Over four years ago, in one of my first online blogposts, I wrote a mild and moderate critique of the United Nations. At the time, I made the following critique:
“…it seems the veto power of one permanent member [on the Security Council] defeating a resolution makes it next to impossible to get anything done…the Security Council…should have a rotating membership of members, picked by the General Assembly…a majority vote of 51% of the countries would be needed to make a country a member on the Security Council…the veto power should be removed, making the ‘permanent seat’ disappear…[as a result] a resolution would need a majority of 2/3 of the members to pass a resolution…as a way of slimming down the U.N. bureaucracy, the amount of paperwork and red tape would be reduced. certain departments could be reviewed to see if they are efficient or needed…the U.N. member states could makes the U.N. charter a more living document…A panel should be created to review the views of lobbyists coming to the U.N…In conclusion, I believe the U.N. needs major reforms.”
Looking back it doesn’t seem that I agree with this critique as a whole, but there are certain aspects that still seem valid, which will be explained later in this article. Like my article four years ago, this article will look at the United Nations (UN), but will be more in-depth and have a more substantive critique of the UN as a whole.
The usual story that is touted is that the UN was created as an effort to support world peace and diplomacy. Melvin Goodman, a former CIA and State Department analyst, makes a similar point, writing that in the post-WWII period, the US made many efforts to “pioneer a system of world diplomacy…that looked to increased cooperation among nations…[for] peacekeeping and political-economic cooperation,” with one of those efforts being the United Nations. [1] Others haven’t agreed with this story. One of these people is Lance Selfa, who argued that institutions such as the IMF, World Bank and UN are “ongoing tools of American imperialism” and that the UN was “modeled on the League of Nations.” [2] While his first point is debatable since it may not take into account that the UN doesn’t always agree with US imperial interests, his second point is definitely correct. Basically, the UN is just an updated version of the League of Nations.
Chris Harman makes this exact point. He writes that at the UN’s founding conference in San Francisco, in May 1945, the peoples of the world were promised a “new order of peace and cooperation that would vanquish war forever,” a claim that struck a chord among those people who fought for what they believed what be a better world. [3] But, this claim ended up being hollow, because, in Harman’s words, not only was the UN was no different than the League of Nations, even if it “had a ‘soup kitchen’ annexe in Geneva” comprising UNICEF, WHO (World Health Organization), and so on,” but the decision-making “lay with four [major] Security Council members—Britain, the US, France and Russia—and between them these [members] dominated, oppressed and exploited the rest of the world.” [3] Harman doesn’t include China as a permanent Security Council member because the Chinese government was a “US client regime” based in Taiwan, with China proper only taking the permanent seat in the 1970s. [4]
Howard Zinn makes a similar point to Harman, also writing about the founding of the UN. He notes that despite the fact that the UN was presented as “international cooperation to prevent future wars,” it was dominated by the “Western imperial countries—the United States, England, and France—and a new imperial power…the Soviet Union.” [5] Zinn then reprints this quote from the diary of US Senator Arthur Vaudenberg, who Zinn describes as an “important conservative Republican senator”:
“The striking thing about it [the UN] is that it is so conservative from a nationalist standpoint. It is based virtually on a four-power alliance…This is anything but a wild-eyed internationalist dream of a world State. I am deeply impressed (and surprised) to find [Secretary of State Cordell] Hull so carefully guarding our American veto in his scheme of things.” [5]
In order to construct a more informed critique, it best to look at what people were writing at the time about the UN. Lawrence Wittner shows that many individuals in the peace movement were not happy with the UN, especially those who were self-declared world federalists, or those who wanted a worldwide federalist system, essentially a world government. One of these world federalists, a young Cord Meyer, even believed that “World War III was inevitable, if the U.N. was not substantially strengthened.” [6] Other proponents of a stronger world government even wrote a letter to the New York Times in October 1945, arguing that the U.N. Charter is a “tragic illusion unless we are ready to take further steps necessary to organize peace” and that world government was an “immediate, urgent necessary, unless civilization is determined on suicide.” [7] Another proponent was young writer Emery Reeves who argued in his book, Anatomy of War that:
“a league of sovereign nation-states is not a step…toward peace. Peace is law. The San Francisco League [the UN] is the pitiful miscarriage of the Second World War. Equal and sovereign power units can never, under any circumstances, under any conditions, exist peacefully.” [8]
