Last updated 09/07/24: Online ordering is currently unavailable due to technical issues. We apologise for any delays responding to customers while we resolve this. For further updates please visit our website: https://www.cambridge.org/news-and-insights/technical-incident
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 May 2009
The United States public and government, initially unrealistic in their visions of UN potentialities, have recently been turning toward the extreme of skepticism. There are various reasons for the change: the squabbles over Chinese representation and Rhodesian sanctions, the ever–increasing budgets voted by small powers who apparently pay a disproportionately low share of UN expenses, United States disillusionment at being out–voted by the Afro–Asian bloc, and the latter's insistence that the only really important function of the UN is to end colonialism and racism. Although some of these frictions have been adjusted, others are in danger of flaring into major disagreements, and, in any case, the old easy assumption of permanent US–UN friendship has gone by the board.
1 U.S. Foreign Policy for the 1970's, A Report to the Congress by Richard Nixon, 02 9, 1972 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972), p. 184.Google Scholar
2 Text in Department of State Bulletin, 06 15, 1970 (Vol. 62, No. 1616), pp. 747–752.Google Scholar
3 In the Cause of Peace (New York: Macmillan, 1954), p. 423.Google Scholar
4 Department of State Bulletin, 01. 26, 1970 (Vol. 62, No. 1596), p. 77.Google Scholar
5 UN Monthly Chronicle, 11. 1971 (Vol. VIII, No. 10), p. 108.Google Scholar
6 See Department of State Bulletin, 01. 26, 1970 (Vol. LXII, No. 1596), p. 109;Google Scholar and ibid., Dec. 7, 1970 (Vol. LXIII, No. 1641), pp. 701–705.
7 See the US's detailed indictment of the UN's refusal to face up to the financial crisis, and its statement of its decision to abstain on the 1972 budget vote: Department of State Bulletin, 02. 7, 1972 (Vol. 66, No. 1702), pp. 175–181.Google Scholar See also UN Monthly Chronicle, 01. 1972 (Vol. 9, No. 1), p. 191.Google Scholar
8 Resolution 2812 (XXVI).
9 As of mid–1972, Congress had not provided the US contributions to the International Development Association, the Inter–American Development Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. See Gardner, Richard N., The United States and the United Nations: Can We Do Better? (New York: Columbia University, for the American Assembly, 1972), pp. 2, 20.Google Scholar
10 United States Foreign Policy 1971, (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1972; Department of State Publication 8634), p. 272.Google Scholar
11 See the detailed study by Rowe, Edward T., “Financial Support for the United Nations: The Evolution of Member Contributions, 1946–1969,” International Organization, Autumn, 1972 (Vol. 26, No. 4), pp. 619–657.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12 Department of State Bulletin, 08 7, 1972 (Vol. 67, No. 1728), pp. 176–181.Google Scholar
13 New York Times, Oct. 15, 1972.
14 U.S. Participation in the UN, 1969 (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1970; Department of State Publication 8540), p. 51.Google Scholar
15 Resolution 1514 (XV).
16 Resolution 2621 (XXV); see also Resolution 2708 (XXV).
17 Thus, in 1972 the Committee “recognized the inalienable right of the people of Puerto Rico to self–determination and independence,” and instructed a subcommittee to discover means of implementation; this despite the fact that in 1953 the Assembly had officially found that under its then new commonwealth status, Puerto Rico was not a colony of the United States, and despite the further fact that a plebiscite of 1967 showed only about one percent of the voters favoring independence. See New York Times, Sept. 3, 1972. The November 1972 Puerto Rican election revealed a vote of less than 4 percent for independence; the Popular Democrats, who favor continuation of the present commonwealth status in preference to statehood, won not only the governorship but also both houses of the legislature and 72 out of the island's 78 municipalities; New York Times, Nov. 12, 1972. The Cuban government has been pursuing this issue of US “colonialism” in Puerto Rico for years; see the 1972 report of the Committee on Decolonization, General Assembly Document A/8723 (Part I), pp. 33, 94–104. One of the irritants to the US in the committee's operations is that the latter never accuses the Soviet Union of subjugation of unwilling peoples; in 1972 when the committees showed interest in the condition of Hong Kong and Macao, it dutifully desisted from putting them on the list of colonies to be freed because the representative of the Peoples Republic of China requested this action. The PRC, he said, would deal with these areas in its own way at the proper time.
