“Exclusive Preserves” and the New Soviet Policy Toward the Un Secretariat

1991 ◽  
Vol 85 (2) ◽  
pp. 322-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodor Meron
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
United Nations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
Soviet Policy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact

An “exclusive preserve” of a state in the UN Secretariat is a post that is continuously filled by nationals of the same state. Virtually from the founding of the United Nations, the Secretariat has observed an “unofficial” practice of exclusive preserves for many senior posts held by nationals of several influential states, including the United States; but its most persistent advocate, and with regard to a particularly wide range of posts, has been the Soviet Union. In view of the past underrepresentation of Soviet nationals in the Secretariat, largely because the Soviet Government insisted that its nationals be recruited only on fixed-term contracts based on secondment from the Government and Soviet institutions, a considerable number of posts were set aside to be filled on a replacement basis. The occupants of those posts were selected by the Secretary-General from a very short list of candidates submitted by the Soviet Government. The object of this Editorial is to assess the impact of the new Soviet policy toward the UN Secretariat, recent General Assembly resolutions and the jurisprudence of the United Nations Administrative Tribunal on the practice of exclusive preserves.

The United States, Belgium, and the Congo Crisis of 1960

1967 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence S. Kaplan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
United Nations ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Imperialism ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Congo Crisis ◽  
The Government

Involvement in the Congo crisis of 1960 illustrates dramatically an American dilemma in foreign policy: the apparent incompatibility between the nation's emotional rejection of colonialism and the burdens of world leadership which include the consequences of anticolonialism. In 1960 the United States joined the Soviet Union in expediting the removal of the NATO partner, Belgium, from the Congo, helped to increase the power of the United Nations in the Congo at the expense of Belgian interests, and used its influence to destroy the Western-oriented regime of Moise Tshombe of secessionist Katanga. But in 1964 the United States was largely responsible for replacing the United Nations' forces in the Congo with Belgian troops; in 1965 the United States supported Tshombe's government in Leopoldville; and in 1966 and 1967 the United States joined Belgium in an uneasy vigil over the government of General Joseph Mobutu. It is not surprising that its efforts should have been interpreted by communists as American imperialism, by Africans as neocolonialism, and by many allies either as incorrigible naiveté or as hypocrisy.

scholarly journals Position of the Soviet Union in the United Nations on settling the Greek conflict (late 1947 – 1951)

2021 ◽  
pp. 94-112
Author(s):  
Elizaveta Aleksandrovna Martyukova
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
United Nations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The United Nations

This research is dedicated to the analysis of the role of the Soviet Union in the United nations on settling the Greek conflict (late 1947 – 1951), which drew the attention of international community. The article covers the process of curtailing the UN programs due to deterioration of relations between the USSR and the United States in the conditions of active bipolar confrontation, which involved Greece. The goal lies in examination of the approaches, tactics, and nature of the Soviet delegation in the United Nations on resolution of the international and regional crises. Based on the documentary materials of the Security Council and General Assembly of the United Nations, assessment is given to the results of the efforts undertaken by the Soviet government on settling the Greek conflict. The scientific novelty consists in comprehensive examination of the positions of the USSR in UN on settling the Greek conflicts using the relatively unknown documentary materials of the United Nations. In the scientific literature, this topic has not previously become the subject of special research. The author reveals the method of settlement of the Greek conflict. Having compared the positions of the parties to the conflict, the author describes the course of political struggle around making final decisions on resolution of the complicated and controversial Greek conflict. The conclusion is made the achieved results were not satisfactory for all parties, since their interests differed. Overall, the UN played a positive role as an international arbiter, since the critical war stage of the Greek conflict has been ceased, and the conflict has been localized with the active participation of the United Nations.

