0:03 Welcome to the lecture which is an
0:04 introduction to the United Nations,
0:07 Canada and global governance. We're
0:09 covering some basic facts I've covered
0:11 in previous years. But if you buy
0:13 previous years questions, first of all,
0:16 the exam banks are enormous. And second
0:18 of all, I change the questions and the
0:21 facts. For example, Palestine, is
0:23 Palestine an observer or is it uh part
0:24 of the United Nations? How much does
0:27 Canada contribute every year? Who is the
0:30 ambassador to the UN? All this changes.
0:32 Uh there's a picture of the UN Security
0:34 Council and the empty hallways of the
0:36 United Nations with diplomats carrying
0:39 briefcases full of their ideas. Let's proceed.
0:40 proceed.
0:42 So we're going to be learning about the
0:44 different components of the United
0:46 Nations. But as a UN ambassador, I know
0:50 you are very familiar with all this. You
0:51 have been to the United Nations Rose
0:54 Garden many times. You have gazed out at
0:56 the Hudson River. You have been to the
0:59 United Nations, I'm sure.
1:01 And why is that? You wrote a foreign
1:04 service exam when you were young and now
1:06 you are the ambassador to the United
1:10 Nations back then. Maybe it was an exam
1:12 that you wrote with a pencil and not
1:14 with a computer. Maybe you're really old
1:17 now. Anyway, what is the title of your
1:19 posting? The correct answer here is
1:22 ambassador. You are no longer the coffee
1:24 fetcher. You are no longer the liaison
1:26 officer. You are no longer the dep. You
1:29 are the ambassador.
1:31 Welcome to the United Nations
1:33 ambassadors. Here you can see the view
1:36 of the Hudson River, New York City in
1:40 all its splendor and all I'm going to
1:41 show you, but you've seen this all
1:44 before, the beautiful inside of the
1:46 United Nations.
1:50 So when you uh wrote this exam uh the
1:53 foreign service exam uh you were perhaps
1:55 just a coffee fetcher but now you are
1:58 the ambassador.
2:01 This exam that you're doing today the
2:04 new UN secretary general Erica Simpson
2:06 wrote this exam and I have succeeded for
2:09 one day the current UN secretary
2:12 general. What is his name? What is his
2:16 name that I have succeeded him? His name
2:20 Antonio Gutierrez. Who wrote this exam?
2:22 Me, Erica Simpson, and I am the UN
2:26 Secretary General for one day.
2:29 Here I am at the United Nations at the
2:31 front. You can see me sitting there in
2:35 my normal chair. It's called a day at
2:37 the United Nations.
2:41 And here I am preciding over for one day
2:44 the go notions and debates at the United Nations.
2:46 Nations.
2:50 Okay. I who who is the real secretary
2:53 general? It's Antonio Gutierz. There he
2:55 is. That's the right answer. Those are
2:58 some of the other ones in the past.
3:01 There's my inauguration guards. I'm
3:02 thrilled. They're right outside the
3:04 United Nations. They're being inaugurated.
3:06 inaugurated.
3:09 There's the peacekeepers wearing their
3:12 symbolic blue berets. The army, the air
3:16 force in white, the navy in blue. I'm
3:18 very proud.
3:21 Okay. So, I will rule for one day only.
3:23 Who is the longest serving UN Secretary
3:25 General? Who's served the longest?
3:30 Utant. He served for 10 years. His name
3:33 is pronounced Yutant. The other ones are
3:37 Dag Hammersold, Havier Perez Dquailar,
3:45 Who is the shortest serving UN Secretary
3:47 General? Well, me. I will only be there
3:50 for one day. And there you can see me
3:53 standing in front of the very symbolic
3:56 uh uh pistol that has been converted
4:00 away from being a violent uh pistol.
4:03 Let's test your back. I know you know
4:04 all this, but let's just go through it.
