Bella Americana: the need for global reform

Abstract

This chapter discusses the implications of American exceptionalism to the international legal and political order as established after World War II. Arguably, “peace enforcement” goes against the letter and spirit of the Charter of the United Nations, certainly when executed in “coalitions of the willing” shaped under United States leadership. It is questionable, moreover, whether the debate is genuinely on humanitarian intervention; indeed, there are strong indications that the real issue is American hegemony. Rather than a “pax Americana” this implies “Bella Americana” as announced already in the immediate reaction to 9/11: America is at war. The chapter argues that while on the one hand the international legal order as evolved after 1945 has to be defended against American unilateralism, the United Nations will have to be restructured, too. In all three major UN projects –international security, human rights and economic development- a huge deficit renders structural reform indispensable. The contents of essential global reforms are analyzed and discussed.