Origins of the United Nations

2018 ◽  
pp. 40-58
Author(s):  
Justin Morris
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
United Nations ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
World Organization

This chapter analyzes the transformational journey that plans for the United Nations undertook from summer 1941 to the San Francisco Conference of 1945 at which the UN Charter was agreed. Prior to the conference, the ‘Big Three’ great powers of the day—the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom—often struggled to establish the common ground on which the UN’s success would depend. However, their debates were only the start of the diplomatic travails which would eventually lead to the establishment of the world organization that we know today. Once gathered at San Francisco, the fifty delegations spent the next two months locked in debate over issues such as the role of international law; the relationship between the General Assembly and Security Council; the permanent members’ veto; and Charter amendment. One of modern history’s most important diplomatic events, its outcome continues to resonate through world politics.

The USSR, the United Nations, and the General Welfare

1965 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 495-502
Author(s):  
Leon Gordenker
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Recent Attempt ◽  
Soviet Policy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
General Welfare ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
The United Nations

International, the flooding stream of words from national governmental representatives in international organizations has been accompanied by only a trickle of scholarly studies. These include the Carnegie Endowment's valuable series of studies of national policies in the UN, most of which are now outdated. The series does not have a volume on the USSR. The most extended and valuable recent attempt to fathom Soviet policy in the United Nations is Alexander Dallin's The Soviet Union at the United Nations (New York 1962). It deals with broader subject matter than the two books discussed here and gives much consideration to Soviet policy in relation to the maintenance of peace and security.

The United Nations and the United States

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Getchell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
United Nations ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Policy ◽  
Wrong Side ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Cold War

The United States was heavily involved in creating the United Nations in 1945 and drafting its charter. The United States continued to exert substantial clout in the organization after its founding, though there have been periods during which U.S. officials have met with significant opposition inside the United Nations, in Congress, and in American electoral politics, all of which produced struggles to gain support for America’s international policy goals. U.S. influence in the international organization has thus waxed and waned. The early postwar years witnessed the zenith of American prestige on the global stage. Starting in the mid- to late 1950s, as decolonization and the establishment of newly independent nations quickened, the United States began to lose influence in the United Nations owing to the spreading perception that its alliances with the European colonial powers placed it on the wrong side of history. As U.N. membership skyrocketed, the organization became more responsive to the needs and interests of the decolonizing states. During the 1970s and early 1980s, the American public responded to declining U.S. influence in the United Nations with calls to defund the organization and to pursue a unilateral approach to international challenges. The role of the United States in the United Nations was shaped by the politics of the Cold War competition with the Soviet Union. Throughout the nearly five decades of the Cold War, the United Nations served as a forum for the political and ideological rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, which frequently inhibited the organization from fulfilling what most considered to be its primary mission: the maintenance of global security and stability. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the peaceful end of the Cold War, the United States enjoyed a brief period of unrivaled global hegemony. During this period, U.S. officials pursued a closer relationship with the United Nations and sought to use the organization to build support for its international policy agenda and military interventionism.

France and the United Nations

1965 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 695-713 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.-B. Duroselle
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Foreign Minister ◽  
The United States ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Major Influence ◽  
Western World ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Fundamental Phenomenon ◽  
The United Nations

When French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand proposed in 1929 to establish “a sort of federal bond” between the European members of the League of Nations, these states numbered 27 out of a total membership of 60. Today the United Nations has a membership of 114 states of which 23 are European. Of these 23 states, seven are popular democracies. (The Soviet Union, a special case, is not included in this calculation.) There remain sixteen countries extending in the form of a crescent from Finland to Ireland to France and from Portugal to Turkey which are part of the “free” or “Western world.” The conclusion is obvious. The League of Nations was dominated by Europeans who furthermore controlled a large part of the overseas world in the form of colonies, protectorates, and mandates. The United Nations, where the major influence, linked to power, is exerted by the United States and the Soviet Union, is dominated by non-Europeans. This non-European domination—political, psychological, and moral—is the fundamental phenomenon, and it is the subject of this study.

Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union in the United Nations Commission of Investigation in Greece, January – May 1947

1993 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-263
Author(s):  
Thanasis D. Sfikas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
United Nations ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The United Nations

(The Melians to the Athenians, 416/15 BC)We see that you have come prepared to judge the arguments yourselves.… If we surrender, then all our hope is lost at once, whereas, so long as we remain in action, there is still a hope that we may yet stand upright.… We put our trust … in the help of men – that is of the Spartans.

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