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Fatah-Black September group, personally received $5 million from President Qaddafi of Libya as a price for the slaughter of Israeli sportsmen at the Olympic games, who personally directed the murder of diplomats in Khartum, and told the Italian weekly L'Europeo. "Our goal is the destruction of Israel. Peace for us means Israel's destruction, nothing else." Three of Arafat's guards while in New York at the U.N. had been involved in the killing of three diplomats at Khartum, including one American. Arafat was received with resounding applause by the large majority of U.N. members. This was the U.N. which for more than four years has failed to act to stop international terrorism. The invitation to Arafat was a craven surrender to political expediency of the worse kind, an acknowledgment that terrorism and violence was the road to international recognition. It is a surrender to barbarism. As the new York Times editorialized, "It is grim irony that virtually the same Assembly majority that suspended a founding member of the U.N. one day could on the next enthusiastically welcome the leader of a terrorist organization whose goal is the destruction of another state."

2. For the first time in its history, the U.N. General Assembly voted to gag a member nation (Israel), denying it the right to speak more than once during the heated debate on the Palestinian question, and that notwithstanding that there were some 75 to 90 Arab, Third World and communist bloc nations ready to take the rostrum in opposition to Israel.

3. There was the arbitrary, capricious suspension of South Africa from the current United Nations General Assembly. This was clearly illegal and a violation of the U.N. charter.

4. There was the attempt to oust the Cambodian government headed by Marshall Lon Nol and to replace it with the exile regime of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. It failed by the narrowest of margins.

5. The overwhelming General Assembly action against Israel after the debate on the Palestinian question was quickly followed by the irresponsible action of UNESCO in measures taken against Israel. These measures included resolutions expressing hostility to Israel and weakening her status in the agency, barring Israel from UNESCO's European region without admitting her to any other regional grouping, cutting off Israel's modest UNESCO aid from $24,000 in 19731974 for cultural institutions, (notwithstanding Israel's past contributions to UNESCO in financial terms far exceed what Israel had received from UNESCO), and inviting UNESCO's new director general to supervise educational and cultural institutions in territories under Israel occupation, in cooperation with the Arab states concerned and with the Palestinian Liberation Organization. In contrast, no action was taken against member nations who harbored hijackers, kidnappers, murderers and the like.

6. Once again the U.S. General Assembly voted without opposition to postpone debate on the problem of international terrorism until the following year. Israel was the only nation voting against the postponement.

7. On December 12, 1974, the General Assembly approved a highly controversial economic declaration called the "Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States" by a vote of 120 to 6, with the United States, Britain, West Germany, Denmark, Belgium and Luxembourg voting against the charter. Under the declaration every nation would have full sovereignty over all its wealth, resources and economic activities, the right to regulate foreign investments in accordance with its laws and to supervise transnational corporations within its jurisdiction. The basic objections to the new declaration involved the provisions permitting expropriation of foreign properties without guarantee of equitable compensation under international law. With the sanction of the seizure of property without any guarantee of compensation, as the Chicago Daily News editorialized, "This could be construed as an open license to steal" and illustrated "the paucity of principle in the UN General Assembly."

The Chicago Daily News editorialized, "Under the domination of the AfroAsian-Arab blocs, it (U.N.) is tossing aside the rules of reasoned debate and substituting raw emotion and numerical power."

The Chicago Tribune observed, "The spreading miasma of bias and hatred permeating the U.N. can produce only revulsion and mistrust on the part of the more developed democracies upon which the U.N. depends primarily for its support."

Small nations clearly now dominate the U.N.. How did this come about? When the United Nations was founded in 1945 there were 51 members, and now there are 138. Now most debate concerns the new members who emerged from

colonial status since the end of World War II. They command the majority of votes and steer debate in areas of their interests. With the close of the 1974 session of the U.N. General Assembly it was clear that the U.S. had lost whatever influence it had. Appeal to reason fell on deaf ears.

