Selective Responsibility in the United Nations - Katy Harsant

Selective Responsibility in the United Nations

Colonial Histories and Critical Inquiry

(Autor)

Buch | Softcover
192 Seiten
2022
Rowman & Littlefield (Verlag)
978-1-5381-7297-1 (ISBN)
37,40 inkl. MwSt
Why does the United Nations invoke its responsibility to protect through interventions in some instances but not others? This book challenges the dominant narrative of the UN as an institution of equality and progress by analyzing the colonial origins of the organization and revealing the unequal power relations it has perpetuated.
The United Nations claims to exist in order to maintain international peace and security, providing a space within which all states can work together. But why, then, does the UN invoke its responsibility to protect through humanitarian intervention in some instances but not others? Why is it that five states have the power to decide whether or not to intervene? This book challenges the dominant narrative of the UN as an institution of equality and progress by analyzing the colonial origins of the organization and revealing the unequal power relations it has perpetuated.

Harsant argues that the United Nations is unable to fulfill its claims around the protection of international peace and security due to its very structure and the privilege of certain states. Moreover, through a rigorous examination of the history of the UN and how those structures came to be, she argues that the privilege afforded to these states is the result of power relations established through the colonial encounter.

In order to understand the pressing contemporary issues of how the United Nations operates, particularly the Security Council, this book discusses issues of power and sovereignty by de-silencing the narratives of resistance and reconstructing a history of the United Nations that takes this colonial and anti-colonial relationship into account. This is a bold challenge to the eurocentrism that dominates International Relations discourse and a call to better understand the colonialism’s role in preserving the existing global order.

Katy Harsant is a Teaching Fellow in the sociology department and Deputy Director of Undergraduate Studies in sociology at the University of Warwick.

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Introduction: Selective Responsibility and Reading Through History

Postcolonialism, Neocolonialism and Sovereignty

Reading Through History

Structure of the Book

Chapter 1 - From Sovereignty to Sovereign Equality

A History of the United Nations

Academic Narratives of the United Nations

Sovereignty and International Law

Sovereignty and the League of Nations

From Sovereignty to Sovereign Equality

Sovereign Equality and Trusteeship

A Colonial History of the United Nations

Chapter 2 - Resistance to Imperialism and the Two Leagues

President Wilson and the Paris Peace Conference

The League of Nations, Self-Determination and the Mandate System

The League Against Imperialism

Universalism and Internationalism

Chapter 3 - The United Nations and Colonialism: Re-Narrating San Francisco

The Colonial Question at San Francisco

Anti-Colonialism at San Francisco

Permanent Membership and Postcolonial Privilege

Power vs. Responsibility

Sacrificing Sovereignty

From Mandates to Trusteeship

Chapter 4 - The Rise of Asia-Africa and Discourses of Development

Discourses of Development

The Bandung Conference

Bandung and the Cold War

The Power of Bandung

Chapter 5 - After Bandung: Independence and Non-Alignment

The United Nations, Decolonisation and Independence

The Non-Aligned Movement

The Group of 77

Bandung and the New Asian-African Strategic Partnership

After Bandung

Chapter 6 - From Non-Intervention to R2P

Non-Intervention After the Second World War

Power Politics in the Cold War Period

Human Rights and Humanitarianism in the 1990s

ICISS and the Focus on Responsibility

Neocolonialism and Selective Responsibility

Conclusion

Selective Responsibility

International Relations, History and Eurocentrism

The United Nations in 2022

Bibliography

Erscheinungsdatum
Verlagsort Lanham, MD
Sprache englisch
Maße 150 x 230 mm
Gewicht 299 g
Themenwelt Geschichte Teilgebiete der Geschichte Wirtschaftsgeschichte
Recht / Steuern EU / Internationales Recht
Sozialwissenschaften Politik / Verwaltung Politische Systeme
Sozialwissenschaften Politik / Verwaltung Staat / Verwaltung
ISBN-10 1-5381-7297-6 / 1538172976
ISBN-13 978-1-5381-7297-1 / 9781538172971
Zustand Neuware
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