The United Nations and the Resolution of International Conflicts

Abstract

Väyrynen, R. The United Nations and the Resolution of International Conflicts. Cooperation and Conflict, XX, 1985, 141-171.

The United Nations evolves in interaction with its external environment, which has changed in several ways during the postwar era. The distribution of power between major powers and in the global system as a whole have created the context in which the UN has served the functions of conflict manifestation, conflict resolution, and collective legitimization. The world organization operated in the conditions of US hegemony from 1948 to 1963 after a brief prelude as the coalition of victorious powers in 1945-1947. The gradual erosion of this hegemony and the process of decolonization blended the UN with a measure of both duopoly and fragmentation from 1964 to 1974. The processes of fragmentation and disagreement have become even more visible since the middle of the 1970s. Transformations in the international environment have also changed the types of conflicts which the UN is expected to manage and resolve. In particular the number and complexity of peripheral conflicts referred to the organ ization has increased, while it has faced considerable difficulties in handling them successfully. This fact, together with the general crisis of multilateral international cooperation, has given rise to efforts to rehabilitate the role of the United Nations in the maintenance of collective security.