By Keith Best
In his famous Fulton, Missouri speech on 5 March 1946, which is mostly known for his reference to the Iron Curtain, Churchill also referred to “the two giant marauders, war and tyranny.” His speech was entitled Sinews of Peace and he urged that “The United Nations Organisation must immediately begin to be equipped with an international armed force” on the basis that courts and judiciary are hampered without means of enforcement. He warned of the rise of autocracies.
How prescient for the situation of today, some eighty years later! We have seen the steady weakening and erosion of the authority of the United Nations, not least in the emasculation of the Security Council through the use or threat of use of the veto. Academic lawyer Jennifer Trahan (Professor at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs and Director of their Concentration in International Law and Human Rights) has pointed out in her book how the exercise of the veto is contrary to the main tenets of the Charter itself. It has rendered inoperative a principal responsibility of the Security Council under Chapter 7 Article 39 to “determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.”
This sclerosis has so angered the General Assembly that on the 26 April 2022 Member States took the landmark decision to adopt by consensus resolution 76/262, entitled ‘standing mandate for a General Assembly debate when a veto is cast by the Security Council’. Amid growing criticism of inaction by the Security Council on the war in Ukraine, this landmark resolution aimed at holding the five permanent Council members accountable for their use of veto. By the text (document A/77/L.52), which was adopted without a vote, the Assembly decided that its President shall convene a formal meeting of the 193-member organ within 10 working days of the casting of a veto by one or more permanent members of the Council and hold a debate on the situation as to which the veto was cast, provided that the Assembly does not meet in an emergency special session on the same situation. Furthermore, the Assembly invited the Council, in accordance with Article 24 (3) of the Charter of the United Nations, to submit a special report on the use of the veto in question, to the Assembly at least 72 hours before the relevant discussion is to take place. We have yet to see if this will have any meaningful effect but it demonstrates the degree of concern by many smaller countries at the obfuscation of some of the P5 members. Predictably, the representative of the Russian Federation rejected this attempt to create an instrument to exert pressure on the Council, stressing that the division of powers between the Assembly and the Council has allowed the United Nations to function effectively for more than 75 years.
The United Nations has been involved in peacekeeping missions since 1948, when its first peacekeeping mission was to monitor the ceasefire between Israel and its Arab neighbours during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War (the lessons of history?). Since then, UN forces from more than 120 countries brought together specifically for the purpose to restore and maintain peace have been involved in more than 70 peacekeeping missions, most notably in Korea and the Balkans with varying degrees of success. Those forces have to be assembled on an ad hoc basis – a far cry from Churchill’s desire to see a standing force owing its allegiance undividedly to the UN and not to its national origins.
Today, where is the UN fulfilling this function in Ukraine, in Gaza? It has been wholly sidelined. This further undermines the utility and relevance of the UN in the eyes of the global public.
There was widespread rejoicing in 2002 when, after decades of debate and gestation, the International Criminal Court (ICC) came into being. We had high hopes that international justice and civilised norms would be enforced against individual perpetrators of the most heinous crimes exhibited by the Nazis in the Second World War: genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes (to which only recently has been added the crime of aggression but with a separate ratification process). Neither the USA nor Israel are among the 124 countries that are States Parties which have ratified the original Rome Statute giving birth to the ICC but they are now both seeking to undermine its very existence. Yet another international institution is in the dock of public opinion. Why? Because, in a disinterested way, warrants have been issued against two Israeli Ministers and a leader of Hamas (who may well have been killed after the warrants were sought in May of this year).
Against this backdrop of the undermining of global institutions we see the rise of autocracies in Russia and China which gives succour to other dictators in the world and encourages them to flex their muscles. Are the democracies combatting this trend? Sadly, we know that they are not. The most powerful democracy in the world seems about to retreat into isolationism under the banner of “America First” the consequences of which we saw played out in the rise of tyranny and slaughter of two world wars until the attitude changed. The most numerous democracy in the world has manifestly failed to condemn Russia for an act of naked aggression. We may understand Mr Modi wishing to be seen to be unaligned with other major nuclear powers but to fail to uphold in language if not in action a clear breach of international law is not just disturbing but a step down a slippery slope to international anarchy.
Will Europe stay firm? Hardly! The splintering has been going on for some time. Victor Orban of Hungary not only prides himself on having an amicable relationship with Putin but, in the face of the arrest warrant from the ICC for Benjamin Netanyahu has now invited him for a state visit to Hungary. Romania has only recently seen a lurch to the pro-Russian right. Owing to its sensitivity towards the homeland of the Jews Germany has indicated that it would not effect an arrest if he were to visit whereas The Netherlands have made it clear that they would do so. Thise states that are signatories to the ICC Statute are under an obligation so to act – in effect, Hungary and Germany have declared that they would break an international treaty obligation. The UK sits on the fence in commentary but, in reality, would exercise that power.