Somewhat petulantly, on December 17th the United States decided to boycott a special fund set up by the United Nations to provide emergency relief and development aid to the countries hardest hit economically. The U.S. action was interpreted as a retaliation for the controversial action taken by the General Assembly by the Arab, African, Asian and communist bloc nations.

The American people and the U.S. Congress now are faced squarely with the question of whether to continue U.S. support for the U.N. The problem is not easily resolved. The U.S. contributes approximately one-third of the entire cost of the U.N. and its varied operations. Is it in the U.S. national interests to continue to support the United Nations?

It will take a largeness of perspective to recognize that the U.N. should continue to be supported and that the task of getting it to work effectively in accordance with charter principles is something that involves a long-term undertaking, continuing commitment and the utmost patience and fortitude.

Impartial critics of the U.N. recognize that it is not the structure of the U.N. as much as the conduct of U.N. members which is largely responsible for U.N. failures in many areas. That aside, the U.N. has served well, considering the limitations imposed upon it by its members.

Without unduly burdening this presentation and to state the case for the U.N. very briefly there is much which has been accomplished by the U.N. There are the many U.N. supervised ceasefires and peacekeeping undertakings-in Korea, in the Mideast on numerous occasions, in Africa, and in Cyprus. There are the continuing day-to-day economic and social welfare programs and operations in underdeveloped nations. There is continuing identification and study of potentially disastrous global problems, such as the population explosion, pollution of the environment, hunger and nuclear proliferation. There is the sponsorship of and planning for world conferences on population (Stockholm), food (New York), hunger (Rome), sea law (Caracas), disarmament (Geneva). And, lastly, there is the continuing availability of the U.N. as a central place for international multipolar diplomacy and off-the-record discussions involving critical world problems.

To be sure, the U.N. may be short of definitive accomplishments in many areas. But it does serve important purposes.

THE CRUCIAL INQUIRY

Has the United Nations fallen so far short of the high and noble aspirations and hopes of itse founders and supporters that it is time to call it quits and let it go the way of the League of Nations? New York Times columnist William Safire notes, "But this has not been (the recent actions on South Africa and the Mideast) a victory of the U.N.-rather, a victory over the U.N.—and the organization that could still be helpful in averting World War II has made the breeding ground for the third world's war." Before we bury the United Nations, let us ask: What would the world do without the U.N.?

WITHOUT THE UNITED NATIONS' THEN WHAT?

What would have happened on the outbreak of hostilities in Korea in 1950 without the U.N. participation? True, it involved minimal participation by nations other than the U.S. But it would have meant U.S. entry into hostilities independently, perhaps another Vietnam?

What would have happened without the U.N. on the outbreak of hostilities in the Mideast in 1957, 1961, 1963, 1967, 1971 and 1973? Each of the principals had their patrons, the Soviet Union and the United States. What would have followed had hostilities continued to the end without the intervenion of he U.N. ceasefire and peacekeeping assistance? Certainly the ceasefires and peacekeeping were encouraged by the U.S. and the Russians, but the U.N. provided the format for easing the difficult step from active hostilities to ceasefire and peacekeeping. The same questions may be posted in connection with Cyprus, Africa, IndiaPakistan hostilities. What would we have done without the U.N.?

But there was a United Nations.-There was a hastening to the U.N. to bring each crisis before the Security Council. Here was a ready-made international forum for the statement of positions by the combatants and their supporters, a

place for giving vent to their feelings, and yet a central point for quick, but quiet, diplomacy and negotiations to move toward a ceasefire, and then to some reasonable posture of peace.

Here was the U.N. with experience in organizing and maintaining a ceasefire, as it had on other occasions in the Middle East and elsewhere. To be sure, the U.N. could act only when the superpowers agreed, persuaded and pressured the combatants to agree. But the U.N. was there to follow through and implement such agreements. As at this writing U.N. peacekeeping force is in place in the Mideast and in Cyprus.

