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The United Nations in a Disunited World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Kenneth H. Dawson
Kenneth H. Dawson
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Extract

Examining the literature relating to the United Nations Organization is, in a way, like reading a doctor's case-book on a remarkably sick patient. There are references to serious pathological disorders, to teething troubles, and so on, and a number of remedies are recommended, ranging from a major surgical operation such as removing the “veto” to aids such as “sticking teeth” into the Charter. The analogy is useful if it impels us to make an accurate diagnosis. But much of the advice of interpreters of the UN is of a contradictory character, and one is led to suspect that it is based on a serious misapprehension of what the UN is really capable of doing.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , January 1954 , pp. 209 - 235
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1954

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References

1 SirCadogan, Alexander, “Is the United Nations Worth Keeping Alive?”, Sunday Times, October 22, 1950, p. 4.Google Scholar

2 See Goodrich, Leland M., “From League of Nations to United Nations,” International Organization, I (February 1947), pp. 3–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 United Nations Declaration, Washington, D.C., January 1, 1942.

4 The term “collective security” is used throughout to mean that system of universal sanctions envisaged by the League and the UN which requires every member to join collectively and automatically against any aggressor anywhere in the world, on the principle that limited security arrangements such as pacts or alliances are a cause of anarchy rather than an answer to it.

5 For an analysis of the different meanings of “balance of power,” see Haas, Ernst B., “The Balance of Power,” World Politics, v (July 1953), pp. 442–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Canning: “I called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old” (December 12, 1836). See Temperley, H., The Foreign Policy of Canning, London, 1925.Google Scholar

7 Report of the Military Staff Committee, April 30, 1947. For supporting statements, see UN Document S/336, pp. 66–69.

8 Brierly, J. L., The Outlook for International Law, Oxford, 1944, p. 83.Google Scholar

9 See New York Times, September 23, 1952, p. 16, for Eisenhower's criticisms of Acheson's statement to the National Press Club in Washington on January 12, 1950; and Acheson's reply in New York Times, September 27, 1952, p. 8.

10 The widely quoted expression, “There is no substitute for victory,” comes from MacArthur's letter, read to the House of Representatives by Joseph W. Martin, Jr., April 5, 1951. The same letter advocated the use of Chiang Kai-shek's troops on the Chinese mainland (New York Times, April 6, 1951, p. 5). On December 2, 1950, Mac-Arthur had pleaded for permission to bomb Manchurian bases. Early in April 1951 he declared, “It is time for the politicians to face up to realities, and to take the wraps off” (ibid., April 8, 1951, p. E.1).

11 This attitude was based largely on the realization that under the terms of the Sino-Soviet Treaty, February 14, 1950, either country would be obliged to aid the other in the event of an enemy invasion.

12 Security Council Resolution proposed by the United States on June 25, 1950.

13 The UN Commander was authorized “to take all appropriate steps to ensure stability throughout the peninsula.”

14 New York Times, April 7, 1951.

15 Resolution of the General Assembly, November 3, 1950.

16 In 1946 the Security Council considered nine political controversies, while the General Assembly handled only six. By 1952 the relative importance of the two organs had been reversed. The General Assembly dealt with seventeen political issues in 1952, while the corresponding number handled by the Security Council declined to seven (United Nations, Reports of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization).

17 The Universal Postal Union and the International Telecommunications Union.

18 House of Lords, January 19, 1949.

19 Report of the Military Staff Committee, April 30, 1947. For supporting statements, see UN Document S/336.

20 Spaak, Paul Henri, “The Role of the General Assembly,” International Conciliation, No. 445 (November 1948), p. 612.Google Scholar