The basis of law, as with most other social structures, is the idea that when more than one person is in a certain amount of space that they will search for a common understanding of what is right and what is wrong. Some legal institutions, like the American Constitution, have weathered major attacks on the power of law initiated by rebels seeking to gain more political strength. However, some institutions are bound to fail because they do not carry sufficient legal weight in the minds of individuals and groups within their orbit. One such group is the United Nations and the challenger to its international power is Iran.
The United Nations’ members have threatened economic sanctions and embargo against Iran if it continues its nuclear program. However, Iran has been defiant of the U.N.’s threats and feels that it has no realistic standing in telling it to shut down its developing nuclear program. The United Nations has had mixed results in their various humanitarian and diplomatic missions throughout the world over its six decades of existence. However, the United Nations is only as good as it component parts and nations like the United States and Great Britain have performed poorly at placing trust in the process that the United Nations employs to deal with international crises. Instead, with the Iraq War as a glaring example, these nations have circumvented an institution they have created to deal with these problems and gone their own way.
Imagine every retailer and store owner in the United States simply refusing to put their trust in the dollar (which is the basis of the use of currency). The financial system would quickly fall apart and, like in the 18th and 19th century economies of the U.S. and Western Europe, the economy would swing wildly from depression to overabundance. The legal solution to the Iran-U.N. showdown is for everyone to put trust in diplomatic negotiations and use international relations, not wars of dubious origination, to solve misunderstandings and miscommunications. With such a trust, the United Nations would begin to fulfill its promise of sixty years ago to act as an arbiter for the world’s problems.