As Israel’s genocidal multi-front war rages on, the limitations of the international body to fulfill its promise to promoting peace and cooperation becomes glaringly clear.
During the months of September and October the United Nations is holding its 79th General Assembly, which is the space of broadest participation of the international body.
The United Nations’ legitimacy, credibility and capacity to fulfill its founding mission to ensure peace and security have been questioned for decades, and 2023-24 was no different. Still, never before has the world witnessed a genocide unfolding before its eyes. In this context, the United Nations’ inability to do anything to stop it shines a bright and unforgiving light on the limitations of this body.
Shaky Foundations
Throughout its history the United Nations has been subjected to intense efforts at control or sabotage by colonial powers and US imperialist interests. This has rendered the UN powerless to effect peace. Ensuring the continuation of capitalism, a priority which requires an imperialist system, has made the UN’s aim to establish a democratic system of governance which can guarantee equality and peace, secondary at best.
Both the first and second world wars provoked a reorganization of the relations between colonial powers and the claims to territory of many. The Permanent Mandates Commission was founded by the League of Nations in 1920 to distribute the colonial possessions of the Ottoman and German Empires amongst the victors of the war. This set a precedent for colonial governors using international bodies to determine how colonies would continue to be controlled in a post-colonial world. In 1922, this body would grant the UK mandate over Palestine, formerly part of the Ottoman empire.
The foundation of the United Nations in 1945 resulted from years of political and diplomatic efforts by nations most affected by the world wars. For the United States, following the vision of Woodrow Wilson, the UN was seen as a means to create conditions that would foster capitalism and promote a form of liberal democracy conducive to capital accumulation. Both the League of Nations and the United Nations reflected Wilson’s aspiration for a US-led world order, where developed nations could pursue capitalist development without the constraints of protectionism, all under the guise of establishing a democratic global framework to ensure peace and prosperity. However, despite its claimed egalitarian principles, the UN’s founding involved figures like Jan Smuts, a South African politician who supported racial segregation and apartheid, and who ultimately wrote the preamble of the UN Charter.
Still, the UN Charter stated principles and methods that, if duly observed and applied, have the potential to establish peace, cooperation and development amongst the peoples of the world. Also, the charter introduced concepts and stated commitments which were key in overcoming a world order dominated by the interests of the metropolitan colonial powers of the time. The principle of sovereignty and equality among members, and the call for restraint in the use of armed force continue to be relevant and necessary towards establishing a more just global order.
Decolonization
One of the first tests the UN would face concerned the decolonization process and the transition out of colonial rule for many nations. The United Nations would quickly become one of the many stages where the decolonial struggle unfolded, as colonial powers fought to defend their rule, while the United States, the Soviet Union, and the colonized territories advocated for independence. The US and the Soviet Union did not share the same interests in advancing decolonization, and these divergences would play out in the support and encouragement the Soviet Union would lend to revolutionary struggles against colonialism, while the US advocated for transition processes that ensured a new type of dependence on the part of the colonies.
In 1946 the UNGA would go on to create a list of “non-self-governing territories”, essentially former colonies in the process of attaining full independence. Chapter XI of the UN Charter, the Declaration Regarding Non-Self-Governing Territories established that it was the interest of the inhabitants of the territories that would be prioritized. In this chapter, the UN sought to promote independence and respect for the inhabitants of former colonies, but the actions undertaken would be plagued by the insistence of the British, French and Belgian powers in retaining control and keeping the UN out of its colonial affairs.
In this regard, the United States would play a contradictory role, due to its imperative to defend decolonization but only inasmuch as it did not advance Communism. The US global agenda advocated for open borders for the expansion of capitalism, which required the breakdown of colonial privileges and protections for the metropolis. The goal was to ensure that the transition from colonial rule to independence aligned with US economic interests and ushered in mechanisms for the US to influence and control the new nations. This approach would prevent the colonies from becoming fully independent nations on the road to Socialism and in alliance with the Soviet Union. Cuba and China were examples for what should not happen in the process of decolonization and independence.
Ultimately the French, Belgian, and British colonial and foreign ministries would sway the US to defend their colonial interests in the United Nations. After all, their continued presence and control in Africa and the Middle East was an important buffer to prevent the development of Socialism. The US established a practice of working with former colonialists to build its own expansive empire, using the United Nations to provide a veneer of legality, democracy and justice to its imperialist actions.
Palestine And The UN: Promises Unfulfilled
The case of Palestine illustrates precisely how the transitions from colony to independence could be sabotaged by an alliance between the rising imperial power and the old colonial metropolis, leaving the UN powerless to intervene in the interest of the inhabitants of the former colony. From its very initial dealings regarding the situation of Palestine, the United Nations would enable the formation of a new State – Israel – not recognizing that what was developing was an occupation. In 1947 when the UK formally relinquished its role and put the question of Palestine to the UN, this resulted in resolution 181(II) which outlined a partition that effectively gave legitimacy and a formal diplomatic cover to the mass displacement of Palestinians from their homes resulting in the Nakba in 1948.
Since then, UN efforts at intervention on behalf of Palestinians have been met with sabotage and violence by the United States and Israel. From the assassination of UN mediators in Palestine, to the attacks on the UNRWA, the complete disregard for reports prepared by UN Special Rapporteurs, or the refusal to comply with decisions of the ICJ, the UN has been out-maneuvered and overpowered at almost every step by the United States and Israel.
30 UN Resolutions Can’t End An Illegal Blockade
Palestine is not the only case of gross injustice which the UN has overseen without the ability to intervene. In 1962, the United States established a complete economic blockade against Cuba, prohibiting all exports including those of food and medicine, in retaliation for Cuba’s anti-imperialist politics and relationship with the Soviet Union. Since its application the blockade has severely affected the livelihood of the Cuban people and sabotaged the economic development of the island. The blockade constitutes a unilateral and coercive effort to determine the economic and political system of a foreign country, a policy which can only be described as colonial and imperialist in nature.
While it is true that the United Nations has not authored, sanctioned or sponsored the US blockade on Cuba, it is also true that it has not been able to stop it.
In 1992, the UN General Assembly put forth a resolution calling for an end to the US-led embargo on Cuba. The votes in favor of the resolution have been overwhelming, in 2023 only the US and Israel voted against, and Ukraine abstained. Still, the blockade continues and since 1992 the United States has only sanctioned more countries around the world. Any illusions about the democratic character of the UN should be cast aside in favor of a recognition of US control of a body that was founded precisely to prevent the kind of concentration of power and force that the US represents.
The war on Gaza and the blockade on Cuba point to the permanent challenge the UN has faced since its inception. These cases reflect the ability of imperialist and neo-colonial powers, who secure their dominance through military and economic means, to refuse to be governed or restrained by any international body. Through military build-up, control of the financial infrastructure of the global economy, and ownership of the digital platforms of communications, the US can completely evade any international order that looks out for the interests of the majority.
Changing the state of the world and the unending drive towards militarism will therefore not happen in the halls of the United Nations, it will happen on the streets and through the advance of anti-imperialist platforms for peace and equality in a new global order.