in the previous lesson we looked at a general descriptive overview of what the UN General Assembly does what its functions are what its purposes are and in this lesson we're going to do a uh an appraisal an assessment of what the um assembly has been doing and the extent to which it's been successful now I mentioned in the previous lesson that when looking at the strengths and weaknesses of the UN General Assembly the textbook seems to present some weaknesses as uh as somewhat uh weaknesses that I completely disagree with as weaknesses so I'm going to present my case forward for why those are not weaknesses what the textbook argues are weaknesses and I will just like to remind you that the textbook is definitely wrong in in the uh in some of the different descriptions but we'll get into it and the the added benefit of that is if there's if I'm having a debate with the textbook about what's right and what's wrong that's even better for you if you're writing an exam question because then you have multiple different perspectives as to what could be considered to be a weakness or a strength of the UN General Assembly so it gives a deeper level of analysis for you and your exams so you're welcome now the previous lesson We examined the descriptive realities like I mentioned looking at for example the UN General assemblies core functionalities the membership as well as the different voting methods that take place and this is going to be an analytical assessment of the assembly itself examining the various strengths and the various weaknesses of the institution let's begin with the strength now there's not too much controversy in terms of what could be considered as strengths of the UN General Assembly and one of these strengths is the amount of the multilateralism that exists within the UN General Assembly in a world today where we have seen uh the slow decay of this idea of neoliberalism within international law and multilateralism within international law something that was really at its peak in the 1990s uh something like the U.N General Assembly represents a significant uh bit of uh breathing room when it comes to multilateralism it's showing that multilateralism is something of a success at least within this particular context it's the only institution in the world where we can see a very clear representation from every single country and it's also the only institution in the world that is relatively effective and still functioning that is able to be so representative so there are other institutions in the world that are specific to certain uh fields of of law so for example I'm going to mention it this being the World Trade Organization the WTO the WTO is very representative there's over a hundred and something countries that are member states to the WTO but the WTO is in paralysis at the moment there is there is no movement in terms of what is actually uh going to be achieved at the WTO and this is in both their legislative agenda and their quasi-judicial agenda so from the legislative perspective we've seen no new agreements in any meaningful sense since the collapse of the dollar random negotiations we've seen um no judicial movements since the United States has continued to opt against appointing new members of the Appellate body for the dispute settlement and so this is an example of multilateralism being somewhat of a failure but the general assembly on the other hand is something that where we see a lot of representation from other countries and is still functioning to the extent at which it um at which it has been for for many years and it brings with this a clear sense of unity because what it also highlights is the issues within geopolitics and shows how states can come together to be able to overcome those issues within Global importance so issues relating to conflict issues related to Poverty issues related to the environment and human rights so these kind of issues that we're going to be sort of putting uh under the spotlight when it comes to the extent to which these political organs of the United Nations and NATO and the European Union and the Council of Europe and the African Union all of these different institutions um the standards by which we measure and we measure these standards on the basis of how well how well can they prevent poverty how well can they be um providing for economic Justice and Global Justice around the world how well are they good at dealing with environmental issues human rights issues issues related to labor regulation and slavery all of these different things things and the general assembly has been very useful in being able to show that countries can come together to vote on and have some kind of ability to have a clear sense of Unity on these issues we can also see some of this consensus when it talks about when we talk about the initiatives presented by the U.N General Assembly so for example the 2000 Millennium development goals which are replaced with the 2015 development goals and sustainable development goals were endorsed by the general assembly and endorsed quite strongly by the general assembly moreover we see the UN General Assembly bring about consensus when it comes to the 2005 World Summit with the agreement of the quote-unquote responsibility to protect now what this involved was an agreement in which states have the responsibility to protect various possible populations from International crimes and we know already what the international crimes are these are three of the international crimes genocide crimes against humanity war crimes and specifically the responsibility to protect includes ethnic cleansing as one of these crimes which isn't a crime in and of itself with an international criminal law but it sort of Falls onto crimes against humanity and genocide and to an extent war crimes as well so it sort of could be represented across all of these different uh other crimes that exist and so we see this as a general consensus to be able to protect against these kinds of offenses to protect against these kinds of crimes that are committed in uh situations of armed conflict in situations of Civil War situations of non-armed conflicts um so we we have the responsibility to protect populations from International crimes the general assembly has also been very instrumental in the consensus building when it comes to the protection of the environment and the issues of climate change that heart that are