Chapter 24

Ten International Bodies that Made a Difference

In This Chapter

Considering some world governments that worked and some that didn’t

Admiring NGOs working for peace, health, and justice

Dealing in ideals, hopes, principles, oil – and woggles

The nineteenth century created the nation state but the twentieth century was the era of internationalism. International bodies, some of them government-led, others, known as NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations) independent of governments, crossed boundaries and sought to unite the world in a sense of common humanity. They’re not saints: International bodies and NGOs are as open to failure, incompetence, or corruption as any other groups, but they have made a major contribution to the health, wellbeing, and liberty of the world. Here are some of the most important.

The International Committee of the Red Cross

The Red Cross has its origins in the nineteenth century, when Swiss Henri Dunant was shocked at the lack of medical aid for the wounded after the 1859 Battle of Solferino, but it came into its own in the twentieth century. The Red Cross is about a lot more than first aid: In 1864 it drew up the first Geneva Convention, binding signatories to proper treatment of prisoners of war and in the twentieth century the Convention was progressively extended to cover racial discrimination and hostage-taking.

The Red Cross hasn’t been free of controversy: Its symbol raises uncomfortable memories of the crusades and the blind eye it turned to the Nazi concentration camps detracted badly from the good work it did for prisoners of war and refugees. But the Red Cross has continued to set an important example of neutrality and humanity for others to follow.

Scouting

The scouting movement was founded in 1907 by an eccentric upper-class British officer called Robert Baden-Powell (BP), who saw instilling a bit of manliness into the young as a way to save the British empire from going flabby. It soon proved to have a much wider appeal. For working-class children, scouting offered a wonderful escape from the backstreets into the outdoors and into a culture of comradeship where class or religion simply didn’t matter. And you got to wear long shorts and a woggle.

Scouting quickly went international, with huge jamborees for scouts and guides from all over the world. Not everyone liked the marching and saluting, and the fascist and Soviet versions (dictators tend to ban scouting, which has got to be a good sign) were unashamedly military, but scouting has adapted and survived and is still going strong today. Not bad for a crusty old colonel of the British empire.

The League of Nations

Yes, I know the League proved a flop when it was unable to contain aggressive dictators in the 1930s (not that nation states did much better) but it still deserves a bit more consideration. For one thing, it did actually get off the ground, and it set a vital precedent as an international body that is above nation states. Ordinary people around the world were deeply committed to its ideals and set up local branches of the League of Nations Union to further its aims of peaceful collective action. And let’s face facts: The League’s record isn’t so different from that of today’s ‘international community’.

The League saved countless lives by working out a system of shipping lanes and banning the then-widespread use of poisonous lead paint. Its actions set the vital precedent that safety standards should be decided by international law and not left to different countries to do as they liked. The International Labour Organisation, which protects the rights of working people and runs vocational training for workers and managers, survived the fall of the League and still flourishes today: In 1969 it won the Nobel Peace Prize. No one’s calling the League a success story, but a body that made a difference? Emphatically – yes.

The United Nations

The UN’s image has been so tarnished by failure and scandal in recent years that recalling the enormous optimism it evoked when it was launched is difficult. Everything about the UN, from the bold design of its building to the sky blue berets of its troops, suggested that here was a world government with teeth. If so, it’s overdue for a visit to the dentist.

The UN has seen some famous set pieces, such as Soviet premier Khrushchev banging his shoe on his desk in the General Assembly and shouting ‘Nyet! Nyet! Nyet!’ (translation: ‘No! No! No!’) when the Philippines president referred to ‘Soviet imperialism’, Yasser Arafat addressing the UN on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, or US ambassador Adlai Stevenson presenting the Security Council in 1962 with photographic evidence of Soviet missiles on Cuba. UN peacekeeping forces have a very mixed record: They kept the warring sides apart in the Middle East but they stood by during the massacres in Bosnia and Rwanda in the 1990s. Perhaps the UN is seen at its best in the work of its agencies, the World Health Organisation, the High Commission for Refugees, and the endeavours of UNICEF to protect and support children all round the world from the effects of poverty or exploitation.

The European Union

Love it or loathe it, the European Union is the most successful of the twentieth century’s many international regional organisations. The EU began with a hugely symbolic post-war agreement between France and Germany to help each other out with coal and steel and soon grew into a free trading community of six countries committed not just to dismantling trade barriers but to creating an ‘ever closer union’.

