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
Selective Responsibility in the United Nations provides a thoughtful critique of the Responsibility to Protect by reconsidering the history of the UN and the League in the context of the global struggle against colonialism. It is essential reading for students of global governance today. -- Craig N. Murphy, Wellesley College; former president of the International Studies Association; former chair of the Academic Council on the UN System
