Disunited Nations
By Paul Buchheit
08 September, 2007
Countercurrents.org307 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]
References1 United Nations. "Contributors to United Nations Peacekeeping
Operations." July 31, 2007.
http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/contributors/2007/jul07_1.pdf2 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.pdf3 “The U.N. at 60: What a disappointment!” Philadelphia Daily News,
April 26, 20054 “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=9EgQF2ZApe88 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, 19839 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=2213010 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)
16 "US renounces world 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)
25 "U.N. Rights Body 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.htm34 “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
Leave A Comment
&
Share Your Insights
Digg it! And spread the word!
Here is a unique chance to help this article to be read by thousands of people more. You just Digg it, and it will appear in the home page of Digg.com and thousands more will read it. Digg is nothing but an vote, the article with most votes will go to the top of the page. So, as you read just give a digg and help thousands more to read this article.
Get CC HeadlinesOn your Desk Top