American Sovereignty and the UN.

• Author: Helms, Jesse

EARLIER THIS year, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan delivered an address to the General Assembly in which he declared that "the last right of states cannot and must not be the right to enslave, persecute or torture their own citizens." The peoples of the world, he said, have "rights beyond borders." He is surely correct.

The sovereignty of nations must, of course, be respected. But, properly understood, nations derive their sovereignty--their legitimacy--from the consent of the governed. Thus, Slobodan Milosevic can hardly claim sovereignty over Kosovo when he has murdered Kosovars and piled their bodies into mass graves. Nor can Fidel Castro or Saddam Hussein hide behind phony claims of sovereignty while they oppress their peoples.

As they watch the UN struggle with the question of sovereignty, however, many Americans are left exceedingly puzzled. Intervening in cases of widespread oppression and massive human rights abuses is not a new concept for the United States. The American people have a long history of doing so. During the 1980s, this policy was called "the Reagan Doctrine." In some cases, America assisted freedom fighters around the world who were seeking to overthrow corrupt regimes, providing them with weaponry, training and intelligence. In other cases, the United States intervened directly. In still others, such as in Central and Eastern Europe, America supported peaceful opposition movements with moral, financial and covert assistance. In each case, it was America's intention to help bring down oppressive regimes. The dramatic expansion of freedom in the last decade of the twentieth century has been a direct result of these policies.

In none of these instances, however, did the United States ask for or receive the approval of the United Nations to "legitimize" its actions. And yet the secretary-general now declares that approval by the United Nations Security Council is the "sole source of legitimacy on the use of force" in the world. It is a fanciful notion that free peoples need to seek the approval of an international body (a quarter of whose members are totalitarian dictatorships, according to Freedom House's 1999/2000 Freedom in the World) to lend support to nations struggling to break the chains of tyranny. The United Nations has no power to grant or decline legitimacy to such actions. They are inherently legitimate.

What the United Nations can do is help. The Security Council can, where appropriate, be an instrument to facilitate action by "coalitions of the willing", it can implement sanctions regimes, and it can provide...