Searching for a Just and Lasting Peace? Anglo-American Relations and the Road to United Nations Security Council Resolution 242

United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 of 22 November 1967 continues to rank as a key point of reference for the Arab-Israeli peace process. The resolution laid down a ‘land for peace’ formula for the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, under which Israel would withdraw from territories occupied during the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War in exchange for full peace agreements with its Arab neighbours. This article analyses the Anglo-American diplomacy at the United Nations which led to the passing of the resolution. It argues that the policy-making of the Johnson administration was rendered incoherent by internal rivalries and disorganisation. US Ambassador to the UN, Arthur Goldberg, was perceived as excessively sympathetic to Israel by the Arab delegations. The British approach, by contrast, was perceived by all parties as more even-handed. The clear position adopted by Foreign Secretary George Brown on Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, together with the skilful diplomacy of the Ambassador to the UN, Lord Caradon, explains the British success in sponsoring Resolution 242. The episode holds broader lessons for the conduct of Anglo-American relations showing that Britain was better placed to achieve diplomatic success when it retained its freedom of manoeuvre in relations with the United States.     

Economic and Social Thinking at the UN in Historical Perspective

This article begins to examine the history of economic and social ideas launched or nurtured by the United Nations (UN). In 1999, the United Nations Intellectual History Project was initiated, to analyse the UN as an intellectual actor, and to shed light on the role of the UN system in creating knowledge and in influencing international policy‐making: this article is based on the first five books and the oral histories from that Project. The starting point is that ideas may be the most important legacy of the UN for human rights, economic and social development, as well as for peace and security. For the authors, this ‘intellectual history’ provides a way to explore the origins of particular ideas; trace their course within institutions, scholarship, and discourse; and in some cases evaluate the impact of ideas on policy and action.     

The United Nations: past and present

The UN is approaching its seventieth birthday in 2015. Kofi Annan, its seventh secretary general, and the only incumbent not to have come from a national government, has written the most honest and insightful memoir of any occupant of the thirty‐eighth floor, Interventions. Despite terrible setbacks in Bosnia and Rwanda, the United Nations remains the most representative and successful international organization in history. As Mark Mazower points out in his Governing the world, an acutely penetrating history of international governance, the successes of the UN are more than the founders of the ill‐fated League of Nations could have dreamt of. Mazower's tour de force combines a history of the intellectual ideas of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and their eventual realization in the League of Nations and the UN. While his conclusions question whether faith in international institutions has been lost, the reality of universal membership of the UN and establishment of an International Criminal Court might suggest otherwise.     

Australia and the 1947 United Nations Consular Commission to Indonesia

ABSTRACT

The Netherlands’ colonial empire was a source of wealth, pride and prestige, being seen by some as an essential element of Dutch identity and the key to the Netherlands’ status as a European power. The most prized of the empire’s components was Indonesia. When nationalists declared the independence of the Republic of Indonesia on 17 August 1945, Dutch colonialists refused to take it seriously, but they soon discovered that the Indonesians were willing to fight for their newly-declared freedom. They also found that international opinion, especially as expressed in the new United Nations (UN), defended the Republic’s right to exist. Australia has been acknowledged as an important contributor to international recognition of Indonesian independence through its actions in the UN Security Council and its membership of the UN Committee of Good Offices (CGO). This article, however, focuses on a lesser-known part of the story: Australia’s role in the UN Consular Commission, established at the same time as the CGO. Although the Commission was active for only a short period in late 1947, it deserves recognition on a number of counts: for its pioneering work in UN peacekeeping; as an early example of Australian diplomacy in its region; and for how an examination of its activities, and the responses of the Dutch, the Indonesians and others, can be useful for understanding the course of the Indonesian independence struggle in the years that followed.     

Climate as resource and challenge: international cooperation in the UNESCO Arid Zone Programme

ABSTRACT

Perceptions of climatic challenges have changed significantly during the twentieth century. In recent decades, the question of global climate change received more attention than regional climatic challenges and the problems of arid regions. Historians have shown that persistent misconceptions and a lack of understanding of arid zones rooted in misguided colonial ideologies were propagated by United Nations (UN) initiatives such as the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) Arid Zone Programme. Alarmist narratives of progressive desertification proliferated and put the blame on destructive local practices such as deforestation and overgrazing. This article investigates UNESCO’s interests in natural resources (section 1) and takes a closer look at the development and scientific elements of the Arid Zone Programme (sections 2 and 3). It argues that the Arid Zone Programme offered an effective framework that helped develop and spread new interdisciplinary research approaches to improve knowledge about arid zones. The myth of progressing desertification and misguided colonial expertise characterized much of its political rhetoric, but not its scientific work, which reflected balanced and more critical appraisals of out-dated colonial expertise. In its conclusion, the article suggests that broader contexts need to be taken into account to understand a resurgence of alarmist narratives of desertification such as shifting interests in climatology from local climatic issues to the global atmospheric circulation and a neglect of the climatology of arid zones.     

