A MORE EFFECTIVE UNITED NATIONS
by John Logue
New Jersey Law Journal
December 26, 1985


My approach to the question of UN reform is very simple. I believe that if we are to have peace we must have a much more effective United Nations than we have today. I am not just saying that a much more effective UN would be desirable or useful or helpful. I am saying that a much more effective UN is essential. I am saying that if we want peace, we must reform, restructure and strengthen the United Nations.

My thesis does not sound radical, but it is radical. It is too radical for most peace people. It is too radical for most supporters of the United Nations. I hope and believe that it will not be too radical for you members of Congress. I hope and believe that it will not be too radical for the American people.

At the United Nations the conventional wisdom is: "There is nothing wrong with the United Nations. All that is required to make it work is the political will of its members."

Unfortunately, that conventional wisdom is dead wrong. Political wisdom is dead wrong. Political will could not make the weak Holy Roman Empire work. Political will could not make our weak Articles of Confederation work. Political will could not make the weak League of Nations work And political will is not enough to enable the weak United Nations to do the job it was supposed to do, i.e. especially the job of keeping the peace.

These people--and all people--must see that if we really want to stop the arms race we must have effective world political institutions. We must stop pretending that a UN with a veto in its Security Council can keep the peace. We must stop pretending that the world community will give real power and real funding to a General Assembly that makes decisions by a one-nation, one-vote system.

If we want the UN to work, if we want the UN to do the job it was supposed to do, we are going to have to reform and restructure it. If we are not willing to take on that formidable task, we must resign ourselves to leaving the problem of peace and security in the hands of national governments in Washington and Moscow, in Peking and Pretoria, in Jerusalem and Damascus, in Teheran and Baghdad. But that, I respectfully suggest is a recipe for suicide. For it guarantees that the arms race will go on and on.

Somewhere in the Federalist Papers Alexander Hamilton said that you do not truly will an end, a purpose or an objective if you do not will the means to accomplish that objective. In 1945, in San Francisco, the world dedicated a new international organization to the noble purposes of securing peace, advancing economic and social progress and protecting human rights. But did we then -- or have we since -- given the United Nations the means to accomplish those high purposes? Obviously we have not. If we want peace we must give the UN -- a reformed, restructured UN -- those means.

A Security Council that can be rendered impotent by the vote of one nation obviously cannot begin to guarantee security. A General Assembly that can pass resolutions with the votes of nations representing less than 10 percent of the world's population, and some 3 percent of the gross world product, will not have, and cannot get, the respect it must have if its decisions are to be taken seriously.

A UN with a regular budget much smaller than that of New York City simply cannot do the things it was supposed to do when it was created in San Francisco. And, need I remind you, the UN has no taxing power, no way to get money from any government without that government's consent.

No, we will need more than "political will" to enable the UN to do its job.

Could the United States government run for a single day if the citizens could ignore federal tax laws with no fear of punishment? Taxes and the tax laws are essential to the existence of an effective American government.

I want to stress that UN reform is not merely desirable or admirable. It is essential. When we are convinced that it is essential we will not be put off by the fact--a rather obvious fact--that the UN is not very popular now, especially in the United States. We will not be put off by the fact--an equally obvious fact--that the UN is an immense job, which requires great diplomatic, rhetorical, and other skills, and much good luck. If we can agree that radical UN reform is essential, we will stop talking about why it is impossible, a topic on which learned political scientists can talk forever. We must instead concentrate our best efforts and our best minds on how the impossible can be made possible.

If I could offer only one piece of advice to your subcommittees when they consider the question of UN reform it would be this: Be bold. Do not underestimate the receptivity of nations and of people to bold plans. I know that my advice flies in the face of the conventional wisdom of most UN supporters and most UN reformers. Most UN supporters will tell you that now is not the time to talk about reforming the UN. We should hunker down until hostility to the UN lessens. Most UN reformers will tell you that the only kind of reforms possible in the UN are very modest ones. I believe both groups are wrong. Can you remember any of the modest UN reforms suggested by the Lodge Commission in 1970? By the Carter Administration in 1978? Or by the ten annual meetings of the UN's "Special Committee on the Charter of the United Nations and on the Strengthening of the Role of the Organization?"

History furnishes many accounts of crises that could not be solved by timid measures but only by bold ones. In 1787 a bold strategy saved our country from the deterioration and decline it had been suffering under the weak institutions of the Articles of Confederation. In 1786, all thirteen states were invited to come to Annapolis to make modest, timid, incremental changes in the Articles of Confederation. What happened to this allegedly realistic strategy for reforming American political institutions? What happened was that it was a failure, an utter and complete failure. Only five states came to the Annapolis Convention and they could agree on nothing, except to call a second convention in Philadelphia the following spring.

In the first week of that Philadelphia Convention, General Washington heard many delegates say that while stronger national political institutions were necessary, it was very doubtful that they would get the necessary popular support. The moral seemed clear. Go back to the timidity of Annapolis. Fortunately Washington disagreed, openly and eloquently. He told his fellow delegates that their job was not to propose the kind of reforms that would be popular but the kind that were necessary. With one brief but inspiring speech he turned the delegates attention away from the question of "what is acceptable" to "what is necessary." He believed, and history proved him right, that the American people could be persuaded to accept "what is necessary."

In his speech he said, or so we are told:

It is all too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If, to please the people, we propose less than what we know to be necessary, how can we afterwards defend our work?
Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hands of God.

