E. Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

I'm about 50 pages into A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, by Mary Ann Glendon (Random House 2001). Glendon is the Learned Hand law professor at Harvard University and has published books on family law, and human rights.

After World War II, as the United Nations prepared to set up new rules that would prevent another Nazi state from arising, one of the questions became what criteria could be used to intervene in another state's internal policies.

The UN's Charter says that, "'Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any State, or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter VII.' Chapter VII's exception to that principle, limited to situations where the Security Council determines that INTERNATIONAL [my emphasis] peace and security are threatened, could be controlled by any of the Big Five [America, Russia, Britain, China, and France], through their veto power" (19).

This bears directly on the right to intervene in Iraq. Apparently the UN could not go in there UNLESS they threatened another country. And thus, the claim of "weapons of mass destruction." This may be also what is at stake in Iranian and N. Korean nuclear aggrandizement. Purely internal problems are left to the authority of each state. Does it mean that the Nazis had the right to commit genocide against the Jews, as long as the Jews killed were all German citizens? Did Hussein have the right to gas Kurds, as long as they were Iraqi Kurds?

Hitler had actually used the right to intervene in foreign countries to help out those who were victims inside of it. Hitler had gone into Czechoslovakia "under pretext of championing the rights of their citizens" (20). He had said something about the Germans of the Sudetanland area, who were apparently being hinkmeistered by the Czechs.

"When is intervention in a country's internal affairs legitimate, and when not?" Glendon asks (20).

At what point does the UN have the right to send troops into Rwanda, Haiti, Kosovo, or East Timor, or Iran, Myanmar, or North Korea?

Something called the Genocide Convention of 1948 obligates all the signers of the UN to intervene (signed December 9, 1948). Genocide is defined as "any of a series of enumerated acts 'committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such'" (243).

Certainly Hussein's destruction of the Iraqi Kurds would fit the "in part" designation. Kim Jong-Il's famines have resulted in millions of deaths, even if they aren't specifically targeted against a particular ethnic group. Is a leader really allowed to kill their own citizens as long as they do so in an even-handed way?

Myanmar's attempt to silence and destroy the Karen Christians in the SE of their country certainly fits the rubric of deliberate destruction of an ethnic and religious group (aboiut half of the Karens are Christian).

One could say the same thing about the Chinese attempt to destroy Tibet's culture and people (Tibetans are Buddhist, while the Chinese are Marxists).

American attempts in the 19th century to destroy various American Indian tribes, would also qualify (albeit belatedly).

Australian attempts to deracinate the aboriginals would qualify (again belatedly).

Every nation is based to some degree on its homogeneity. In America, we have many different groups, but we agree on certain principles such as agreeing to disagree. But many countries around the world have an annoying minority or two that they would just as soon wipe out. And so they proceed to do so. The UN's Charter says it must stop such occurrences.

And yet, the big five also have VETO POWER. Therefore, we cannot intervene in China, or in their immediate sphere (N. Korea, as well as Myanmar, are Chinese client states, as is Zimbabwe, and the Sudan). We can't help the Christians of the southern Sudan because the Chinese won't allow it. They are busy extracting minerals from the Sudan, and they don't want any interference with the government that is letting them do it. Same goes for Zimbabwe.

Countries on Russia's borders (such as Georgia and Chechnya) would also receive a veto if the UN were to attempt to enter.

Almost all nations have at one point or another squelched and destroyed prior nations or peoples within their borders. The French obliterated the Bretons, and forbade their language from being spoken (it's making a modest comeback). They did the same thing to the people who spoke Provencal and other languages in southern France. The Basques in Spain and in southern France would also qualify, and yet France also has veto power as one of the Big Five, and it was they who nixed the UN from entering into Iraq (they had a good deal with Hussein over oil, I vaguely recall).

Intervention is therefore a principle of the UN specifically in terms of the Genocide Convention, and yet, because the Big Five can also prevent intervention through its veto powers, it is unlikely that the UN can ever effectively intervene in any specific genocide unless it falls outside the sphere of influence of any of the Big Five. That's an increasingly small area, and also may be countries which are largely irrelevant as global players, such as Haiti (which I believe still has UN troops?).

Stalin was one of the Big Five, and his own exterminations, and enslavement, as well as forced deportations (enormous numbers of Russians forcibly moved into Estonia with little warning, famines in the Ukraine to weaken that polity, and the ongoing destruction of the Chechnyans are part of this legacy) could not be interdicted, especially during PEACETIME (many of the rules were limited to warfare).

The network of rules under which the UN works are still not well-known to most of us, and how the legality of the UN was created in the aftermath by countries which are now at one another's throat, must be recuperated. That's why I'm reading Glendon's book.

Could America have intervened in the Philippines to stop Imelda Marcos from buying so many shoes? Could the Philippines intervene in the US to stop Mrs. Obama from owning so many outfits?

Questions such as these are usually decided purely on military strength, but now increasingly we have attempted to put in place a universal system of ethics based on human rights, but even once we decide yes or no, there is still the military aspect, which frames the bottom line. The UN doesn't have its own troops, insofar as I know. They borrow troops from other nations. This makes the whole system unwieldy, and highly dependent on the willingness of its member nations.