November 5, 1973
Page 35936
THE UNITED NATIONS
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, last week the United Nations celebrated its 28th anniversary – in the midst of yet another world crisis in which the U.N. has played a constructive role in the quest for international peace and stability.
Two thoughtful commentaries have come to my attention recently on the role of the United Nations in the international system today. Prof. Walter S. Schoenberger of the University of Maine, at Orono, has written me a letter on the subject, and Prof. Richard N. Gardner of Columbia University has sent me a copy of his remarks at the Pacem In Terris Conference held in Washington earlier this month. I think these two analyses would be useful to my colleagues, and I ask unanimous consent that they be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the documents were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
EXCERPTS FROM LETTER OF WALTER S. SCHOENBERGER, PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE,
UNIVERSITY OF MAINE AT ORONO
The United Nations is currently in considerable difficulty, As a result of the inability of the Security Council to resolve the current Middle East conflict, many are once more deprecating the organization. Such criticism overlooks its character and purpose.
Those who wrote the charter attempted to associate the authority to act with the power to make such action effective by requiring that United Nations decisions in substantive matters be subject to the approval of the permanent members of the Security Council. Their assumption was not that the permanent members would usually act unanimously, but that the Council should not act in such matters unless there was approval by the states whose power was necessary to sanction the action. If the Security Council could operate over the objection of a permanent member and against what it perceived to be its interests, a division of power would occur which might lead not only to a weakening of the United Nations but also to war. So the United Nations was not constructed to operate in the case of an issue on which there was a division among the permanent members. Such an issue has emerged in the Middle East.
The problem of public disillusion arises from the fact that the United Nations has been generally oversold and is currently sold incorrectly. Many expect it to do what it cannot do but what they have been told it should be able to do. Despite this situation, however, there are many potentialities which the United Nations promises as useful goals in the long-range development of an effective world government.
Among the many problems facing the United Nations, I consider these to be of special importance:
1. The United Nations doesn't possess the power to stop conflict among either the major powers or among minor powers on occasions when the permanent members of the Security Council are divided. No state has implemented Article 43 of the Charter so as to provide the United Nations with a military force of its own. Military power rests in the member states. Such United Nations forces as have existed, have been ad hoc national forces, temporarily under United Nations control which has been exercised only under national restrictions. In the present international system of states characterized by ideological, national, and strategic conflicts of interest, no government has been willing to place military power in the hands of an organization which it might not be able to control and which might use such force in actions against what it considers to be its national security. In other words, the member states will not provide the United Nations with the power it needs to fulfill its obligation to maintain international peace and security. This situation is a result of the semi-anarchistic international system of states and will not be significantly changed until an effective global community develops as a basis for world government. To suggest that the United States implement Article 43 would be an exercise in futility. Neither it nor other member states will do it under present circumstances.
2. As the number of member states has proliferated, as the Security Council has run afoul of the veto, and as the General Assembly with but limited authority to recommend action to the member governments has assumed a larger operational role, the United Nations has declined as an agency through which the major powers attempt to resolve their major international problems.
Quite reasonably, none of the major powers is willing to accept the risk of submitting a matter to the General Assembly which it might not be able to control and in which finding a solution may be complicated and prolonged, when the alternative of bilateral or multilateral negotiations outside the organization is available. In short, there has been a growing disassociation in the United Nations between authority and power. A massive majority vote in the General Assembly means little if it does not include the votes of the most heavily populated and most powerful states of the world. One solution to this difficulty might be some form of weighted voting. But an acceptable formula has been difficult to construct; the idea runs against the principle of sovereign equality of states; and, given the opposition of the great number of lesser powers in the organization, any proposal would be almost impossible to adopt.
3. As human interests have progressively become international, many functional agencies have developed to satisfy the resultant needs. One of the most productive areas of United Nations operations has been in the activities of the specialized agencies. But satisfying such functional needs has been impossible to separate from political considerations, and member states are prone to use such agencies for their national purposes rather than to satisfy an international human interest. The problem might be alleviated by modifying national representation in functional agencies, by developing a much larger international civil service, and by channelling more national funds through such agencies on an obligated basis. It is doubtful that the United States or other powerful states would accept such suggestions.
