| A General Association of Nations |
| David C. Hanson, Virginia Western Community College |
The last of President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points for peace was a “general
association of nations . . . for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees
of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small
states alike.” At the Paris Peace Conference at the conclusion of the Great
War, Wilson succeeded in convincing the Allied Powers to endorse a League of
Nations. To his dismay, the United States Senate had serious reservations
about Wilson’s brain child.
In the
aftermath of WWI, Americans were understandably nervous about getting
dragged into European conflicts. Congress was worried that membership in
the League of Nations might usurp war-making power, but that was a
unlikely. The U.S. would have been obligated to contribute troops to
collective-security LN military intervention, but the decision to declare
war would have remained with the president and Congress as prescribed by the
U.S. Constitution.
The controversy over the LN illustrates the tension between American isolationism and internationalism. Today the United Nations (UN) is somewhat controversial, largely because some Americans think it is too corrupt, weak and uncooperative. Other countries counter that Americans like the UN when is to our advantage and get frustrated when the organization doesn't vote our way. The UN represents the consensus of member nations and not just U.S. national self-interests, so sometimes it runs counter to the U.S. foreign policy agenda. In 1950 the UN supported a U.S.-led effort to contain North Korea. In 2003 the UN was skeptical about Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction and reluctant to endorse a war; so the U.S. decided to go ahead without UN backing.
If we believe in the concept of organized international cooperation in matters of common concern (world hunger, destruction of the global environment, human rights violations, military aggression within and between nations) then the United Nations is a good thing, and Wilson's League of Nations was a good thing. Without the United States as a member, the League of Nations was ineffective. With U.S. membership, perhaps it could have stopped Nazi Germany before World War II. That is a big if, but since the creation of the UN in 1945 there has been no major war. (One could also argue that since the atomic bombing of Japan in 1945, no country has dared to provoke a major war.)
The League of Nations
The
victorious Allied Powers established the League of Nations at the end of the
Great War (later known as World I). The League's charter, known as the
Covenant, was approved as part of the Treaty of Versailles at the Paris
Peace Conference in 1919. The mission, as stated in the Covenant, was "to
promote international co-operation and to achieve international peace and
security." President Woodrow Wilson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in
1919 for his leadership in creating the League. Despite Wilson's efforts,
the U.S. Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles. This was largely
because of reservations about the apparent military obligations for
international collective security, which opponents feared would usurp the
war power of Congress and drag the U.S. into foreign squabbles of no concern
to our national defense interests. Wilson failed to convince opponents that
the League would actually help preserve peace. Slight revisions in the
wording of some treaty provisions might have resolved the impasse, but
Wilson stubbornly refused to compromise with Senate opponents, arguing that
he would rather stand firm (and fall) on principle.
The Treaty entered into force in January 1920. The original signatories of
the Covenant were Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, the British Empire, Canada,
Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, India, China, Cuba, Ecuador, France,
Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Hejaz, Honduras, Italy, Japan, Liberia, Nicaragua,
Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serb-Croat-Sloven State, Siam,
Czechoslovakia, and Uruguay. Without the U.S., the League was ineffective in
stopping the military aggression that led to World War II. It ceased its
work during the war and dissolved on April 18, 1946. (The United Nations
assumed its assets and carries on much of its work.)
The United Nations
In 1945, representatives of 50 countries met in San Francisco at the United
Nations Conference on International Organization to draw up the United
Nations Charter. Those delegates deliberated on the basis of proposals
worked out by the representatives of the United States, China, the Soviet
Union, and the United Kingdom at in August-October 1944. The Charter was
signed in June 1945 by the representatives of the 50 countries. Poland,
which was not represented at the Conference, signed it later and became one
of the original 51 Member States.
The United Nations officially came into existence in October 1945, when the
Charter had been ratified by China, France, the Soviet Union, the United
Kingdom, the United States, and by a majority of other signatories.
According to the Charter, the UN has four purposes: to maintain
international peace and security; to develop friendly relations among
nations; to cooperate in solving international problems and in promoting
respect for human rights; and to be a centre for harmonizing the actions of
nations. The United Nations is not a world government and it does not make
laws. It does, however, provide the means to help resolve international
conflicts and formulate policies on matters affecting member nations. At the
UN, all the member nations--large and small, rich and poor, with differing
political views and social systems--have a voice and a vote in this process.
The United Nations has six main units. Five of them--the General Assembly,
the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship
Council and the Secretariat--are based at UN Headquarters in New York. The
sixth, the International Court of Justice, is located at The Hague in the
Netherlands. The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and 12 other
independent organizations known as "specialized agencies" are linked to the
UN through cooperative agreements. [Source: UN website]