The United Nations: UNsuccessful, UNethical, UNeeded?

The UN will celebrate its 60th birthday on October 24th. But as Meg L., suggests below, not many will be celebrating. Chris B, goes a step further, and suggests, quoting Justin Darr, that the UN is UNsucessful, UNethnical and UNeeded. Was the UN destined to fail because of the Treaty of Westphalia and the promotion of sovereignty above individual human rights? Or, is it more simply that not one country or political leader want the UN to succeed for fear of losing its own power? What would make the UN successful? Should we just get rid of an outdated organization or rework it? Two or our guest bloggers suggest different strategies below:

“Differences between men, and between nations, will always remain. In fact, if held within reasonable limits, such disagreements are actually wholesome. All progress begins with differences of opinion and more onward as the differences are adjusted through reason and mutual understanding.”
-Harry S. Truman to the UN Assembly, April 25, 1945.

“UNsuccessful, UNethical, UNneeded”[i]
This was one of the general guiding ideas that the United Nations was founded on in June 1945. The post World War II era was a tumultuous time in which nations fretted over national security and feared that another Hitler could rise to power. Since the UN’s creation it has been involved in nearly every conflict on the planet in one way or another. The UN has 64 different departments/offices that oversee different operations under the UN umbrella.

To state that the UN is a useless organization implies that the UN does not serve any beneficial purpose. While however great the UN was intended to be as a powerful international organization, it has not fully lived up to its potential in the last fifty years. The UN is responsible for coordinating humanitarian work around the world and striving to better the world; but the problem is no one listens to the organization and has not even lived up to the first paragraph in the entire charter. The UN has been involved in 88+ events around the world since its creation – and the UN has not maintained international peace and security. Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda, Darfur, Columbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, and Korea are just a few of the places where the UN has been involved and executed peace-keeping or humanitarian missions and has not helped bring peace and understanding to the warring groups.

The UN Convention on the Prevention & Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, ratified 1951 was designed to prevent genocide and mass killing from ever happening again after WWII. It was intended to be strict and tough on nations and groups that perpetrated such heinous crimes. Yet, what has happened in the former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Rwanda, and what is happening in Darfur – genocide and mass killings. Everyone in the world knows that this is happening but not enough is being done to stop it; and the UN can only point a finger and say “bad” because it does not have the actual capability to stop what is going on – member nations are not getting involved in the problem. Since the end of WWII over 81million people have died as a result of political, religious, and racial conflicts[ii].

British writer Clair Short succinctly states: “But it is hardly surprising that, in a bitterly divided world where the world's hegemonic power has set aside international law and declared that it will act unilaterally whenever its interests are suited, it has been difficult to agree on a reform package for strengthening the UN.” The United States is arguably the most powerful member nation in the UN and it is true that the U.S. has acted unilaterally in self-interest. The fact that this is happening does not help the UN in any manner. The UN has had to weather the Iraq Oil-For-Food scandal and corruption charges. Kojo Annan (Kofi Annan’s son) used his fathers name and UN diplomatic privileges to purchase a Mercedes Benz. Because he cited diplomatic privileges and stated that the car would be used by his father in a trip to Ghana, he saved roughly $20,000 – a clear abuse of power and the system. With events like this occurring and corruption charges implicating the highest officials in the organization, the UN cannot function in the manner in which it was intended.

Some have presented the idea that he UN should be dismantled; yet even this option would not be beneficial to the international political system. Nader Mousavizadeh states in his New York Times article: “Nor is a breakup a guarantee of success, given the sheer magnitude of the task facing any organization seeking to reduce poverty, end war and alleviate suffering. At this stage, however, the burden surely falls on the proponents of the status quo -- those who cannot imagine a world without a Security Council, a General Assembly or Secretariat -- to explain what value these structures add that outweighs the profound damage they have done to the very idea of multilateral action.” To break up the UN would disrupt even further delicate political balance held by the member nations.

For the sake of intellectual argument I feel compelled to say that the UN has in fact done some good in the world. The United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime does a good job in addressing one of the worlds greatest WMD’s – narcotics. With over 100,000 people dying every year from drug related issues, the UNODC has worked hard to prevent the spread of narcotics worldwide. The UN has also done good work in helping to stop the spread of human smuggling and trafficking, a form of modern slavery which is ravaging the African continent and Eastern Europe. Their work in this field has initiated the work of many NGO’s and has helped thousands of young men and women become free. The UN also helps to bring food to the worlds poorest and neediest citizens, this is a noble cause, yet not nearly enough food is being delivered to the nations that need it the most and most of the time when delivered, the food sits in warehouses because the dictators will not distribute it. The UN has the correct idea about what is should do, but it is not doing it to the level that it should.