The United Nations can only be as effective as the member states permit. It is not a world government. It has little power of its own. Humans, organized in nations, do not identify their loyalties and their emotions primarily with it. It has no administrative machinery capable of taking the actions its great purpose requires. It has no legislature to pass laws binding on its members. It has no court system with mandatory jurisdiction. Under these conditions it is surprising that the United Nations has done as well as it has. Despite its inherent difficulties which largely reflect the nature of the international system, the United Nations has been a useful organization both to the world and to the United States.
There are many evidences of its general utility:
1. It has resolved many disputes, among others, those in Korea, the Congo, and Cyprus. It is reasonable to assume that the world's conflicts might have been more extensive and more bitterly contested were it not for the activities of the United Nations.
2. It has furnished a permanently organized forum for the discussion of matters of international interest and an agency which might be used by the member governments to carry on continuing regular diplomacy.
3. It has been the core around which has developed a growing international civil service.
4. It has been a source of multilateral economic aid to developing states.
5. It has promoted research in and alleviation of many of the world's most pressing human and physiographical problems.
6. It has promoted human rights in all nations and has been a force against the continuing evils of racism,
7. And last, but by no means least, it continues to exist as an organization from which a world government may develop. If only incompletely utilized in a world of semi-anarchy among states, it has been a force for sanity and for order.
For the United States, it has been a particularly useful agency:
1. Inasmuch as during the history of the United Nations, the United States has been able to muster majority support in its organs for United States policies, the organization has provided widespread, multilateral, and well-publicized backing for United States positions.
2. Although in recent years the United Nations has been by-passed in arms limitation negotiations, it still provides a useful forum for the promotion of the United States point of view.
3. The fact that the center is in New York, enhances the prestige of the United States as delegates from all of the world's governments journey here to attend United Nations functions.
4. It is a relatively inexpensive means of propagandising the United States system and its values.
5. It provides a means by which the United States may use its resources in providing economic aid to developing states, thus removing some of the stigma attached to unilateral aid programs.
6. Assuming that the long-range interests of the United States lie with world peace based on world order, the United Nations is the best existing hope to accomplish such a goal.
One last thought. Many criticize the United States for using the United Nations to promote its own ends rather than to promote the organization itself. Such criticism is unwarranted and unrealistic. Any organlzation is viable only in terms of its utility. The United Nations can only develop when member governments believe that they may satisfy their interests by using it. My major concern presently is that states, particularly the major powers, are using the United Nations all too infrequently in resolving their differences. The problem is not that the United Nations is used, but it is not used enough.
THE UNITED NATIONS AND ALTERNATIVE FORMULATIONS – THE HARD ROAD TO WORLD ORDER
(By Richard N. Gardner)
Professor of Law and International Organization, Columbia University; Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, 1961-65; U.S. Member, Board of Trustees, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), 1969-73.
Has the quest for a decent world order ever seemed so full of contradictions, at once so frustrating and so hopeful? The international institutions established at the close of the Second World War to establish peace, justice and economic cooperation have failed to live up to the world's expectations. Yet never has there been such widespread recognition of the necessity of planetary planning or such an impressive array of ongoing negotiations aimed at the cooperative management of global problems.
The central policy-making organs of the United Nations – the General Assembly, the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council – all seem drained of vitality. They are suffering from a "crisis of confidence," some would even say from "creeping irrelevance." The business of managing the world's political, security and economic problems is increasingly handled elsewhere.
Lord Caradon, the eloquent former British representative to the U.N., liked to say that "there is nothing basically wrong with the U.N. except its members." What is wrong with the members is painfully obvious. Virtually all of them pay lip service to the organization while at the same time pursuing their short-term interests at its expense.
Questions are voted upon less and less with regard to the requirements of law and justice and more and more with a view to bloc affiliations and the protection of other interests. The willingness of U.N. members to risk their short-term interests for the good of the community often seems at the level of the frontier town in the unforgettable Western "High Noon," where the citizens abandoned their lawman as soon as the outlaw was released from jail. If a clear and unambiguous case of aggression came before the Security Council or General Assembly today, there would be little confidence that a majority of members would treat it as such or come to the aid of the victim. The Charter concept of collective security is obviously dead; even for consent-type "peacekeeping," little progress has been made in devising agreed constitutional and financial arrangements.
Given this state of affairs, plans for instant world government carry little credibility. The consensus on basic values and the willingness to entrust vital interests to community judgment is simply not there. One need only picture a world constitutional convention including President Nixon, Chairman Brezhnev and Chairman Mao, Prime Ministers Heath and Pompidou, not to mention Messrs. Castro, Peron, and Qaddafi and Mmes. Golda Meir and Indira Ghandi. What rules and procedures for world government could they agree upon?
