10.1: The United Nations

Building a New World

As diplomats strived to build world peace, the dismal reality after World War II was that much of the planet lay in rubble. Two world wars had turned much of Asia and Europe into a wasteland of ruined cities, hungry refugees, and bankrupt governments. Europe, home to the now defunct League of Nations, would no longer be the sole center of world politics with the new UN headquarters established in New York City. Having experienced the brutality of imperialism first-hand, many Europeans gave up on the idea of empire and some questioned civilization itself. Others clung to the old imperial ways while still others proposed a new Pan-European community or union. The post-war path forward for Europeans, in particular the futures of the British and French, was uncertain.

Across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East peoples increasingly looked to the new superpowers – the United States and the Soviet Union – as models for the future. Both vowed to bring an end to colonial empires and the United States, the UN’s chief architect and funder, promoted the United Nations as the planet’s cure-all. The Americans proclaimed the UN would not only prevent another world war and intervene to police smaller conflicts it would also support a peaceful end to empires – decolonization. The General Assembly supported decolonization through official statements like the Declaration on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and by the creation of the Secretariat or bureaucracy of the UN. Led by the Secretary-General, this body of UN agencies took an active role in promoting economic development, access to healthcare, environmental conservation, and gender equality in states across the world. Organizations such as the World Bank, IMF (International Monetary Fund), WHO (Worldwide Health Organization) and UNESCO (United Nations, Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) all became organs of the United Nations. By design, newly independent states would find a helping hand from these organizations although skeptics have long argued UN efforts may do more harm than good. The Soviet Union in particular argued the UN should focus on keeping the peace and believed armed socialist revolution the only guarantor to end imperialism and inequalities.

But in the mid-20th century, more than United Nations ideals or superpower pressure, the strongest force in favor of a new world order lay in the hearts of millions across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. These peoples wished to be citizens of independent nations, not subjects under an empire. The world population increasingly believed the right to rule or sovereignty lay with the will of a people rather than from a royal family, imperial power, or divine sanction. Republics, states in which the people are sovereign, were soon to become the global aspiration and norm with the creation of the United Nations offering peoples across the world, big or small, the opportunity to become recognized as a sovereign state.

Primary Sources: United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination Excerpt, 1963.

Discussion Questions

•  How does the United Nations define racial discrimination?
•  What actions does the Declaration state countries should take to end racial discrimination?

Considering that the Charter of the United Nations is based on the principles of the dignity and equality of all human beings and seeks, among other basic objectives, to achieve international co-operation in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion,

Alarmed by the manifestations of racial discrimination still in evidence in some areas of the world, some of which are imposed by certain Governments by means of legislative, administrative, or other measures, in the form, inter alia, of apartheid, segregation and separation, as well as by the promotion and dissemination of doctrines of racial superiority and expansionism in certain areas,

Considering that any doctrine of racial differentiation or superiority is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust and dangerous, and that there is no justification for racial discrimination either in theory or in practice,

Convinced also that racial discrimination harms not only those who are its objects but also those who practice it.

Convinced further that the building of a world society free from all forms of racial segregation and discrimination, factors which create hatred and division among men, is one of the fundamental objectives of the United Nations,

Proclaims this Declaration:

Article 2

No State, institution, group or individual shall make any discrimination whatsoever in matters of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the treatment of persons, groups of persons or institutions on the ground of race, color or ethnic origin.

Article 3

Particular efforts shall be made to prevent discrimination based on race, color or ethnic origin, especially in the fields of civil rights, access to citizenship, education, religion, employment, occupation and housing.

Everyone shall have equal access to any place or facility intended for use by the general public, without distinction as to race, color or ethnic origin.

Article 6

No discrimination by reason of race, color or ethnic origin shall be admitted in the enjoyment by any person of political and citizenship rights in his country, in particular the right to participate in elections through universal and equal suffrage and to take part in the government. Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.

Article 7

Everyone has the right to equality before the law and to equal justice under the law. Everyone, without distinction as to race, color or ethnic origin, has the right to security of person and protection by the State against violence or bodily harm, whether inflicted by government officials or by any individual, group or institution.

Article 8

All effective steps shall be taken immediately in the fields of teaching, education and information, with a view to eliminating racial discrimination and prejudice and promoting understanding, tolerance and friendship among nations and racial groups, as well as to propagating the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.

UN Documents: Gathering A Body of Global Agreements, in the Public Domain

Review Questions

• After World War II, why was Europe no longer the center of world affairs?
• What forces across the world supported decolonization in the mid-20th century?