The United Nations: States Vs International Laws

Wells explores the great accomplishments and great failures of the UN, and shows how its structure creates operational strengths and weaknesses. He explores the US use of the veto, the legitimacy of US special military courts, and the bases of internationally accepted law.

Few Americans understand why the United Nations can t do more when facing catastrophes like those in the former Yugoslavia, East Timor, and Palestine/Israel. The author traces the UN s weaknesses to the compromises that were made at its founding, and highlights all the organization has accomplished despite these handicaps.

The U.N. has no army, no power of the purse, no ultimate means to enforce its resolutions, and cannot even come to the aid of suffering humanity if the sovereign nation where they dwell denies entry. Yet, for all its warts and wrinkles, the UN has accomplished wonders and is still the best hope for saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights (preamble to the UN Charter).

The book shows that the United Nations structure was tailored to suit the United States, in 1944, to ensure that decisions in the General Assembly (where we might be outvoted) would be considered recommendations which could be ignored.

The US use of the veto is explored, especially as it has made it impossible for the U.N. to serve as the appropriate reconciler to resolve the Palestine-Israel conflict.

Why did the US delegate vote against the Convention Against the Discrimination of Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Kyoto Protocol on Global Warming? These and similar questions are addressed.

The book explains the role of the U.N. Security Council in establishing when a threat to the peace exists, whether an embargo is legitimate, and whether, in the last instance, military action is justified.

The author considers both the importance of the newly ratified International Criminal Court (ICC), and the reasons for the US rejection of such a Court. In view of the current debates over the authenticity of the 1949 Geneva Conventions as they speak to the treatment of prisoners of war, the role of U.N. declarations is especially critical.

Can the leader of any state arbitrarily invent international laws, while rejecting conventions ratified by a majority of the world s nations?