The same considerations suggest the doubtful utility of holding a Charter review conference. To amend the U.N. Charter requires the approval of two thirds of the membership, including all of the five Permanent Members. If one examines carefully the attitude of U.N. members to specific proposals, one quickly discovers that the most likely consequence of wholesale revision of the Charter would be to diminish rather than enhance the strength of the organization. The Charter of the U.N., like the U.S. Constitution, provides a framework for organic growth in response to new demands and changing realities. As in the case of the Constitution, we are more likely to make progress by pressing to the outer limits of its potentialities through creative use of the existing instrument, seeking amendments only on carefully selected matters where they seem both necessary and capable of adoption by the constitutionally required majority.
If instant world government and Charter review now seems bankrupt of possibilities, so does the old-fashioned idea of achieving "world peace through world law" by means of a greatly strengthened International Court of Justice. The members of the United Nations seem less willing than ever to entrust vital interests for decision to the fifteen men at the Hague, as may be seen from the Court's lack of activity and the small number of countries accepting the Court's compulsory jurisdiction without crippling reservations. This reluctance to take cases to the Court partly reflects lack of confidence in the competence and independence of some of its judges, but even if all of them had the intellectual and moral qualities of a Philip Jessup the basic problem would still remain. Not only are nations reluctant to risk adverse judgments at the hands of third parties they cannot control, they are understandably unwilling to commit themselves to have all controversies to which they may be a party decided according to rules of international law which may be of doubtful legitimacy, incapable of alteration as circumstances change, and uncertain of enforcement. As Professor Julius Stone once put it:
"How satisfactory would the 'rule of law' be if we awoke one bright morning to find that there was no longer any parliament to make laws, and that the only way we could adjust legal rights among us was either by direct agreement between all the individual citizens concerned, or by naked force? But this precisely has always been and is still the final position in the international community and its law. If, without changing this, we tried to clamp the 'rule of law' on States by requiring every dispute to be settled by binding decisions of an international court this would freeze vested rights as they now are, and make it even more difficult to adjust legal rights to rapidly changing conditions. There is obviously not the slightest hope that States will agree to this. But to change this, a rule of law programme would also have to provide some accepted method of changing the law, and of enforcing it as it changes. The feasibility of this in the international as in a national community turns on whether the community as a whole, especially those who wield supreme power, share certain common ethical convictions as to the basic principles of decency between man and man."
If instant world government, Charter review, and a greatly strengthened International Court do not provide the answers, what hope for progress is there? The answer will not satisfy those who seek simple solutions to complex problems, but it comes down essentially to this: Our best hope for the foreseeable future seems to be, not in building up a few ambitious central institutions
of universal membership and general jurisdiction as was envisaged at the end of the last war, but rather in the much more decentralized, disorderly, and pragmatic process of inventing or adapting institutions of limited jurisdiction and selected membership to deal with specific problems on a case-by-case basis, as the necessity for cooperation is perceived by the relevant nations. Such institutions of limited jurisdiction will have a better chance of doing what Professor Stone reminds us must be done to make a "rule of law" meaningful – providing methods of changing the law and enforcing it as it changes and of developing the perception of common convictions and interests that is the prerequisite for successful cooperation.
In short, we are likely to do better by building our "house of world order" from the bottom up rather than from the top down. It will look like a great "booming, buzzing confusion," to use William James' famous description of reality, but an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, is likely to get us to world order faster than the old-fashioned frontal assault. Of course, for political as well as administrative reasons, some of these specialized arrangements should be brought into an appropriate relationship with the central institutions, but the main thing is that the essential functions be performed.
The hopeful aspect of the present situation is that even as nations resist appeals for "world government" and "the surrender of sovereignty," technological, economic and political interests are forcing them to establish more and more far-ranging institutions to manage their mutual interdependence. Consider for a moment the institutional implications of negotiations already underway or likely to be undertaken within the next few years:
We are embarked on an ambitious negotiation for the reform of the international monetary system, aimed at the phasing out of the dollar standard and the improvement of the balance-of- payments adjustment process. The accomplishment of these objectives will inevitably require a revitalization of the International Monetary Fund, which will be given unprecedented powers to create new international reserves and to influence national decisions on exchange rates and on domestic monetary and fiscal policies. The strengthened IMF will probably be able to back its decisions by meaningful multilateral sanctions – uniform surcharges on the exports of uncooperative surplus countries and the withholding of multilateral and bilateral credits and reserve facilities from recalcitrant deficit countries.
