The United Nations: A Short Political Guide

137 Pages·1989·11.573 MB·English

by  Sydney D. Bailey (auth.)

THE UNITED NATIONS: A SHORT POLITICAL
GUIDE
Also by Sydney D. Bailey
WAR AND CONSCIENCE IN THE NUCLEAR AGE*
CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVES ON NUCLEAR WEAPONS
HOW WARS END (2 vols)
THE MAKING OF RESOLUTION 242
THE PROCEDURE OF THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL
VOTING IN THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE UNITED NATIONS
THE SECRETARIAT OF THE UNITED NATIONS
BRITISH PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY
CEYLON
PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT IN SOUTHERN ASIA
NAISSANCE DE NOUVELLES DEMOCRAT IES
PEACEFUL SETTLEMENTS OF INTERNATIONAL DISPUTES
Editor of
HUMAN RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES IN BRITAIN AND IRELAND*
ASPECTS OF AMERICAN GOVERNMENT
THE BRITISH PARTY SYSTEM
PROBLEMS OF PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT IN COLONIES
PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT IN THE COMMONWEALTH
THE FUTURE OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS
• Also published by Palgrave Macmillan
The United Nations: A
Short Political Guide
Sydney D. Bailey
M
MACMILLAN
PRESS
©Sydney D. Bailey 1963, 1989
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission
of this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied
or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance
with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended),
or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying
issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 33--4 Alfred Place,
London WC1E 7DP.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to
this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and
civil claims for damages.
First published 1963 (by Pall Mall (London) and Frederick A. Praeger
(New York) as A Short Political Guide to the United Nations)
Second edition 1989
Published by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Bailey, Sydney D. (Sydney Dawson)
The United Nations: a short political
guide-2nd ed.
I. United Nations
I. Title
341.23
ISBN 978-0-333-46145-7 ISBN 978-1-349-19963-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-19963-1
Contents
List of Tables vi
Acknowledgements vn
Purposes 1
2 Structure 13
3 Groups and Blocs 29
4 Peace-making and Peace-keeping 40
5 Disarmament 55
6 Human Rights 67
7 Is the UN Worth Saving? 80
Appendix I Extracts From the UN Charter 90
Appendix II UN Members (1 January 1988) 114
Appendix III States or Territories which are not UN Members 119
For further reading 121
Index 123
v
List of Tables
1 UN Membership, 1945-87 8
2 Vetoes in the Security Council, 1946-87 18
3 Composition of Five Principal Organs 26
4 Geographical Distribution of UN Membership 37
5 Commonwealth Members of the UN 38
6 Some UN Missions regarding Peace and Security 42
7 UN Peace-keeping Operations 52
8 Arms Control and Disarmament agreements 62
9 Human Rights Treaties 79
vi
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to the libraries at the Royal Institute of International
Affairs and the UN Information Centre in London, whose staffs have
been unfailingly helpful.
SDB
January 1988
vii
1 Purposes
Human beings think of anarchy and despotism as opposites, and fear
them equally. A system of law and justice is a bulwark against both,
and the inadequacy of this system governing the relations among
nations is one reason why human life is precarious. The one unilateral
policy that we expect from our government is to pursue the national
interest, but to do this without taking account of the legitimate
interests of others will soon lead to conflict, perhaps even armed
conflict.
It is no longer fashionable in the West to glorify war, but to say
with General Sherman that war is hell is merely to strike an attitude.
War as an instrument of national policy will disappear when nations
no longer quarrel, or when there are effective and trusted non-violent
means of resolving differences. Some of these means of settling
disputes peacefully are listed in the UN Charter (Art. 33): negotiation,
mediation, arbitration, judicial settlement, and the like.
Because human beings are potentially both selfish and altruistic,
government is a mixture of consent and coercion. Law-breaking in
national society is restrained by three kinds of force: the force of the
police, the force of public opinion, and the force of personal con
science. Breaches of the law are deterred or punished through an
impartial system of justice. Provocation, however intense, does not
authorize citizens to take the law into their own hands. It is no defence
to a charge of murder to say that the victim was odious.
International coercion in support of law is both more difficult and
more dangerous than coercion in support of national law. It is more
difficult because international law is still relatively rudimentary, and
nations do not yet feel the same obligation to respect what internat
ional law there is as most citizens in democracies feel to observe
national law. It is more dangerous because any use of coercive armed
force may escalate. All-out war with the most modern weapons would
be too destructive and too indiscriminate to serve as an instrument of
justice.
There have, broadly speaking, been two approaches in the attempt
to limit or abolish resort to armed force in settling international
disputes. Some have considered war to be an outward manifestation
of inward human wickedness which will be abolished if people
become more moral or more enlightned. They have stressed personal
2 The United Nations
conduct and the power of example. A few have adopted a wholly
pacifist position and have refused all personal participation in war or
its preparation.
Others have regarded war as a social institution which can be
eliminated in the present state of human imperfection by improving
the methods and institutions for preventing or resolving international
disputes. Civilized people no longer practise cannibalism or slavery,
though the heart of man is no less deceitful and desperately wicked
than it was in the time of Jeremiah. Unless human beings abolish war,
it is said, war will abolish human beings.
We do not know for certain whether war can be abolished; and if it
can, whether it will be because human beings have become more
moral and enlightened, or because they have invented better tech
niques for its avoidance. William Penn, the Anglo-American Quaker
who pioneered the idea of an international organization for making
and keeping peace, maintained that 'though good laws do well, good
men do better'.
The main purpose of the United Nations, as it was of the League of
Nations, is to ensure that armed force is not used, save in the common
interest. UN Members are supposed to settle international disputes
peacefully (a positive obligation) and not to threaten the territorial
integrity or political independence of other states (a negative obliga
tion). These are far-reaching commitments, for they may mean that, if
peaceful remedies fail, a nation may have to tolerate gross injustice
rather than use armed force unilaterally to obtain a just solution.
When the Nazi leaders were charged at Niirnberg with having waged
aggressive war, it was no defence to say that Germany had grievances.
The founders of the United Nations established a two-fold system
for peace. On the one hand, nations wishing to join the Organization
had to accept the high standards of international conduct contained
in the UN Charter, including
-renunciation of the use of force, except in self-defence after an
armed attack or in UN action to maintain or restore peace and
security (Arts. 2(4), 42, and 51);
-settlement of international disputes by peaceful means (Arts. 2(3)
and 33);
-international co-operation to ensure respect for human rights
and fundamental freedoms, including the principle of equal
rights and self-determination of peoples (Arts. l (2) and (3), and
55);