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The United States and the United Nations: toward a new realism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

John Gerard Ruggie
John Gerard Ruggie
Affiliation:
Professor of Political Science and a member of the Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, New York City.
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International Organization , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , Spring 1985 , pp. 343 - 356
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1985

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References

1. Jacobson, Harold K., Reisinger, William, and Mathers, Todd, “States and IGOs: A Multiplying Entanglement” (paper presented at the 1984 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C.)Google Scholar. This count includes secretariat units enjoying an independent legislative mandate but not subsidiary bodies such as departments or divisions.

2. See the speech, “What Future for Multilateralism?” by UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuèllar, delivered to the Geneva Diplomatic Club and the Centre d'études pratiques de la nǵotiation internationale in Geneva, 3 07 1984, reproduced as UN Press Release SG/SM/3574, 9 July 1984Google Scholar; and the 1984 Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization (A/39/1).

3. Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization, 1982 (A/37/1), p. 5.

4. Indeed, the morning after the U.S. Senate ratified the UN Charter by a vote of 89 to 2, James Reston reported in the New York Times: “It was a grim-appearing Senate that rolled the ‘ayes’ on the final count this evening. Despite the long parliamentary debate in the chamber on the subject, and despite its overwhelming approval at the end, there was no sense of a job finished but merely of a difficult job just beginning” (29 July 1945, p. 1).

5. As a result, an amendment by Senator Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas to cut the U.S. contribution to the United Nations by $500 million over four years drew a two-thirds majority in the Senate, though it was not approved by the House. An amendment by Senator Robert Kastens of Wisconsin, requiring an annual State Department report to the Senate detailing the voting pattern of individual UN members, was approved by the Congress and is now law; the idea was to hold other countries accountable for their UN voting in the reckoning of U.S. foreign aid.

6. President Reagan's first reaction was favorable to Ambassador Lichtenstein's invitation that members of the United Nations “seriously consider removing themselves and this organization from the soil of the United States”—a position associated in the past with a tiny minority of ultraconservatives. Recently, though, the administration has taken a more constructive position than several critics in the Congress.

7. Most effective in this regard has been the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. Not many UN bodies have escaped criticism from its “United Nations Assessment Project Study,” which issues frequent broadsheets that have had a discernible impact in shaping official U.S. attitudes toward the United Nations during the early phases of the first Reagan administration and receive extensive coverage by the national press. A recent summary of the foundation's position is contained in Pines, Burton Yale, ed., A World without a U.N.: What Would Happen if the U.N. Shut Down (Washington, D.C: Heritage Foundation, 1984)Google Scholar.

8. A major exception is the debate over UNESCO, in which both physical and social scientists have spoken out. For one such contribution, by a distinguished student of international organization, see Harold K. Jacobson, testimony before the Human Rights and International Organization Subcommittee, Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives, 26 April 1984.

9. Article 1.1 of the UN Charter continues, ’and to that end: to take effective 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.”

10. A good compendium and analysis of cases can be found in Zacher, Mark W., International Conflicts and Collective Security, 1946–77 (New York: Praeger, 1979)Google Scholar; and a more up-to-date statistical overview in Haas, Ernst B., “Regime Decay: Conflict Management and International Organizations, 1945–1981,” International Organization 37 (Spring 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11. Washington Post, 2 April 1984. As a result, the secretary general simply informed the Security Council of the June 1984 agreement on civilian centers, making no attempt to obtain its concurrence—an indication of his fear for the viability of the agreement once subjected to American–Soviet maneuvering in the Security Council.

