Is the United Nations running the same risk as its predecessor the League of Nations of being made marginal or even irrelevant? Why or why not?

Résumé du document

'The League is dead, long live the United Nations!' This is with these words that Lord Robert Cecil, one of the architects of the League of Nations, commented on the dissolution of the organization, in the spring 1946, expressing the apparent readiness to write the League off as a failure and to regard the UN as a brand new organization with a new look on world problems of peace and security. Established on 24th October 1945 by 51 countries as an outcome of the initiatives taken by the United States, the USSR, Great-Britain and China, it had, according to its Charter, 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 . Still there after sixty years of existence, the UN can, therefore be seen as a successful organization, but some recent events, for instance the Anglo-American intervention in Iraq without the approval of the Security Council, ask the question of its current efficiency and relevance. Is it, like the League, running the risk of being made marginal or irrelevant? As A.Leroy Bennett explains 'the success of modern International organizations is most often judged on the basis of their handling of disputes and their utility in avoiding wars' . This is why I will mostly focus on this peace maintenance and security issues when dealing with the subject.

Extraits

[...] is hereby declared a matter of concern to the whole League and the League shall take any action that may be deemed wise and effectual to safeguard the peace of nations' The birth of such an organization marked a new era in international relations through its explicit will of promoting diplomacy and cooperation over force and balance of powers. But, in the end, the system created in 1919 did not manage to prevent the Second World War in 1939 because of a major lack of effective power. First of all, the League suffered from the absence of several Great Powers and especially the one of the United States. [...]

[...] In 1934, the Ethiopian government requested the arbitral of the Council because of the Italian aggressive behaviour. But the French and the British, who were more and more afraid of Hitler and counted on Mussolini's support, gave to him a tacit assurance that they would not interfere with his African actions. This ended in the full-scale invasion of Ethiopia by Italy on October The League of Nations has definitively failed in achieving its main goal of preventing war but can also be seen as the first experience of collective security that represents a crucial link between pre1914 international organizations and wartime cooperation essential to the post- Second World War creation of the United Nations. [...]

[...] Indeed, despite the pre-eminent role of Wilson in the creation of the League, the Congress refused to join. The absence of this country added to those of USSR until 1934 and Germany most of the time , caused a general weakness to enforce decisions. Moreover, the League faced the reticence of the powerful members like France and Great-Britain, who were not prepared to drop their own interests to uphold collective security. 'The League 1 eventually became an empty shell abandoned by countries unwilling to involve themselves outside their domain or give teeth to the League's covenant' argue the scholar Clive Archer. [...]

[...] Thus, 'although the organization would necessarily have to function within the framework of the settlement between victors and vanquished, it would be spared the unfortunate symbolism of identification with an act of military triumph which had plagued the League' . Then, apart from basic 'timing' dissimilarities, the main differences between the two organizations 2 derive from the norms, the perception of the relations among nation-states, which shaped them. For some scholars, as Inis Claude, the UN was created on a neo-liberalist theoretical support whereas for others, such as Alexandru Grigorescu or Paul Taylor and Devon Curtis , it lies on a realist basis. [...]

[...] Is it, like the League, running the risk of being made marginal or irrelevant? As A.Leroy Bennett explains 'the success of modern International organizations is most often judged on the basis of their handling of disputes and their utility in avoiding wars' . This is why I will mostly focus on this peace maintenance and security issues when dealing with the subject. I'll first try to seek the reasons why the League failed then I'll expose the ways in which the UN has distinguished itself from the League to rule more effectively, and finally I'll focus on the main difficulties it has and is still facing. [...]