Sermon for 17 October 2010, 1st Unitarian Church of Alton, Illinois

 

THE UNITED NATIONS AT 65:  SUCCESSES AND DISAPPOINTMENTS

Ronald Glossop

 

 I.  Introduction

    A.  Next Sunday, October 24, 2010, will be the 65th anniversary of the beginning of the United Nations, the international organization created in 1945 at the end of World War II to replace the League of Nations which had failed to prevent World War II.

    B.  U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt felt that the failure of the League of Nations to prevent World War II was largely due to the fact that the United States failed to join that organization.

    C.  The U.S. did not join the League of Nations even though it was the idea of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson.  Because of Republican opposition in the U.S. Senate, Wilson couldn’t get the 2/3 vote he needed to ratify the Versailles Treaty into which the Covenant of the League of Nations had been put.  National isolationism from the rest of the world was still too strong.

    D.  In order to prevent a repetition of that mistake, Roosevelt wanted to get the new United Nations organization created and the U.S. into it before the war ended.  He succeeded in doing that, but the U.N. Charter didn’t get the needed ratifications by other countries ‘til October 24.  That is why October 24 is celebrated throughout the world as United Nations Day.  It is the day when the United Nations Charter went into effect 65 years ago.

 

II.  The nature of the United Nations

    A.  At present the United Nations is coordinator and cheerleader for assisting the world to help the neediest anywhere and everywhere.  All over the world the presence of U.N. personnel means that help is on the way for needy people in the most difficult situations.  Unlike many national governments, the U.N. is making many friends and has a minimum of enemies.  

    A.  The U.N. is not a world government, but it can be viewed as a beginning step toward a world government, similar to the way in which in this country the Articles of Confederation was a beginning step for the U.S. government which came into existence with the creation and ratification by the 13 colonies of the U.S. Constitution in the years 1787-1788.  Note that the Declaration of Independence (1776) was adopted by the Continental Congress operating under the Articles of Confederation 13 years before the U.S. national government was created.

    B.  The U.N. is an association of national governments based on the U.N. Charter.  We read the Preamble earlier in the service. In 1945 there were 51 independent member countries.  Now there are 192, many of them former colonies of European countries in Africa and Asia.

    C.  The two policy-making bodies in the U.N. are the General Assembly and the Security Council, but they are very different in power and membership.

        1.  In the General Assembly each country is entitled to one vote regardless of its wealth and population.  Members include some mini-states with populations less than that of the St. Louis metropolitan area.  The General Assembly sets the policies of the U.N. organization itself such as its budget. Beyond that it can only make recommendations. It isn’t a legislature. It can’t make laws. It can’t collect taxes.  All money comes from allocated contributions from the national governments. The General Assembly can organize international conferences and can direct the activities of U.N. employees.  The U.N.’s main offices are in New York and Geneva, Switzerland, but there are U.N. employees stationed throughout the world.  Many of the people who work at U.N. headquarters in New York including the national representatives are the employees not of the U.N. but of the national governments.

        2.  The Security Council is the locus of real power.  Theoretically, every member-nation of the U.N. is obliged to abide by resolutions adopted by the Security Council.  The Security Council is composed of the representatives from 15 countries.  Five of these countries are the biggest countries on the winning side in World War II, namely, the United States, Britain (the United Kingdom), Russia, France, and China.  These 5 are permanent members of the Security Council, and each has the power to cast a veto.  That prevents a resolution from being adopted even if all of the other 14 representatives support it.  The other 10 nations to be represented are elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms, five every other year. Because of the veto power of the Permanent Five, the Security Council could not do much during the Cold War and  presently cannot do much to reign in the Big Five or their allies and trading partners.

    D.  The top administrator of the U.N. is the Secretary-General, whose term of office is five years.  The current Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon of South Korea took office in January 2007.  He follows Kofi Annan of Ghana who served two five-year terms from 1997 until 2006.

    E.  The other main body of the U.N. is the Economic and Social Council, which consists of representatives from 54 countries and is responsible for the coordination of economic, social, and related work of 14 U.N. specialized agencies, its functional commissions, and five regional commissions.  It is in charge of much of the U.N.’s humanitarian and human rights activity.

