Ihe United States’ request for reintegration into the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) is good news that should be welcomed as such. Its outcome is hardly a shadow of a doubt and we can only welcome it.
Five years after the departure of the United States, under the short-sighted impetus of Donald Trump, allergic by instinct to any form of multilateralism, the administration of Joe Biden understood that the policy of the empty chair was incompatible with the concern defense of their interests, and that their absence from this forum actually ended up serving those of the great Chinese rival. Their return is all the more important to underline that Unesco plays a role that cannot be underestimated in the reflections concerning the uses of artificial intelligence or the gangrene of disinformation.
This flip-flop is salutary. The controversy surrounding, during the Covid-19 pandemic, the functioning of the World Health Organization, deemed too accommodating with Beijing’s behavior in the absence of a more assertive American presence, had already shown the excesses to which Washington’s choice to renounce taking on the responsibilities incumbent upon it.
The political agility deployed on both sides of the Atlantic will also allow the return of the American financial windfall. The latter was blocked by a particularly counterproductive legislation of the American Congress prohibiting the financing of any entity of the United Nations which would include within it the Palestinian State, integrated into UNESCO in 2011. This diplomatic breakthrough will allow Washington to settle a debt of 600 million dollars (555 million euros). This clearance can only relaunch the institution that runs, with a little disputed mastery, the French Audrey Azoulay. It has not counted its efforts to achieve this epilogue.
Versatility of American presidencies
No one will dispute that the United Nations Organization is going through a difficult period in its existence. The impotence to which it is forced by the abusive use of their veto power by the permanent members of the Security Council, starting with Russia, is the most obvious sign of this. The reform of its use, admittedly still very timid, adopted in 2022, is a first step in the right direction. Any action aimed at strengthening rather than weakening this shaken multilateralism is highly commendable. It remains a common good, for the time being irreplaceable.
The only reservation inspired by Washington’s reversal relates to the versatility of successive American presidencies over the past four decades. The succession of departures and returns can only raise questions about the durability of the decision of June 12, less than two years from a presidential election which could bring the party back to the White House from an ultranationalist retreat.
The inability of US officials to sanctuarize their participation in international bodies, which they were very often at the origin of, fuels doubts. The least we can do, out of concern for the interests that American officials claim to defend, would be to ensure that their presence is no longer hostage to alternations. Washington has everything to gain from breaking with this inconsistency to once again become a fixed point in international relations.