We are undertaking a parallel effort to rewrite the basic ground rules for the conduct of international trade and investment. At a minimum, we can expect the strengthening of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to cover a whole range of hitherto unregulated "non-tariff barriers." This will subject countries to an unprecedented degree of international surveillance over hitherto sacrosanct "domestic" policies such as farm price supports, subsidies, and government procurement practices that have transnational effects. New standards will also be developed to regulate protectionist measures to cope with "market disruption" from imports. To make these new rules of the game meaningful, GATT arrangements for consultation, conciliation and enforcement of its decisions will have to be greatly improved. in addition, new standards and new procedures are likely to be developed through the OECD and the U.N. to deal with the activities of multinational corporations and conflicting national efforts to regulate them.
The years ahead will almost certainly witness a continuing increase in the resources of the multilateral development and technical assistance agencies in contrast to static or declining bilateral efforts. This will enhance the authority of the World Bank, the Regional Development Banks and the U.N. Development Program over the economic policies of rich and poor nations.
By the end of this decade, we are likely to have a substantial portion of aid funds channeled to international agencies from sources independent of national decision-making – some form of "link" between monetary reserve creation and development aid and some arrangement for the payment of fees to international agencies for the exploitation of seabed mineral resources.
We are likely to witness a continued strengthening of the new global and regional agencies charged with protecting the world's environment. In addition to the comprehensive monitoring of the earth's air, water and soil and the effects of pollutants on human health, we can look forward to new procedures to implement the principle of state responsibility for national actions that have transnational environmental consequences, probably including some kind of "international environmental impact statement" procedure culminating in recommendations from independent scientific authorities. At the same time, international agencies will be given broad powers to promulgate and revise standards limiting air and open pollution by nations and their citizens.
We are entering a wholly new phase of international concern and international action on the world population problem, which is dramatized by the World Population Conference scheduled for Bucharest in 1974. By the end of this decade, a majority of nations will have explicit population policies, many of them designed to achieve zero population growth by a specific target date. These national policies and targets will be established and implemented in most cases with the help of international agencies. Under their auspices, several billions in national and international resources will be mobilized in fulfillment of the basic human rights objective already proclaimed by the U.N. – that every person in the world should be given the information and means necessary to control the number and spacing of his children.
We can look forward, after several years of very difficult negotiations, to a new international regime governing the world's oceans, including new law on such important matters as the territorial sea, passage through international straits, fisheries, the exploitation of the mineral resources of the seabed, the regulation of marine pollutions, and the conduct of scientific research. To make these new arrangements meaningful, there will have to be tough provisions to assure compliance as well as to provide for the compulsory settlement of disputes.
We will almost certainly have to create new international arrangements to cope with the emerging global politics of resource scarcity. The problem is not only that of increasing total supplies but of assuring their fair allocation between countries. Large parts of the world are dependent on food exports from the United States while the United States is increasingly dependent on oil from the Middle East. Unilateral cutoffs of these vital resources for political, economic or conservation reasons could have grave consequences and could trigger international conflict. In the early days of the Second World War, President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill proclaimed an Atlantic Charter with the postwar objective of "access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world." In three decades of negotiations since that time, our focus has been almost exclusively on access to markets. In the next decades, we will need to place equal emphasis on new standards and new procedures to assure a fair allocation of scarce resources.
We will need to develop new international rules and institutions to regulate new communication technologies, notably direct broadcasting from satellites. While providing some safeguards against the unwanted intrusion of foreign broadcasts, these new arrangements should maximize the potential for using satellite communications to promote trade and economic development as well as world culture and understanding. Ways will very likely be found to give the U.N. and other international agencies access to this new technology for both operational and informational purposes. The International Telecommunication Union and other agencies will be given new powers to allocate radio frequencies and satellite parking orbits among competing users.
We will be obliged at some point in the years ahead to move beyond bilateral discussions on strategic arms into further multilateral negotiations to limit the spread of conventional as well as nuclear weapons. It seems inevitable that the U.N., the International Atomic Agency and perhaps regional bodies will be given new responsibilities for the administration of these arms control and disarmament measures, including means of verification and enforcement.
