What this means is that if international law, written by the best legal minds on the planet, is found even slightly contradictory to any country’s own law, it has no effect and cannot be enforced. The UNO cannot choose, direct or command. It may only recommend, suggest and at best, urge.
The General Assembly (GA) consists of representatives from every single member country of the UN. If the UN GA decides to unanimously pass a resolution that the USA must withdraw all its troops from within Iraqi borders by 2010, do you know what America has to do?
Not a thing.
The United Nations Organisation was formed with the singular motive of preventing World War III. Due to this, the UNO has been and is the biggest farce in international diplomacy, quite simply because it cannot carry out its primary function. It has no ex officio power whatsoever and has failed miserably not only in most of its peace-keeping missions, but also as a medium for arbitrary problem solution and confidence building among nations. It is conceded that the WHO, UNICEF and some other branches of the UN family have done exceptional humanitarian work in some areas of the world. However, none of that will matter when two warring nations decide that push has come to shove.
For instance, Iraq was under U.N. backed economic trade sanctions for over a decade. As a result, Iraqis suffered greatly while Saddam Hussein continued playing games with the United Nations by only periodically allowing inspections for weapons of mass destruction, inconsistent disarmament of known weapons and finding ways around the oil for food agreements that the U.N. imposed. Economic sanctions were an abysmal failure, which can be touted as the UN’s only real solution. Thus, the UNO stayed silent while Russia made advances that threatened Georgia’s territory, and muttered while North Korea continued to test its nuclear weapons.
The United Nations itself has recently released reports documenting two of its worst stumbles. According to these confessions, U.N. peacekeepers in Rwanda stood by as Hutu slaughtered some 800,000 Tutsi. In Bosnia, the U.N. declared safe areas for Muslims but did nothing to secure them, letting the Serbs slaughter thousands in Srebrenica. The organization's meddling was worse than useless: its blue-helmeted troops were used as hostages by the Serbs to deter a military response from the West.
In 1945, just prior to the formation of the UNO, a bi-polar power structure prevailed. France had been crippled by Germany’s invasion of her; England was still reeling from the damage wreaked upon her by Germany’s air force. With the disintegration of the USSR in 1991, the United States of America cemented its place as the only superpower, the leader of the developed world and in natural course, the unofficial head of the UN.
Wielding such power is akin to brandishing a double-edged sword. The USA must cough up the majority of funds necessary for the UN to function, but on the other hand, America itself is largely exempt from scrutiny and in general anything more harsh than condemnation. You can’t bite the hand that feeds you, right? Another feature of the UNO that inhibits it is the veto. Five members of the UN Security Council (SC) - the only UN committee with the power to take aggressive and proactive action against rogue states – possess the ability to veto the SC’s resolution, rendering the UN powerless to initiate punitive proceedings.
The solution to this would be a complete overhaul of the system that governs this organisation, but of course that proposal must survive the veto.
Neil Maheshwari