Transnational militancy in Cold-War Europe: gender,human rights,and the WIDF during the Greek Civil War

This paper examines the involvement of the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF) in the politics of the Greek Civil War (1946–1949). The article’s specific focus is on the organisation’s international campaigns for the end of state-sanctioned persecution of leftists, especially women, and the re-instatement of democracy in Greece, utilising the expanding human-rights system at the United Nations. It draws on selected WIDF and United Nations (UN) documents, in addition to primary and secondary materials relating to the cold war and the Greek Civil War.     

South Korea’s North Korean Image Problem: Human Rights under the Spotlight

ABSTRACT

The 2014 United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea (UN COI) had a decisive impact on South Korea’s approach to North Korea’s human rights abuses in the several years following its release. This article interprets moves within South Korea to support the UN COI’s recommendations as taken in the interests of ontological security, or a stable sense of identity, which has also driven the state’s broader initiatives on image management and nation branding. It extends the boundaries of nation-branding research by considering why and how a state may adopt policies that enhance its moral visibility and reputation in world affairs. It considers how a positive reputation is enhanced by demonstrating good international citizenship, promoting the visibility of state identity parameters beyond its culture and core industries. This article interprets the South Korean government’s efforts to act on North Korean human rights following the UN COI, as well as the significance of being seen to be doing so at home and abroad as security-giving behaviour asserting its moral authority in relation to North Korea. It explores how a longstanding policy of relative silence on North Korea’s human rights record acceded to identity-driven pressures arising from the UN COI and influencing South Korea’s international image-management strategy between 2014 and 2017.     

美国与1966年联合国中国代表权问题

1964年以后,国际社会支持中国恢复在联合国席位的力量日益增强。在1966年联合国关于中国代表权问题的讨论中,为阻止中国进入联合国,美国投入了极大的精力。在这一过程中,美国及其盟国和蒋介石集团发生了尖锐的矛盾,经过讨价还价,美国在盟国的压力下作了相应的让步,美蒋最终达成妥协,中国仍然被排除在联合国之外。     

India’s Part in the Politics of Fiji’s Decolonization: From ‘Outworn Slogans’ to ‘Pragmatism and Realism’

United Nations (UN) demands for the unconditional ending of colonial rule troubled British officials confronted by local political difficulties impeding their efforts to establish self-government for Fiji, alarmed Indigenous Fijian leaders who initially resisted that reform, and encouraged the polarizing demand by Indo-Fijian leaders for a common franchise. India was initially at the forefront in maintaining UN pressure on Britain to move Fiji rapidly to independence with this franchise. Yet in the last two years of British rule, as ethnic tension in Fiji rose dangerously, India assumed the lead in urging moderation at the UN. India’s volte-face from antagonist to ally of the British helped open the way to the political accord on which Fiji’s independence constitution was based. The article highlights the major part played by the pre-eminent Indigenous leader Ratu Kamisese Mara in winning India’s support for a cautious approach to reform.     

Human Rights and International Security: The International Community and the Greek Dictators

The Greek junta was notorious for its use of state torture as a means of control. Yet, for most Western governments and organisations such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations (UN), Greece's geostrategic location was considered to be a higher priority than the undemocratic behaviour of the ‘Colonels’. This article seeks to synthesise existing historiography with new research in order to examine the complex and interconnected processes that led Western states and key international institutions to tolerate human-rights abuses in Greece in the face of huge protest from international public opinion. It will look at why Western states failed to explain away the ‘Greek case’, as they had done with Portugal and Spain, as an anomaly on the road to defeating a mortal enemy, the USSR, which was committing far more numerous violations. It will also consider why international opinion focused on Greece so intently. It will show how many in the West were lulled by the regime into believing that human-rights abusers can act as agents of stability and security. The article's footnotes aim to draw attention to the many primary and secondary sources that provide additional information on the issue of human-rights abuses by the Greek junta.     

Ghana,India, and the Transnational Dynamics of the Congo Crisis at the United Nations, 1960–1

This article examines the role of Ghana and India at the United Nations during the Congo crisis from July 1960 to February 1961. The role of non-aligned countries both in the UN peacekeeping force, Opération des Nations Unies au Congo (ONUC), and in the negotiation of Congo policy was fundamental to the evolution of events. The article shows how Jawaharlal Nehru of India and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana used the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the Afro-Asian bloc to alter UN Congo policy. In leveraging their influence with in the General Assembly, the NAM was able to sustain the UN effort in the Congo and preserve the prestige of the organisation. In the process, NAM members realised the benefits and the limitations of non-aligned politics in the context of a violent, anti-colonial war. The crisis had the effect of rupturing the status quo at the UN and in the eight months under study here, it is argued that the actions of the NAM within the UN helped to activate the agency of the organisation in pursuit of neutralist principles. The Congo crisis served as the turning point in the decolonisation drama and NAM's influence over UN Congo policy represented a dynamic form of anti-colonial internationalism.     

