The League of Arab States and the United Nations: A reading in the relation between both sides from 2000-2020

This article examines aspects and features of cooperation between the United Nations and the regional organization of the League of Arab States. The study analyzes the development of bilateral relations between organizations in the 21th century.

The personal is global political: The antifeminist backlash in the United Nations

Antifeminist mobilisation is growing in the United Nations. It is led by a coalition of certain post-Soviet, Catholic, and Islamic states; the United States; the Vatican; conservative nongovernmental organisations, occasionally joined by the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation, the League of Arab States, the UN Africa Group, and the G77. Uniting them is the aim of restoring the ‘natural family’ and opposing ‘gender ideology’. The group has become increasingly strategic, and its impact can already be seen in a number of UN fora, including the Security Council. By surveying feminist notions of backlash and comparing them to Alter and Zürn’s definition of ‘backlash politics’, the article gauges whether the group’s activities can be characterised as such politics. The conclusion is that they can, suggesting that we are looking at a group with the potential to alter not only the global course of women’s rights but also how politics is done within the UN.

The Ascent of Saudi Arabia to a Regional Hegemon: The Role of Institutional Power in the League of Arab States

After the Arab upheavals that began in 2011, Saudi Arabia became the most dominant power in the Arab world. While most of its Arab rivals experienced political and economic crises and disintegration, the Gulf monarchy began an unprecedented active and even interventionist foreign policy and increased its regional influence tremendously. Remarkably, most of this activism was not exercised unilaterally but within regional institutional frameworks, mainly of the League of Arab States (LAS) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). This article investigates how Saudi Arabia gained institutional power within the LAS. The analysis is based on the LAS decisions at the Summit level before and after the Arab uprisings with regard to Saudi Arabia’s main foreign policy interests. The purpose of the article is to examine the essence of Saudi Arabia’s regional power. It also looks at the unforeseen revitalization of the LAS and allows predictions of the future of Arab regionalism in a changing Arab world.

Discourse between the Regional and Universal Nature of the Functioning of the League of Arab States

Discussion of the political situation in the modern Arab statehood does not take into account the participation of the League of Arab States in the debates about the inception of the UN system, which arose after the Second World War. At an early stage, this institution did not have a full-fledged universalism, and the integration cooperation of the League of Arab States was confined to a security policy framework. Subsequently, the desire to influence the nature of the ideas and institutions that would shape the United Nations was completely lost. The League of Arab States has also never been committed to the logic of the global south. However, the UN can occasionally be disavowed in the diplomatic processes of the League, which have been tactically used by member states as a channel to maximize regional influence on internal Arab challenges other than the global order. Key words: Arab League; United Nations; Middle East; North Africa; regionalism; sovereignty; universalism; security.