Over the last fifty years the United Nations has had numerous opportunities to prove its worthiness and fulfill its intended mission. Yet the UN has not even proven that it is capable of sound internal management. An international organization intended to benefit the less fortunate and needy citizens of the world should not have corruption charges and scandal lingering around. The amount of money that Kofi Annan’s son saved on his Mercedes could have purchased much needed medicine for sick children in Rwanda. It is time that the UN undergoes severe reform.
Chris B.

[i] Justin Darr, November 22, 2004
[ii] www.genocide.org

Sources Consulted
-The New York Times. www.nytimes.com.
-The Independent. London, England. www.independent.co.uk.
-The Evening Standard. www.standard.co.uk.
-www.genocide.com
-The Truman Library. www.trumanlibrary.org.

According to the U.N. website http://www.un.org,/, United Nations Day is October 24th. However, I do not think anyone will be planning a picnic or having a celebration. Since its establishment in 1945, the United Nations has been a useless organization. It has been a symbol of goodwill in a realpolitik world. Despite its inability to function as an enforcer, it does have a theoretically "good" concept. States have the tendency to violate basic norms of human rights; the U.N. believes that this should not happen. Currently the U.N. has not figured out how to prevent this, at least not effectively. The recent summit meeting held in early September proved this claim. Leaders walked away reinforcing the need for a stronger U.N., and a more "updated" version to deal with the problems facing today's world[i].

Perhaps the place to start is to show how the U.N. has become a "useless organization. When the U.N. was created, it was during an era of "global power". The new world order that was supposed to come about was "a world of peaceful national societies enjoying liberal and even certain socialist rights."[ii] Ultimately the effectiveness of the U.N. is dependent upon the individual nations. In the words of the U.N. "It is not an international police force" (http://www.un.org/geninfo/ir/ch2/ch2.htm). This is where "sovereignty" comes into play. Sovereignty: established through the Peace of Westphalia, and is perhaps one of the biggest reasons for the United Nations uselessness. Sovereignty argues that no power is greater than the state, that is, there can be no international law states must abide by. Sovereignty restrains the effectiveness of the U.N. The U.N. must comply to it and is essentially at the mercy of each nation's sovereignty. . But where does sovereignty end and the respect of human rights begin? It seems, looking at the situation in Darfur, that the U.N. has not resolved that problem. Clearly a genocide is taking place, but some countries believe it to be a civil war, in which case sovereignty wins.

Another issue with the U.N. is the problem of self-interest. Self-interest will always weigh more during situations where countries are asked to perform an action such as as ratifying a treaty or implementing a peace process. Countries such as the United States do not see themselves as having to answer to the U.N., especially where treaties are involved. One good example of this is the situation in Iraq. The United States completely ignored the U.N.'s denial of a second resolution to proceed with "armed response", and went head on into Iraq. Claiming that their self-interest was at stake, they believed their actions were, and still are, justifiable.

The final problem I will point out is lack of enforcement. The six "main" human rights treaties are as follows: The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965): The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) & First Optional Protocol: The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979): The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984): The Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989).

Christof Heyns and Frans Viljoen did a study on the impact of the treaties on individual states[iii]. Their results? These treaties have no way of being protected or enforced on a domestic level. "International enforcement mechanisms" have proven to be inefficient. They did note that countries that were most successful in incorporating the treaties did so through constitutional reform, etc. But all that depends on the individual country and its willingness to abide by ratification. The problem arises from the countries that are unwillingly to either ratify, or have ratified but cannot be forced to implement. While it is nice to think that most countries have ratified these treaties, in reality it means nothing. The treaty system is a system that is established on consent. All a country may get for not complying with ratification or implementing a policy is a trade embargo or some other menial punishment. In its current form the U.N. is useless. How do you resolve this problem?

It is not practical to have "World Government". But how then do you reconcile the need for each state to remain autonomous, yet abide by basic civil rules and regulations? How do you get countries "engaged" in establishing human rights? Many political theorists, scholars, and law people alike have pondered this question. There have been suggestions for remedies.