We are likely, despite the constitutional impasse over U.N. peacekeeping, to resort increasingly to U.N. forces to contain local conflicts in the Third World. The arguments over authorization, financing and operational control will be resolved on a case-by-case basis where the interests of key countries converge. The U.S., the Soviet Union and China, in the happy phrase of an American journalist, will each act "more like a country and less like a cause." Under the aegis of the U.N., or possibly in bilateral negotiations, some principles for mutual non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries are likely to be worked out. A corollary of such agreements will be international peacekeeping arrangements to patrol borders, supervise elections and verify compliance with non-intervention norms.
These and other developments that could be mentioned may not add up to "world government" In the old-fashioned sense of a single all-embracing global authority, but they will represent key elements of planetary planning and planetary management on very specific problems where the facts of interdependence force nations in their enlightened self-interest to abandon unilateral decisionmaking in favor of multilateral processes.
It may be objected that the above catalogue is more convincing as a statement of what nations ought to do in the pursuit of their enlightened self-interest than as a prediction of what they actually will do. Admittedly, the same forces of short-sighted nationalism that have crippled the central institutions of the U.N. may wreck all or most of these specialized negotiations, but I do not believe this will happen.
The reason is that the case-by-case approach is likely to yield some remarkable concessions of "sovereignty" that could not be achieved on an across-the-board basis. The Soviet Union, China and the United States may be unable to agree on the general rules that should cover U.N. peacekeeping in all unspecified future contingencies, but they may well agree on a new U.N. peacekeeping force to implement a Middle East settlement that is otherwise satisfactory to them.
The same three countries are unlikely to accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice over all disputes to which they might be parties, but they may very well agree upon effective third-party machinery for compulsory settlement of disputes on the specific subjects dealt with in a new Law of the Sea agreement where they recognize compelling national interests in getting other nations as well as themselves to comply with the rules.
What is the conclusion of all this for the foreign policy of the United States? Stated simply, it is that the main preoccupation of U.S. foreign policy from here on in should be the building of the international machinery necessary for the management of mankind's common problems. This means supplementing balance of power politics with world order politics.
Some may argue that the present direction of our foreign policy is incompatible with this approach. This is not necessarily so. The achievement of a better balance of political and economic forces and the normalization of relationships between formerly hostile nations do not constitute world order politics, but they are necessary first steps to make such politics possible.
The achievement of a better power balance surely enhances prospects for a world in which power is subordinated to a rule of law. The burying of ancient animosities opens new possibilities for cooperative action on emerging global problems through the United Nations and other international organizations.
One phrase has recurred throughout the foreign policy statements of President Nixon and Henry Kissinger – the building of a "structure of peace." The use of the word "structure" is significant.
New political and economic relationships may clear the ground for building a structure of peace, but they should not be confused with the structure itself. To take one example: the Smithsonian agreement of December 1971 which established a more realistic pattern of exchange rates between the dollar and other currencies was a prerequisite to a satisfactory reform of the international monetary system.
But in the absence of a new and acceptable system for changing exchange rates and for settling international accounts, the Smithsonian accord, hailed at the time as "the most important monetary agreement in the history of the world," lasted only 14 months. The recent political achievements in relations with the Soviet Union and China and in relations between the two Germanys could prove equally ephemeral if we do not make the distinction between new relationships and new structures. For an enduring peace system, the former must be reinforced and buttressed by the latter.
There is some evidence that this point is recognized in Washington and that we are in fact at the beginning of a transition from one phase of foreign policy to another. In his first press conference after his appointment as Secretary of State, Dr. Kissinger, after summarizing the achievements of the first four Nixon years, declared: "But now we are in a different phase. The foundations that have been laid must now lead to the building of a more permanent structure ... that we can pass on to succeeding administrations so that the world will be a safer place when they take over. Now this requires that there be a greater institutionalization of foreign policy than has been the case up to now."
This reference to "institutionalization," to be sure, was in the context of our domestic arrangements for the making of foreign policy. By combining the post of Secretary of State with that of the President's principal foreign policy adviser, the President has assured that the traditional foreign affairs machinery will now be plugged directly into the Presidential policy-making process. But "institutionalization" at the domestic level is likely to lead to "institutionalization" at the international level. For Dr. Kissinger will now turn his attention to the broad range of foreign policy problems that face the country in the years ahead. In addition to his former preoccupation with Southeast Asia and normalization of relations with the Soviet Union and China, the very nature of his new assignment will take him deeper into the reform of the international monetary and trading system, the law of the sea, economic development, the protection of the international environment, the world population problem, and the global politics of food and energy, not to mention the search for peace in such trouble spots as the Middle East and Southern Africa. Faced with these new challenges, it wound be surprising if Dr. Kissinger did not encourage the foreign policy machinery to look for new solutions through more effective international institutions at the global and regional level.
