The UN General Assembly lies at the intersection of hopes, expectations and much denigration. Most of it is unrealistic or unfair. The creation of the UN was not an idealistic innovation - though it represented ideals and aspects that were new - but an historically recognisable continuation of international politics.

The UN General Assembly (UNGA) lies at the intersection of hopes, expectations and much denigration. Most of it is unrealistic or unfair. The creation of the UN was not an idealistic innovation - though it represented ideals and aspects that were new - but an historically recognisable continuation of international politics after the collapse of the League of Nations and the impact of the Second World war on the great powers. It retains the potential for change.

Aside from the desire for peace and security, the dominant motif in the founding of the UN in 1945 was the inviolability of the nation state. The nation-state was susceptible to international interventions only after Raphael Lemkin's obdurate and prolonged struggle to introduce a genocide convention. And so it has remained for better or for worse. The very fact that Jan Smuts, soon to fight and lose to Nehru over his right to treat Indians in South Africa as second class citizens, was a major player in the drafting of its charter, should give the clue. *

True, the old boys' club of the major powers in the Security Council did not have it all their own way. The General Assembly had oversight of trusteeship territories and had a few - gappy - teeth. The advent of the newly independent states to seats in the General Assembly did not allow matters to transpire as the major powers wanted. A number of "civilising missions" were drowned in the tide of anti-colonialism.

It is difficult to get into the mindset of the time. Large population movements prevailed in Europe - they had been prevalent pre-war in the Balkans - social engineering was not a dirty word, and statesmen contemplated and some undertook mass movements of ethnically identified groups. On the one hand was "self-determination", the rallying cry of the new nations; on the other a determination by the major powers to move troublesome ethnic impediments to a cohesive national identity around the international chess board. The global Assembly did not invent such conflicting interests; but it had to contend with them.

Have things really changed that much today? There are many countries who cannot work out how to accommodate diversity other than by coercion and state violence. And today diversity is perceived as appearing as much under the heading of religion as ethnicity, and no less dangerous. The challenge of creating strong democratic national cultures in the context of a commitment to religious pluralism is no less pressing than sixty-five years ago.

Despite this, I looked at the agenda of this 2012 session of the UN General Assembly and - on a quick scan - did not see the word religion. UNGA week is just starting. There will be distinguished speakers and interventions from around the world. However neuralgic religious questions are in international fora, it will be interesting to see if the critical issue of religion is raised.

When Tony Blair gave his Chicago speech on humanitarian intervention in 1992 it was in the immediate context of Milosovic' ethnic cleansing. There was, of course, also a religious dimension in Kosovo even if ethnicity was the dominant gene. Ten years later we see many other contexts in which religion has become the dominant gene motivating behaviour whether in Nigeria, the Middle East, Pakistan or increasingly Palestine/Israel.

The question of what degree of violation of the human rights of religious minorities must prevail before national sovereignty may be overridden, and international intervention becomes an option, appears like Hamlet's ghost in the shadows of the General Assembly week. If the Assembly finds it difficult to begin to address the question it is not because of some contemporary moral failing but because of the fundamental historical principle on which the UN and its Charter emerged from the ashes of the Second World War: national sovereignty still trumps - almost - all.

And behind this trump card lies the realpolitik option of walking away. The opprobrium that accrues from interventions, deemed to have failed, is enough to sweep away political leaders in democratic states. But every Somalia leads to a Rwanda. Every Libya leads to a Syria.

The General Assembly has in the past been influenced by public opinion. But public opinion, however at times fickle, matters. There is obviously no consensus. But Assembly members urgently need to rise above sectarian and national interest to talk about religious diversity, the rights of religious minorities and the conditions for international interventions. Today there is a toxic mixture of blame culture and denial. The idea that resolutions against defamation can somehow stop descent into religious conflict is unreal; it is more likely to encourage social hostility to religious minorities. "Modernity" must talk to "Conservatism", open mind to closed mind, or the bombs, the guns and the drones will have the last word in our generation. Welcome to the Party.

*Mark Mazower. No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United Nations. Princeton University Press 2009 for a detailed analysis of the early years of UN.

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