about the international affairs of the present is notoriously difficult — no history book is written about it yet. Plus, we are still living and experiencing the present events, so we are emotionally attached to them. Anyone who tries to explain international relations, including myself, always runs the risk sounding like Nostradamus — in other words, trying to predict the future. So, I will simply point to some of the trends I currently observe.
Among them is the rise of minilateralism. Yes, you heard it right, not multilateralism, but minilateralism. Somewhat new, the term sounds academic, but the idea is simple. Instead of trying to get dozens or hundreds of countries to agree, governments increasingly work in smaller groups built around a particular problem. Lacking any institutional overburden, minilateralism is often valued for its pragmatic application. A good example of it could be the Korea-Central Asia Summit in Seoul not long ago. The presidents of five Central Asian states came to Seoul and together with Lee, have charted ways of building cooperation between Korea and Central Asia for the next several decades.
Chip 4, another minilateral dialogue that started off in 2022 among Korea, the United States, Japan and Taiwan, worked on semiconductor supply chains and economic security. Whatever one thinks about the results, the format itself tells us something about where international politics is moving. If Korea manages to sustain its semiconductor growth, let’s say for a decade, then its standing vis-a-vis the rest of the would be a completely different story.
And finally, there has been a renewed discussion of whether Korea should seek membership in another minilateral venue — the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership among 12 countries. It isn’t something drastically new, Korea has been signing free trade agreements since the beginning of the millennia.
The rise of minilateralism, paradoxically, may be one reason the United Nations matters more to Korea, not less. Countries are not abandoning multilateralism. They are adding smaller groups around it. Minilateral groups may produce ideas, standards and agreements. But if those ideas are to become accepted internationally, they would eventually need the wider audience and wider legitimacy the U.N. has.
Of course, Korea is already doing all this, but there is a lot more to be done. In the long term for Korea, these developments offer an unusual opportunity to succeed on a scale. And it is not unthinkable, if we apply wit, wisdom and proper attitude. But most importantly, we must encourage and support our leadership in accomplishing what has already been started.
Eugene Lee (mreulee@gmail.com) is a lecturing professor at the Graduate School of Governance at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul. Specializing in international relations and governance, his research and teaching focus is on national and regional security, international development, government policies and Northeast and Central Asia. The views expressed in this article are his own.