Such a new emphasis on multilateralism would serve another important objective emphasized by Dr. Kissinger – the rebuilding of the shattered domestic consensus for U.S. foreign policy. The self-confidence and idealism of the American people are two of the world's most valuable natural resources. They made possible our sponsorship of the United Nations, the postwar financial and trade arrangements, the Marshall Plan, Point Four, the Alliance for Progress, the Decade of Development, and many other programs of great value.
Viet Nam has transformed much of this self-confidence into self-doubt, much of this idealism into cynicism. It has even encouraged a school of thought which holds that the United States is so violent, so racist and so imperialistic that it can no longer play any constructive role in the world. But the threats to mankind's future from poverty, population growth, environmental degradation and the arms race cannot possibly be dealt with successfully in the absence of a massive global effort in which American technology, managerial skill, and political leadership play a major part.
Forced to choose between interventionism and isolationism, the American people will eventually choose isolationism. Multilaterism is therefore the only chance in the long run to sustain a positive U.S. role in the world. It has always been the approach most likely to win support for our actions abroad; but it now is also essential for the achievement of a foreign policy consensus at home.
One of the most important but least appreciated functions of the United Nations is in influencing the political process within member states toward more cooperative and outward-looking policies. In a certain sense, the United Nations and other international organizations constitute an "alliance of doves," in which the outward-looking members of national governments can reinforce one another in their struggle with more inward-looking members of their national administrations. For an American President wishing to gain domestic support for substantial cuts in the military budget and a greater investment in economic and social programs at home and abroad, international agencies represent a resource of enormous potential. They can help us to reorder our national priorities, to turn our country around.
One of the serious dangers for the United States in its reaction from the Viet Nam tragedy is that we may disengage from international enterprises that are mutually beneficial and even essential to our enlightened self-interest. Here again, the United Nations offers an opportunity to American leadership. U.N. programs are yielding new perceptions of the linkages between conditions abroad and conditions at home. To give just a few obvious examples: U.N. assistance to Asian farmers to grow wheat or rice instead of opium can reduce drug addiction and crime in New York. U.N. efforts to limit the use of toxic pesticides in other countries can safeguard our interests in the conservation of wildlife, fish and the health of the marine environment. U.N. efforts to control diseases and establish minimum health standards can save the lives of an untold number of Americans. And, most fundamentally of all, men in blue helmets under a U.N. flag in a world trouble-spot can remove the occasion for American soldiers to fight or die there.
But even beyond these fairly obvious linkages between "foreign" and "domestic" problems, a foreign policy oriented to multilateral organizations could give us a new sense of national purpose – an opportunity for recommitment to some fundamental principles of justice and human dignity which, at an earlier and happier stage in our existence, we perceived as essential elements of our behaviour as a free people.
Increasing numbers of Americans, particularly young Americans, are raising questions about the justice of our domestic economic and political order. At present these Americans are mainly looking inward. But a foreign policy focusing on the building of a decent world order could help us by putting these concerns in a global context.
If world order politics has at last become feasible as well as necessary, there are some very specific steps which we in the United States can take. I venture to suggest a few of them:
1. The President, the Secretary of State, and our senior policy-makers could assert that U.S. foreign policy from now on is aimed at the creation of a better world order founded on the enlightened self-interest of the United States and other countries – and that the strengthening of the United Nations and other international agencies is indispensable to the achievement of that end. Some may dismiss this suggestion as just "rhetoric"but "rhetoric" can be important. It can stimulate new perceptions of interdependence here and overseas and build a new domestic and international constituency for U.S. foreign policy by identifying our purposes with those of mankind. We could both rebuild and draw upon the reservoir of idealism and generosity of the American people which has been so badly depleted by the war in Viet Nam. By substituting the language of constructive internationalism for reckless interventionism, we could find common ground between generations as well as political parties. Of course, the new language wound have to be reflected in new action, which leads us to the other suggestions.