18 Somewhat similar, although in an entirely different realm, was the successful insistence of African states, in 1972, that Rhodesia be barred from competing in the Olympic Games at Munich. The rapporteur of the committee, in a summary of 1972 activities, stated that the committee “considered that the incident once again proved that the decisions of the UN could bring about positive results in the field of decolonization and that no problems were incapable of solution in that regard, given political will and commitment on the part of States Members of the UN.” General Assembly, Document A/8723 (Part I), pp. 58–59. Clearly, the committee is reduced to deriving satisfaction from very minor victories. On the level of activities which really fall within the committee's terms of reference, a highly competent American former official has stated: “With the possible exception of Equatorial Guinea it is difficult to find a single instance in which independence was attained as a result of the committee's activity.” See Finger, Seymour M., “A New Approach to Colonial Problems at the United Nations,” International Organization, Winter 1972 (Vol. 26, No. 1), p. 143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
19 Editorial, “Cargo: Chrome and Shame,” Feb. 28, 1972. The administration's position is embodied in a statement in the Department of State Bulletin, 07 26, 1971 (Vol. 65, No. 1674), pp. 111–115.Google Scholar See also New York Times, June 25, 1972, for a letter from Seymour M. Finger, former US representative on the Security Council's Rhodesia Sanctions Committee, criticizing the congressional action and pointing out that the US stockpile of chrome ore was sufficient for seven years’ consumption and that Congress had authorized the sale of 1.3 million tons of it.
20 This concern with colonialism was nothing new. An analysis of speeches made in the General Assembly and main committee meetings in the 15th through the 21st sessions showed clearly that the new nations were devoting principal attention to two issues: colonialism and economic development. See Kay, David A., The New Nations in the United Nations, 1960–1967 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), pp. 46–49, 191–199, 210–241.Google Scholar The same volume, at p. 49, quotes a Ghanaian representative in 1961 in the Assembly: “In our view, colonialism is the greatest evil of the modern world, the source of all the troubles which presently afflict mankind. It is the root–cause of the arms race and the problem of disarmament…. Colonialism is the cause of war.” See also Kay, David A., “The Impact of African States on the UN,” International Organization, Winter 1969 (Vol. 23, No. 1), pp. 20–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
21 The debates of the Addis Ababa meeting are summarized at length in the UN Monthly Chronicle, 03 1972 (Vol. IX, No. 3), pp. 3–52.Google Scholar
22 See New York Times, Sept. 29, 1971.
23 This episode is well told in Stoessinger, John G., The UN and the Superpowers, 2nd ed. (New York: Random House, 1970), pp. 159–170.Google Scholar
24 New York Times, Feb. 10, 1972.
25 Quoted in Swebel, Stephen, “The United States Assaults the ILO” in the American Journal of International Law, 01. 1971 (Vol. 65, No. 1), pp. 136–142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
26 United States Foreign Policy 1971, (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1972; Department of State Publication 8634), p. 333.Google Scholar
27 See Taqi, S., “First UN Agency to Fall?”, Vista, 09.–10. 1971, pp. 31 ff.Google Scholar
28 The Changing United Nations, (New York: Random House, 1967), pp. 38–39.Google Scholar
29 The opinion to this effect is by no means unanimous. For a contrary view, see McDougal, Myres S. and Reisman, W. Michael, “Rhodesia and the UN: The Lawfulness of International Concern,” American Journal of International Law, 01 1968 (Vol. 62, No. 1), pp. 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Cefkin, J. Leo, “The Rhodesian Question at the United Nations.” International Organization, Summer 1968 (Vol. 22, No. 3), pp. 649–669.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
