Image by George Pagan III.
Although the current U.S. presidential campaign focuses almost exclusively on domestic issues, Americans live on a planet ravaged by horrific wars, an escalating arms race, and repeated threats of nuclear annihilation. Given this dangerous reality, shouldn’t we be thinking about how to build a more peaceful future?
In 1945, toward the end of the most devastating war in history, the world’s battered nations, many of them in smoking ruins, agreed to establish the United Nations with a mandate to “maintain international peace and security.”
Not only was it a relevant idea, but one that seemed to have a lot of potential. The new UN General Assembly would give members and a voice to the world’s far-flung nations, while the new UN Security Council would assume responsibility for enforcing peace. In addition, the venerable International Court of Justice (better known as the World Court) would issue verdicts on disputes between nations. And the International Criminal Court—created as an afterthought nearly four decades later—would try individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression. It almost seemed as if the long-held dream of a “One World” had finally emerged from a chaotic, ungovernable, and bloodthirsty bunch of warring nations.
But as it turned out, the celebrations were premature.
The good news is that in some respects the new order of world order has actually worked. The UN has in some cases actually prevented or ended wars, reduced international conflicts, and provided a forum for discussion and action by the world community. Thanks to the UN’s decolonization policy, almost all colonized peoples were able to free themselves from imperial oppression and form new nations, supported by international assistance for economic and social development. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly established human rights standards for people around the world. UN agencies have sprung into action to address new global challenges related to public health, poverty, and climate change.
Yet despite the United Nations’ positive development, this pioneering international organization has sometimes fallen short of expectations, particularly in terms of peacekeeping. Tragically, there have been many international conflicts that have resulted in costly arms races, devastating wars, and enormous destruction. In a way, these ongoing conflicts have been an expression of an ancient hatred that people have not been able to overcome and that unscrupulous demagogues have successfully fanned.
But there were also structural reasons for the ongoing international conflicts. In a world without effective enforcement of international law, large, powerful nations could continue to rule over smaller, weaker nations. Therefore, the rulers of these large, powerful nations (and some of their citizens) were often unwilling to give up this privileged status.
Significantly, the five victorious Great Powers of 1945 (the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, France and China) insisted that their participation in the United Nations was contingent on their being granted permanent seats on the new UN Security Council, including veto powers that would allow them to block Security Council actions they disliked. Over the decades that followed, they used their veto power hundreds of times to obstruct UN efforts to maintain international peace and security.
Likewise, the nine nuclear powers (including these five major powers) refused to sign the 2017 Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons, which was endorsed by the overwhelming majority of the world’s nations. Behind their resistance to creating a nuclear-free world is the belief that they have much to lose by giving up the status and power that nuclear weapons give them.
Of course, this is a very short-sighted position from the perspective of building a peaceful world, and the reckless behavior and nuclear arrogance of the powerful have at times led to massive resistance from the peace and nuclear disarmament movements as well as from many smaller, more peaceful nations.
Thanks to this resistance and a widespread desire for peace, there are ways to overcome the UN’s paralysis on many issues of international security. Unfortunately, it would be very difficult to abolish the Security Council’s veto power entirely, since the five permanent members have a veto on this issue under the UN Charter. However, Article 27(3) of the Charter stipulates that states involved in a dispute before the Council must abstain from voting on this item – a provision that offers a way to circumvent the veto power. In addition, 124 UN states have agreed to a proposal to abolish the veto power in relation to genocide, crimes against humanity and mass atrocities, while the UN General Assembly has previously used resolutions entitled “Uniting for Peace” to act on peace and security issues when the Security Council has shirked its responsibilities.
Other measures could also improve global governance, such as increasing the number of countries that recognize the mandatory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and ensuring wider ratification of the International Criminal Court’s founding charter (which has yet to be ratified by Russia, the United States, China, India, and other self-appointed guardians of the world’s future).
Of course, replacing the law of force with the force of law will not be easy. Just this May, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court took a bold step to strengthen international norms by announcing that he would seek arrest warrants against senior Israeli officials and Hamas commanders for crimes in and around Gaza. In response, the Republican-dominated US House of Representatives passed the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act, a law that requires the US government to impose sanctions on individuals associated with the ICC.
Despite the nationalist backlash, however, it is time to think about strengthening international institutions that can build a more peaceful world. And the current US presidential election campaign provides an appropriate setting to address this issue. After all, Americans, like people of other countries, have a vested interest in ensuring the survival of humanity.
