We just had another long debate about whether or not the Iraq war was ‘illegal’ for the US. To my mind, again it came down to opinion as there was and has been no official word on whether or not the US violated the Charter from the UN directly (or indirectly for that matter afaik), so we are left with all making our own minds up about the thing.
Anyway, I don’t want to debate that anymore, as it seems pointless (if you have any comments about the legality of the war itself, please put them in my other thread about the legality of the war in Iraq). It seems a no win proposition for either side IMO, as it can not be resolved without some official censure from the UN of the US and her allies…which doesn’t seem likely to happen.
And this brings up the point of this debate. Why is there no official word, no censure from the UN on America’s ‘illegal’ violations of the Charter? What good is the UN, if it doesn’t enforce its own resolutions, if it doesn’t even make a token effort to punish countries that violate the Charter OR the various resolutions? What good is the UN resolutions aimed at, say, Israel, if the US merely blocks them? What good is the Charter if the US (and others) can appearently violate it to zero effect?
Bottom line is, if the US is clearly in violation of the Charter re: The Iraq War, as is being said, if its a slam dunk case…they why isn’t the UN acting on it? And if its because the US is too powerful, the UN fears the US, or that there is no point in attempting to punish the US (or some other reason I’m unaware of…list it out if you have an opinion as to why the UN has failed to act towards the US)…then whats the point of the entire system? If countries like those in NATO can violate the charter in Kosovo, and appearently the US in Iraq, then…why have a UN? Why have a Charter?
So, my questions are:
Is the UN still relevant today? Is it worthwhile to have the organization continue in its present form…or at all for that matter?
Is the Charter basically an ‘honor’ system that is pretty much violated at will because it has no teeth, or is it a good treaty that works well most of the time? Is the language too vague and sparse, or is it plenty enough for the purposes of keeping international peace and law?
What is the real intention of the UN with reguards to keeping the peace and military action? Is it doing the job it was intended to do well or poorly?
If the UN is not relevant, what can and should the ‘world’ do about it? Is there a better way, or should we scrap the whole thing and just stick with loose alliances (like NATO) and inter-national treaties between specific countries or alliances?
What would be the effect on the world if the UN was dismantled? Would it have a profound effect, or would it go with hardly a ripple? If it went, should efforts be made to create a new organization…one with real teeth? Or should an organization like NATO simply be expanded as a large pact of nations committed to MUTUAL defense?
If the UN is still relevant, should anything be done to ‘fix’ it or is it doing everything it can and should? If it isn’t, what do you think can be done to ‘fix’ it? Should the Charter be completely overhauled, the language tightened up and fleshed out, so that the various ambiguities are eliminated?
Should the SC be rethought if the UN is to continue? Should, instead of Britain and France, US, Russia and China, instead perhaps BLOCKS of nations make up the inner counsel? Maybe EU (to include Russia), US (including Canada and Mexico), a block of nations from South and Central America, same for Africa, same for Asia (to include China)? Or perhaps there should be other nations than the 5 listed? Maybe rotating countries? More than 5? Would this work better or worse than what we currently have?
I think UN is an important feature of a global political landscape. I think that US left, that mostly loves it, and US right, that mostly hates it, are both equally misguided in their feelings. I think most people (except professional diplomats and politicians) are completely ignorant of UN’s real uses and purposes; I admit to be ignorant myself. Bernard Lewis mentioned briefly “convoluted but vicious politics of UN”; I’d like to learn more what he meant by that. I am sure that US gov. wouldn’t be a major supporter of organization it has no use of.
I’ve no desire to get involved in yet another pointless round of UN bashing. However, in the interests of fighting a little ignorance, here’s an organizational chart of the United Nations. There’s lots of stuff in there that people don’t normally think of as being related to the UN.
What I was really surprised at , was that the UN did not sanction the use of Force , and give the Americans , their blessing.
Regardless of what your place on the argument was , for the UN to be a viable entity , it has to be seen as a player. Holding their noses and voting for the resolution/force would have given the UN more room to maneuver in the post invasion Iraq, when they finally realized that the Americans were going to go in , with or without the support of that body.
As for the rest , its a totally toothless tiger , that derives its muscle from its member states , 149 little countries however do not make the balancing act on the internation fulcrum , when the one superpower decides its time to act.
As for sanctions against the states , probably useless. One of Chirac’s diatribes calling the US a hyperpower was that you can’t effectively sancition it , because people will still trade , do business , and its not like you can blockade the coasts of the States either.
In short
If the Un is dealing with something outside American influence, or interest, then its probably going to be somewhat of an effective body , if its meddling in something the americans have an interest in, then its going to look ineffectual at best.
Declan
I pretty much agree with what Declan said. The UN is as effective as the countries in it want it to be. It’s the old “international law” conundrum-- it only exists insomuch as countries voluntarily agree that it’s in their interest to abide by it.
But the world needs some sort of delibarative body to work out international issues. Perhaps a better question might be: How could we make the UN better? As bad as it currently is, I think the world would be worse if it, or something like it, did not exist at all.
This wasn’t meant to be a ‘UN bash’ session. I really wanted to know what peoples thoughts were on the organization and where its going, how effective they see it, what improvements (if any could be made) or alternatives if it would need to be scrapped. I agree that some organization doing what the UN does is a good thing, but I think that over all, the current set up is weak and ineffectual. If the US is the unbalancing part of the equation, what could be done to bring it into balance?
Or should we just bite the bullet and admit that the US IS the worlds superpower and make them the ruler of the world (just kidding btw…I can practically hear the blood presure rising out there at the mere thought :)).
