The United Nation’s formation like its member-States leads to the pursuit of power and the struggle for rights. The UN’s 1945 Charter declares: first, their determination “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war;” and then, only secondly to reaffirm “faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small” suggests that its intent was to maintain the status quo by suffering peacefully through invoking the language of peaceful solutions.
Unrepresented peoples’ struggles have reversed this order by first affirming “faith in fundamental rights [and] in the dignity and worth of the human person” so that their collective determination “save[s] succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” This difference in perception and attitude involves a clash of values and fundamental world order principles that often leads to a philosophical collision between the ideas of suffering peacefully and the human struggle for dignity. The States know all too well that their continued sovereignty and power depends to a large extent on deciding which values and principles it develops.
What raises deeper concern is realizing that restricting a peoples’ right to decide their own future is not coincidental, but involves the State’s deliberate strategy to ensure their continued dominance in world politics. Ironically, the universe of values that promoted the emancipation of colonial territories has simultaneously promoted the assimilation of peoples who were politically and culturally distinct into the dominant political and social orders. States have restricted the peoples’ freedom to a stage of arrestation where its meaning is bound by the language and its application is determined by the forces of power politics.
The preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights emphasizes recognizing the “inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” While it is clear that no State can use force against people struggling for their basic rights, it, however, systematically violates human rights and dignity of people through policies of militarization in the name of State sovereignty and territorial integrity. Ali Mazrui says there is more readiness to use force on the part of those who seek to protect one’s property than by those that seek to acquire new possessions. Therefore, having a vested interest in the status quo to maintain sovereignty over territory can sometimes impel a State to disturb the peace in a bid to prevent change and to legitimize the use of force.
According to Michael Freeman, the UN is an organization of “state-based power-holders” with the primary purpose to protect and promote their State’s interest and to maintain existing inter-State order. In not granting and respecting the status of all peoples and their desire to decide their own destiny, the UN has invariably failed in “maintaining peace based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.” Subsequently, by limiting the notion of peoples to an exclusive perpetual category, it prevents the praxis of freedom as a relational concept. In doing so it destabilizes peaceful and harmonious relationships, and it might be argued that this leads to the creation of power relationships which invariably lead to injustice and intolerance.
