Haile Selassie Quotes

I ask the fifty-two nations, who have given the Ethiopian people a promise to help them in their resistance to the aggressor, what are they willing to do for Ethiopia? And the great Powers who have promised the guarantee of collective security to small States on whom weighs the threat that they may one day suffer the fate of Ethiopia, I ask what measures do you intend to take?, Representatives of the World I have come to Geneva to discharge in your midst the most painful of the duties of the head of a State. What reply shall I have to take back to my people?

When America rejected the League, she had deliberately chosen to rest solely upon treaties with the sanction of public opinion alone…

We have decided to bring to an end the most unequal, most unjust, most barbarous war of our age, and have chosen the road to exile in order that our people will not be exterminated and in order to consecrate ourselves wholly and in peace to the preservation of our empire's independence ... we now demand that the League of Nations should continue its efforts to secure respect for the covenant, and that it should decide not to recognize territorial extensions, or the exercise of an assumed sovereignty, resulting from the illegal recourse to armed force and to numerous other violations of international agreements.

Republican committal for an Association of Nations, cooperating in sublime accord, to attain and preserve peace through justice rather than force, determined to add to security through international law, so clarified that no misconstruction can be possible without affronting world honor.

Resolution 1441 does not give anyone the right to an automatic use of force. Russia believes that the Iraqi problem should be regulated by the Security Council, which carries the main responsibility for ensuring international security.

If nations could only depend upon fair and impartial judgments in a world court of law, they would abandon the senseless, savage practice of war.

When states decide to use force to deal with broader threats to international peace and security, they need the unique legitimacy provided by the United Nations.

The consequence is that what is called "the Law of Nations" is a savage code. The world will never be civilized until there is an international court. Savages begin to be civilized when they submit their difficulties to their peers. Nations will become civilized when they submit their difficulties to a great court, the judgments of which can be carried out, all nations pledging the cooperation of their armies and their navies for that purpose

In order to ensure prompt and effective action by the United Nations, its Members confer on the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and agree that in carrying out its duties under this responsibility the Security Council acts on their behalf.

The League of Nations is the greatest humbug in history. They cannot even protect a little nation like Armenia. They do nothing but pass useless resolutions.

War can only be abolished by the establishment of a world government.

As long as the problem of world reconstruction remains the center of interest for all nations, blocs having similar attitudes will form and operate even within the League itself.

I am against preventive war because it means measures by the UN against us.

We must never relent in our efforts to resolve conflicts through diplomacy and through all of the instruments bestowed by the Charter of the United Nations.

No one wants the United Nations to suffer the fate of the League of Nations, which collapsed because it lacked real leverage. This is possible if influential countries bypass the United Nations and take military action without Security Council authorization.

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

The logic of collective security is flawless, provided it can be made to work under the conditions prevailing on the international scene... The odds, however, are strongly against such a possibility.

The present U.N. must be annihilated by our power. That is the stage for Communists. We must make a new U.N.

The British can not alone act as the policemen of the world.

The League is dead; long live the United Nations.

The international body must have the institutions and powers it needs to do what it is created to do; in other words it must be boldly and openly set up as a super-state on a level above the national sovereignties, and that, in turn, means that the Member States must have accepted in advance as much limitation and subordination of their particular sovereignties as this superior sovereign power requires.

If the savior of man would revisit and declare himself for a League of Nations, I would be opposed to it.

To the creators of the League of Nations who originated the first serious efforts to a better understanding between nations

We must have a world organization for the purpose of deliberation, but not for the purpose of waging wars and imposing sanctions.

When our vital interests are challenged, or the will and conscience of the international community is defied, we will act; with peaceful diplomacy whenever possible, with force when necessary.