One interesting suggestion, offered by Nader Mousavizadeh, a United Nations political officer in Bosnia and served in office of Secretary General, is to dissolve the three "governing structures" of the U.N. (General Assembly, Security Council, and Secretariat). The responsibilities would then be shifted to other U.N. agencies that have delivered results more in line to the "founding ideals" of the U.N., such as the UNDP. Mousavizadeh's premise rests on that fact that U.N. programs which are in his words "financed by voluntary contributions, governed by a board composed of shareholders with an interest in results…and staffed by men and women, hired on the basis of merit, who are given the resources to make a difference" will have more of a chance of seeing success. Mousavizadeh's suggestions are not given without reservations, however, he puts the burden of proof on the people who believe the status quo is acceptable. I believe that in order for any of the goals of the U.N. to be reached Mousavizadeh's final words must be taken to heart.

"Working in dynamic partnership with the nongovernmental organizations, foundations and 'coalitions of the willing' that increasingly are the real agents of progress in areas like global development, health, security and human rights, free-standing United Nations agencies offer the best hope of bringing the organization's founding ideals to life"[iv]

Meg L.

Sources:

[i] Gamel, Kim. "A Stronger World Depends On A Stronger U.N., Officials Say." Philadelphia Inquirer 22 September 2005: A8.

[ii] Ishay, Micheline. The History of Human Rights: From Ancient Times to the Globalization Era. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.
[iii] Heyns, Christof and Frans Viljoen. "The Impact of the United Nations Human Rights Treaties on the Domestic Level." Human Rights Quarterly 23 (2001): 483-535.
[iv] Mousavizadeh, Nader. "A Million Little Pieces." New York Times. 24 September 2005. http://Nytimes.com (6 October 2005).

Could Genocide in the Former Yugoslavia be Avoided?

This week's blog topic is on the question of whether genocide in the former Yugoslavia could have been avoided. We have two guest bloggers, Belma H, and Noor M. The blog below is presented by Belma H.

The topic is still inflamatory amongst the different ethnic groups: Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. If you ask any particular group, they will probably have their own version of events and responsbility. Dr. D.

The genocide in the former Yugoslavia could have been avoided if people who had no reason to begin killing another group of people had not decided to do so. People often refer to the genocide in the former Yugoslavia as a civil war: a conflict that involved two different sides with conflicting and equally violent views. However, I believe that the genocide was anything but a civil war. The genocide mistakenly referred to as a civil war was an ethnic cleansing, and it was a successful attempt at almost completely wiping out anyone who was not a Serb.

The ethnic cleansing that took place in the former Yugoslavia involved the continual murder, rape, massacre, mutilation, torture, and banishment of all non-Serbs.A civil war implies dual conflict that arises on both sides, a conflict in which both sides want their view pushed onto the other side's. In the situation of the former Yugoslavia, the Serbs were the ones who worked to systematically destroy all non-Serbs in their country, a tactic very often compared to the one of Hitler. Slobodan Milosevic, the former president of Serbia, Radovan Karadzic, the former president of the Serbian party in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Ratko Mladic, the Cetnik troop leader, and many others, continually ordered the murders, torture, abuse, rape, and destruction of over 250,000 people. Many political analysts who discuss the conflict in the former Yugoslavia label it as a civil war, blaming religious and ethnic differences among people as the reason for this so called war. However, the ethnic cleansing-which took place in the former Yugoslavia-is anything but a mere conflict among different religious groups.

This conflict-which resulted in massive bloodshed-was a conflict that Muslims never wanted to fight. Once the Muslims were forced to enter into it (for purposes of defending their lives and the lives of their loved ones), they were not on equal terms. The Bosnian forces did not have nearly even close to the manpower that the Serbian forces had, and the Bosnian forces did not have nearly as much ammunition as that of the Serbian forces who used it against the innocent people of Bosnia, in cities such as Sarajevo, Mostar, Banja Luka, Visoko, Srebrenica, Jajce, etc.

The Muslims were also not prepared to fight for a land which they felt could, and had been shared by so many different religions and ethnicities until the point when the Serbs decided to ethnically cleanse it.My own father expressed great sadness when speaking about his friends who practiced other religious faiths, as he now felt separate and different from them, as a result of being banished from Bosnia, for fear of losing his life because of his religion. Before the war, religion was honored and respected, regardless of who represented which faith. My father said that he would visit his friends on religious holidays, and that he would attend church services on holidays such as Easter and Christmas, as a sign of respect and cultural interest, while his friends would attend mosque sermons and take part in our family reunions and feasts on holidays such as Eid and Kurban-Bayram, celebrations in the Muslim faith.