GLOBAL PROBLEMS

But there are more compelling reasons for the existence the U.N. and strengthening the U.N. so that it can act more effectively. Apart from the danger of nuclear war and devastation, there are the rapidly worsening global problems which threaten all people and nations.2 These problems cannot and will not be solved by summitry, balance of power approach or tenuous detentes, but only by a global approach in the form of a strong international body which can act effectively. Appropriately strengthened and utilized the U.N. can be such an organization."

Most of the critical problems of our time are universal in character. No nation is immune from the disastrous effects of the failure to grapple with these world problems.

Radiation fallout from nuclear testing in any part of the world is of concern to all peoples and nations.

Hunger and impoverishment of more than half of the world's population is a matter of international concern. Revolution is born of the desperation of the human condition.

'Disease has no national boundaries.

Pollution and despoilation of the environment is world-wide.

The economic interdependence of nations has been demonstrated time and time again. The weakness of the American dollar has its reverberations throughout the world. Monetary imbalances seriously affect the economies of all trading nations. The current oil crisis has world-wide repercussions and dramatically demonstrates the interdependence of nations.

Only with a common vision and purpose can nations even begin to attack problems with world-wide consequences. As the massive problems of environment and atmospheric pollution, exhaustion of natural resources, poverty and health are exacerbated and we come closer to the days of reckoning, there will be, and there is now a growing realization of the need of a global and universal approach to the easing of these problems. Here is where the U.N. some day may be found to be indispensable as the only truly available universal organization, not perfect to be sure in its organization and operations, but yet the only truly global organization standing ready to tackle the monumental tasks facing humanity. Imperfections in U.N. organization will become less important when world problems involving survival transcend national boundaries and na tions are impelled to work together with a common purpose.

Weak as it is, the U.N. is doing what it can about these global problems. To cite a few examples:

In the April, 1974, there was the special session of the U.N. General Assembly on the subject of raw materials involving a global emergency which faces both poor and rich nations. This includes the existing and anticipated mass poverty in the underdeveloped and developing nations, the tragic consequences of the population explosion, the frighteningly low supply of food to feed the world population, the energy crisis, the massive military expenditures, and the world wide inflation. U.N. Secretary General Waldheim called it a "global emergency" of massive proportions. Of the then U.N. 135 members, 96 nations are classified as developing countries, which in turn encompass 70 percent of the world's population. As stated at that time by U.N. Secretary General Kurt Waldheim the problems "affect the lives of virtually every man, woman and child on earth. It holds vast significance for future generations. It raises the fundamental ques

2 For example, three significant books on this subject include Robert L. Heilbroner's significant "An Inquiry Into The Human Prospect", Norton, 1974, 150 pp.; 'America and The Future of Man", CRM Books. 1973; Richard A. Falk's "This Endangered Plant", Random House, 1971, 495 pp., and Barbara Ward and Rene Dubos, Only One Earth, W. W. Norton & Co., 1972, 225 pp.

3 Lester R. Brown's World Without Borders, 1972 Random House 305 pp.

tion of the kind of world economic system and social order we wish to establish and live under. It challenges us to make a series of rational and agreed choices which may be decisive in determining the quality and condition of mankind's future life on the planet."

There was the 1972 Stockholm Conference on Human Environment to tackle the problems of world pollution, the International Narcotics Conference and Control Board to control the illicit international narcotics trade, the SALT talks to arrest the nuclear arms race, the frantic monetary conferences to stabilize the international economy, the efforts toward control of international terrorism, the world conferences on population and hunger.

There is the critical problem of a global approach to the task of eliminating the pollution of the world waterways and utilizing the seas as a course of food and raw materials. This involves 70 percent of the earth's surface and its utilization of the oceans as a source of food supply to the world population. The Caracas Law of the Sea Conference in 1974 initiated through the U.N. made a start in tackling this difficult problem.

