Abstract
Dr. van den Haag has done what he could with a bad brief. He has made an unconvincing case against the United Nations that consists of the following propositions:
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1.
The United Nations has not prevented war.
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2.
It costs too much.
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3.
It provides a forum for anti-American propaganda, particularly the Communist brand.
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4.
Its specialized agencies don’t do anything that could not be done as well by private organizations. Some, especially UNESCO, are badly managed platforms for anti-American agenda.
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Notes
See Chapter 1, p. 32.
For an extended review of this historical sweep, see Hedley Bull and Adam Watson, eds., The Expansion of International Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), especially pp. 425–435.
But not of North Africa or Indochina, of course. The First World paid a heavy price for French obstinacy. The unfortunate inhabitants of the former French colonies of Indochina are still paying.
Linda M. Fasulo, “Covering the U.N.,” The Interdependent 12 (3) (May-June 1986), p. 1.
“Directions for the UN: US Public Opinion on the United Nations,’ ‘ results of the 1983 Roper poll commissioned by the United Nations Association of the United States of America (background paper prepared by UNA-USA, September 1983).
“Public Opinion on the UN: What Pollsters Forget to Ask,” Bulletin of the League of Women Voters Education Fund (July 1977).
Paul D. Martin, “US Public Opinion and the UN,” in The US, the UN and the Management of Global Change, ed. Toby Trister Gati (New York: New York University Press, 1983), pp. 300–301.
See Part I, p. 21.
Jean Bodin, Six Books of the Commonwealth, abr. and trans. M. J. Tooley (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, no date), pp. 174–180.
Ibid., p. 178.
The presence of Soviet troops on the territory of its Eastern European “allies” obviously limits the sovereignty of each of these nations, none of which can conduct either foreign or domestic policy that deviates from Soviet ideology. It has been a long time since the last Western intervention in the affairs of West Germany, which is still occupied by the Allied powers.
Sanford J. Ungar, ed., Estrangement: America and the World (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985).
Ibid., p. 289.
Ibid., p. 299.
Ibid., p. 284.
Not that parliamentary loquacity is unique to the United Nations, as any casual reader of the Congressional Record, or, in England, of the Hansard record of the debates in the House of Commons, will be well aware.
In his speech at the 40th anniversary celebration of the United Nations, the late Olof Palme, then prime minister of Sweden, remarked, “A more even distribution of the assessed contributions would better reflect the fact that this Organization is the instrument of all nations and make it less dependent on contributions from any single member state. In that case, the rest of us would have to shoulder a somewhat greater responsibility.” Statement of Prime Minister Olof Palme, October 21, 1945 (Permanent Mission of Sweden to the United Nations, photocopy).
North-South: A Program for Survival, the report of the Independent Commission on International Development Issues under the chairmanship of Willy Brandt (Cambridge, Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press, 1980), pp. 276–282.
Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Critical Economic Situation in Africa, May 27–31, 1986 (Document A/S-13/AC.1/L3. May 31, 1986).
See “Report on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan,’’ prepared by the special rapporteur, Mr. Felix Ermacora, in accordance with Commission on Human Rights resolution 1984/55. (Economic and Social Council, Commission on Human Rights, Document E/N.4/1985/21, February 19, 1985).
It is encouraging to note that President Reagan has reversed his earlier position that human rights are not the business of American foreign policy. For an assessment, see Tamar Jacoby, “The Reagan Turnaround on Human Rights,” Foreign Affairs 64(5) (Summer 1986), p. 1066.
Palme, note 11.
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© 1987 Ernest van den Haag and John P. Conrad
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Conrad, J.P. (1987). Summing Up. In: The U.N. In or Out?. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-5984-3_9
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