US Senator, Glen Tyler of Idaho was a proponent of world federalism as well. He introduced a resolution in 1945 that seemed somewhat progressive for its time, in terms of the universal suffrage proposed since blacks were denied the right to vote throughout the American South, suggesting that:
“every possible effort of our delegates to the United Nations organization be directed toward the ultimate goal of establishing a world republic based upon democratic principles and universal suffrage regardless of race, color or creed.” [9]
Other would follow Tyler’s lead. By 1947, world government organizations wanted to strengthen “the United Nations into a world government,” feeling that it was a permanent institution. [10]
Proponents of a world government weren’t the only ones that were troubled by the UN. A New York lawyer and later UN reformist, who would advocate for a world police force and replacement of the UN Security Council by a more representative executive council, Grenville Clark wrote in a 1944 letter to the New York Times about the UN, warning that:
“this combination of a nearly impotent Assembly…and a council that is hamstrung, or at best hampered, by the right of any one of the Big Five to veto sanctions, must be a week reed to support peace of the world.” [11]
Other organizations and individuals were critical of the UN at the time as well. These organizations do not include the W.I.L.P.F. (Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom), the Federal Council of Churches, and the Socialist Party which disagreed with the “concessions to nationalism” in the UN charter, but they still worked for its acceptance by Congress. [12] One individual who was critical of the UN was journalist Raymond Gram Swing, who argued that the UN was “suited only to the preatomic era” and that it had “no validity in the atomic age.” [13] There were organizations which were critical like Gram Swing, but in a different way. The War Resisters League argued that the UN is is only an “organization…in a nominal sense, the sense in which an alliance may be called an organization.” [12] The Fellowship of Reconciliation (F.O.R.) took a different tact, arguing that the demand “of the Big Nations that they be given veto power” was indicative of the fact that that the UN was “likely to prove…camouflage for the continuation of imperialist policies and the exercise of arbitrary power by the Big Three [US, France and England?] for the domination of the world.” [12] Within its first year, a small group of peace activists called the Committee for Non-Violent Revolution (C.N.V.R.) followed F.O.R.’s view by picketing outside the UN during its first year of existence, denouncing it as a “cover for imperialist policies.” [14]
Beyond 1945, criticisms, not surprisingly, persisted of the UN. People rightly criticized how the Korean War has been presented as a UN “police action” and some, such as Al Hassler, argued that the Korean War meant that a “truncated UN has been conscripted as an ally of the United States in its struggle against the Soviet Union and world communism.” [15] In his book, Democracy Matters, Cornel West expressed his view on the UN, saying that it reflected US interests:
“In global politics, the largely U.S.-finance United Nations is disproportionately influenced by U.S. interests—with its symbolic veto power in the Security Council (along with Russia, China, Britain, and France). And the clever deals, outright bribery, or raw bullying of some of the other 190 nations in the world reflect[s] U.S. political prowess.” [16]
Others have similar views. One of these people is political scientist Chalmers Johnson who writes that the United States is a “patron of such institutions as the United Nations, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization.” [17] Despite this, as Sheldon Wolin rightly points out, a superpower such as the US don’t really need the consent of the UN to engage in war, at least in the view of the elites who run the said superpower: “Superpower’s operatives no more needed the consent of the UN than they needed an accurate counting of the ballots in the presidential election of 2000.” [18] William Blum makes a similar argument. He writes that at the UN, the US has found itself alone when it vetoes resolutions in the Security Council:
“At the United Nations, with noteworthy regularity, Washington has found itself—often alone, sometimes joined by one or two countries—standing in opposition to General Assembly resolutions aimed at furthering human rights, peace, nuclear disarmament, economic justice, the struggle against South African apartheid, and Israeli lawlessness and other progressive causes.” [19]
One area of criticism that often is overlooked is that by feminist scholars. One of these scholars is Cynthia Enloe, who wrote that during the 1980s, the UN “looked remarkably like the patriarchal status quo” and that during the 1990s, “steps toward demasculinizing the machinery of international politics are coming at a time of financial retrenchment.” [20] Enloe also writes that at the UN, any efforts to “make international agencies more truly reflect the societies in which they represent [i.e. demasculinize them] are met with claims that it is not feasible when every penny has to be counted.” [21] In a later book, Enloe again talks about the UN. She writes that the form of military force that is “inspiring the greatest hope is the United Nations peacekeeping force” because this force “seems to perform military duties without being militaristic.” [22] However, just like the UN as a whole, she writes that these peacekeeping forces are “overwhelmingly male” and that they must have the “same sort of policies around masculinity” as armed forces of states do. [23]
