Sermon for 25 October 2015, 1st Unitarian Church of Alton, Illinois

 

THE UNITED NATIONS AT 70:  ITS PAST AND FUTURE

Ronald Glossop

 

 I.  Introduction

    A.  Yesterday, October 24, 2015, was the 70th anniversary of the start of the United Nations, the international organization created in 1945 at the end of World War II to prevent WW III.

    B.  The U.S. did not join the League of Nations after World War I even though it was the idea of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson.  Wilson couldn’t get the 2/3 vote needed in the U.S. Senate to ratify the Versailles Treaty which included the Covenant of the League of Nations.

    C.  Because of what happened at the end of WW I, President Roosevelt wanted to get the UN created and the U.S. committed to it before WW II ended.  He did that, but the U.N. Charter created at the end of May 1945 didn’t get the needed ratifications from other countries until October 24, so that is the day when the UN Charter went into effect 70 years ago.

    D.  From a longer historical perspective, both the League of Nations and the United Nations were the first international organizations to deal generally with all international problems.  The first international organizations in the 19th century dealt with particular international problems.

    E.  Now in the 21st century humanity is transitioning from an inter-national world to a single planetary community.  A very significant issue is whether the inter-national confederal UN can be transformed to a democratic federal government which can deal effectively with the problems facing our global community such as global warming and the danger of nuclear war.

    F.  At this critical time in the long history of humanity, it is important for everyone to know about what the UN is, what its limitations are, and how it can deal with the problems we face.

 

II.  What is the nature of the United Nations?

    A.  The UN is only an association of national governments, by national governments, and for national governments.  The national governments of many nations would like to have more influence at the UN, but it is controlled by the big nations and especially by the USA.

    B.  The U.N. is definitely not a world government.  The UN can't make laws, can't collect taxes, and has no military forces or equipment of any kind.  UN Peacekeeping Forces are in fact only the national military forces of countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Fiji which make money on UN peacekeeping because they pay their troops less than the UN pays them.

    C.  The UN idea was started by the USA and Britain in 1942.  UN headquarters is located in New York City and English is the most used language though on paper there are six official national languages.  The U.S. pays 22% of the regular UN budget (which equals its proportion of the world's economy) and 27% of the UN Peacekeeping budget.  The regular UN budget is $2.7 billion per year, one-tenth of the budget of the State of Missouri. The UN Peacekeeping budget is $8.3 billion per year, equal to only 1.3% of the U.S. military budget of $610 billion.

    D.  There were only 51 countries in the UN at the beginning in 1945, but now there are 193.  The growth is mainly because former European colonies in Africa & Asia became independent countries and then members of the UN, a change supported by both the Soviets & the U.S.    

    E.  Some incidents show how completely the U.S. dominates the UN.  The Communists took control of mainland China in 1949 but were not allowed to choose the UN representatives of China until 1971, 22 years later.

    F.  Another event was at the end of 1996 when the U.S. all alone kept Boutros Boutros-Ghali from getting reelected as UN Secretary-General & then arranged for Kofi Annan to get the job.

    G.  The two policy-making bodies of the UN itself in New York 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 runs the U.N. organization itself such as setting its budget.  Beyond that it can only make recommendations.  It can’t make laws. It can’t collect taxes.  All money comes from allocated or free-will contributions from 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 representatives from 15 countries.  Five of these countries are the big countries on the winning side in World War II, namely, the United States, Britain (the United Kingdom), Russia, France, and China.  Each of these 5 permanent members of the Security Council can cast a veto.  A veto stops a resolution from being adopted even if all the other 14 countries favor it. The other 10 nations on the Security Council are elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms, 5 every other year. The Big Five's veto power kept the Security Council from doing much during the Cold War & also anything now to restrain them or their allies.  The Big Five's veto power also can be used to stop all efforts to amend the UN Charter.

    H.  The third main body of the UN 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 UN’s humanitarian and human rights activity.

    I.  The top UN administrator is the Secretary-General, whose term of office is 5 years. Ban Ki Moon of South Korea became Secretary-General in January 2007.  His 2nd term ends in December 2016.  There is currently pressure for the next Secretary-General to be a woman.

    J. Another important international institution is the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or “World Court” located in the The Hague, The Netherlands.  It deals only with legal disputes between national governments, and only if they agree in advance to abide by its judgment. 

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

 

III.  What are the accomplishments of the United Nations?

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

        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. The U.N.’s military forces under U.S. General Douglas MacArthur eventually succeeded in stopping the attempted take-over of South Korea by the North Korean Communists.  As is now evident, that U.N. success in halting aggression was very important, especially for the people of South Korea.