    F. An important related international institution also created in 1945 is the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or “World Court” which is located in the The Hague, The Netherlands.  It adjudicates legal disputes between national governments, but only if they agree in advance to abide by the Court’s judgment.  One success for the ICJ was establishing a boundary for catching fish between American and Canadian fishermen in the Gulf of Maine.

    G.  The U.N. system includes 18 other international organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the Universal Postal Union (UPU), the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), & the World Bank Group of five banking organizations such as the International Finance Corporation (IFC).  If the U.N. were a government, these international organizations would be its departments.

 

III.  The successes of the United Nations

    A.  The U.N.’s strategy for stopping aggression is called “collective security.” If the Security Council adopts a resolution identifying an aggressor, all member-states are supposed to make their military forces available to fight against that aggressor.

        1.  The first time the Security Council did this was in 1950 when Communist North Korea attacked non-Communist South Korea.  The result was the Korean War in which the U.N.’s military forces under the command of U.S. General Douglas MacArthur wore U.N. insignia & fought back from what looked like defeat to a stand-off after Communist Chinese troops came into the war to help an almost-defeated North Korea.  At considerable cost and with much controversy the U.S.-led U.N. forces stopped the attempted take-over of South Korea by the North.  In view of what is now happening in Korea, that U.N. response to North Korea’s aggression looks like a very important success, especially for the people of South Korea.

        2.  The second time the Security Council acted to stop aggression was in 1990-91.  It was in response to the effort by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein to take over U.N. member-state Kuwait by military force.  Saudi Arabia was also threatened. The U.N authorization for the U.S.-led effort known as the First Gulf War was possible because the Soviet Union was no longer using its veto to stop U.N. action.  This 1991 war against Iraq was legitimized by the U.N. Security Council but was fought by a coalition of military forces led and coordinated by the U.S.

        3.  The U.S. sought to get U.N. Security Council approval for additional military action against Iraq at the end of 2002 and beginning of 2003 on grounds that Saddam Hussein still had weapons of mass destruction that were being hidden from the International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors but failed to persuade the French and the Russians.  When the U.S.-led forces attacked Iraq, it was without U.N. legitimation, and consequently under international law this military attack constituted aggression.

        4.  One of the great successes of the U.N. as a factor in preventing war was the Cuban missile crisis of October, 1962. For thirteen days the whole world held its breath to see if there would be a nuclear holocaust as the U.S. and the Soviet Union unleashed their thousands of nuclear warheads on each other. The defusing of the situation occurred in private talks but also in the public appeals to world public opinion being made at the United Nations.

        5.  On October 15, 2001 the U.S. did get authorization by U.N. Security Resolution 1267 to make the Taliban in Afghanistan stop providing a place for terrorist training and to turn Usama bin Laden over to appropriate national authorities who can prosecute him.   

    B.  The U.N. has been instrumental in advancing conferences and treaties on arms control, the rights of women and children, preserving the environment, the issue of AIDS,  controlling the spread of contagious diseases, addressing population growth, considering the human rights of refugees and minorities, the advancing the governance of the oceans and outer space, and other global problems.

        1.  In my view one of the most important recent developments resulting from action in the U.N. General Assembly was holding the 1998 conference in Rome which adopted a treaty to establish the permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) which can prosecute individuals--even government and military leaders--for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing.  The jurisdiction of this ICC began in 2002, and some high-ranking persons have been indicted, including Sudan President Omar al-Bashir for ordering the massacres of large numbers of innocent persons in Darfur.  The ICC could be even more effective if the U.S. government would whole-heartedly support it instead of being so concerned about the possible indictment of U.S. political leaders and military personnel.     

    C.  The U.N. has sent in peacekeeping forces to maintain peace agreements in tense areas.  At present there are 14 ongoing missions, and 51 peacekeeping missions have been completed. 

    D.  An important success of the U.N. has been supervising the decolonization of most of Africa and other parts of the world.  Rather than needing to fight a war to become independent, former colonies could get their independence recognized by becoming a member of the U.N.