Humanitarian worker and writer Conor Foley also talks about the UN peacekeeping forces in his book, Thin Blue Line, but in a more general non-gendered manner unlike Enloe. Foley writes that some concluded that the “UN-based system of collective security has become an excuse for indifference to…global suffering and crimes against humanity” after the UN’s failure in Rwanda and Bosnia-Herzegovina. [24] In the book, Foley also writes about how human rights violations committed by UN soldiers were a “major factor in alienating ordinary Somalis” in the 1990s and that after 1993, there has been a recurring theme pushed by liberal interventionists: that the UN is “weak” and that US and British forces are “strong and decisive.” [25] One could argue that this type of argument is gendered, because “weak” would be coded to mean feminine, while “strong and decisive” would mean masculine. Later in his book, Foley expresses his strongest criticism yet, specifically taking about actions of UN peacekeeping forces:
“There are now more UN-mandated peacekeeping forces than ever before…the UN has formed quasi-protectorates, assuming executive powers over territories in which local politicians are reduced to observer status. There is also an increasingly contentious argument over the way humanitarian assistance is distributed during conflicts and how to hold humanitarian organizations to account for their actions.” [26]
There are other specific criticisms of the UN as well. Richard Seymour argues that the Office of High Representative of the UN has “quasi-colonial rule” under specific circumstances, and that numerous UN organizations were convinced during the 1970s that the ‘population explosion’ was the “number one problem in underdeveloped countries and that family planning programmes had to be added to their other activities,” a position with which feminist Maria Mies clearly does not agree. [27] Additionally, there is no doubt, criticism of the “obscure principle” of Responsibility to Protect, which was adopted by 150 UN member states in 2005. [28]
Now, onto my criticism and ideas for change in the UN. It is clear that the UN is dominated by what can accurately be called the Big Five, as some called it in the post-WWII era, all which sit on the UN security council and have a permanent veto power. Similar to my article in 2010, it seems right to take away this veto power, but it not enough. In order for the UN to become more democratic, it would only be just to abolish the Security Council and move all of the powers that the Council has to the General Assembly. This assembly, would not be bicameral as people such as David Fischerhave proposed, but rather be unicameral, since bicameralism has a root in elites, especially in countries such as the US and UK, having one body represent the people, and the other represent the wealthy elites. We while there is the possibility that the UN General Assembly could be swayed by one nation, like the US or China, to support specific policies, it seems that the world is better represented this way, rather than having a Security Council dominated by the Big Five. Then, there is the UN’s inner-workings, which tend to be dominated by the “minority [Global] North” as noted by a Global Policy article, and it should be more evenly distributed, perhaps by using quotas. This is connected to the idea, also expressed in the same article, of creating a “more democratic and effective UN therefore begins in perception and policy at home, within each member-state.”
It is also important to consider the UN Secretary-General. It may be time to reconsider this position, not by creating a three person council as proposed by Nikita Khrushchev in the early 1960s, that has one member from the “West,” one member from “Communist states” and another from the “neutral” powers. Instead, it might be best to get rid of the Secretary General, but keep the Secretariat and spokesperson. That way, there is still a spokesperson for the UN, but not a President-type figure. In that way, the UN would be more democratic. From here, it is important to turn to UN peacekeeping forces. In my view, they must be made more diverse, just like the UN as a whole, by not being as male-dominated, which would make them not part of what Enloe called the “patriarchal status quo.” It is also important to ask: “will the United Nations breed a less violent form of security”? [29] One must also ask if current peacekeeping operations are in line with the interests of certain states, and if they serve as a way to protect the interests of certain states, as I have argued is the case with the UN peacekeeping in Mali in the past. [30] On another point, it might also be important to take seriously the charges against UN peacekeepers, mainly, by countries, rather than dismissing them as has been done in certain cases in the past.