Since thats not a viable solutiong (making the US the king, so to speak), what are alternatives to balancing it with either the UN or a UN type organization? Or, conversely, SHOULD it be balanced? Should countries just be allowed to do their own thing, withing loose bounds (such as is the case obviously today), only being really hammered if they REALLY step far outside the acceptable limits?
The UN was an invention of the USA and the victors of WWII in order to firther their interests and that is what it does. The UN is a tool the USA uses. The USA enjoys veto power so the UN has no teeth when it comes to the USA. So the UN is a great instrument of the US’s foreign policy. When the UN serves the purposes of the USA then great. And when the UN gets to be a bit uncomfortable for the USA then the USA declares itself to know better than the rest of the world combined and ignores the UN anyway. It has been one of the most successful inventions of the US and has served it well.
Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that the US and the other 4 countries with veto power control the thing, not just the US? Don’t they all pretty much manipulate the system in the same way?
What would be the ideal alternative? Is there even one? I see no way to get the present organization out from under the influence of the big 5. Say we did though. What would an effective alternative be? How would you curb the US, EU, China, Russia, etc? How would you be able to get them on board with an organization and a Charter with real teeth?
Look, to those who think the UN is unnecessary, would you then agree that Iraq had no obligation to abide by UN Resolutions? Was Bush wrong to try to argue those alleged violations as an excuse for his invasion?
Has anyone said the UN is unnecessary?? I haven’t seen anyone post that seriously. I thought the general consensus so far was that the UN was a flawed but still necessary organization (except Sailor…and I’m not sure what he was REALLY getting at with his post). At the minimum that SOME organization needs to be in the role the UN is currently in at the very least.
DtC, answer some of the questions from the OP. How do you see the UN currently? Is it adaquately fulfilling its role? Should it be ‘fixed’ and if so, how? Should the US’s role and the 4 countries on the inner counsel be changes/modified? What do you think is the UN’s primary role and how should they go about it?
If you want a security council resolution, that simply isn’t going to happen. The five permanent members (US, Russia, China, Britain, France) of the security council each has effective veto power, since a “no” from any of these countries kills the resolution. What do you think the chances are of passing a resolution against any of the permanent members? I’d call it zilch, since the member that the resolution is targetted against can simply vote against it.
You can call a session of the general assembly to pass a resolution - this was used during the suez crisis (which involved France and Britain) and during the soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Sometimes it helps (suez), sometimes it doesn’t (Afghanistan). However, if it came down to authorizing force, that’d probably have to go through the security council, and it would fail.
The UN would not exist if not for veto power. This means that the permanent members can thumb their noses, if they wish. However, having a UN security council means that many resolutions will be passed (such as those against Iraq, dating from gulf war 1) that enable the UN to do various things (send in troops, embargo, inspect, dismantle, etc). This sets a precedent whereby if a permanent member commits violations, even if there won’t be a resolution against said permanent member (due to the veto), it will hurt them diplomatically and politically.
And as somebody else pointed out, there’s a lot more to the UN than the Security Council and the General Assembly. It is essentially an umbrella that houses a lot of international agreements, protocols, and organizations.
The UN is not a perfect system. It is, however, all we have got, and the fact that it acts with any kind of substantial voice and authority as opposed to it predecessor, the League of Nations, is quite an achievement. More so when one considers that prior to the League of Nations, there was no world international body. Consider, for example, the number of UN Peacekeeping Operations that are currently in place or have been in the past separating belligerents. Prior to 1945, this simply was not done. Even when peacekeeping operations failed, they served a purpose. When Egypt announced that it would no longer consent to UNEF forces separating them from Israel in 1967, it was a clear sign that they intended to go to war as it would be impolitic to simply start a war by driving over international peacekeeping forces.
Another thing to consider is its ability to provide an effective framework for sanctions. Iraq faced sanctions from 1991-2003 that derived their power from international consent. How effective would these sanctions have been if they derived their entire power from a simple US dictate or desire?
I think that the beef here is not whith the UN, but with the UNSC, the United Nations Security Council, that indeed is a sorry buisiness, since 4 countries are untouchable by it´s resolutions; IMO, to give teeth to the SC permanent memberships should be abandoned, or, better yet, the SC should be compossed of the totallity of UN members.
Well, thats why I was thinking of maybe blocks of nations Ale. Or, like you said, they could do away with the SC and let any nation in good standing join…then do the votes as either a simple majority or maybe a 2/3rds majority (obviously you couldn’t have veto or require unananomous votes or whatever). I think this would be a decent idea. Is it workable? Certainly the 5 nations on the SC wouldn’t go for it most likely.
The US should be severely sanctioned for it’s illegal invasion of Iraq. I think a trade embargo similar to what was imposed on South Africa would suffice.
Israel should also be sanctioned in some way. All illegal settlements should be removed, by force if necessary.
Part of the biggest problem with the UN is the perception that in the UN, relatively inconsequential nations like say… Uruguay or Rwanda have an equal say as powerful nations like the US, France or the UK, especially in non-Security Council issues.
If the UN had more proportional representation, possibly by some combination of GDP and population(which would account for populous and economically powerful nations) then it would have much more legitimacy in many Americans’ eyes. Obviously some analogy to the New Jersey Compromise would be necessary to avoid the total marginalization of small and poor nations though.
Maybe under this proposed system, set up the top 5 or 6 nations in terms of votes as the Security Council- that would have China, India, and the US for sure.