2. The United States could take a principled instead of an instrumental approach to the conduct of foreign policy. Instead of citing the U.N. Charter and other sources of international law when it suits our short term interest and ignoring them when it does not, we would recognize our long-term interest in strengthening the norms and processes of a civilized world community. In specific terms, this would mean limiting our use of armed force to circumstances clearly permitted by the Charter and other sources of international law and submitting disputes to which we are a party to third-party processes of fact-finding, mediation, and, where appropriate, judicial settlement. There are undoubtedly risks in such a policy, but they are less than the risks inherent in the unilateralism that has characterized some of our actions in recent years.
3. We could put a new emphasis on world order issues in our bilateral negotiations with former adversaries, non-aligned nations, and old allies. In particular, this would mean using our negotiating leverage to encourage the Russians and Chinese to take a more affirmative position on such matters as the law of the sea, international programs to curb population growth, U.N. peacemaking and U.N. financing, and the strengthening of machinery for the peaceful settlement of disputes. There will be a growing number of people in both countries who understand the necessity of tackling such global issues in a cooperative and non-dogmatic way; we could strengthen their hand by the right kind of initiatives. For example, we have created a dozen U.S.-U.S.S.R. bilateral commissions as the result of the recent summit meetings: we could use the SALT Commission to explore the possibilities of mutual non-intervention by the superpowers in Third World areas and of limiting the spread of nuclear and conventional arms; we could seek support for global health and population programs in the bilateral health commission; and we could press in the environmental commission for Soviet cooperation in global efforts to curb whaling, protect ocean fisheries, and regulate land-based sources of marine pollution. We could place a similar priority on world order issues in our relations with the European countries and Japan both bilaterally and in regional forums like NATO and OECD.
4. We could work harder to develop a "world order bargain" with the nations of the Third World. Because we appear to be neglecting their interests and concerns – whether on Southern Africa or on trade and development – we find ourselves increasingly isolated from them in the United Nations and are securing much less of their cooperation than is potentially available on population, environment, and resource questions. In the U.N. or in any political system, the price of getting support for one's own priorities is to offer some support for the priorities of others. Our objectives in the forthcoming negotiations on trade, monetary reform and the law of the sea may all be frustrated unless we urgently review our present policies on questions of interest to the developing world.
5. We could begin to seek help from international agencies in dealing with our own domestic problems – particularly the problems we face in our cities, problems of pollution, mass transport, crime, and drug addiction. For too long our government has regarded the U.N. system as a great funnel where we stuff aid and advice in at one end and developing countries take out the benefits at the other. The last few years have raised some questions about this rather arrogant approach. We have more than a few problems for which we do not have the answers and we could benefit from insights and know-how from Europe, Japan and the developing countries. If the U.N. and other international agencies were to render services to developed as well as developing countries, it would indicate to the world that we regard learning as a two-way process. It would also help build domestic political support for international agencies by demonstrating to Congress and the public that we derive direct as well as indirect benefits from our participation.
6. We could apply ourselves much more seriously to remedying the serious structural weaknesses in the present system to multilateral agencies. In collaboration with other countries, we should search for ways to harmonize the activities of global and regional organizations, to integrate the functional activities of the U.N. specialized agencies, and to strengthen the competence and the independence of the international secretariats. New thinking and new energy could also be devoted to reforming international decision making procedures to find a satisfactory middle ground between the principle of unanimity and the principle of one-nation one-vote. There is growing dissatisfaction, for example, with the fact that countries representing less than five percent of the U.N. budget and less than ten percent of the population of the total membership can take decisions in the General Assembly by a two-thirds majority, including binding decisions on budgetary matters. Weighted voting is not now negotiable and possibly not even desirable, but we could explore the use in the U.N. and other agencies of "double majorities," bicameral arrangements and small committees so that action proposals of certain kinds would have to be adopted by a reasonable number of large and middle as well as small nations. There is a pervasive attitude of cynicism and defeatism about the organizational deficiencies of the U.N.
and other agencies, but we have not really involved our best minds and senior decision-makers in the search for solutions.