I know that what has been outlined in the past two paragraphs is fundamentally reformist. However, unlike other institutions, it seems that the UN is a permanent institution. At this point, it just doesn’t seem right to call for the UN’s abolishment, since I’m not sure what would replace it. The UN is definitely not irrelevant, but it is definitely used as a cover for imperialist policies at times, like the approval of the 2011 bombing of Libya or the Korean War. Still, at other times, the UN clearly bucks the interests of the American elites and the US government. In order to make the UN more democratic and serve the interest of the world, it is only right that these reforms be put into place. Whether that actually happens is a questionable, but it is still good to be critical of the UN. When I originally wrote this article, I said I was wary of turning UN General Assembly into a representative system, since that would mean that a small amount of populous states would have more power than less populous states. However, looking at the data again, even though China, India, the US, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, and five other states would collectively have sixty one representatives, the other 236 countries would have one representative. [31] This means that the poorer states could actually have more of a voice in the UN, which would disrupt the current model with power residing in the UN Security Council instead of the people of the world. As a result, it may be better to just keep the one-state, one-vote system instead. In the end, it is best for someone to question the UN as it currently exists, rather than buying what they are saying wholesale.
Notes:
[1] Goodman, Nathan A. 2013. National Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism. 19. San Francisco: Open Media Series.
[2] Selfa, Lance. 2008. The Democrats: A critical history. 129, 133. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books.
[3] Harman, Chris. 2008. A People’s History of the World: From the Stone Age to the New Millennium (Fourth Edition). 543. London: Verso.
[4] Ibid, 659.
[5] Zinn, Howard. 2003. A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present (Fifth Edition). 415. New York: HarperPerennial.
[6] Wittner, Lawrence S. Rebels Against War: The American Peace Movement, 1941-1960. 137-8. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969.
[7] Ibid, 141.
[8] Ibid, 136-7.
[9] Ibid, 142-3.
[10] Ibid, 171.
[11] Ibid, 137. The reforms later supported by Clark are articulated in a 1958 book he wrote with Louis B. Sohn which called for a reformed UN Charter, titled World Peace Through World Law.
[12] Ibid, 138.
[13] Ibid, 141.
[14] Ibid, 155-6.
[15] Selfa, 140; Wittner, 203.
[16] West, Cornel. 2004. Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism. 59. New York: Penguin Books.
[17] Johnson, Chalmers. 2004. Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire. 32. New York: Metropolitan Books.
[18] Wolin, Sheldon. 2008. Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism. 94. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
[19] Blum, William. 2000. Rogue state: A guide to the world’s only superpower. 184. Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press.
[20] Enloe, Cynthia. 1990. Bananas, Beaches & Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics(First U.S. Edition). 121, 123. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
[21] Ibid, 123.
[22] Enloe, Cynthia. 1993. The Morning After: Sexual Politics at the End of the Cold War. 33. Berkeley: University of California Press.
[23] Ibid, 35.
[24] Foley, Conor. 2008.The Thin Blue Line: How Humanitarianism Went to War. 5. New York: Verso.
[25] Ibid, 64, 92.
[26] Ibid, 19.
[27] Seymour, Richard. 2008.The Liberal Defense of Murder. 205. Verso: New York.; Mies, Maria. 1986. Patriarchy and the accumulation on a world scale: Women in the International Division of Labour. 122. Highlands, NJ: Zed Books, Ltd.
[28] Goodman, 229.
[29] Enloe 1990, 6.
[30] See here and here.
[31] If representation were determined by percentage of world population (also see here) with rounding, the China would have 19 representatives, India would have 18 representatives, the United States would have 4 representatives, Indonesia would have 4 representatives, Brazil and Pakistan would both have 3 representatives, five countries would have two representatives, 236 countries would have one representative. This means that the poorer states would win out…
Compare this to a graph of world population, by state (using data from here)
And population of the world broken down by region…
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