We are told that Washington's speech transformed the psychology of the Convention. His plea to his fellow delegates should be our plea to those who want to improve the United Nations. It is time to stop patronizing the people. It is time to stop treating them as children. Peace people are very good at telling us how dangerous the arms race is. It is dangerous, very, very dangerous. We should continue to stress that. But we should also find the courage to tell people how radical the necessary remedy for the arms race is and why that radical remedy is necessary.

Washington was not the only American President who counselled boldness as we consider bold changes in our political institutions. Thomas Jefferson told us that when the nation's problems change, the nation's institutions must also change. In the middle of the Civil War President Lincoln told Congress that "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present." He added that "We must think anew and act anew."

And in urging the American people to adopt the Constitution, James Madison, the father of that Constitution, urged his fellow countrymen not to let themselves be intimidated by self-styled "realists." If we follow Madison's advice we will be bold rather than timid as we consider what kind of changes must be made in the United Nations. Here are Madison's inspiring words:

Hearken not to the voice which petulantly tells you that the form of government recommended for your adoption is a novelty in the political world; that it has never yet had a place in the theories of the wildest projectors; that it rashly attempts what is impossible to accomplish. ... Is it not the glory of the people of America, that, whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of experience? ...

Yes, peace people must stop patronizing the people of the world. It is time to tell the world's people not what they want to hear, but what they ought to hear. What they ought to hear is that if we really want to stop the arms race, it we really want to have peace and promote justice, we must reform, restructure and strengthen the United Nations and give it the power and authority and funds to keep the peace and promote justice.

The Security Council veto must go. One-nation, one-vote must go. The United Nations must have taxing power or some other dependable source of revenue. It must have a large peacekeeping force. It must be able to supervise the dismantling and destruction of nuclear and other major weapons systems. In appropriate areas, particularly in the area of peace and security, it must be able to make and enforce law on the individual. The UN's law-making power must be limited. But in those areas where it has law-making power it must be able to enforce the law. It must be able to arrest and try and, if necessary, incarcerate the individual who violates UN laws e.g., laws against terrorism or against hijacking. The restructured UN must have funding, very substantial funding, to enable it to assist developing countries with such pressing problems as hunger, disease, lack of education and lack of development capital.

I have suggested that what happened in Philadelphia in 1787 is very relevant to the problems of today's world. I am sure that you can --and I can--make a case that the Philadelphia analogy is not relevant to the problem of UN reform. We can point out that the citizens of the thirteen states had a great deal in common. They were overwhelmingly white, English-speaking, Christian, and Protestant. They had a long experience of common law and of British legal and political institutions.

None of those propositions is true about the people of the world in 1985. And therefore we are tempted to conclude that the people of the world have very little in common and because they have very little in common they are not likely to take seriously the idea of strengthening the UN. Most of us would agree, that one should not marry someone one does not trust or does not like. And many will say the people of the world will not favor a stronger United Nations because they do not want to bind themselves more closely to peoples with whom they have little or nothing in common.

How are we to answer this very plausible argument against any substantial strengthening of the United Nations?

For me the answer is simple, but profound. If we are to strengthen the UN we must discover, or rediscover, an ethic of the human family. That ethic must reflect the idea that while we humans are very different, we have one very important thing in common: we are all human beings, human beings with rights and responsibilities. We have got to think and talk about the implications of the idea of the human family. For me and for many others the idea of the family implies that each human being has the right to food, to shelter, to a decent standard of living, to freedom, and to peace. The ethic of the human family also implies that the UN must have the power to promote--not necessarily to legislate but to promote--economic and social progress, to work to end colonialism, to work against racial and other kinds of discrimination. It implies that, like Congress, the UN should work to secure fair prices for farm products and for raw materials.

To be effective, a movement to reform, restructure and strengthen the United Nations must have broad public support. An effective movement to strengthen the UN must be positive and caring. It is not enough to promise to save starving people from nuclear war. We must promise to save them from starvation too.

A poor and weak United Nations is not in the American interest. A strong and financially sound UN, provided it is properly restructured, is very much in the American interest. Let me state it very simply. When Americans are faced with tough problems like the Middle East, or the hostage crisis in Iran, or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, or the troubles in Central America, we have two unattractive alternatives. The first alternative is to do nothing, like Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain at Munich. The second alternative is for American young men to be the world's policemen, like Gary Cooper in the motion picture High Noon.

Neither of those alternatives is satisfactory. We must get back to the dream of Woodrow Wilson--and Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy--the dream of an international organization with the power, authority and money to keep the peace and to promote economic and social progress. We must stop underestimating the American people. We must tell them the truth. We must tell them what peace requires. If we do, I believe they will listen.

Let me conclude my testimony in the following way. I do not believe the people are the main obstacle to peace or to the reformed, restructured and strengthened UN which is essential to achieving that peace. I do not believe their governments are the main obstacle. I believe that the greatest obstacle to the kind of UN we are talking about is the self-styling "realists" who insist that the idea of strengthening the United Nations is impossibly idealistic.

What peace people inside and outside of Congress must do is take the lead in the movement to reform, restructure, and strengthen the United Nations. I believe that if they do so they will get tremendous response, not only in the United States but in every part of the world.

I am sure you will listen to every suggestion to make the UN more effective. But listen with special attention to those suggestions which are bold and imaginative. If you do so you will be following in the footsteps of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Lincoln...


John Logue, a writer and emeritus professor of political science at Villanova University and Director of the Common Heritage Institute of Swarthmore, PA, he was, in 1982, runner-up for nomination to the United States Senate from Pennsylvania. Logue has been Vice-President of the World Federalist Association. His books include The Fate of Oceans (1971) and Strengthening the United Nations (1991).

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