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UN reform calls for strong resolution

By Syed Atiq ul Hassan - posted Friday, 25 August 2006


In 1919, in recognition of the need to promote international co-operation and achieve peace and security after World War I, the League of Nations was established.

Although US president Woodrow Wilson was the main advocate for the League, the US, crucially, never joined.

Twenty or so years after World War 1, political crises and conflicts emerged again in Europe, but the experiences of World War I had left many American politicians with a strong desire for isolationism. This led to the introduction of the Neutrality Acts under which the US embargoed the shipment of warheads, and banned travel on ships belonging to belligerents.

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In the 1930s, as the events in Europe and Asia that led to World War II unfolded, the League of Nations was found to be ineffective in preventing conflict and, in 1946, dissolved itself, and its services and mandates.

Despite the League’s failure, the international community remained ambitious for a fresh international body that could maintain international peace and security, uphold justice, and respect international treaties and laws.

In 1945, representatives from 50 countries gathered at the United Nations Conference on International Organisation in San Francisco to draw up the United Nations Charter. But even after the charter came into effect in 1945, nothing changed.

Power remained in the hands of the Big Five - China, France, the USSR, the UK and the US - but in the name of maintaining global peace and security, the UN Security Council was created.

The Big Five, which were also the nuclear states, became the Security Council’s permanent members, and kept the veto power - although the word "veto" is never actually used in the UN Charter.

Being a nuclear state was not a criterion for becoming a permanent Security Council member, but the Big Five justified their position on the grounds of their military might, and as the victorious powers of World War II.

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The veto power has been highly controversial since the drafting of the UN Charter, and it’s unlikely the US and the USSR would have accepted the UN’s creation without the veto privilege.

In the “world’s largest democratic body”, a resolution on peace, security or any other international issue cannot be passed if it doesn’t suit just one of the Big Five.

Since the creation of the UN, Russia (and the former USSR) has used its veto 120 times; the US, 76; Britain, 32; France, 18; and China only five.

The heavy use of the veto power by Russia and the US has actually discredited the Security Council, as the threat to use it often tones down draft resolutions. For example, in the run-up to the Iraq war in March 2003, France and Russia indicated they would not support a new resolution sanctioning war.

Consequently, the US, the UK and Spain withdrew their draft resolution, and the US and its allies went to war without specific UN support.

The US regularly exercises its veto to shield the Israeli Government from international criticism, or any attempts to restrain the behaviour of Israel’s military.

The UN and its affiliated bodies have done significant and useful humanitarian, economical and social development work, and have also acted adequately on natural and human-made disasters. But, if a nation’s security and basic rights are humiliated, the UN is unable to maintain peace and stability.

Unfortunately, as far as peace and security are concerned, the veto has served only served the interest of the superpowers since the UN’s creation.

According to the Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal, and adopted by the International Law Commission of the United Nations in 1950, planning, preparing, initiating or waging a war of aggression - or in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances - is a war crime punishable under international law.

Furthermore, the UN Charter requires that:

All the members of United Nations shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means...War can be used but only as a last resort and only under the direction of the UN Security Council.

Of the five permanent Security Council members, the US especially is the most vocal on the control of dangerous weapons, not hesitating to take aggression against any nation found to be developing nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction.

In the name of demolishing Saddam Hussein’s WMDs, the US and its partners sidestepped the Security Council and attacked Iraq.

Weapons inspectors were searching for WMDs in Iraq, and most nations were against any hostile action at the time, including a military attack on Iraq. A minority in the Security Council was also trying to pass a resolution to have Saddam Hussein disclose and destroy his WMD sites.

As events unfolded, this was clearly not what the US and its partners wanted. Their agenda was to topple Saddam Hussein and control Iraq, and to achieve this, the US could not wait for the Security Council resolutions, which might never have passed due to other veto-bearers.

In March 2003, the rest of the UN member states watched helplessly as the US and its allies barraged Iraq and, over the next four years, reduced the most advanced state in the Middle East to rubble.

On the other hand, three of the five permanent Security Council members, the US, the UK and France, are today - and have been since the creation of the UN - among the world's top four weapons-exporters, with China coming in at seventh place. Germany, a strong contender for a permanent seat, is the world’s fourth largest weapons supplier.

In December 2004, the UN issued a Report (pdf 341KB) of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, “A more secure world: our shared responsibility”, prepared in response to perceptions that the UN was no longer effective in meeting its mandate.

The document states that initiatives must be multilateral in nature, and that unilateralist actions can lead to chaos and anarchy, as in Iraq.

The dilemma is that unilateral actions by superpowers encourage other states to follow and do whatever they feel suits them. Pakistan and India secretly developed nuclear weapons and became nuclear powers, and despite great international pressure, never joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. North Korea and Iran are following in their footsteps.

In the current Israel-Lebanon conflict, the majority of UN member states are against Israel’s disproportionate use of force and aerial bombardment against Hezbollah militias.

All of Lebanon has been ruined in the past couple of weeks; thousands of innocent people have died; and hundreds of thousands have been displaced. The Israeli air force bombarded a UN peacekeeping center, killing four UN observers, and when other UN members put-up a resolution condemning Israel, the US vetoed the move.

Since 1972, the US has exercised its veto more than 30 times to shield Israel from critical draft resolutions. Many of these resolutions related to Israeli forces killing and attacking civilian targets in Palestine.

The international community wants to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict, but by blocking every move against Israel in the Security Council, the US demonstrates that it wants to resolve the matter only on its terms, not the majority’s.

Another reason for the UN’s and Security Council’s ineffectiveness and incapacity to prevent illegal behaviour by states is that in the past 60 years the world has changed greatly.

Sixty years ago, as the only powers holding nuclear warheads and powerful air and ground forces, China, Russia (USSR), the UK, France and the US qualified to be the permanent Security Council members, and hold the veto.

Now more states feel they too satisfy the criteria. India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel have already demonstrated that they are nuclear powers; Iran has also announced it has adequate military might and nuclear capabilities.

India is already trying to become a permanent Security Council member, and it’s on the agenda of a growing number of nations also to become permanent members and have the benefit of the veto power to save themselves from the foreign threats.

It is interesting, however, that the present permanent members are unwilling to see any new permanent members.

On his visit to India in December 2003, Russian president Vladimir Putin said expanding the Security Council to include more members with the veto power was not a good idea, despite Russia having close ties with India, Japan, Germany and Brazil, which are all aspiring to permanent seats and the veto power.

Last March, British Prime Minister Tony Blair also called for radical reform of the Security Council, saying the organisation was now out of touch with the world’s needs. Canada’s ambassador to the UN backed Blair’s comments, and also called for a shakeup of the Security Council.

In the past three decades or so, many countries have grouped together on the basis of historical, religious or regional ties - for example, the Organisation of Islamic Councils, the European Union, ASEAN, theG-8 and G-20 countries, and so on.

The creation of these groupings is acknowledgement by their members that the UN cannot meet their needs and objectives. Today, platforms like the EU and the OIC are more effective than the UN.

The UN with its present imbalance in favour of the Big Five is nothing more than a meaningless debating platform, producing resolutions that serve only the interests of the superpowers, or that are declared impracticable.

Only when all its members - especially in the Security Council - possess equal power, and every decision and resolution is dealt with democratically, will the UN be effective and forceful.

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Article edited by Allan Sharp.
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About the Author

Syed Atiq ul Hassan, is senior journalist, writer, media analyst and foreign correspondent for foreign media agencies in Australia. His email is shassan@tribune-intl.com.

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