While the world has turned into a global vil­lage, the role and ef­fi­cacy of in­ter­na­tional or­gan­i­sa­tions are un­der ques­tion even though on the sur­face it ap­pears that they are an in­dis­pens­able part of in­ter­na­tional re­la­tions, har­mony through mu­tual em­pow­er­ment and global pol­i­tics. Cit­ing the case of Nicaragua and Syria, the young stu­dent of In­ter­na­tional Re­la­tions -Gurleen Kaur looks at how re­al­ism plays a dom­i­nant part in the func­tion­ing and dis­ori­en­ta­tion of in­ter­na­tional or­gan­i­sa­tions, be­com­ing the biggest rea­son for the ef­fec­tive fail­ure of the United Na­tions. In this analy­sis, she pro­poses that Lib­er­al­ism can be a way for­ward.

HIS­TOR­I­CALLY, RE­AL­ISM WAS DEMON­STRATED IN in­ter­na­tional re­la­tions through the strug­gle for be­com­ing World pow­ers and the Cold War is an im­por­tant ex­am­ple of this where the ap­proach of both the par­ties -the United States and the So­viet Union, re­flected ‘self-in­ter­est’ ad­vo­cat­ing cap­i­tal­ism and com­mu­nism re­spec­tively. At that time, Re­al­ism be­came suc­cess­ful in es­tab­lish­ing the struc­ture of in­ter­na­tional re­la­tions.

To­day, also, as the five per­ma­nent mem­bers of the UN Se­cu­rity Coun­cil en­joy the ‘Right to Ve­to’ (their sin­gle neg­a­tive vote can re­ject a res­o­lu­tion), they are pur­su­ing their in­ter­ests fol­low­ing re­al­ism, which re­sults in the fail­ure of the UN’s core pur­pose of peace­keep­ing, im­ple­men­ta­tion of hu­man rights and en­sur­ing civil, eco­nomic and po­lit­i­cal rights of peo­ples and na­tions with­out ge­o­graph­i­cal bound­aries. 

For in­stance, in Nicaragua’s case, the In­ter­na­tional Court of Jus­tice (ICJ) held the US ac­count­able for vi­o­lat­ing in­ter­na­tional law by in­ter­ven­ing in their af­fairs and vi­o­lat­ing the sov­er­eignty of an­other state. How­ever, the United States re­fused to par­tic­i­pate in the pro­ceed­ings and claimed that the ICJ lacked ju­ris­dic­tion to hear the case. Also, the US pre­vented Nicaragua from ob­tain­ing com­pen­sa­tion by block­ing the en­force­ment of the judge­ment by the United Na­tions Se­cu­rity Coun­cil. 

The US was the only mem­ber that put for­ward ar­gu­ments against the va­lid­ity of the court’s judg­ment and ful­filled the re­al­ist ap­proach us­ing its power at the United Na­tions, ef­fec­tively re­sult­ing in in­jus­tice to Nicaragua and a clear ex­am­ple of the UN’s fail­ure to func­tion as an um­brella body to bro­ker peace and en­sure jus­tice. 

Re­al­ism has proved to be the most com­pet­ing and dom­i­nant the­ory that pre­vails in In­ter­na­tional re­la­tions where states use IOs as one of the tools in their diplo­matic tool­box –states cre­ate IOs in or­der to de­ter­mine the rules that oth­ers must fol­low. For in­stance, the US is the ma­jor share­holder in many In­ter­na­tional Or­ga­ni­za­tions in­clud­ing the In­ter­na­tional Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) and has per­ma­nent seats on its ex­ec­u­tive board. 

Ac­cord­ing to the IMF con­di­tion­al­ity, “When a coun­try bor­rows from the IMF, its gov­ern­ment agrees to ad­just its eco­nomic poli­cies to over­come the prob­lems that led it to seek fi­nan­cial aid. These pol­icy ad­just­ments are con­di­tions for IMF loans and serve to en­sure that the coun­try will be able to re­pay the IMF.” 

Be­ing the largest share­holder, the US has the power of de­sign­ing these con­di­tions and as it is the strong sup­porter of cap­i­tal­ism and ne­olib­er­al­ism, hav­ing the largest num­ber of bil­lion­aires, it over­pow­ers the world mak­ing them adopt ne­olib­eral poli­cies. Also, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s snub of mul­ti­lat­eral or­ga­ni­za­tions as he pur­sued his “Amer­ica First” for­eign pol­icy in 2018 at the IMF is ma­nip­u­la­tion at its worst. 

This kind of dom­i­nance by the per­ma­nent mem­bers at the UN is re­spon­si­ble for the atroc­i­ties dur­ing the Syr­ian cri­sis. Fol­low­ing the out­break of vi­o­lence in March 2011, the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity cen­sured the Syr­ian gov­ern­ment for its wide­spread vi­o­la­tions of hu­man rights. The UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­eral has re­peat­edly called for the sit­u­a­tion in Syria to be re­ferred to the In­ter­na­tional Crim­i­nal Court (ICC). De­spite this, the UNSC has failed to re­spond ef­fec­tively.

