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| 3. International Conflict Resolution |
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| At the end of World War II, the victorious Allies created a system of international organizations roughly combined under the aegis of a central structure, the UNITED NATIONS. Some of the organizations, like the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the International Court, were continuations of earlier bodies that had been part of the League of Nations. The United Nations itself was viewed as the successor to the League of Nations, and its primary political bodies were the General Assembly, in which all members participated, and the Security Council, on which the major powers served as permanent members with veto power along with rotating participation by other member states. The primary organization for crisis resolution was the Security Council. Economic, health, social, and cultural matters were handled by separate agencies that had varying degrees of autonomy. In the second half of the twentieth century, the United Nations was an active global political force with an important role in a number of areas, including conflict-resolution negotiations, creating multilateral military responses to aggression, and organizing peacekeeping forces to help stabilize conflict situations. In addition, the International Court of Justice provided an effective forum for resolving disputes involving international law. In these activities, the United Nations proved to be more effective than the League of Nations had been. | 1 |
| Conflict-resolution mechanisms. The United Nations provided mechanisms for dealing with conflicts and either avoiding war or assisting in bringing it to an end. These mechanisms were less effective, however, with conflicts involving the major powers, which had the veto in the Security Council. The United Nations also had only limited jurisdiction to become involved in civil wars and the internal affairs of member states. Nevertheless, within these limits the United Nations performed important services in conflict resolution. At the end of World War II, there were issues that needed resolutions based on international agreement. When the four Allied powers were unable to agree on the disposition of the former Italian colonies, the matter was referred to the United Nations and was resolved by the creation of an independent Libya, trusteeships for Somalia, and the inclusion of Eritrea within liberated Ethiopia. When the British were unable to resolve the question of the future of the PALESTINE MANDATE, the issue was referred to the United Nations, and the General Assembly, after study and debate, approved a partition plan in 1947. Following the establishment of Israel in 1948, there was an Arab-Israeli War. The armistice agreements at the end of the war were negotiated by United Nations officials. The United Nations was not able to resolve the ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT, but it provided structures for negotiating cease-fires and interim agreements to prevent fighting. The ending of the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973 involved significant United Nations mediation. United Nations agencies also played important roles in many of the conflicts that emerged in the process of decolonization. UN officials worked in the Congo conflict (1960–63) and in Cyprus (1964), and played an important role in coordinating international responses to white regimes of control in southern Africa. When the white government of Southern Rhodesia made a unilateral declaration of independence in 1965, the United Nations helped to define sanctions and to bring about the end result of multiracial elections in 1980. When the white regime in South Africa maintained its control over southwest Africa, the United Nations took the lead in providing the legal basis for an independent Namibia in 1968 and in organizing the negotiations that ultimately led to South African withdrawal from the country (1988) and the formal independence of Namibia in 1990. | 2 |
| Although the United Nations was active in helping to resolve many conflicts, critics noted that its effectiveness was limited by the ability of the superpowers to restrict UN actions. As the cold war came to an end, the United Nations emerged as an increasingly effective force, aiding in the end of the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s; mediating conflicts in Cambodia, Angola, and the western Sahara in 1988; assisting in the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989; and monitoring the elections that brought an end to the civil war in Nicaragua in 1990. FORMAL OBSERVER GROUPS were among the most important mechanisms created by the United Nations to help monitor agreements. Major United Nations observation missions played a role in Palestine (1948), India and Pakistan (1949), Lebanon (1958), Yemen (1963), the Dominican Republic (1965), Afghanistan (1988), the Iran-Iraq cease-fire (1988), and Kuwait (1991). | 3 |
| Multinational responses to aggression. The United Nations was the organizational framework for two major military mobilizations in response to aggression. This function was limited by the cold war rivalries, which meant that either the United States or the Soviet Union could prevent UN responses to attacks. However, in 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea, the Soviet Union was temporarily boycotting the United Nations. This enabled the Security Council to pass without veto the appropriate resolutions calling on member states to contribute forces for a UN police action to stop the aggression, with the United States providing the major source of military power for the action. The second major United Nations military response was in 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait. In the PERSIAN GULF WAR of 1990–91, the United States again provided the major source of military power, and the United Nations provided the international authority for the multinational response to Iraqi aggression. Such a multilateral action had become possible by the end of the cold war. | 4 |
| UN peacekeeping and security forces. In a number of conflict situations, the United Nations created multinational military forces to supervise a truce or administer arrangements that had been established as part of the conflict's resolution. Such peacekeeping forces were an important part of many efforts at conflict resolution, and by the 1990s they had become an accepted resource for conflict management in global affairs. United Nations peacekeeping forces were sent to the Sinai Peninsula following the Suez crisis (1956–67); the Congo (1960–64); West Irian, New Guinea (1962–63); Cyprus (1964–90s); the Sinai again (1973–79); the Golan Heights in Syria (1974–90s); southern Lebanon (1978–90s); territories in the former Yugoslavia (beginning in 1992); Cambodia (beginning in 1992); Mozambique (beginning in 1992); and Somalia (beginning in 1993). | 5 |
| International Court. The jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice was limited, but in its rulings and advisory opinions, the court played an important role in resolving some conflicts and further defining the rights and obligations of states under international law. Some of the rulings that reflect the wide variety of issues dealt with by the Court include the Corfu Channel case (1949), in which a settlement was reached between Great Britain and Albania concerning damages resulting from mining the Corfu Channel; the case dealing with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company nationalization (1951–52), in which the court declared its jurisdiction was limited and affirmed Iran's right of nationalization under specified conditions; and the case brought by New Zealand and Australia in 1974 to prevent nuclear testing in the Pacific by France. The court had difficulty imposing its decisions on major powers, but it provided an important forum for international debate even in issues involving a superpower, as was seen in Nicaragua v. the United States (1984), in which it declared that the mining of Nicaraguan harbors by the United States was a violation of Nicaraguan sovereignty. The court played an important role in resolving border disputes, as in its decisions defining the U.S.-Canadian maritime boundary in the Gulf of Maine (1984) and resolving a dispute in 1992 between Honduras and El Salvador that dated back to 1839 and had been the cause of considerable conflict. | 6 |
| By the 1990s it was clear that international organizations still could not prevent wars, but that the international conflict resolution mechanisms of the United Nations were more effective than those that had been available to the League of Nations. At the end of the 20th century, such mechanisms were an accepted part of the structure of global political power. | 7 |
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