For some time there has been a segment of the political spectrum which has as its theme that the United States should get out of the United Nations and should get the United Nations out of the United States. In part, this is based on the belief that the United Nations is ineffective at its mission and may even be subversive to American interests. Less committed observers may also see the organization as ineffective, since there are many wars continuing in different parts of the world with little success on the part of the United Nations at ending them. Yet it is possible to consider whether the world would not be even worse off than it is if the United Nations did not exist. The UN has had successes that should be noted even as we try to find a better way to make it work.
These questions are being asked at a time when the United Nations faces new problems. The United Nations faces a new power structure in the world with the breakup of the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc. This provides a new opportunity to reconstitute the UN so that it more clearly fulfills the original purpose of the United Nations, which was to avoid conflict or to settle it without force. The new paradigm may be bolstering international law and arbitration in order to judge the actions of nations according to ethical standards. After World War I, many of the nations of the world tried to address one of the issues that had interested idealists for some time--the creation of some means for international adjudication as a way of authoritatively and peacefully settling international disputes. One of the institutions that emerged from this war was the League of Nations, a forerunner of the United Nations but with little authority or power and destined to fail as an arbiter of international matters. There were various precedents for international arbitration even at that time, though, and among the other institutions that emerged, based on such precedents,...