Humanitarian Intervention After Kosovo: Emergent Norm,Moral Duty or the Coming Anarchy?

In March 1999 NATO justified the use of force against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on the grounds that it was necessary to avert an impending humanitarian catastrophe. This action was so controversial because it was the first time since the founding of the United Nations that a group of states, acting without explicit Security Council authority, defended a breach of the sovereignty rule primarily on humanitarian grounds. This article reflects on the legality and legitimacy of humanitarian intervention in international society by reviewing five books that explore the strengths and weaknesses of the contemporary legal and moral framework governing humanitarian intervention. The article identifies three broad positions: first, there is an emergent norm of humanitarian intervention; second, humanitarian intervention is seen as a moral duty; and finally, the claim that humanitarian intervention outside Security Council authority should not be legitimated because it threatens the principles of international order. Books reviewed: Danesh Sarooshi, The United Nations and the development of collective security: the delegation by the UN Security Council of its Chapter VII powers Francis Kofi Abiew, The evolution of the doctrine and practice of humanitarian inter‐vention Neal Riemer, (ed.) Protection against genocide: mission impossible? Stephen A. Garrett, Doing good and doing well: an examination of humanitarian inter‐vention Albrecht Schnabel and Ramesh Thakur, (eds.) Kosovo and the challenge of humanitarian intervention: selective indignation, collective action, and international citizenship     

International sustainable development policy: (re)producing sexual norms through eco-discipline

This article contends that the global thrust towards population management, legitimised by the concept of sustainable development, works to construct identities along the lines of gender and sexuality. This article focuses on the operation of what Foucault termed, biopower, as operational through and (re)productive of the United Nation's (UN) population/sustainable development discourses. I argue that the said disciplinary narratives and apparatuses such as the construction of environmental threat and the monitoring and regulating of populations, in the service of sustainable development, work to construct gendered identities and ‘naturalise’ heterosexual relationships. To demonstrate this, this article focuses on key UN documents directed at informing international environmental/population policy, namely Agenda 21 and the International Conference on Polulation and Development's Programme of Action.     

The United Kingdom and the Negotiation of the 1969 New York Convention on Special Missions

During 1968–9, members of the United Nations, meeting in the Legal Committee of the General Assembly, negotiated a Convention on Special Missions, sometimes known as the New York Convention, setting out the privileges and immunities of ad hoc embassies between states. The negotiation was part of a process through which the UN sought to clarify the status and rights of official representatives, so that diplomacy could function with security and certainty. This article looks at the role of one leading power, the United Kingdom, in the talks. It explores how British interests were defined, the tactics used to secure them and how London came to terms with pressure from other states to redefine its approach. The focus is on the overall political thrust of the British negotiating position, as formulated mainly by the Foreign Office, rather than the detailed talks on such thorny issues as tax avoidance and diplomatic property. The article shows that, while London was keen to see a codification of diplomatic law, cold-war considerations made it less than enthusiastic about an upsurge in the number of special missions that the New York Convention might encourage.     

The World Food Programme: a case of benign US policy?1

The World Food Programme (WFP) is currently the largest and arguably one of the most successful of the United Nations Special Agencies, yet there has been little examination of it by international relations scholars since the early 1990s. This article seeks to analyse the normative and political characteristics of the WFP which have contributed to its effectiveness. Among its most significant findings is that American agricultural interests, interpreted through the prism of domestic political norms, have dovetailed with ‘feed-the-hungry’ norms that are projected and implemented by the WFP, resulting in the strong support of the United States for the WFP. This support undermines the perception, promoted by some critics, that the UN is incapable of acting in ways that are compatible with the national interests of the United States and other significant member-states who inherently pursue ‘national interests’ in institutional environments.     

