Robert H. Jackson Quotes

We need to use the United Nations Security Council and believe that preserving law and order in today's complex and turbulent world is one of the few ways to keep international relations from sliding into chaos. The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not.

The ultimate step in avoiding periodic wars, which are inevitable in a situation of periodic lawlessness is to make statesmen responsible to the law.

If political leaders want respect, they will begin by enforcing the global rule of law.

We must learn the difficult lesson that the future of Mankind will only be tolerable when our course, in world affairs as in others, is based upon justice and law rather than the threat of naked power.

The U.N. is much more than the case of Iraq.

In the euphoria after the Cold War, there was a misplaced notion that the UN could solve every problem anywhere.

I'm a member of the US committee o the United Nations.

The U.N. can be very frustrating and at times impotent, but it can also be a valuable forum for discussion and resolution of world problems. We should not walk away from it just because it's failed to live up to its promise.

International institutions are composed of governments. Governments control their own military forces and police.

War is not, in itself, a condition so much as the symptom of a condition - that of international anarchy.

The purpose of the United Nations should be to protect the essential sovereignty of nations, large and small.

Unilateral preemption should not in any way be the model for how we conduct international relations.

I don't know that there is much the United States can do except work with the international community.

When the world lacks muscular and wise American leadership, it devolves into total chaos, which, in turn, produces unspeakable evils.

So I've gone in and out of the U.N., working on counter-terrorism, on U.N. reform, on peacekeeping, peace and security issues, many things through the years but always with a strong interest in humanitarian issues, and human rights issues as well.

Of course what is talked about in the U.N. General Assembly is very important. Officials, the leaders of nations, appear there to speak of the most important topics - what they perceive to be the most important topics.

Addressing global resentment cannot be put off. If we do not learn to use our predominant power with great restraint, we will antagonize the world.

I've been quite involved in a lot of U.N. operations over the years. I was a U.N. observer at the East Timor referendum in 2000. I've been very involved in that for a long time.

It is a commonplace that the League of Nations is not yet-what its most enthusiastic protagonists intended it to be.

Attempts to settle crises by unilateral sanctions outside the framework of U.N. Security Council decisions threaten international peace and stability. Such attempts are counterproductive and contradict the norms and principles of international law.

The clever, albeit fragile, coalition against terrorism brought together by the U.S. government might be able to advance the transition from classical international law to a cosmopolitan order.

I have set out to change the language of the international system.

There are big issues, like the reform of the Security Council. These kinds of questions are something the President of the General Assembly must keep his eye on.

Using the right of veto would be shooting the Americans in the back.

Great powers reserve the right to police bad actors in their neighborhoods.