The universal urgency of solving, or at least easing, the pressing global problems may well transcend disagreements on nuclear arms control for at that point our very survival will be at stake. Sovereignty will need to bow to the primacy of survival. The past failures and ineptness of the U.N. may be viewed as part of the growing-up process by which nations learn to work together in pecaceful co-existence, striving cooperatively to survive. In the meantime, it behooves nations and leaders to strengthen the U.N. step by step for that day when its availability will be crucial, and that day is now.

It is reasonable to assume that at least in the foreseeable future there will be no definitive resolution of the basic ideological conflict and differences which now divide the world. Yet, it is equally reasonable to assume that the economic inter-dependence and the mutual interests of nations in solving and easing the crucial world problems will necessitate expanding areas of cooperation despite basic differences. There is evidence of this all around us.

It is a much different world in which we live. Global problems require a global approach and a global approach involves effective international organization. And there is in existence today only one truly universal organization-the U.N. As Richard J. Walton has noted, "It is easy to scorn the United Nations but can anyone suggest an alternative? Or imagine the world without it?"

Contrasting the global approach to the current scurrying for new international relationships and balances of power, is it to be expected that the latter policy can more readily solve or ease world problems and that the superpowers and their separate allies or satellites can manage the world problems affecting all nations? The experience of the past twenty-nine years clearly impels a negative answer. Neither the U.S. with its friendship and mutual defense treaties such as NATO and SEATO nor the Soviet Union with the Warsaw Pact and its many friendship and mutual defense treaties has brought peace to the world or cleared the road for relative peaceful co-existence.

The balance of power approach is no more valid today than the nuclear "balance of terror" during the past three decades, nor will the balance of power approach to peace be more effective than it was prior to World War II, prior to World War I, and prior to other European wars during the 19th Century. As Harry S. Ashmore has written, "The nations face common problems of great urgency as technology steadily increases the possibility of exploiting traditionally extraterritorial areas in the seas and atmosphere . . Control in these areas is clearly beyond the reach of any national sovereignty; so is the spread of pollution of air and water across national boundaries . . So far, tentative developments to come with these new technological realities have been outside, or only peripheral to, the U.N. That trend, however, could be reversed if a fundamental reorganization of the U.N. is made possible by the end of the paralyzing bipolar power balance. It should follow that if the U.N. and its agencies are able to take a dominant role in these undertakings the process at the same time would generate support from the member states sufficient for the world organization to assume its unrealized role as focus and guarantor of collective security."

Therein lies the rationale of strengthening the U.N. to prepare it to take a more crucial and effective role in world affairs. The need for the U.N. will increase as world problems become less manageable on an ad hoc or less than universal basis.

WHAT IS NEEDED

What indeed will it take for the nations of the world to realize the potential of the U.N.? After ten years as the late U.N. Secretary-General, U Thant said, "What is required, of course, is a common global ethic, (which, of course, We do not have, except in time of catastrophe), which the human society as a whole wishes implemented . . . When I am asked what I see as the key to a world order that is adequate to assure peace, justice, and progress. . . the need for such a global ethic is always the first of three major considerations that come to my mind. The others are modifications of the nation of national sovereignty, (hardly conceivable with the revival of nationalism among nations) and structural adjustments in the world organization (which none of the major powers would support)." (World, July 4, 1972, p. 38.) (Bracketed portion supplies). But the situation is not without hope.

There is a growing "planetary awareness," with the increasing concern about the common global problems of environment, poverty, health and nuclear war. As the global approach to international problems is expanded the U.N. conceivably can come into its own. With or without major structural changes, again as U Thant has noted. "There is no alternative to the U.N. as the major focus for the building of a world order guaranteeing peace, justice and progress for all peoples." Going and looking to the U.N. yet may become a pattern of international life.

No, the U.N. is not dead. It is reborn with each major crisis. It deserves continued U.S. support.

What will be needed to procure the enthusiastic and important support of the UN by the major powers? Perhaps, as former U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright recently noted, "A long period of trouble and education combined-getting into crises one after another."

But then it may be too late!

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BD 10.1.

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