The Role of the United Nations in a Collective Security - Essay Example

The Role of the United Nations in a Collective Security The concept of collective security as enunciated in VII of the United Nations Charterwas crafted with the aim of preventing inter-state conflicts and to deter the occurrence of another war. This is not surprising considering that it was the 2nd World War that spurred the creation of the United Nations (UN). Section 1 of Chapter 1 of the Charter initially and briefly referred to this concept when it laid down the purposes of the creation of the UN: “to maintain international peace and security, and to that end; to take collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace.” Recent international developments however have proven that collective security as envisaged by the UN Charter of 1945 is inadequate to meet the exigencies of the times. The P5 In the past, the collective security function of the United Nations had often failed because it had become a battleground of the two superpowers which emerged after the 2nd World War. The UN, especially its collective security functions, was held hostage to the power play of these two countries. Even before the dust of the war had settled, the intense competition for global supremacy between the United States (US) and the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) began to take root into what has been called the Cold War, so termed because despite the intense fighting between the two sides on all fronts it did not entail the use of weapons. This intense conflict between the two superpowers affected the UN and its collective security functions because of its inherent structural defect. It would seem that the name United Nations is not the same as ‘equal nations’ because five of its members are not only given permanent standing but a commanding veto vote. When the organization was established in 1945, the countries which fought together the Axis powers namely, the US, USSR, the United Kingdom (UK), China, and France were accorded permanent seats in the Security Council (SC) (Krasno 2004). As members of the P5, both the US and the USSR, together with the other three countries, have the sole veto power over any draft resolution of the UN (Zhu & Hearn 1999). The intense rivalry between the two superpowers, which spilled everywhere including the Security Council table, had rendered the UN helpless and powerless during the times when it was supposed to have asserted itself internationally. This was because any action taken against the US or USSR was useless because of their veto power. In addition, these countries were engaged in an arms race, stockpiling nuclear armaments. No one dared make a move against the other for fear it will set off a nuclear war. Neither did UN too. Thus, the collective security function of the UN during the cold war was much hampered by the abundance of vetoes. The vetoes cast by the elite Security Council against UN resolutions numbered more than 230 or one third of the UN resolutions proposed. The conflict was so heated that the UN almost tip-toed in handling matters, limiting itself only to conflicts that did not involve the superpowers and their interests and decolonization disputes of small and weak countries only ( Kegley & Wittkopf 2007). The only time that the UN dipped its hand in important global conflict was when one of the superpowers was not around. In 1950, for example, when North Korea crossed the 38th Parallel, the line that divides the north from the south of the Korean Peninsula, the US immediately sought approval from the UN to launch military action and assist the beleaguered South Koreans. The authorisation was granted and the US and other UN countries sent reinforcements to South Korea, which would not have passed had the Soviets been around. At that time however, the Soviets were boycotting the UN because of the latter’s rejection to recognise the People’s Republic of China’s representation. This absence was treated as an abstention and so the resolution was passed (Katayanagi 2007). The End of the Cold War Fortunately, the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s which ended the Cold War provided an opportunity for the UN to recover from its seeming paralysis. In the wake of the demise of the bipolar political system in the UN and into a more united international cooperation, new kinds of conflicts not anticipated in the 1945 drafting of the UN Charter emerged which had nevertheless showed inherent weaknesses and limitations found in the charter itself. The UN has several times illustrated its lack of military or political might to initiate and conduct collective security operations. In several supposedly collective security operations, the identity of the UN as the commanding entity was lost and substituted by its more powerful member states. This has put the credibility and independence of the UN as an international body to question. In the Operation Dessert Storm in the 1990s where the allied forces attacked Iraq for invading Kuwait for the purpose of annexing the small rich oil state to its own, the UN control and authority was relegated to the background making the whole operation looked like an American action against erring Iraq. The UN factor was, in effect, the US executive office alibi to bypass the US Congress in declaring an offensive against another state in this case (Gowlland-Devas et al, 2004). The concept of collective security under the UN charter, when viewed in the light of recent events, calls into question some of its rules like the total rejection of the use of force. In 1992, for example, the UN sent a peacekeeping force to Europe called the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR). In a humiliating development, the UNPROFOR failed to disarm the Serbian forces and deter them from perpetrating ethnic cleansing against the Croats (Goldman 1997). The post-Cold War era likewise saw the emergence of conflicts that were not in contemplation of the UN Charter. As in the Yugoslavian civil war, the Kosovo crisis in 1998 involved an internal conflict where the state perpetrated crimes against its own inhabitants. UN interference in such cases is in conflict with No. 7, Article 2 of Chapter 1 of the UN Charter which states in part that the Charter does not authorize the UN “to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the members to submit such matters to settlement.” In the 1998 Kosovo case, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization launched “Operation Allied Force” against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia when the latter failed to honor its promise to desist with human rights violations against the Albanian minority in Kosovo. The raid was conducted without explicit authorization from the UN. Conclusion In the past, the United Nations failed to live up to its role as the last recourse of states in international conflicts because it was caught in the middle of a tug-of-war between two superpowers and was not able to exercise fully its collective security powers. That part of the organization’s history illustrated the structural weakness of the United Nations. It showed that it not a fully independent functioning international organization with its own sovereignty but subject to the influence of its more powerful members. The veto power of the P5 is inconsistent with the idea of an international organization which views with equality and regard with respect all its member nations without regard of rank and economic station.. Although the end of the Cold War has restored some dignity to the UN especially with respect to its collective security functions, the fact remains that the UN as an organization is far from perfect. A glaring glitch is the inability of the UN to quickly respond appropriately to international exigencies which is made an excuse by some of its member states to take the situation into their own hands undermining the UN’s role in the international front. Much of this inability is that its own Charter which denounces the use of aggressive force and arms has stymied it from acting more aggressively during the times when it should act more aggressively. Moreover, the UN Charter has proven to be rather outdated in its conception of conflicts which has served to limit the Charter’s perspectives. The emergence of internal conflicts where minority groups are being subjected to all forms of inhuman treatments by their own governments such as those which happened in Yugoslavia and Bosnia, and even of ethnic groups against other ethnic groups as in Rwanda are here. So are global warming and other pressing issues that may need the interference of the UN or the exercise of its collective security functions. Perhaps, it is time to update its Charter. References Goldman, Minton F. (1997). Revolution and Change in Central and Eastern Europe: Political, Economic, and Social Changes. M.E. Sharpe, p 378 Gowlland-Debbas, Vera & Liva, Djacoba & Tehindrazanarivelo. (2004). National Implementation of United Nations Sanctions: A Comparative Study. Martinus Nijhoff, p 627 Katayanagi, Mari. (2002). Human Rights Functions of United Nations Peacekeeping Operations Martinus Nijhoff, p 17 Kegley, Charles W. & Wittkopf, Eugene R. World Politics: Trend and Transformation Thomson Wadsworth, p 549 Krasno, Jean E. (2004). The United Nations: Confronting the Challenges of a Global Society Lynne Rienner Publisher Zhu, Yunxia & Hearn, Roger. UN Peacekeeping in Action: The Namibian Experience. Nova Publishers, pp 8-9 , Read More