As an economic community the EU was a great success, though its policy of farming subsidies rewarded overproduction and led, for a time, to massive surpluses of butter and wine. As new members joined, the community sought to become more of a political union, which caused problems, especially with Britain. By the early twenty-first century the EU covered nearly the whole continent and was operating the modern world’s first successful international currency, the euro. The European Union certainly made a difference; I’ll leave you to decide if it made things better.

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)

CND began in 1958 as a protest against the deployment in Britain of nuclear weapons, but its ideals, methods, and logo quickly spread around the world. In the 1980s it revived as the Cold War enemies deployed a new generation of missiles, and it spawned an international protest movement against nuclear power itself.

CND marches and rallies attracted huge numbers of people, especially the young, who became increasingly used to the idea of joining in global protest events such as Live Aid and anti-globalisation demonstrations. Historians disagree about what impact CND had on the military policy of either side in the Cold War – probably very little – but as an example of democracy in action and of ordinary people taking a stand against a policy with which they profoundly disagreed, it was of enormous importance.

Amnesty International

If you’re a lawyer and think everybody hates you, remember Amnesty International, founded in 1961 by Peter Benenson, a British solicitor, and Seán MacBride, an Irish lawyer and politician. Amnesty campaigns tirelessly against torture and capital punishment and for the release of prisoners of conscience around the world. That’s a lot of prisoners.

Thanks to Amnesty, ordinary people can have a real impact: Just sending a letter to a head of state or a postcard to a political prisoner shows that the world is watching and prisoners do sometimes get released because of these missives. Amnesty also takes governments to court and gets landmark legal rulings passed. The bad news is that Amnesty is needed at all; the good news is that it does make a difference.

Oxfam

Hunger and famine in wartime Greece led to the creation of Oxfam, one of the best-known relief organisations combating hunger and poverty throughout the world. The Oxford Famine Relief Committee was one of a number of such committees set up to raise funds for the Greeks but it then carried on after the war, raising money for other wartime refugees. In 1951 Oxfam moved outside Europe for the first time in response to a famine in Bihar in India.

Oxfam has provided the model for other relief agencies but its education work is just as important, showing people in the West that the developing world is not made up of faceless victims but of individuals with the same human dignity and feelings as people anywhere else in the world. Oxfam pioneered the charity shop as a way both of raising funds and spreading its message, and it also took a lead role in recycling waste. Few international organisations have had such a widespread and positive impact as Oxfam.

Organisation of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC)

OPEC began in 1960 as a self-help group of five countries – Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela, who got together to harmonise their prices, production, and export strategies. As more countries joined in by the 1970s, OPEC began to take on the dimensions of a political power bloc, especially in the oil-rich Middle East. The Arab countries found they could use oil as a weapon against the oil-hungry West. In 1973, OPEC raised its prices and imposed an oil embargo on Western countries that had supported Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and took similar action in 1979 after the Iranian Revolution.

Since the 1970s OPEC’s influence has declined. Western countries started producing their own offshore oil so they wouldn’t depend on OPEC so much. Oil prices slumped in the 1980s, and as the world explores other forms of energy, even for cars, OPEC’s grip on world affairs has loosened. OPEC was split when Saddam Hussein of Iraq attacked fellow-OPEC member Kuwait in 1990, essentially to grab hold of its oilfields.

OPEC’s glory days are past, but in its time OPEC was a power in the world, a reminder that the big boys couldn’t have everything their own way.

Greenpeace

Greenpeace began in Canada in 1969 with the call to ‘Save the Whale’ from being hunted to extinction and to stop Canada’s annual seal cull; it played a key part in getting an international moratorium on whaling and boosting international sales of whale music.

Greenpeace soon moved on from whales and wide-eyed baby seals, though. In the 1980s it became a leading voice for those opposing the spread of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons, stressing the disastrous impact nuclear activity would have on the worldwide environment. In 1985 its flagship Rainbow Warrior, which had been disrupting French atomic trials in the Pacific, was blown up in Auckland harbour by the French secret services, but Greenpeace continued its campaigning, focusing increasingly on the wider environment. If the world is alert today to the threats posed by human activity to the environment, much of the credit lies with Greenpeace.