President-elect Trump has stated, without giving details, that he would end the war in Ukraine in a day. The anxiety of the Ukrainians and others in Europe who have within living memory the example of Hitler’s search for territory or lebensraum can be well understood – it is impossible to see how Putin would agree to a ceasefire let alone a peace without retaining the Ukrainian territory already occupied. What would follow? Guerilla warfare from partisan Ukrainians and further exploitation of what would be perceived as Western weakness by the Kremlin and a green light for further adventurism. Where would Putin go next to test NATO’s resolve (he maintains that this is a war against NATO)? Are the Baltic states – all of which are vulnerable – next on his list? It would be easy to construct a relief
military action to safeguard Russian speakers and citizens living in those states (almost 1m ethnic Russians live those three states). We should bear in mind not just the Anschluss but the Sudetenland (Hitler’s move to “protect” ethnic Germans there), the rest of Czechoslovakia (as it then was) and Poland. History does not repeat itself but it often gives a clear guide to the future – and autocrats are encouraged by the acts of previous ones.
What chance does democracy have over autocracy when its own institutions so supinely allow autocracy to triumph? Yet the malaise is even worse when one examines the nature of democracy today. So often the popular mood is swayed not by reason or thought or the result of dialectic but more through following demagogues with their own agenda and now influenced as well by social media channels with a deliberate (albeit sometimes thinly veiled) policy position. We should never forget that in 1933 Hitler was elected by the people (accepting that there was also mass coercion and harassment by the Brown Shirt thugs). Have we just witnessed the phenomenon of the overriding desire for change and easy answers provided to complex problems being paramount over reason in the recent US Presidential election? How many in India now regret the religiously divisive message of Mr Modi (as rather demonstrated in the recent elections)?
Yet this is a spurious argument unless we ask the question: why are the democracies seemingly so inadequate to counter this rise in populism and leaning towards authoritarianism being the answer to the ills of the world? Is it the mechanics of democracy – the voting systems, the political apathy, the party system or is it something more fundamental? The answer is complex but is partly explained by politicians with their agenda for what they think is required rather than couching that in the attitudes of those whom they wish to convince. Increasingly, there appears to be a gulf between the political rhetoric oof mainstream parties and the desires of the electorate. Yes, politicians should lead but they also need to be responsive to what the people want (otherwise they will not be elected!). On major issues such as justice, migration and distribution of resources it is no good dismissing fears as being antediluvian or racially or societally motivated: these concerns are real and must be addressed. The problem is that it is possible in a democratic Government in a one-party state or even in a plural democracy where the Government has an overwhelming majority facing an enfeebled Opposition for that Government to resemble an autocracy and become a tyranny – what the late Lord Hailsham, former Lord Chancellor, described as an “elective dictatorship”. Although not exclusive to that continent one only has to look at the clinging to power long after the original mandate has expired of some African leaders and only recently in DRC the old trick of extending the tenure of office while in control. Perhaps we should not be surprised that in some cases the general public cannot distinguish precisely between the two and that many are prepared to live under a benevolent dictatorship, namely a government that has a leader considered by some as a dictator but has the support of the people, unlike a malevolent dictator who only focuses on themselves, their government and their supporters!
Most people are content to be told what to do so long as it is not inimical to their own interests and will take comfort in conformity knowing that the alternative is a free-for-all. We pay our taxes, abide by the rule of law and expect others to do so not only nationally but also internationally as the opposite is anarchy. In the World Federalist Movement/Institute for Global Policy in our search for global governance have often quoted our desire for the force or law rather than the law of force. With the degrading and sidelining
of our international institutions as well as disregard of solemn treaty obligations we are, indeed, seeing strong nations exercising the law of force – with little chance of smaller nations being able to resist unless they join a defensive alliance or rest under the shadow of protection of a powerful neighbour.
In effect, the world is morphing from a two-power hegemony characterised by the Cold War for the last 80 years into a multi-polar world of domination by USA, China, Russia, India and others that may soon be added to the list with their satellites. This will be, and is now, a most unstable world. Add to that the proliferation of other actors probably possessing nuclear weapons and the low-level technology that is needed to hack into and disrupt through cyber-sabotage the systems fundamental for the sustenance of life (water, energy, essential supplies) and we have almost a definition of anarchy, defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as absence of government or a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority. Is the world any safer by having several conglomerations of states that can wipe out humanity rather than just two? Everyone will make their own judgement.
These big-power politics, however, are not the stuff of conversation among those living in abject poverty wondering where the next meal will come from or dying of drought or foul drinking water or fleeing from war, tyranny and exploitation – their interests are survival, not who rules the world. Yet their problems will not be solved without a stable world order in which international norms, negotiated and honed on the raw experience of history and humanity’s infinite capacity to wreak havoc on itself, are observed multi-laterally and upheld by the general will.
Down the centuries humanity has come a long way in countering atavistic attitudes, advance in scientific knowledge and achievement, medicine and health, removal of pre … but we have failed manifestly in finding peace and the ability to co-exist with differences. We have coveted our neighbour’s property too much. Maybe this flaw is so deep-seated in human nature that we are tilting at windmills to find a solution – that true peace is as elusive as the philosopher’s stone. If we believe in our own race’s future, however, we must resist that pessimism. It took two global bloodlettings to persuade the nations in each case that they needed an international organisation so that it could be “never again”. We must pray that it will not take a third conflagration to bring about another. Now, no later, is the time when we need most of all to search for international agreement and forbearance and to heed the words of Martin Luther King Jr “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
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