The United Nations is 60

after a century of peace planning it still has a long way to go.

On Tuesday Kofi Annan, Secretary General, will join 1500 people in  Westminster Central Hall in celebrating 60 years since the first United Nations General Assembly meeting in London. The UN was born in 1945. Its ‘parents’ were the Hague Peace Conference of 1899 (hosted by Nicholas, Czar of Russia, and the King of the Netherlands) and the League of Nations, founded in 1920 after the first world war.

The Hague Peace Conference  was announced by the Russian Foreign Secretary, Count Muraviev which said “The maintenance of a general peace and a possible reduction of excessive armaments, a burden which weighs heavily on all nations, are in the present world situation an ideal towards which the endeavours of all governments must be directed…”

The League of Nations only lasted until the second world war, and some people believe that the two wars were really only one. Building on the ill-fated League started early in the second world war when planning for a United Nations organization began. During that war the allies began to describe themselves as the United Nations and the present world peacemaking body was the outcome in 1945.

When, in 1920, the League of Nations was formed by 40 states it was hoped that this was the forerunner of a federal world government. However the founders were under no illusion about the difficulties of creating an institution that would preserve world peace. In a foreword to ‘The League of  Nations Starts’ which described its beginnings it was realized that the new institution “may well become the most ambitious political movement ever attempted” and invited constructive criticism. Sadly, the United States Congress refused to join.

It understood the imperfections of the League, admitting “it satisfies its friends hardly more than it satisfies its enemies” being “…faced by obstacles that at times seem insuperable”. Although the League failed to avert another war it undoubtedly laid the foundations for the next attempt at organization which followed in 1945. Not only that, it also established institutions, the Permanent Court of International Justice (ICJ) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) that still exist today.

An illustration of the almost insurmountable problems facing an international peace organisation problems facing are Article 8 of the League Covenant and Article 26 of the UN Charter, dealing with arms reduction. The League called for “…the reduction of national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety and the enforcement by common action of  international obligations”.

In an echo of the Covenant the UN Charter calls for the Security Council to formulate “…plans for the establishment of a system for the regulation of armaments”. This it says is “in order to promote the establishment and maintenance of international pace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources”.

In a book celebrating the UN’s first assembly in London the Earl of Lytton wrote that there was none of the ‘emotional idealism’ that marked the beginning of the League. “There was both hope and belief that were on the threshold of a new era, that an effective agency had been created which would provide machinery for the peaceful settlement of disputes between nations and make another war impossible. Now there are no illusions left”.

In a prescient statement he added “The world has learnt by a bitter experience that no organization, agency or political machine can save them from war; and they know that the United Nations Organisation  can never be anything but an instrument for carrying out collectively what the nations composing it want it to do”.

51 Nations came together to form the United Nations in 1945, this time including the United States who presence was wholly supportive. Its own constitution provided some of te opening words of the preamble to the Charter. This began

“We the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women people and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom…”. 

Kofi Annan’s visit is to be welcomed especially because it allows the reaffirmation of the words of the preamble. In Larger Freedom was the title of the Secretary Generals reform proposals discussed at last year’s General Assembly together with the report of the international High Level Panel on ‘Threats, challenges and Change’. The United Nations has a great record of achievement under its leaders, of which Kofi Annan is by no means the least. We are also under no illusion that success in maintaining international peace, in particular, is totally dependent on full support from UN members and the absence of domination by the stronger nations.

 Jim Addington