    E.  The U.N. has been much more successful in efforts at nation-building than the U.S.  One of the most successful was in Namibia (1989-90) where a country which had been subjected to apartheid by South Africa adopted a democratic constitution and showed South Africa how to have a racially integrated society. In El Salvador (1991-95) the U.N. negotiated a cease-fire between government and rebel forces, accomplished substantial disarmament, and instituted numerous governmental reforms in respect to human rights, land reform, and other economic and social issues. In Cambodia (1992-93) the U.N. supervised the implementation of the Paris Peace Accords related to human rights monitoring, the repatriation of refugees, and the holding of elections.  In Mozambique (1992-94) the U.N. was in charge of the implementation of peace agreements, the withdrawal of foreign troops, the provision of technical assistance, and the monitoring of elections. In the East Slavonia region of Croatia (1996-98) U.N. personnel supervised demilitarization, the return of refugees, creation of a police force, restoration of civil administration and public services, and holding of an election.

    F.  The U.N. has received favorable publicity with regard to its good handling of relief in the case of tsunamis, floods, and earthquakes.  When disaster strikes, poorer countries can look to the U.N. to coordinate relief efforts.

    G.  The U.N. system provides for the continuous collection and publication of information necessary to understand the state of the world as a whole and of the countries in the world.

    H.  The existence of the U.N. means that leaders and policy-makers of various countries get a chance to talk with each other informally without needing to travel long distances, something which is especially helpful for the smaller, poorer countries of the world who otherwise would be left out of such discussions.

    I.  Even though the main power in the U.N. is in the Security Council, the General Assembly has recently taken some major steps.  In September 2005, the UN Generall Assembly convened a World Summit that brought together the heads of most member states.  The World Summit Outcome Document delineated the conclusions of the meeting.

        1. One of the most important conclusions was the agreement to commit billions of dollars to achieving the Millenium Development Goals. The 8 MDGs are 1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger;  2. Achieve universal primary education; 3. Promote gender equality and empower women; 4. Reduce child mortality rate;  5. Improve maternal health; 6. Combat HIV/AIDs, Malaria and other diseases; 7. Ensure environmental sustainability; 8. Develop a global partnership for development.  The idea is that the richer countries have an obligation to help the poorer countries deal with these difficult problems.  Unfortunately, the current global economic crisis is hurting the implementation of this effort.

        2.  Another very important part of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document was the unanimous agreement that individual states,with the assistance of the international community, have the "responsibility to protect" everyone living within their borders from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and that the international community is to act "collectively" in a “timely and decisive manner” to protect vulnerable civilians if some country should "manifestly fail" in fulfilling its responsibility. This is an explicit rejection of the traditional view in international law that a national government could do whatever it wants without limitation within its national boundaries.  This responsibility to protect (R2P) principle says that certain human rights must be protected by national governments and the international community has a right to intervene to protect individuals if their own government fails to do it.

 

IV.  Help from civil society organizations (CSOs)/non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

    A.  In trying to deal with global problems the U.N. gets important assistance from CSOs.  In humanitarian crises, the U.N. is often coordinating the efforts of international CSOs such as the International Red Cross/Crescent, Doctors without Borders, Amnesty International, etc.  The U.N. General Assembly has been taking measures to get more input from CSOs.

    B.  CSOs are also important in influencing national governments to support the U.N. and its humanitarian work.  Among these are the United Nations Associations in various countries, Citizens for Global Solutions, religious and morally oriented organizations, and others.

    C.  One such CSO working to support the U.N. is our own denomination’s UU-UN Office located in New York very close to the U.N. itself.  In your bulletin for today is a flyer with the notation “UUs at the U.N.; your gateway to the world” along with an envelope for you to join our effort.  Bruce Knotts, who served in the State Department’s Foreign Service for 23 years, is our Executive Director.  One of his goals is to make more UUs familiar with the existence of the UU-UNO. “We suffer from anonymity,” he said. “People really don’t know us and that’s partly because a lot of people don’t know the UN.”  Knotts believes that the UN has been portrayed in the United States as an ineffective organization. “That is not the perception of the UN in most of the rest of the world,” he said. “Part of what I want UUs to know is that the UN is an important and effective organization for peace and development and humanitarian aid.”  Knotts’ respect for the UN is based on his own experience. “I think the UN operation in Sierra Leone was one of the most successful it had,” he said. “When I first went there in 2000, 95 percent of the country was held by rebels. . . . The UN played a huge role in Sierra Leone in creating the conditions for peace and then rebuilding the country when the war was over.” He also praised the UN for its role in providing relief after the 2004 pan-Asian tsunami.  I am the UU-UNO Envoy for our congregation.  As an Envoy, part of my job is to get more of you to join. I am expected to get at least 5 new members each year as well as getting this congregation to become a Congregational Member of the UU-UNO, which requires a $100 contribution each year.  If you join UU-UNO, you will know more about what the U.N. is doing as well as more about the work being done by the UU-UNO.

