"Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind", John F. Kennedy
Four times in the modern age, according to the doctrinal point of view, the world has been changed, that is, the so-called transformation has taken place. international community. The first time, the so-called The Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which ended the Thirty Years' War and confirmed the principle of territorial sovereignty as a general principle in relations between states. The second time, at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 after the Napoleonic Wars, when the political map of Europe was reshaped through the principle of balance of power and almost a hundred years of peace on the Continent was ensured. The third time, after the First World War in Paris, the so-called The Peace of Versailles in 1919, which resulted in the formation of the first universal political organization - the League of Nations. That's when the overgrowth of the so-called classical, European international law - law created by (great) European powers and which concerned only their mutual relations - into universal international law, i.e. the right of all states. And the fourth time, after World War II, in San Francisco in 1945, when the United Nations Organization was founded. On the last day of the conference in San France, June 26, 1945, the Charter of the United Nations and the Statute of the International Court of Justice were unanimously adopted. The preamble of the Charter states, among other things: "We the peoples of the UN, resolved to save future generations from the horrors of war..."
However, today the world is facing numerous conflicts and efforts to achieve peace, i.e. the state of peace in 2024 shows a complex picture of global (in)security. In other words, the United Nations has failed in its basic mission and reason for existence - the preservation of world peace. The words of the German philosopher Hegel, known to almost everyone, are indicative that "we learn from history so that we don't learn from history".
First of all, a picture from the very beginning of the formation and work of the United Nations. Namely, the UN was formed towards the end of the Second World War and reflected the reality of that (therefore, the war) period, which, in the meantime, has changed fundamentally. Let's say, the number of members has almost quadrupled. In 1945, there were fifty, that is, 11 countries (5 permanent and 6 non-permanent) were represented in the Security Council, which means 22 percent of the UN membership, while today the number of UN member states is 193, i.e. the composition of the Security Council consists of 15 countries ( the same 5 permanent members and 10 non-permanent), therefore, less than 8 percent of members. Perhaps it is better to say that 5 permanent members, that is, 2,5 percent of the membership, as a rule, make the most important decisions on behalf of the remaining 188 countries. On the other hand, the successfully completed atomic bomb explosion experiment, the so-called The Trinity test, on July 16, 1945, as well as the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, resulted in a nuclear and other arms race and the collapse of cooperation between the two largest powers of that time - the USA and the USSR, i.e. with a development that humanity and the UN Charter did not foresee. Well, it is quite correct to state that the UN Charter became partially obsolete even before its entry into force.
The system of collective security, whose "most visible" phenomenon is the so-called the right of veto, represents another confirmation of the above, which is the result of an agreement between Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill on the so-called The Yalta Conference and, later, the Potsdam Conference. In spite of numerous criticisms, the power of the great powers caused decisions in the Security Council to be made by the affirmative votes of the permanent members. The power of force is best evidenced by the words of US Senator Tom Connelly: "You can leave San Francisco and report to your government that you defeated the veto, but you can also say that we tore up the Charter", and on that occasion tore up a copy of it. As arrogant and unnecessary as this may seem, it is an indisputable fact, then as now, that if all, or at least the vast majority, of powerful states (the so-called powers) are not on the same side, there are great chances of a global or world war. However, the question arises whether after the new world war it will even be possible to reshape the world and the international community for the fifth time. It seems that, as Einstein points out, the unleashed power of the atom has changed everything but our way of thinking, and so we are headed for an unprecedented catastrophe.
Instead of consistent respect for the UN Charter, above all the principle of settling international disputes by peaceful means and the principle of refraining from the threat and use of force (in particular, the threat and use of nuclear weapons), as well as the creation of some new and better solutions and approaches, today we have a direct violation of international law the framework of maintaining international peace and security based on the UN Charter through instruments of realpolitik of the great powers, permanent members of the Security Council and their partners/puppets. Dag Hammarskjöld, the second Secretary General of the UN, pointed out that "the UN was not created to take humanity to heaven, but to save it from hell." However, is the devil with five heads exactly the Security Council?
In fine, the question is whether the atomic bomb "only" led to the victory of the war and the destruction of Japan, or put all of us and future generations in serious uncertainty. Will the rule of force, that is, politics in the manner of national greatness and power in the tangle of its own fragility and potential disappearance, give way to the rule of peace, that is, the rule of (international) law. Current international relations still remain outside the bounds of law, and everything speaks of a powerful and destructive force that has been released into the world - "Now I have become Death, destroyer of worlds" (JR Oppenheimer).
The author is a doctoral student in legal sciences and a member of the CIVIS at the SO Bar
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