Theoretical Evaluation of the Syrian Imbroglio and the Role of United Nations: A Realist Perspective

The United Nations was formed in 1945 to protect the succeeding generations of people across the globe from the scourge of war and arbitrate in pacific settlement of disputes that could lead to bloody conflicts. International institutions like the United Nations (UN) and its predecessor the League of Nations derived their justification and rationalization from main theories of political idealism in international politics. The international community was appalled and disturbed by the horrors of Holocaust and the atomic bombs over Japan during the Second World War and there was a solemn effort to create an international institution like the UN which could draw valuable lessons from the failures of its predecessor, the League. The main tenets of political idealism like increased role for international institutions and the rule of international lawⁱ by increasing international cooperation between nations formed the basis of the League of Nations and subsequently the UN. One of the main objectives of the UN was to safeguard human rights and the rights of various peoples and the different nations by preventing wars and bringing about peaceful settlement of disputes between nations that leads to wars and violent conflicts that violates or infringes such rights. Since its inception, the UN had a limited success in tackling many fundamental issues that emerged due to power politics during the Cold War. Immense human sufferings were caused due to superpower rivalry in Vietnam and Afghanistan and number of civil and political conflicts around the world. The inability of the UN in tackling the humanitarian disaster in Syria that has arisen due to the bloody civil war poses deep questions regarding the inherent weakness in structure and new challenges confronting the organization in the light of changed political and security situations in the world. My paper attempts to analyse the situation by the application of two prominent theories of international relations- Idealism and Realism.

Some may argue that the UN ought to have primarily concerned itself more with the rights and freedoms of people in situations where there was an outbreak of open hostilities between two or more sovereign states and the consequences that follow. However the evolution of the notion of customary international law and the obligations that the member states have towards the former proved to be areas of intense debate and discussions between the theorists and practitioners of international politics in the last few decades. The UN, and earlier the League of Nations have been known to encourage the evolution and development of certain fundamental principles and concepts relating to universal moral principles in international humanitarian law like the Geneva Conventionsⁱⁱ, Crimes against Humanityⁱⁱⁱ, Genocide^iv, and Ethnic Cleansings^v and added new dimensions to the interpretation and understanding of international law and morality. This has brought focus back on humanitarian crisis and war crimes resulting from internal conflicts within the borders of sovereign states and the role and responsibility of the international community and the UN in safeguarding the rights of the people through the instrument of international law. However, the UN has failed to deliver in cases where the interest of big players amongst the former's members. It is necessary to mention that international law is more a norm than a law in the true sense of the term as there is no sovereign authority enforcing it. On the contrary, international law derives its strength from various instruments of international diplomacy like treaties and conventions between nations and member states and international organizations like the UN serve as main sources of international law.