Before the conflict began, differences in culture were celebrated, and my father looks back to those days sadly, saying that he does not think our country will ever be able to go back to this way of life.The idea of a long existing, boiling hatred among Serbs, Croats, and Muslims is a complete myth because the former Yugoslavia has a rich history of peaceful diversity among people of various religions and ethnicities, people who coexisted peacefully and successfully for hundreds of years.

The president of the Serbian Democratic Party in Bosnia, Radovan Karadzic, assisted former Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic--who is often referred to as the Butcher of the Balkans--in the killing of thousands of Muslims and Croats all over Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, and Serbia. One of Milosevic's military advisors, Arkan, was the head of a Serbian army troop called the Cetniks, a group which specialized in brutal body mutilations in the rural areas of Bosnia and Croatia during the ethnic cleansing. The Cetniks were responsible for the worst massacres and body mutilations that took place in Srebrenica during the ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, as well as in the outskirts of many small towns in the former Yugoslavia, such as Jajce and Vukovar.

Similarly, in his article depicting accounts of survivors of the Omarska Serbian concentration camp, Edward Vulliamy writes about a man named Alic, who had survived through concentration camps during World War II, and lived to compare the atrocities carried out by Hitler to those carried out by Milosevic.Alic had been interned in 1943 and 1945 [during World War II], 'but this camp [Serbian concentration camp in Omarska] was unimaginable.' There were beatings on the way to and from the toilet every day. The names of those selected for torture were called out 'every night and every day...They would bring them back and throw them into the room, and there were people who never came back.' As every witness says, Omarska's great hangar was like a battery farm of bloodied humans. Men on stairways, men in corridors, men living atop lockers and tables for months on end. Explaining why it took a man called Jasko Hric so long to cross a room and reach his executioner waiting at the doorway, one witness said: 'You could not put your foot down without treading on someone's foot, hand, or head.' What has emerged is among the most grueling portraits of a European concentration camp, echoing themes of the Nazi Holocaust (Vulliamy).One cannot help but notice the striking resemblance between accounts of people who were forced into Nazi concentration camps, and people like Alic, who were forced into Serbian concentration camps in places like Omarska, Vukovar, Jajce, etc.

These accounts are brutal, sickening stories of horror and terror, and after hearing about them, one wonders how it is possible that the people who ordered and carried out such crimes can remain free, without undergoing trial, and without experiencing any consequences for the actions which they committed. One also wonders what leads people to disrupt a country whose sole existence promoted unity, peace, and co-existence among different groups of people. What leads a man to hate the neighbor who he had hugged the day before, the neighbor who he had often referred to as his brother? What lead my own neighbor to stow away boxes upon boxes of hatchets, knives, machetes, ice picks, screwdrivers, and other tools intended for torture, massacre, and body mutilation of my neighbors, and me: a seven-year-old girl who played with her friends and Barbies on the sidewalk? Belma H.


The Yugoslavian genocide could have been avoided, By Noor M.