 

V.  Disappointments about the United Nations

    A. My biggest disappointment with the United Nations is not with the U.N. but with the lack of support from this country for the U.N. during much of the past 30 years.  At the beginning in 1945 the biggest supporter of the U.N. and its ideals was the United States under the leadership of U.S. Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.  It was the United States that got the United Nations going, including providing the ground and building for its headquarters in New York City.  It was the United States that provided the financial resources to get the U.N. up and running.  It was the United States that led the fight for the adoption of the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) on December 9, 1948 (though the U.S. Senate did not vote for ratification until 40 years later).  It was the United States and Eleanor Roosevelt that led the U.N. General Assembly to adopt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the following day, December 10, 1948. It was the United States that led the United Nations to become engaged militarily to stop the North Korean Communists from taking over South Korea. It was the United States along with the Soviet Union that led the effort for national independence for former colonies.  It was the United States that supported U.N. international conferences to deal with global problems such as controlling population growth and protecting the rights of women and children (until the early 1980s when the Reagan administration refused to help fund them).  Even the first President Bush, who had been a U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., was very supportive of the U.N. and used the U.N. to reverse the Iraqi aggression against Kuwait.  He even spoke of “The New World Order” which had come into being because the Soviet Union was no longer using vetoes to stop U.N. action.  Unfortunately, his son led an attack against the U.N. by trying to appoint the anti-U.N. John Bolton to be the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. as well as cutting financial support for the U.N. and carrying out a military attack against Iraq even though he could not get the support of the U.N. Security Council to do that. The 2nd President Bush also led an effort to undermine the newly created International Criminal Court which in fact would have provided another means for removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq without attacking the whole country.   President Obama is trying to get the U.S. back to its earlier position of supporting multilateralism and the rule of law at the global level and the elimination of all nuclear weapons, but he is being thwarted by Republicans in the U.S. Senate just as Woodrow Wilson was unable to get support for the U.S. to join the League of Nations.             

    B.  Another source of disappointment with regard to the U.N. is the manner in which the national governments continue to be so focused on national interests that they seem unable to act in terms of what can and should be done to deal with global problems.  Several national governments have policies to promote population growth in their countries regardless of the global situation of too many people.  U.N. Peacekeeping is done mainly by poorly trained military forces from the poor countries who use it as a way of gaining training for their soldiers and making money for the national governments (because they don’t pay the soldiers as much as the U.N. pays them).   What this situation shows is that the U.N. as an association of national governments lacks a more global outlook that could be achieved by having a U.N. Parliamentary Assembly and an individually recruited U.N. Peace Force and a more influential International Criminal Court and a separate source of funds (such as a tax on international currency exchanges) besides contributions from the national governments (which don’t always get paid).  Some rich nations like the U.S. keep the U.N. weak by keeping it poor.

    C.  Another source of disappointment with regard to the U.N. is the veto power of the five permanent members of the Security Council.  It makes no sense that Russia and France have this power while Japan and Germany (the second and third largest contributors to the U.N. budget) and India (the second most populous country in the world) do not.  The voting system must be changed, but that doesn’t happen because nothing can be changed in the U.N. Charter without the approval of this same Security Council where those five countries have a veto.   A way must be found to change the U.N. Charter or a new organization will need to be formed.    

    D.  Obviously more could be said about the disappointments of the United Nations (for example, not all U.N. Peacekeeping efforts have been successful), but certainly on balance it is better to have this international organization addressing world problems than not to have it.

 

VI.  A final statement:  Please join the UU-UNO as our way of helping the U.N. to become better and helping ourselves to become better informed.