4:07 Which five countries are in the
4:10 permanent five, the P5? Which are the
4:12 five? So when you look through this,
4:14 eliminate the ones you know Canada is
4:17 not in it. You know that when the USR is
4:19 the wrong name
4:21 going through it, you eliminate in your
4:25 mind and the right answer is E. So, the
4:29 five P5 countries are China, France, the
4:30 United Kingdom, the United States, and
4:33 Russia. Five.
4:36 I put the flags there, too. How can you
4:40 find a P5 diplomat? Well, they all have
4:42 their embassies outside of the UN
4:46 building where they consult and they uh
4:48 they process information. But you can
4:52 also meet a P5 diplomat in the quarters
4:55 of the United Nations. Here's the new
4:57 stairs. And often you'll see them
4:59 standing there in front of the tiger.
5:01 They're just waiting for somebody to
5:03 talk to them. Maybe they have something
5:05 important to divulge.
5:08 You can see the corridors of the UN are
5:10 pretty empty. I'm always startled. So if
5:12 you do come towards somebody, you can
5:13 always stride over there and say,
5:17 "Hello, I'm here from Canada and uh I'm
5:20 just visiting the United Nations."
5:23 Here's the cafeteria. And there you can
5:26 see the entire United States delegation.
5:31 1 2 3 4 five people all talking in the cafeteria
5:32 cafeteria
5:34 surrounded by everyone else. Fascinating.
5:36 Fascinating.
5:38 Should you go up to diplomats and
5:41 introduce yourself as a Canadian? No. It
5:48 Anyway, let's just keep going. So, the
5:51 United Nations has we we learned this.
5:56 China, the five P5 countries
6:00 and each of the P5 has a veto. They can
6:03 veto any substantive resolution or
6:06 matter that comes before the council. So
6:09 the Russian Federation has uh recently
6:13 vetoed resolutions that uh under take it
6:15 to task for its invasion of Ukraine.
6:17 They veto it because they're on the
6:19 Russian security council and they can do that
6:20 that
6:22 on the on the UN Security Council,
6:25 excuse me, on the UN Security Council,
6:27 not the Russian Security Council. So
6:30 each of the P5 has a veto over any
6:32 substantive matter. And is that a
6:34 problem? Well, we could discuss that
6:37 certainly from the perspective of many
6:38 countries that are not on the Security
6:41 Council. It's a huge problem.
6:44 There's also a rotating UN Security
6:46 Council. Countries rotate in and out of
6:49 it and they're non-permanent members of
6:53 the Security Council. They're elected by
6:55 the UN assembly in accordance with an
6:58 agreed upon geographical formula which
7:00 countries can run and they're elected
7:04 for 2year terms. So there's 10 of them.
7:08 10 of them. So the 10 non-permanent
7:11 rotating security council members and
7:14 the P5 make 15. So there's 15 on the UN
7:16 Security Council. These are some
7:18 sculptures at the UN. There's some
7:22 amazing sculptures there.
7:24 Okay. What languages do you need to work
7:26 and understand at the United Nations?
7:29 The United Nations itself operates in
7:31 six official languages. This is very
7:33 interesting. All the resolutions are
7:35 available. There's simultaneous
7:37 translation. When you sit there on the
7:40 third floor, you can listen in six
7:50 So the simultaneous translation as you
7:55 can see is in uh six languages Arabic
7:57 what's called Chinese, Mandarin and
7:59 Cantonese but a form of it, English,
8:03 French, Spanish and Russian. Russian as
8:06 well. Okay. So, those are the languages
8:09 that you can listen to everything in
8:17 So, the languages that you need to work
8:20 at the UN could be your language,
8:23 whatever language that it is, and then
8:25 the ability to understand one of those
8:28 six languages. I'm ending this part of
8:30 the video or the lesson with a picture
8:33 of the quiet room in the United Nations,
8:36 which is a non-denominational room that
8:38 is a quiet space for diplomats to
8:42 contemplate peace. And outside the quiet
8:45 room, there's a a picture by a famous
8:47 artist called Shagal. It's a stained
8:50 glass window, and this is one of my
8:52 favorite places in the world. Uh, and
8:55 you can see me po posed in front of it.
8:57 I try to take a picture every time that