Since 2013 the Coun­cil has passed 26 res­o­lu­tions on hu­man­i­tar­ian ac­cess, peace talks and chem­i­cal weapons in Syria. Sev­eral of these re­fer to the gov­ern­men­t’s re­spon­si­bil­ity to pro­tect pop­u­la­tions, but none have been fully im­ple­mented. Rus­sia and China have jointly ve­toed 10 draft UNSC res­o­lu­tions and Rus­sia has in­de­pen­dently ve­toed an ad­di­tional 6 drafts.

“Be­cause the United Na­tions failed to re­store or­der in sev­eral re­cent peace­keep­ing ven­tures—most no­tably in So­ma­lia, Rwanda and Bosnia—and to pre­vent large-scale vi­o­lence in Kosovo and East Timor, the or­gan­i­sa­tion is widely per­ceived as un­equal to the prin­ci­pal task set forth in the pre­am­ble to its char­ter, ‘to save suc­ceed­ing gen­er­a­tions from the scourge of war.” (Schwartzberg, 2000).

The fail­ure of the United Na­tions is not only be­cause of the struc­ture and hi­er­ar­chy of the or­gan­i­sa­tion but also be­cause the mem­ber coun­tries have failed to live up to the ex­pec­ta­tions and ful­fil the oblig­a­tions ex­pected of them. 

“Be­cause the United Na­tions failed to re­store or­der in sev­eral re­cent peace­keep­ing ven­tures—most no­tably in So­ma­lia, Rwanda and Bosnia—and to pre­vent large-scale vi­o­lence in Kosovo and East Timor, the or­gan­i­sa­tion is widely per­ceived as un­equal to the prin­ci­pal task set forth in the pre­am­ble to its char­ter, ‘to save suc­ceed­ing gen­er­a­tions from the scourge of war.” 

Schwartzberg

At every junc­ture, the United States of Amer­ica crit­i­cizes the UN for not do­ing enough while it owes the body sev­eral bil­lion dol­lars. On top of that, the US de­ploys its own mil­i­tary bases while ve­to­ing the de­ci­sions of the United Na­tions with a clear mo­ti­va­tion of pro­tect­ing its own in­ter­ests and not heed­ing to the needs of the peo­ple of the re­gion. 

Re­struc­tur­ing of in­ter­na­tional bod­ies adopt­ing lib­er­al­ism is per­haps the an­swer. Adopt­ing lib­er­al­ism is in the in­ter­ests of peo­ple within re­spec­tive states as this makes In­ter­na­tional or­gan­i­sa­tions re­spon­si­ble for fur­ther­ing in­ter­na­tional re­la­tions. 

Even though not prac­ti­cally fol­lowed in en­tirety by su­per­pow­ers, the es­tab­lish­ment of the United Na­tions arose out of a com­mit­ment to lib­er­al­ism and it did bring in its wake re­forms in the ar­eas of wom­en’s rights, uni­ver­sal adult fran­chise, con­sti­tu­tional pro­tec­tion of fun­da­men­tal rights, re­spect for hu­man rights, the uni­ver­sal­ity of hu­man­i­tar­ian rights and en­vi­ron­men­tal jus­tice. Lib­er­al­ism, to an ex­tent, has had a con­trol­ling ef­fect on su­per­pow­ers from ex­ploit­ing weak coun­tries.

Even though not prac­ti­cally fol­lowed in en­tirety by su­per­pow­ers, the es­tab­lish­ment of the United Na­tions arose out of a com­mit­ment to lib­er­al­ism and it did bring in its wake re­forms in the ar­eas of wom­en’s rights, uni­ver­sal adult fran­chise, con­sti­tu­tional pro­tec­tion of fun­da­men­tal rights, re­spect for hu­man rights, the uni­ver­sal­ity of hu­man­i­tar­ian rights and en­vi­ron­men­tal jus­tice.

The UN’s en­durance sup­ports ‘re­al­ism’ a lot. ‘Lib­er­al­ism’ has been chal­lenged and over­pow­ered by ‘re­al­ism’, still as the motto of the UN closely re­lates to ‘lib­er­al­ism’ and maybe in the fu­ture, it will flour­ish. 

The de­bates to re­struc­ture the UN and abol­ish veto pow­ers in times of mass atroc­i­ties or pro­mote the equal dis­tri­b­u­tion of pow­ers are al­ready ex­ist­ing on var­i­ous plat­forms around the world. ‘Lib­er­al­ism’ should be­come the bench­mark for the func­tion­ing and eval­u­a­tion of in­ter­na­tional or­gan­i­sa­tions.