becoming even more front and center of the discussion that we really have to deal with so for example during the 73rd session of the assembly in 2018 there was a consensus of uh 146 Nations at the general assembly around the importance of combating climate change climate change is becoming more and more of a reality is becoming more and more of a reality for the global South rather than the global North because those are the people that are going to be affected by climate change the most rather at least early on and we're all going to be affected by climate change if it continues but at the start of the problems we see that the global South is being affected more by climate change despite the fact that they are the least contributors to the global carbon output over the last 100 or so years so climate change is obviously something that is going to be a huge uh Global issue that is going to need to be solved hopefully very soon and so the general assembly can provide and be instrumental in this uh in this creation of soft law and this creation of soft power against these issues and they can sort of galvanize States like the 146 Nations that came around an agreement at the importance of combating climate change so that's some of the strengths that you can really find within the general assembly but what about the weaknesses well the most notable weakness that you can probably point to is the fact that the the general assembly resolutions are not binding they're not something that a state is legally obliged to uphold they represent a a kind of soft power a soft law they kind of represent the power of persuasion rather than actual legal enforcement something that we would see for example when it comes to Security Council resolutions or when it comes to things like uh the the signing and the ratifying of international treaties or the upholding of customary international law these things are more binding and more enforceable onto member states than anything that a general assembly can do when it comes to its resolutions and it comes to that import the the importance of that is that essentially you can pass a resolution and in theory nothing may be done as a result of it you can see for example with the multiple uh yearly votes at the U.N general assembly on the immorality or the illegality of the United States embargo on Cuba they pass a resolution every single year and they have done for I think of many years now and every single time it is a massively voted in favor of um an end to the Embargo it is voted against by the United States and notably also by Israel we'll talk about U.S and Israel in a second and nothing is ever done the Embargo still exists um for whatever reason it's not particularly useful at any point for some reason uh but the Embargo still exists and uh the general assembly will keep passing resolution after resolution after resolution on that matter and nothing will ever result in it because it's not binding it's not binding onto the United States the United States don't have to do anything about it and technically if we look at the track record of the United States and international law even if it was binding I doubt they would do anything about it either so we can see that the general assembly resolutions while uh representing a certain amount of soft power and this power of persuasion that can be uh quite powerful in some instances in other instances are essentially useless there is a lack a distinct lack of enforcement and while it's like I said a weakness of the general assembly it is also a weakness which is faced by the majority of areas of international law more broadly so international law has this distinct lack of legitimacy in some circles in the sense that it is not particularly enforceable onto member states states remain sovereign states Remain the central figures within international law and there are ways around the following of the law that the states have been able to get away with stuff and this is an issue like I said that is that is enforced across most of international law considering there is no single uh police International police that can go around and and enforce claims against States it becomes less of a binding area of law like domestic law for example than uh when when we look at when we look at the impact of international law so you could make that argument that it is not just an issue of the general assembly but an issue of international law General more broadly but the general assembly is a very clear uh notable example where resolutions aren't binding at all even if they were binding like a lot of international law there's that additional critique that you can make but you can make a further critique against the general assembly because they're not binding even they're not even supposed to be binding a further weakness at least according to the textbook I've put in Brackets here is that all the states have voting rights equal voting rights now I'm going to present this argument as the textbook presents it and then I'm going to rip it to shreds okay so uh essentially uh what the textbook argues is that the United Nations General Assembly has all of the states and they all have equal voting rights which doesn't seem to make much sense considering that some states are more powerful than others and therefore saying States like the United States could should be or maybe potentially given more voting rights than that of other states now the reason why this is a a bad argument and is in fact actually showing a an inherent strength of the UN General Assembly is because it represents the fundamental Concept in international law that states are equal there is the equality of states it doesn't matter if the United States is more geopolitically powerful more economically powerful than every other state essentially combined than for example uh South Sudan or or the Democratic Republic of the Congo or or something like a country like Kosovo it doesn't matter what matters is that they are states and states have equal rights and this equal rights can be represented by the UN General Assembly essentially what the textbook is arguing here is for there to be Western Global hegemony to exist within the International Community that states that are from the global North and there are Western and that are essentially more economically powerful than the global South should have the ability to have greater voting rights within