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Abstract
Discussion of the contemporary Arab state system overlooks the engagement of the nascent League of Arab States with the debates about world politics and the purposes of the UN system emerging from World War II. The early experience of that body did not articulate a full expression of universalism, and the integrative cooperation of the Arab League was confined to a limited security policy framework. It did not subsequently seek lastingly to influence the nature of those ideas and institutions that would come to shape the United Nations. The Arab League was also never wedded to a Global Southern logic. Yet the UN has seldom been disavowed in the League’s diplomatic processes, which have been used by member states tactically as a conduit to maximise regional interpretations of the challenges from global order and as a forum for advancing the sub-region’s provincial interests.
Notes
1. On this episode, which takes place in March 1957, and the events around the ‘battle of Algiers’ more generally, see Horne, A Savage War of Peace.
2. See Weber and Jentleson, The End of Arrogance.
3. The agreement did not concern the situation in the Maghreb, which was not covered by the Mandate System. However, the issues of political control and colonial dispossession applied in the same vein, as they did to the other parts of the Arab world, namely the Nile Valley and the Gulf.
4. Hashimi, Mudhakirat Taha al Hashami.
5. Khalil, The Arab States; Gomaa, Foundations; and Porath, In Search of Arab Unity.
6. See Gumbo, “The Hobbesian Nightmare,” 1.
7. Toffolo, The Arab League.
8. See Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace.
9. Pact of the League of Arab States, Article Two, March 22, 1945.
10. Ireland, “The Pact of the League of Arab States,” 798.
11. See Bassam Tibi’s discussion of this aspect. Tibi, “The Simultaneity of the Unsimultaneous,” 127–152.
12. See Kienle, Ba’th vs. Ba’th.
13. Maddy-Weitzman, The Crystallisation of the Arab State System, 3.
14. Abass, Regional Organisations, 41.
15. Sid’Ahmed, “When Israelis speak Arabic,” 8. On this issue Albert Hourani opened his classic work Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798-1939 thus: ‘More conscious of their language than any people in the world, seeing it not only as the greatest of their arts but also as their common good, most Arabs, if asked to define what they meant by “the Arab nation”, would begin by saying that it included all those who speak the Arabic language. But this would only be the first step […] A full definition would include reference to a historic process.’ Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, (emphasis added).
16. On the imprint of the latter, see Louis, “The Era of the Mandates System,” 201–213.
17. Russel, A History of the United Nations Charter, 26.
18. Best et al., International History of the Twentieth Century, 206–207.
19. Bhagavan, “Toward Universal Relief and Rehabilitation,” 131–132.
20. Galal and Hoekman, Arab Economic Integration, 1.
21. On this, see Dawn, “The Formation of Pan-Arab Ideology.” Paradoxically there is an important strand of Arab nationalism (running from Rifaa al Tahtawi to Sati al Husri by way of Abderrahman al Kawakibi) that was influenced by European ideas of nationalism, in particular Johann Fichte’s 1808 “Address to the German Nation” and Giuseppe Mazzini’s Italian Risorgimento in the 1830s.
22. Kerr, The Arab Cold War.
23. Khadduri, “The Arab League,” 756.
24. See Weiss, Arab League Boycott of Israel.
25. Chen and Zhao, “The Arab League’s Decision-making System,” 62, 66.
26. Barnett, “Sovereignty, Nationalism and Regional Order,” 480, 481. Elsewhere Barnett highlighted the institution-building potential of pan-Arabism – albeit a weak one. Barnett, “Institutions, Roles and Disorder.”
27. Barnett, “Sovereignty, Nationalism and Regional Order,” 505.
28. For instance, the Arab Human Rights Charter was late (it was adopted in 2004), derivative (inspired largely by the 1990 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights) and hesitant (the revised 2008 version was ratified by only 11 of the 22 members of the League).
29. Pinfari, “Interregionalism and Multiparty Mediation,” 83.
30. Beck, The Arab League, 2.
31. See Pogany, The Arab League.
32. Maddy-Weitzman, The Crystallisation of the Arab State System, ix.
33. The increasing importance of sub-regional identities was illustrated by the creation of several parallel entities in the 1980s. The six-member GCC was founded in 1981; the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA) was launched in 1987, regrouping Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia; and a short-lived Arab Cooperation Council (ACC) was set up in 1989, composed of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and North Yemen.
34. Pinfari, “Interregionalism and Multiparty Mediation,” 84.
35. Mattes, “Aftermath of the Sirte Summit,” 7. On the first phase of the relationship, see Zarour, La Coopération Arabo-Africaine.
36. Center for the Renewal of Israeli Democracy, The Arab Peace Initiative.
37. UNDP, Arab Human Development Report, 2002 to 2009, /www.arab-hdr.org/.
38. Youssef, “The Arab League and the Rule of Law,” 56.
39. See Hatinger, The League of Arab States.
40. In July 2011 another Egyptian former foreign minister, Nabil al Arabi, replaced Amr Moussa, who had been at the helm of the league since June 2001.
41. Rishmawi, The League of Arab States, 55.
42. For a critical insider account, see Raiss, Jama’at al Doual al ‘Arabiya.
43. See Sussman, “After Mideast Uprisings.”
44. Pogany, “The Arab League.”
45. As noted, the only other country that had ever been suspended was Egypt, following its peace treaty with Israel in 1978.
46. Atwan, The Islamic State, 96.
47. Beck, The Arab League, 2.
48. Hill, Cabinet Decisions on Foreign Policy, 258–262. Eden declared: ‘It seems to me both natural and right that the cultural and economic ties between the Arab countries, yes and the political ties too, should be strengthened. His Majesty’s Government for their part will give their full support to any scheme that commands general approval.’
49. Maddy-Weitzman, The Crystallisation of the Arab State System, 1.
50. This is what Stavridis argues. See his “The Arab NATO.”
51. Beck, “Upgrading the Arab League.” See also Bröning, “The All-Arab Army?”; and Gaub, An Arab Army.
52. Plesch and Weiss, “Conclusion,” 202.