To ask if the genocide that occurred in the Former Yugoslavia could have been avoided is a loaded question. Can man overcome emotions like greed, hatred and vengeance? Can people belonging to rival countries/ethnicities/cultures forget years of enmity and violence? Can all opportunists turn into philanthropists? While the answer to these questions in theory could be yes, the grave reality of our world proves otherwise. I believe that the political leaders of Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia played an instrumental role in the genocide. However, I also believe that the circumstances in that region during that time period were a strong catalyst for the same. I think, to name the Serbs in Bosnia and Serbia or the Croats in Croatia as mass murderers without considering the political, historical and economic circumstances is a simplified way of looking at the genocide that occurred there. I will proceed to bring some of these circumstances to light so that a better understanding of the cause of the genocide can be reached. This is turn will help us answer the initial question: Could the genocide in the former Yugoslavia have been prevented?
When the history of the Balkans is examined, we note that ethnic cleansing is not a new phenomenon in that region. Even if we examine the history of only this century we will see how this region not only played a crucial role in the two world wars but that there were profound divisions between the various ethnic groups that resided there. The event that triggered off World War I was the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand who controlled Bosnia then. At the end of World War I, the treaty of Versailles separated the South Slav lands from their aggressors (Austrians, Hungarians and the Ottoman Turks). However, the people living in this region had differences between them based on ethnicity, religion, or simply history. They spoke different dialects and had never lived in a common state prior to 1918. Croat nationalists felt oppressed in this state and organized the assassination of King Alexander. During World War II, after Hitler took over Yugoslavia he created a Croatian state under Ante Pavelic, leader of the Ustashi (Croatian fascists); the leaders of this state massacred Jews, Serbs and Gypsies in Krajina and Bosnia. Serb nationalists also retaliated in kind and killed Croats and Bosnian Muslims (who mostly sided with the Croats). Extremism on both sides almost exterminated the idea of a united Yugoslavia towards the end of the war.
However, when Tito came to power in 1945, he revitalized this same ideal of a “multinational socialist state.” He divided the country into six national republics and gave these republics artificial sovereignty. It is important to note that the tensions that had historically existed between the Serbs, Croats and Muslims were never discussed and cleared out. A Yugoslavian identity was given to people that had for years identified themselves as Serbs, Muslims or Croats. Moreover, there was a gap between rhetoric and action in Tito’s government. On paper the republics were not national territories and all ethnicities had equal rights. However, in reality Tito’s divisional tactics with the Serbs and the Croatian movement in 1972 had already put the Serbs on an alert. The fact that the republics were defined on the basis of religion and ethnicity also played an important role in the rise of nationalism after Tito’s death in 1980. While the political leaders of the republics used nationalism to remain in power after Tito’s death, the history and circumstances played an equally important role in shaping the nationalist movement. With the central identity of Yugoslavia deteriorating after Tito’s death, people began to cling to their religious and ethnic identities to deal with fear and ambiguity. Milosevic took advantage of the victimized Serb mentality and created an extreme nationalist movement that consisted of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia which was particularly devastating to the Muslims. The Serbian massacres in Croatia in retaliation were also extremely brutal. Thus we can see how the circumstances in the Former Yugoslavia after the fall of communism were conducive to a nationalist movement that then took an ugly turn towards genocide. This movement probably could have been avoided if the leaders of the republics had behaved differently and had valued people’s lives more than power and wealth. However, human nature is often predictably dark and given circumstances most people turn into opportunists as opposed to philanthropists.
Another argument made by author Damir Mirkovic is that ultimately the war was a struggle for economic resources. If we were to not consider the ethnic rivalries, the conflict in Yugoslavia after the death of Tito was about the control of resources. With the breakdown of socialism, and the advent of capitalism, the means of production in the country were to be transferred from the society as whole to individuals. That group of individuals that won the civil war would control these means of production and thus become the privileged elite in the new “system”. This argument however, does not satisfactorily answer the question of torture tactics during ethnic cleansing. One possible explanation is that in such a situation often the actions of one party instigate even worse actions from the other party and it turns into a disastrous competition of who harms more people who are part of the “other group.”
Theoretically, the Yugoslavian genocide could have been prevented, however, in my opinion, it was more probable that the republics under Tito’s government would get swept up in a nationalist movement after his death and old differences would resurface. An important, though unrelated question is the pace at which humanitarian intervention occurred in Bosnia, and if the rest of the world also had some responsibility to stop this genocide/ethnic cleansing by taking concrete, military action against the perpetrators.

Consulted Sources:
Dusko Doder, "Yugoslavia: New War, Old Hatreds", Foreign Policy Journal
Damir Mirkovic, "Ethnic Conflict & Genocide: Reflections on Ethnic Cleansing in the Former
Yugoslavia", Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Journal
Adam Roberts, "Humanitarian War: Military Intervention and Human Rights",
International Affairs

Are all Germans responsible for the Holocaust?

One of the issues that still haunts many 60 years later, is to what extent were all Germans responsible for the Holocaust? Studies by Milgram and Zimbardo have given us some insight into the "Perils of Obedience" and the power of the situation, but how far do we go in absolving the majority of Germans for what went on under their noses, sometimes behind their backs, and mostly in their backyards? How much did they know? How much did they really want to know?And what did they do about it? How responsible are they individually and collectively for what happened?

We heard from a former Hitler Youth and member of the Nazi army that he knew very little about what was going on in the Concentration Camps, although he was very aware of the massacres that were occuring outside of the concentration camps on the battlefields.

This issue still haunts us because we may find ourselves in a similar situation. Of course, I'm not suggesting that the U.S., is engaging in a Holocaust -- don't get me wrong!-- but what do we as citizens of a democratic country do when we are aware of human rights abuses? How do we treat the "other"? How do we justify or excuse our collective actions or inactions? How individually responsible, for example, is Pr. Lynndie England who may face up to 10 years in prison for her involvement in torture in Abu Gharib? Zimbardo suggests that it is very easy to capitulate to the situation as the Stanford University Prison study documented. What will we do when it is all said and done? Reflect on rights and wrongs? Right wrongs? Or just say we really didn't know what was going on....