What the United Nations Can Accomplish

...It has seemed to us that our standard practice of mere denunciation has suffered from diminishing efThe Alternative: An American Spectator February 1976 7 fectiveness...

...How is it periodically reconfirmed that the population—be it of individuals or governments or whatever—over which such powers are exercised does indeed consent to that exercise...

...The reason is that most of the governments represented in the General Assembly do not themselves govern by consent...

...What powers does an assembly have...

...ence...

...We would like to think that our long and really quite dedicated concern with constitutional representative government has given us at least some sense of such matters...

...Assemblies for them, and for their peoples, are places in which decrees are announced...

...But our determination in this matter is, if anything, strengthened by the feeling that we achieved so little this time...

...In 'the recent history, perhaps in the whole history of the United Nations, there has not been a more striking, even exhilarating example of what the General Assembly can accomplish than the example of the Seventh Special Session: In two weeks of intensive, determined, and hard-headed negotiations, we worked out a set of principles and programs for the economic advance of the poorer nations of the world that will take us a decade to put into practice...

...The crisis of the United Nations is no to be found in the views of the majority o its members...

...For this directs our attention to the reality that unless such recommendations have the effect of persuading, they have no effect at all...

...But this very fact suggests that there are still memories in most of the nations of the world as to just what representative institutions were like, and that correspondingly there exists a much more widespread understand-ing of their nature than might at first appear...

...This is a mournful fact for those of us committed to democratic institutions...

...And so we will be back...

...Genuine power, true authority, has been transfered from national to international bodies, but only with great and deserved caution...

...In the general debate of the Thirtieth Session that followed, one speaker after another rose to extol the achievement of the Special Session...

...Hence the lesson of the Seventh Special Session...

...By contrast, before its third decade was out the General Assembly of the United Nations was proclaiming a New International Economic Order...

...Here again, the United States this year took an unprecedented initiative in submitting a resolution calling for amnesty for all political prisoners...

...Perhaps most do...

...With respect to violations of the standards of civil liberties which we would hope to see attained in South Africa—and throughout the world—we named prisoners, specified dates, cited statutes, quoted judges, described sentences, identified jails...

...And yet, as Gaston Thorn, our wholly admirable and universally admired President, said yesterday, we did make progress on human rights at this Assembly...

...Praise was unanimous: from every bloc, from nations of every size and condition...

...For we do not want them forgotten...

...There are indeed political prisoners in South Africa: But we feel they are no longer unknown political prisoners...

...members of the General Assembly will b. reasonably representative governments committed at home no less than abroad t the maintenance of representative institu tions...

...Those who understand it will readily enough understand what can and cannot be accomplished through the instrumentality of the General Assembly...

...To the contrary, there are events that occurred in the Thirtieth Assembly which the United States will never forget...

...We offer them in a spirit of reconciliation and of shared concern...

...Farewell...

...Such governments will by instinct pay the greatest heed to winning consent, including winning consent in the General Assembly...

...There is a reason for this, of which we speak at the risk of offense, but having no desire to offend...

...Consent is the very essence of their being...

...Observe, for example, the great care and lengthy debate which has attended the development of multinational bodies among the nations of Western Europe...

...Many governments—most governments —now represented in the General Assembly seem disposed to use this body as if it had powers which the General Assembly does not have, to enforce policies of a nature which the General Assemblyought not, at this stage, even to consider...

...They have the opposite effect...

...Instead, this year, the United States brought into the General Assembly what was in effect a bill of particulars...

...Speaking of his hope for the final victory of the principles of peace and human rights, he said: "The best sign that such hopes can come true would be a general political amnesty in all the world, liberation of all prisoners of conscience everywhere...

...We have not sought to conceal this view...

...This process—of definition, of conferral, of confirmation—is the essence of a representative institution...

...This is not perhaps surprising Among the nations of the world we at the one most to be identified with const tutional government, in the sense of written charter setting forth the power and duties of government, a charter th: is repeatedly amended and continuous 6 The Alternative: An American Spectator February 19' interpreted...

...We are not perfect, and we make no pretense to perfection...

...There are more members in this Assembly that would support an amnesty proposal than the half-dozen who told us they would support ours...

