Disunited
Nations
By Paul Buchheit
08 September, 2007
Countercurrents.org
307
peacekeepers. That’s what the U.S. contributes to the United Nations.
As of March, 2007 the U.S. ranked 43rd among the world’s nations
in providing peacekeeping support, right after Togo and Rwanda.
The UN has been soundly criticized
for its ineffectiveness by the media, by politicians, by Presidents,
and even by the UN itself. Former U.S. Representative to the United
Nations John Bolton once said, “There's no such thing as the United
Nations.” Despite all this, sources such as The Economist still
credit America with a leadership role in the struggling organization.
But there has been little
cooperation by the U.S. with the rest of the world, even on basic human
rights issues. In the early 1980s the U.S. was the only nation to vote
against a declaration stating that education, health care, and proper
nourishment are human rights. In
1996, and again in 2002, the U.S. opposed the 'right to food,’
insisting that free trade was the solution to hunger and poverty.
In 1987 the UN General Assembly
voted on "the right to self determination, freedom, and independence...of
people forcibly deprived of that right...particularly peoples under
colonial and racist regimes and foreign occupation." Only the U.S.
and Israel voted against it. In
1998 Bill Clinton signed a treaty recognizing an International Criminal
Court that could try people guilty of crimes against humanity. In 2002
George Bush unsigned it, and withdrew the U.S. from the treaty.
At the March, 2005 meeting
in New York of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, the U.S.
delegation refused to sign a declaration confirming the fundamental
rights of women. This declaration was a reaffirmation of an agreement
signed by the U.S. and 184 other countries in Beijing in 1995. The U.S.
delegation wouldn't sign until an amendment rejecting abortion be added.
The U.S. withheld $34 million in 2002 because of suspicions that the
money supported
abortion in China, even though a State Department study had dismissed
such claims.
The UN Committee against
Torture has accused the U.S. of repeatedly violating the World Convention
against Torture, but the Justice Department has rejected such rulings
because they are “not federal law as recognized by the U.S. Constitution."
The United States was voted
off the U.N. Human Rights Commission in 2001 because of its Middle East
policies and its rejection of the Kyoto protocol. In 2006 the United
States was one of only 4 nations (along with Israel, the Marshall Islands
and Palau) to vote against a new Human Rights Council.
The U.S. has also been disagreeable
on the weaponry that devastates mostly developing countries. In 1997
in Ottawa, Canada 123 nations voted to ban the use of landmines. In
2004 the Bush Administration rejected the Ottawa treaty, citing landmines
as a necessary military capability. At the present time, while worldwide
use of landmines has decreased, the U.S. maintains about 10 million
mines and has suggested that it may resume production of a new type
of landmine.
The U.S. rejected a July,
2001 UN proposal to curb the flow of small arms on the grounds that
it opposed the second amendment, which, of course, is a national rather
than international law. In October, 2006 the U.S. was the only country
to vote against the prevention of an arms race in outer space.
We call the UN impotent and
incompetent. We offer 307 peacekeepers in response. Meanwhile, we deploy
some 350,000 troops around the world to maintain our military supremacy
and to protect our national interests. Our disregard for the UN is so
great that at the end of 2006, 80% of the UN’s unpaid dues were
owed by the United States.
It is little wonder that
Kofi Annan, the outgoing Secretary General of the UN, rebuked the United
States for its uncooperativeness. "No nation can make itself secure
by seeking supremacy over others," he said. "All civilisation
is at stake, and we can save it only if all peoples join together in
the task."