12. Brian Urquhart, UN undersecretary general in charge of peacekeeping, has defined the concept as “the use by the United Nations of military personnel and formations not in a fighting or enforcement role but interposed as a mechanism to bring an end to hostilities and as a buffer between hostile forces. In effect, it serves as an internationally constituted pretext for the parties to a conflict to stop fighting and as a mechanism to maintain a cease-fire.” Urquhart, , “International Peace and Security: Thoughts on the Twentieth Anniversary of Dag Hammarskjöld's Death,” Foreign Affairs 60 (Autumn 1981), p. 6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13. The Heritage Foundation report on the subject (Brooks, Roger A., “U.N. Peacekeeping: An Empty Mandate” [Washington, D.C., 20 04 1983])Google Scholar appears to imply in its subtitle that lack of jurisdiction is part of the problem; the report, however, proceeds as if no such constraint existed. It also contains numerous factual errors. For the UN response to it, presumably drafted by Urquhart, , see “United Nations Peace-keeping: Comments on Heritage Foundation Publication,” UN Department of Public Information, Press Section (New York, 06 1983)Google Scholar.

14. Again, the nub of the problem is alluded to by the critics: “In terms of American interests, the United Nations' peacekeeping operations have been convenient; however, they may also have provided the United States with excuses to postpone those hard decisions of national security that it must eventually make.” (Garrity, Patrick J., “The United Nations and Peacekeeping,” in Pines, , A World without a U.N., p. 155Google Scholar.) The point is well taken, but surely it cannot be offered as a criticism of UN peacekeeping!

15. Permanent Mission of Sweden to the United Nations, “Total Contributions of Member States to the United Nations System, 1982” (New York, 10 1983)Google Scholar.

16. Elliott L. Richardson, testimony before the Human Rights and International Organization Subcommittee, Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives, 27 September 1983. The figure is also used by the New York City Commission for the United Nations.

17. For a well-informed and objective analytical overview of some of these issues, see Bertrand, Maurice, “Political, Conceptual, and Technical Constraints on the Effectiveness of the United Nations” (paper presented at the Ford Foundation Conference on International Organizations, New York City, 7–8 11 1984)Google Scholar.

18. Recruitment, of course, is not a complete free-for-all but is governed by Article 101 of the Charter. The article calls for “the highest standards of efficiency, competence and integrity” with due regard to the importance of wide geographical distribution, which now is itself a composite of membership, financial contribution, population, and other factors.

19. Yakimetz resigned from the Soviet government and applied for asylum in the United States to enable him to keep his secretariat post beyond the time limit set for him by the Soviets. Nevertheless, the secretary general refused to extend Yakimetz's contract. Yakimetz lost two administrative appeals, but then an appeals committee comprised of government representatives decided to let his case go before the World Court. The secretary general held that Yakimetz had no claim to a career appointment because he had been sent on loan by his government for a fixed period. This, of course, is the only condition under which Soviet nationals can join the UN secretariat. The senior secretariat official in charge of personnel argued further that this Soviet practice, in essence, is no different from the universal practice of periodically “seconding” national officials to the UN secretariat (see the letter to the editor of the New York Times by Patricio Ruedas, UN undersecretary general for administration and management, 15 January 1984). By this logic, then, Soviet practice became the norm rather than the deviant case.

20. Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization, 1983 (A/38/1).

21. Lewis, Paul, “Geneva Parley Agrees on a Radio Plan,” New York Times, 12 02 1984Google Scholar.

22. Crovitz, Gordon, “Auditing M'Bow: Where the Trail Should Lead,” Wall Street Journal, 8 03 1984, and personal interviewsGoogle Scholar.

23. For a brief review of recent attempts in this regard, see Issues before the 39th General Assembly of the United Nations (New York: United Nations Association of the USA, 1984), chap. 7Google Scholar.

24. Results of the 1983 Roper Poll commissioned by UNA–USA, “Directions for the UN: US Public Opinion on the United Nations,” background paper prepared by UNA–USA (New York, 09 1983)Google Scholar.

25. A close examination of recent UN activities in the economic sector, especially the increasingly ritualistic “negotiations” between North and South, together with recommended changes, can be found in Bhagwati, Jagdish N. and Ruggie, John Gerard, eds., Power, Passions, and Purpose (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1984)Google Scholar.