...We are strengthened by the extraordinary statement of Andrei D. Sakharov, this year's winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and the recipient two years ago of the award of the International League for the Rights of Man...

...We dare to believe that this reality is better known and understood in this Assembly than it might at first appear...

...Daniel Patrick Moynihan What the United Nations Can Accomplish • (Ambassador Moynihan, United States Representative to the United Nations, gave the following statement at the close of the Thirtieth Session of the UN General Assembly, December 17, 1975...

...Very well then, let us concentrate on things we can do...

...Yet we must make the effort tc state our views fully if we are to ast others to seek to understand them...

...What took place among us on that occasion was a negotiation...

...Throughout the world individuals and governments have observed this General Assembly with dismay...

...This splendid hall has since the opening of the Assembly been repeatedly the scene of acts which we regard as abominations...

...And if it should prove the case that it was American sponsorship that held off many, then clearly we will make no claims to sponsorship next time...

...We will be there, and we may be equally sure that the political prisoners will be there also...

...This would be a group of nations, constituted, let us say, along the lines of the membership criteria of the Council of Europe, which would attend not so much to policy issues as to institutional ones...

...By one competent count, there are now 28, possibly 29, functioning representative democracies in the world, and one is not a member of the UN...

...Only a handful...

...Both Assemblies are now concluded, and the time is at hand to ask whether anything can be learned from them...

...Wewere not successful...

...It is not an agreeable matter oi which we now speak, nor yet one easil) explained...

...But we do think it is possible for there to be a greater understanding among members at large of the nature of a representative institution and the corresponding limits of the General Assembly...

...There are others whose experience of representative government is just as long, or just as intense, and we feel that such nations may also be expected to speak with knowledge and insight: They have, in a sense, earned the sight to do so...

...Many do...

...Let it be clear that we do not entertain any delusions about a grand revival of democracy...

...Let us, for example, try to agree that governments should not torture their subjects...

...It took our eighteenth-century Congress well into the nineteenth century before it felt that political society in America had advanced to the point .where an income tax could be imposed, and even then the act was declared unconstitutional, so that Congress was forced to await the twentieth century to successfuly impose such a tax in peacetime...

...Now some see that as progress...

...Resolutions that condemn, that accuse, that anathematize do not bring us any nearer to agreement...

...The Charter was conceived by a embattled American President and hi British comrade-in-arms...

...Those who have submitted to this discipline—and obviously, at the level of individuals, this is not a variety of understanding confined to citizens of parliamentary states—will readily enough understand that the General Assembly...

...At home they rule by decree, and it seems wholly natural to seek to emulate the same practice in the General Assembly...

...In how many of the 144 members of the United Nations is there a representative body which both has the power, and periodically exercises the power, of rejecting a decision of the government...

...Mr...

...It is a conference made up of representatives sent by sovereign governments which have agreed to listen to its recommendations—recommendations which are, however, in no way binding...

...There is a certain evolution in these matters, and clearly the General Assembly has made some tiny movement in a parliamentary direction...

...But to pretend we are further than we are will serve only to set back what progress has in truth been made...

...The struggle for a general political amnesty is the struggle for the future of mankind...

...It was self-evident—money is said to clear the mind!—that no party to the negotiation was going to pay the least subsequent attention to any proposal to which he hadnot agreed...

...Other governments will not pay such heed...

...And on the issue of political prisoners we are just that...

...Here we come to the second of the general comments the United States would wish to offer in this closing state...

...America statesmen helped to draft the Chanel American scholars may just possib) claim pre-eminence in their study and terpretation of the Charter: Certainly th bulk of such scholarship has been Amer can...

...We do not expect a reversal of its decline in the near term...

...It is not likely that more than a few nations which are not democracies today will become democracies in the course of the last quarter of the century, so that we must expect continued difficulties in the General Assembly of the sort I have described...

...The United States took a lead in this enterprise: from the ppening statement of the Secretary of State to the concluding dense and detailed agreement, which incorporated no fewer than 28 proposals we had initially set forth...

...This year, for example, we introduced a new practice with respect to the venerable issue of apartheid...

...We are trying to learn, and we ask if others will not seek to learn with us...