Parliament and the Press: Forging the United Nations in Wartime Britain, 1939–45

During the Second World War, not only the United States but also Great Britain played a leading role in planning and establishing the United Nations (UN) as a new international organisation to replace the League of Nations. While scholarship on post-war planning is extensive, relatively little exists on how the planning process was discussed and depicted publicly in Britain. The purpose of this article is to fill such lacunae by examining the two most important domains for public discussion at the time, the press and parliament. It will argue, first, that the League of Nations’ experience – its inability to use collective force and its optimistically democratic structure – overwhelmingly shaped public discourse in reference to the UN. By referring to the past, the press and politicians alike in Britain were content to relinquish interwar ideas such as equal rights and equal representation for all nations. Second, apart from the lessons of history, the less democratic structure of the new world organisation was justified from the perspective of great power politics. The desire to make the grand alliance between Britain, the United States of America, and the USSR functional despite all mutual suspicions, directed the view of the UN, and typically overrode all other concerns relating to post-war planning. Finally, throughout the wartime planning of the UN, public opinion, in so far as press and parliament were concerned, held fast to the idea that the British empire was not to be touched by the UN. In public, the establishment of the UN was hardly considered as a starting point for decolonisation. Instead, the UN was designed to become the post-war embodiment of the grand alliance, a vehicle through which the victory over the Axis powers would be managed at the global level: such management did not envision the need to let empire go. Viewed this way, it also becomes clear that nationalism and internationalism were not mutually exclusive or binary visions, but coexisted and shifted in importance throughout the period examined.     

Sex Trafficking to the Federated Malay States 1920–1940: From Migration for Prostitution to Victim or Criminal?

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the relationships between the colonial government in the Federated Malay States (FMS), international social movement organisations, the League of Nations and sex trafficking. While there is considerable scholarship on social movement organisations and the League of Nations, far less is known about the links between internationalism, colonialism and sex trafficking.

After the First World War, trafficking became the focus of social movement organisations and the League of Nations, but colonial regulation of prostitution and tolerated brothels complicated international responses to trafficking. Colonial administrators saw prostitution as an essential service, whereas feminist and international social movement organisations saw prostitution as an impetus for trafficking. This article engages with newspaper reports, colonial correspondence and Chinese petitions, archival material from social movement organisations, and reports by the Association of Moral and Social Hygiene, the League of Nations and the Chinese Secretariat to extend the literature on the historiography of trafficking and the British Empire.     

The Cold War,the developing world,and the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), 1953–1957

This article argues that the creation of the IAEA (1953–1957) was shaped by the overlapping dynamics of superpower relations, decolonisation, and the growing influence of the ‘global South’ in the United Nations. During the four years of multilateral and international negotiations, many of the developing countries argued that the new organisation should not exacerbate global inequalities, practice discrimination, or institutionalise ‘atomic colonialism’. While American-Soviet understanding during these negotiations was at times strikingly good, the uranium-producing states and the future recipients of IAEA technical assistance often faced each other as rival blocs. The article is based on multi-archival research at the IAEA and the UN, as well as at the National Archives of the United States, the United Kingdom, and South Africa.     

Control of Indigenous Archaeological Heritage in Ontario,Canada

Few Indigenous peoples have control over their heritage, despite international recognition of this right in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2007. In Ontario, Canada, the Ontario Heritage Act, R.S.O. 1990 regulates archaeology and grants licences to archaeologists to investigate archaeological heritage. Indigenous people want more control of their archaeological heritage in Ontario. To uphold Indigenous rights to archaeological heritage in Ontario, heritage legislation and policy needs to be revised and site protection increased. This paper recommends that Indigenous archaeological heritage in Ontario would be best protected by strengthening Ontario government land development policy and legislation to require the free, prior, and informed consent from affected Indigenous communities before removal of significant archaeological sites and remains from their ancestral territories.     

Lord Castlereagh's return: the significance of Kofi Annan's High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change

This article suggests that the Annan High Level Panel that reported in December 2004 has produced the most important strategic document to be published by the UN since 1945, eclipsing the now distinctly dated Millennium Development Goals. It documents how it is unusually cogent and candid for a Blue Ribbon exercise. This article starts by describing both the long wave and the immediate events within which the Panel's work exists. The world is now plainly moving through the biggest change of course since the late eighteenth century, which the Panel also discusses, and which was punctuated in 2002–3 by a specific crisis over Iraq. The aftermath of that crisis was the occasion for the secretary-general of the United Nations to establish a High Level Panel with a wide mandate, to describe the new environment of international peace and security and to recommend changes to refurbish the United Nations in order to face new threats, challenges and change. The article analyses the Panel's strategy to obtain action on its key recommendations. These are to make routine the exercise of the responsibility to protect individuals at risk in failed or collapsed states by 'full spectrum' UN interventions embracing peace-enforcement, -keeping, -making and -building. The mechanisms recommended are described and the judgement made that the shrewd presentation of the brokerage of different interests gives a modest but real chance of success. The Panel also addresses the matter of membership of the Security Council but in a way which will enable the likely deadlock over that question later this year to be contained so as not to impede action on other matters. In sum, the High Level Panel promises to be Kofi Annan's best legacy.