The Devolution of the United Nations

As World War II drew to a close, the international community resolved to institute a mechanism by which to preempt future global conflicts. The United Nations was that dream given form. Founded in 1945, the original UN charter was signed by the United Kingdom and a host of fifty other nations - the United States was not one of these. Today, nearly every country on the planet is a member of its General Assembly, totaling 191 altogether.[1] However, the UN of yesterday and the UN of today are two entirely different organizations. This paper seeks to analyze the tools of order available to the modern UN, but also to assess the degree to which it has devolved in its role as global protector since the Cold War.

From its inception, the UN's overriding mandate was to maintain peace at all costs. The original UN charter charged its member states with a responsibility to avoid and prevent future wars, seeking resolution through open forum and international debate rather than armed conflict. It called upon them to uphold human rights, promote socio-economic welfare, improve living standards in more impoverished nations, and to fight the spread of disease. Above all, it sought to establish a binding system of international laws to which all nations would be held accountable as dictated by the UN Security Council and imposed by the International Court of Justice[2]

The Security Council is the UN's chief tool of order in the international arena. Whereas the General Assembly was established for the purpose of promoting the peace, the Security Council exists to enforce the peace. It is composed of five permanent members - representing the five Allied victors of World War II: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China - and ten additional members which are elected biannually. Resolutions passed by the Security Council have the weight of international law, the upholding of which is the duty of all UN members. According to its charter, the Security Council is empowered to "investigate any dispute or situation which might lead to international friction," and to recommend whatever actions necessary to restore peace and order. The Security Council may call upon "members to apply economic sanctions and other measures not involving the use of force to prevent or stop aggression."[3] It may also take military action upon itself as outlined under Chapter VII, Article 42 of the UN Charter:

Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.[4]

It should be noted, however, that this latter power is not frequently exercised. There have only been a handful of instances where the Security Council has taken military action against an aggressive state. These include: the 1961 civil war in the Congo; the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait; the Yugoslav Wars from 1991-2001; the 1994 Haitian coup d'état against Jean-Bertrand Aristide; the 1999 uprising in Sierra Leone; and the 2001 ouster of the Taliban in Afghanistan following the September 11^th attacks.[5]

The International Court of Justice is the UN's other tool of order. Located at The Hague in the Netherlands, the ICJ is the judiciary mechanism of the Security Council and the international community as a whole. "The Court's role is to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by States and to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by authorized United Nations organs and specialized agencies."[6] Its rulings are also binding under international law.

Immediately following World War II, the UN's mission of peace and global stability was fairly well accepted across the board. No nation could bear to witness - psychologically or economically - another global war, therefore the UN's role and mandate were secure. This, however, changed in the wake of the Cold War. Soviet-Western aggression and brinkmanship tactics - most notably during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962[7] - very nearly led to a third World War on more than one occasion. Presumably, the proliferation of nuclear ballistic technology throughout this period ought to have catalyzed the UN into action. Instead, due to the political divisions among the permanent members of its Security Council, the UN was rendered impotent. In this, the Cold War actually served to weaken the UN's peace keeping resolve.

Since the Cold War, the UN has been criticized repeatedly for its inaction and diplomatic inconsistency, especially in the realm of human rights. This criticism comes in spite (and because) of UN Resolution 217, which ratified the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" in 1948 in an effort to prevent future genocides as witnessed during the Holocaust. [8] Since 1948, though, the UDHR has been enforced haphazardly at best. Case in point: the Rwandan genocide of 1994, which resulted in the deaths well over 800,000 ethnic Tutsis, was not acted upon by any UN member - although urgent help had been requested by the RPF - until well after the worst of the killing had ceased. No one within the UN wanted to intervene in Rwanda. Many nations refused to even recognize the conflict as a "genocide" despite a wellspring of media coverage; this included France and the US - two of the UDHR's biggest proponents - both of whom only publicly acknowledged the Hutus' atrocities after the fact.[9]

If only Rwanda were an isolated case, one might be inclined to characterize the UN's inaction there as a definitional oversight or simply a lapse in judgment. Unfortunately, there have been a myriad of examples of the UN neglecting its human rights obligations since Rwanda. The UN has been slow to act upon, or even acknowledge, the genocidal activities of the Janjuweed militias within the Darfur region of Sudan; black African deaths associated with the Darfur crisis currently number over 100,000.[10] The UN has also done nothing to address the government-sanctioned ethnic cleaning in Tibet on the part of the Chinese government; China is a permanent member of the Security Council, so this should come as no surprise.[11] The UN has, likewise, taken virtually no decisive action to stem the ethnic violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; said conflict has raged on since the very creation of the modern Israeli state under the Balfour Act of 1917.[12] This is to say nothing of the recent rape and abuse allegations lodged against UN Peacekeepers in Haiti, Congo, Sierra Leone, the Ivory Coast, and Kosovo.[13]

This contemporary lack of initiative on the part of the UN - and, in some cases, outright complicity - seems to stem directly from the events of the Cold War. The Cold War nearly brought the world to the brink of nuclear Armageddon, but the political divisions within the Security Council prevented the UN from taking any decisive action to stop it. Resultantly, the UN is now suffering from an inferiority complex in its role as global protector. Whereas once it was so adamant about protecting the peace and defending the quality of human life, the UN of today seems more interested in preserving the status quo: avoiding taking a decisive stand in any international conflict for the sake of maintaining global stability. This climate of (paranoid) avoidance has severely undermined the UN's international credibility.

Should the UN continue to neglect its mandate to secure the peace or protect human rights, it not only risks its own extinction but may also very well facilitate the next major global conflict through its inaction. Without a fully functioning, fully law enforcing UN, what's to stop it?

[1] Peter Malanczuk, Akehurst's Modern Introduction to International Law. 7^th Edition. (London, New York: Routledge, 1997), 26-27.

[2] Anthony Esler, The Western World: A Narrative History. 2^nd Edition. (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1997), 669-670.

[3] "Functions and Powers." UN Security Council, http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/unsc_functions.html (accessed 19 April 2007).

[4] "Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter." United Nations, http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/chapter7.htm (accessed 19 April 2007).

[5] Patrik Johansson. "UN Security Council Chapter VII resolutions, 1946-2002. An Inventory." Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University. http://www.pcr.uu.se/publications/UCDP_pub/Chapter%20VII%20Resolutions_050921.pdf(accessed 19 April 2007).

[6] "The Court." International Court of Justice, http://www.icj-cij.org/court/index.php?p1=1&PHPSESSID=a83c34f455f013f6b2bd4bc8cae5d2f7(accessed 19 April 2007).

[7] "The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 18-29, 1962." History & Politics Out Loud, http://www.hpol.org/jfk/cuban/ (accessed 19 April 2007).

[8] Malanczuk, 212-213.

[9] "Genocide in Rwanda." United Human Rights Council, http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/Genocide/genocide_in_rwanda.htm (accessed 19 April 2007).

[10] "Q&A: Sudan's Darfur conflict." BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3496731.stm (accessed 19 April 2007).

[11] "China and Tibet." Human Rights Watch, http://www.hrw.org/worldreport99/asia/china.html (accessed 19 April 2007).

[12] "Israel and Palestine: A Brief History." MidEast Web, http://www.mideastweb.org/briefhistory.htm (accessed 19 April 2007).

[13] Colum Lynch. "U.N. Faces More Accusations of Sexual Misconduct." Sunday, March 13 2005. Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30286-2005Mar12.html (accessed 19 April 2007).