...President, None will learn with surprise that for the United States, at very least, the Thirtieth General Assembly has been a profound, even alarming disappointment...

...We hope other nations may follow our precedent of lawyerlike, documented presentation of such issues...

...Citizens throughout the world may in years to come point to their governments' concurrence with that resolution as they demand rights or beg for mercy and humanity in their own societies...

...Surely we •might especially hope to do this in the area of human rights...

...The parliaments of European nations slowly satisfied themselves that political and social conditions in that region had indeed evolved to the point where individuals were prepared, for certain purposes, to submit to the authority of supranational bodies...

...We wish you peace in the New Year...

...How have they been conferred...

...Rather, it resides in the es sential incompatibility of the system o government which the Charter assume: will rule the majority of its members, an( the system of government to which thl majority in fact adheres...

...It may be true that this objective would be well served if a "parliamentary caucus" were established within the General Assembly...

...But all see that the evolution of true consent is the first process of effective government...

...If only a handful of the nations represented here have representative governments today, most of them—truly!—have had such in the life of the United Nations...

...The Charter assumes that most of th...

...In that spirit, we would like to offer two general comments...

...Its concern would be to seek to encourage those practices and approaches which enhance the effectiveness of the General Assembly, and to discourage—both by example, and by pronouncement—those which do not...

...Confession is good for the soul, and we confess to not having handled this issue well enough...

...8 The Alternative: An American Spectator February 197...

...The United Nations on that occasion had served as a setting for reaching consensus—a very different thing from recording division, which is what so often happens...

...It may be asked: How do we know...

...For there are political prisoners the world over...

...Of these, the most important is that of establishing some minimal international standards by which governments treat their citizens...

...Now, and for the foreseeable future, it can only be a recommendatory body: a conference which adopts positions to which governments have agreed to listen...

...What we do hope to see, and hope to encourage, is more societies which will do something to protect some civil rights even if they deny most political rights...

...Nor is it our view alone...

...Let us accept the fact that the ideal of liberal democracy has sustained huge losses in the last decade...

...Why is this lesson not self-evident, as it clearly was to those who drafted the Charter...

...On the other hand, the authority of the unanimous agreement reached at the end of the session was very considerable...

...We would seek this understanding not to restrict what the United Nations can accomplish, but rather to accentuate the positive, and concentrate on real possibilities, rather than to squander the opportunity that does exist by the mindless pretense of legislative omnipotence...

...Such nations, or more accurately, the governments of such nations, being of necessity sensitive to the nature of their own national institutions, will be similarly sensitive to the claims made by larger, multinational bodies...

...The first lesson is the most important, which is that the General Assembly has been trying to pretend that it is a parliament, which it is not...

...Where it is felt that "majorities" are needed to attest to the decree, well, such majorities are readily enough summoned...

...And now to the heart of the matter...

...Specifically we adopted, unanimously, a resolution against "torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment in relation to detention and imprisonment...

...This goes to the question of legitimacy...

...We put the simple test...

...has not attained to anything like the degree of acceptance and authority among its constituent members that warrants any transfer of genuine power of a parliamentary nature...

...Unquestionably, our distress was deepened by the contrast between this regular Assembly session, and the Special Session which preceded it...

...At their height, perhaps fifteen years ago, there were two or three times as many democratic governments in the world as there are today...

...The United States hoped for more progress than we actually made...

...But we said we would be back next year, and we will be...

...The Assembly was honored this year by the visit of His Majesty King Olav of Norway, who appropriately made the last such general statement: "The successful conclusion ofthe Seventh Special Session of the General Assembly has initiated a universal and co-operative process to effect changes in international economic relations which may have a far-reaching impact on the daily life of millions around our globe...

...What we hope for, what some of us pray for, is simply that we should be concerned and engaged...

...But they came to this judgment slowly, and on the basis of fact...

...Even so, we turn our attention just now to the question of whether it will be possible to avoid such events in the future...

...Th answer has no greater—or lesser—au thority than that of history and exper...

...It is usual to use the term "recommendatory" to describe the Assembly's powers, but for present purposes it seems more useful simply to say that there has been an agreement to take into consideration, to listen to, such proposals as the Assembly may make...

...others do not...