Paul Buchheit is a professor with the Chicago City
Colleges, co- founder of Global Initiative Chicago (GIChicago.org),
and the founder of fightingpoverty.org. He is the editor and main contributor
to the forthcoming book "American Wars: Illusions and Realities"
(Clarity Press). He has contributed to countercurrents, commondreams,
counterpunch, and alternet. [email protected]
References
1 United Nations. "Contributors
to United Nations Peacekeeping
Operations." July 31, 2007.
http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/contributors/2007/jul07_1.pdf
2 United Nations. "Ranking
of Military and Police Contributions to UN
Operations." March 31, 2007.
http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/contributors/2007/march07_2.pdf
3 “The U.N. at 60:
What a disappointment!” Philadelphia Daily News,
April 26, 2005
4 “UN ‘resolve’
on Darfur.” Chicago Tribune, August 8, 2007
5 “World Needs A Strong
United Nations.” Newsweek.Washingtonpost.com, January 15, 2007
6 “Lawmakers Say U.N.
Must Cooperate.” Fox News, February 11, 2005
7 “Rudy Giuliani Says
the United Nations is Ineffective.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EgQF2ZApe8
8 One hundred nations in
the UN have not agreed with us on just about
everything that's come before them, where we're involved, and it
didn't upset my breakfast at all. - Ronald Reagan, former U.S.
President, after the triumphant U.S. invasion of Grenada, 1983
9 United Nations. “Calling
UN’s internal justice system ‘ineffective,’
General Assembly approves overhaul.” April 4, 2007
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=22130
10 John Bolton, The Telegraph,
UK, 03/19/05
11 “No time to take
the pressure off.” The Economist. August 4, 2007.
12 "Why do people hate
America?" by Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn
Davies (Disinformation Co., 2002)
13 "U.S. Opposes Right
to Food at World Summit," Peter Rosset, Food
First, June 30, 2002 (http://www.mindfully.org/Food/Right-To-
Food30jun02.htm)
14 United Nations General
Assembly, 7 December 1987
15 Noam Chomsky, "Hegemony
or Survival" (Henry Holt & Co., 2003)
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court treaty," BBC News, 05/06/02
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1970312.stm)
17 http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/icc/us.htm
18 Human Rights Watch World
Report 2006 (www.hrw.org)
19 "God's Shock Troops:
The Religious Right and US Foreign Policy," By
Don Monkerud, April 8, 2005
(http://www.counterpunch.org/monkerud04082005.html)
20 United Nations Population
Fund, January 2006
(http://www.unfpa.org/support/friends/34million.htm)
21 Ziauddin Sardar &
Meryl Wyn Davies, "Why Do People Hate America?" (The Disinformation
Company, 2002)
22 "A Tortured History:
The President says 'We do not torture.'"
December 19, 2005 (http://factcheck.org/article365.html)
23 "How Terror Led America
Toward Torture," Newsweek, November 21 2005
(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10020664/site/newsweek/from/RL.2)
24 "U.S. ousted from
U.N. Human Rights Commission," cnn.com, May 3, 2001 (http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/05/03/us.human)
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Admits Abusive Members," Human Rights Watch,
05/03/01 (http://hrw.org/english/docs/2001/05/03/sudan135.htm)
26 The U.S. and Human Rights"
(http://www.globalissues.org/HumanRights/Abuses/USA.asp)
27 "UN approves Human
Rights Council over US opposition," University of Pittsburgh School
of Law, March 15, 2006
28 "U.S. Will Not Join
Landmine Treaty"
(http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_03/Rademaker.asp)
29 "Ten Years Later,
The US Is No Closer to Mine Ban," International
Campaign to Ban Landmines, May 16, 2006
(http://www.icbl.org/news/us_no_closer_to_mine_ban)
30 "Global Governance
Initiative: Annual Report 2006"
(http://www.weforum.org/pdf/Initiatives/GGI_Report06.pdf)
31 "The New Nuclear
Danger," Dr. Helen Caldicott (The New Press, New York, 2002)
32 UN General Assembly GA/DIS/3334,
October 25, 2006
(http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/gadis3334.doc.htm)
33 "Where are the Legions?
[SPQR] Global Deployments of US Forces." GlobalSecurity.org, 2005
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/global-deployments.htm
34 “UN Finance,”
Global Policy Forum, accessed February 2007
(http://www.globalpolicy.org/finance)
35 "Annan chides US
in final speech." BBC News, December 12, 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6169669.stm
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