        2.  The second time the Security Council acted to stop aggression was in 1990-91 when Iraq’s Saddam Hussein tried to take over UN member-state Kuwait. The Security Council's authorization of this First Gulf War was possible because the Soviet Union no longer used its veto.  The war was won by a coalition coordinated by the U.S. under the first President Bush.

        3.  At the end of 2002 and start of 2003 the U.S. tried to get the U.N. Security Council to approve another military action against Iraq on grounds that Saddam Hussein still had weapons of mass destruction.  The Chinese, French and Russians were not persuaded.  When the U.S.-led forces attacked Iraq, it was viewed as without U.N. Security Council authorization. Thus under international law this military attack led by the U.S. constituted international aggression.

        4.  A month after 9/11 the U.S. did get authorization by UN Security Resolution 1267 to get Afghanistan to stop the Taliban from providing a place for terrorist training and also to turn Usama bin Laden over to appropriate national authorities who could prosecute him.   

        5.  One of the successes of the UN as a factor in preventing war was its role in the Cuban missile crisis of October, 1962.  For 13 days the whole world held its breath to see if there would be a nuclear holocaust. 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.

        6.  Since 1948 the UN Security Council has been sending in peacekeeping forces to oversee peace agreements in tense areas.  There are now 16 such missions, 9 of them in Africa.

    B.  The UN has been much more successful at nation-building than the U.S.  These UN efforts include Namibia (1989-90), El Salvador (1991-95), Cambodia (1992-93), Mozambique (1992-94), the East Slavonia region of Croatia (1996-98), and East Timor (1999-2005).

    C.  Since the 1970s, the UN General Assembly has been instrumental in promoting inter-national 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, establishing governance of the oceans and outer space, and addressing other global problems.

    D.  In 1998 the UN General Assembly convened a conference in Rome which approved a treaty to create a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC).  It can prosecute individuals--even government and military leaders--for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing.  The ICC's jurisdiction began in 2002.  Some high-ranking persons have been indicted, including Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for the killing of innocent persons in Darfur and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for using chemical weapons against his own people.  Until now the U.S. government has not ratified the Rome Statute to support the ICC.

    E. In September 2005, the UN General Assembly convened a World Summit that brought together the heads of most member states.  It approved the World Summit Outcome Document.

        1. One of the most important agreements was 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 principle of the MDGs is that the richer countries have an obligation to help poorer countries deal with these difficult problems.  New goals (17 of them) are now being set.

        2.  Another part of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document was the unanimous agreement that individual states have the "responsibility to protect" (R2P) everyone within their borders from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and that the international community is to act "collectively" to protect vulnerable civilians if some country fails to fulfill its responsibility. This is an explicit rejection of the traditional view that a national government could do whatever it wants without limitation within its borders.

    F.  During the past few years the UN has become coordinator and cheerleader for getting 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.  The UN gets its money from the national governments and then pays NGOs to deal with the problems. When disaster strikes, poorer countries and people such as refugees can look to the UN 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 UN also means that each September 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.

 

IV.  The role of civil society organizations (CSOs)/non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

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

    B.  CSOs are also important in influencing national governments to support the UN 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 CSO working to support the UN is our own UU-UN Office located in New York close to the UN. Its Executive Director Bruce Knotts served in the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service for 23 years.  He believes that the UN has been portrayed in the U.S. as an ineffective organization. “That is not the perception of the UN in most of the rest of the world,” he has 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. . . .  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.” The UU-UNO has played a major role in generating international support for gender rights.  I am the UU-UNO Envoy for this congregation.  As an Envoy, my job is to get more of you to join.  I also need to get this congregation to become a Congregational Member of the UU-UNO, which requires a $100 contribution each year.  Please read the available literature about the various programs for children, women, racial minorities, and gender rights & then give your support to our UU-UN Office.

 

V.  What is the future of the United Nations?

    A.  One of the biggest factors in the future of the UN is the support that it gets or doesn't get from the USA.  History shows that the UN thrives when the USA supports it.  A big obstacle is a well-funded small group of Americans who oppose the UN and anything international.

    B.  A promising development for the future is the just released Report of the Commission on Global Security, Justice & Governance co-chaired by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Nigerian Foreign Minister Ibrahim Gambari.  Its report Confronting the Crisis of Global Governance sets forth many proposals for making the global community more secure, more just, & better governed including creating a UN Rapid Response Force and a UN Parliamentary Network and the holding of a World Conference on Global Institutions in 2020.

    C.  A way must be found to make the UN more effective in dealing with global problems with or without changes in the UN Charter.  Otherwise the global community will need a new more effective global organization.    

 

VI.  A final statement:  Please support the UU-UNO as our way of helping the UN to become more effective as well as helping ourselves to become better informed.