7. We could strengthen our Executive branch and Congressional arrangements for participating in the multilateral system. Our Ambassadors to the U.N. and other international agencies should be men with broad experience and deep substantive knowledge, and their permanent missions should consist of the best talent our country can make available, not only from the foreign service but from the business, academic, professional and scientific communities. The temporary public members of delegations should be chosen on a non-political and merit basis and appointed long enough in advance so that they can make a serious contribution. The Department of State should provide strong policy leadership for our participation in the multilateral system, with better coordination of its own activities and with new powers to coordinate the activities of other Cabinet departments as they relate to the international agencies. To this end, we might consider creating a new Undersecretary of State for Multilateral Affairs, with responsibility for overall direction of the State Department's Bureau of International Organization Affairs, its Bureau of Economic Affairs, the multilateral sections of the various regional bureaus, the Office of Legal Advisor, and State Department functions relating to the environment, population, the law of the sea, fisheries and wildlife, and development aid. Whether or not such a fundamental reorganization is undertaken, a revitalization of the Bureau of International Organization Affairs is clearly essential. As for Congress, there are a number of measures that could enhance its contribution to the building of more effective international institutions – for example, separation of our U.N. appropriations from the State Department budget and greater use of the International Organization Subcommittee of the Foreign Relations and Foreign Affairs Committees (or possibly the creation of a new Joint Senate-House Committee on International Organizations).
8. We could seriously reexamine our financial policies in international organizations. Our behavior here has been a classic example of penny-wise and pound-foolishness. A gradual reduction of the U.S. share of U.N. regular budgets was obviously called for in the light of new economic realities, dollar devaluations, and the addition of new members, but the unilateral and abrupt manner in which we pushed our 25% policy has undermined our bargaining power on matters where we have much more important interests at stake. From now on, our efforts should be focused not on across-the-board reductions but on selective measures to improve the financial and management practices of the U.N. and its Specialized Agencies, achieve greater centralized control, and enhance the influence of the major contributors in the budget and policy process. In addition, and no less important, we could take some new initiatives to liquidate the U.N.'s financial deficit and establish a modest peacekeeping fund, and we could take a much more affirmative approach to increases in our voluntary contributions to the UNDP and multilateral financial agencies.
9. We could create a private political-action group to translate support for international institutions and international law into the American political process. The trade unions, the corporations, the environmentalists and the welfare recipients of our country have all learned how to get the government to respond to their needs. Citizens interested in a stronger United Nations and more effective U.S. participation in international agencies have not. Ralph Nader has shown how hitherto ineffectual public interests can be given effective voice and political clout. Perhaps the time has come to create a "Nader's Raiders for World Order" – a group that could keep a box score on how Congressmen vote on matters like our U.N. contributions and on legislation violating the Rhodesian embargo. If such an enterprise were properly run, it might attract broad support – particularly from young people who are looking desperately for some way in which they can help the United States play a more constructive role in the world. We might even make such a U.S. group part of a broad transnational effort linking similar groups in key U.N. member countries.
10. We could find new ways of using the mess media to increase public support for international institutions and world order processes. The work of organizations like the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions and the United Nations Association is excellent – but they do not reach mass audiences. We need to try some new approaches. We could establish a foundation to underwrite television programs which could bring new perceptions of interdependence to the American people through prime-time programs. After an initial period some of these programs might well become self-sustaining. Why not, for example, create a one-hour weekly television serial called "The Peacemakers," featuring a fictional representative of the U.N. Secretary- General grappling each week with the different kinds of problems that international agencies must deal with, whether monitoring a cease-fire between hostile nations, combating a plague of locusts, or coping with relief and refugee problems. Most people are not interested in international organizations as such, but they are interested in the problems with which these organizations are dealing, particularly if they can identify with them. E. G. Marshall and "The Defenders" helped influence the attitudes of a whole generation of young television viewers toward the legal profession. With skill and imagination, "The Peacemakers" could do the same for international institutions.
This paper has offered no simple and dramatic solutions, only a hard road to world order with a continual process of institution-building to manage mankind's common problems. To hasten this process, we will need to stimulate new perceptions of interdependence. For the most basic division in the world today is not between communists and non-communists, between blacks and whites, between rich and poor, between young and old – or even between men and women. It is between those who see only the interests of a limited group and those who are capable of seeing the interests of the broader community of mankind as a whole.
When people of my generation were coming of age, we were inspired by a number of leaders who spoke for these broader interests. One thinks of men and women like Wendell Willkie, Eleanor Roosevelt, Adlai Stevenson and Philip Jessup. It remains for new leaders to pick up the fallen standard of constructive internationalism. They would find, I believe, a ready constituency in the United States – and throughout the world.