Sunday 30 September 2012
The 2012 General Assembly of the United Nations began on September 18 at the UN headquarters in New York. As outlined in the UN Charter, the function of the General Assembly is to discuss, debate, and make recommendations on a range of subjects pertaining to international peace and security.With each of the 193 member states entitled to one vote, the General Assembly is the only part of the UN system that operates according to democratic principles. The main functions assigned to the General Assembly however, are ‘housekeeping’ – ones relating to the administration of the UN organs themselves: Approving the UN budget, and electing members to serve in UN bodies such as the Human Rights Council and as non-permanent members of the Security Council and other such agencies. The appointment of the secretary-general however, is based on the Security Council’s recommendation.
The power to make real decisions affecting the lives of millions of citizens of the developing world, especially decisions to wage war on member countries by the more powerful countries, continues to lie with the non-democratically operating Security Council where the five permanent members, the US, UK, Russia, China and France can veto any initiative not to their liking. The US is the most frequent user of the veto.
In addition to making the General Assembly an ineffective body, the West also ‘uses’ it as a forum to put their agenda before the world community: Disarmament, the rule of law; prosecution of persons responsible for the genocides in Rwanda and Yugoslavia (NATO not included); and international drug control, all of which were featured prominently in this year’s agenda.
Also, US presidents use the General Assembly floor to lay down ‘their’ law as it applies to the rest of the world, and to read the riot act to ‘rogue’ nations as defined by them. Member countries that dare to plan for the peaceful use of nuclear energy and any other country with a strong nationalistic leader will be mentioned as ‘rogue nations’ who disobey US dictums. Countries that associate with them are also taken to task.
Barack Obama, in his address last week, for example, declared ‘unambiguously’ that he will not allow Iran to become a nuclear power: Clearly there is no legal or other basis to this threat, and it is against Article 1 and Article 2 of the UN Charter. Such threats are Crimes against Peace defined in Principle VI (a) under the Nuremberg Tribunal. But the US presidents are a law unto themselves, superficially, because the speech writers are under the control of vested interest groups.
A largely ineffective body Read more...