the UN General Assembly which is something that I wouldn't argue because it's essentially an imperialist art interpretation of international law and so I don't understand why the textbook would make that argument either so you could make that argument if you want in your essay but just note that that is a particular weakness in my opinion of the textbook um a further weakness that we should really get onto is an inconsistency in the agendas between the U.N general assembly and the states that uh the U.N General Assembly are supposed to represent so from a realist perspective if we're going to get some of our uh our international relations Theory uh from a realist perspective States will act in their own self-interest and from that perspective the UN General Assembly um there is a lack there is a disalignment between the the the goals that are fundamental here so from the realist perspective of States they're going to act in their own self-interest but from the perspective of the UN General Assembly there is a desire for there to be an achievement of consensus there is the desire for states to compromise to achieve consensus to get resolutions passed and for hopefully those resolutions to be enforced by this idea of soft power but this does not align with the realist perspective of States acting in their own interest if a state is in the U.N general assembly and there is a vote that is taking place and the vote taking place goes against and acts against the general interest of that state then it is very unlikely that state is going to vote for that particular agenda you can see this being the case in multiple different instances with for example China the Russian Federation the United States is a very good example of this and I gave the example earlier of the Cuban embargo the the voting to end the Cuban embargo that the United States has consistently voted against as well as the allies of these countries that align themselves with the agendas of these particular States so for example the most recent embargo vote on the Cuban embargo from the United States in the general assembly was voted against by the USA and Israel because they are both allies and there is a geopolitical interest in Israel not going against the United States essentially but there was also an abstaining on the part of the country of Ukraine now you might think well why is that the case because the Ukraine would surely be sympathetic to uh to the idea of of of potential imperialism when they are fighting an invasion from a a an Imperial agenda from the Russian Federation but you have to note that from the kind of perspective of entanglement Theory within geopolitics the idea that different states become entangled within the different agendas of other states due to all of these different alignments um and common enemies that they seem to find it makes sense for a country like Ukraine to vote to not vote against the United States when the United States is clearly giving a lot of Economic and Military Support to Ukraine in the fight that they are dealing with so that's one of the things that we can focus on the idea that not only is there a a from a realist perspective this idea that states have to act in their own interest but also from the perspective of entanglement theory that states that acting in their own interest and states that share common enemies become entangled together and then would then vote on things that again are not in the interest of the general assembly so there is not this desire for the achievement of consensus there is this an instance of both realism and entanglement theory that goes together and some of the most important examples of this um that I've just remembered here is that of the actions of the former president Trump and former uh president uh Benjamin Netanyahu at the general assembly so these are very key figures and these are very very interesting speeches that were had trunks is especially very interesting if you've never seen uh Donald Trump speak in the U.N General Assembly I highly recommend if you want a good laugh and about essentially what this is is a key feature that the U.N General Assembly has which is the ability for world leaders to do speeches to the rest of the world and to the rest of the room at the UN General Assembly and it's not just World Figures it's also just celebrities and other General people um some of the Antics that have been on display that are very important to focus on is that of the USA and Israel namely Trump and Netanyahu so when it came to Trump uh he used the UN General Assembly to Proclaim that Iran was spreading quote chaos death and destruction uh across the world he then similarly um we have to focus on uh Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu who also attacking Iran used his speech in order to try and expose Iran's quote-unquote secret Atomic warehouses and you can see here what is on display with these two speeches is an example of this idea of entanglement Theory two states the United States and Israel that have a very long and complicated history going back to the founding of Israel in the 1940s and the ways in which the US has supported Israel and and not supported Israel in other instances um have led to a situation where because they are sharing a common enemy at that Enemy being Iran in the case of trump and Netanyahu there is this entanglement between the two regimes or between the two states let's say let's not call them regimes they're definitely more democratic than actual regimes um there is two two states that become entangled within this idea of a shared common enemy against Iran and this is exemplified in the in the speeches of both the former president Trump and former I believe President uh Netanyahu one on one of them saying that there was a secret Atomic warehouses in Iran and the other one saying that Iran is spreading chaos death and destruction now this is somewhat can be a strength to the U.N General Assembly because it can give representation to smaller States and the political leaders of smaller States it can give representation to key cultural figures who are presenting a very important issue so people like um people who are presenting for example climate change uh reform or want climate change reform at the general assembly but it can also be used as a political tool to attack a potential geopolitical enemies and this is what happened when we look at Trump and Netanyahu