United Nations Essay Example for Free

United Nations Essay â€Å"The UN is made up of 191 nations from around the world. It is frequently called the UN. It was established in 1945 soon after the Second World War as a means of bringing people together and to avoid war. The UN logo depicts the world held in the olive branches of peace†. (CBBC Newsround) United Nations: Post Cold War Era The United Nations is considered to be an international entity that has â€Å"struggled with the challenges of globalization for several years, especially since the Asian financial crisis† (Ruggie, 2003, p. 1); it has power, according to one people, to solve the international issues such as wars; however to another group of people, the United Nations has its own certain limitations beyond which it cannot operate or seems not to be operating. The very first evidence in this regard when the United Nations is seen almost completely paralyzed despite with all its might is the Cold War era that stretched over 40 years. In this connection, Holmes (1993) informs us that â€Å"For over 40 years, the Cold War conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union paralyzed the peacekeeping functions of the United Nations. With few exceptions, the United Nations and other multinational organizations were ineffective in resolving major conflicts because of the zero-sum nature of the Cold War†. In 1993, Holmes critically reviewed the United Nations’ operation in the scenario of the Post Cold War era and that time he came up with the observation that the United Nations had a heavy hand put by the United States of America. He tells us that the United Nations operations like peacemaking, peace-enforcement, and military involvement were limited for certain reasons such as the huge monetary aid, the troops contribution by world states to back up the United Nations’ force. These limitations, according to Holms, kept United Nations a body that was not independently powerful to take actions against any mayhem going on in the world. He tells us of the U. S. policymakers that how they would look for the loopholes where they could make a way into the controlling of the United Nations so the national sovereignty could be secured: â€Å"The challenge for U. S. policy makers is to identify these circumstances and to develop guidelines for ensuring that U. S. interests are protected. The United States should, in this regard, be sensitive to three variables: (1) how a peacekeeping operation affects American national security; (2) how much it costs; and (3) the degree to which it erodes American sovereignty† (Holmes, 1993, p. 1). The kernel point to Holmes (1993) is that the United Nations is not a free body to work without pressure from a country (the U. S. ) so â€Å"if it attempts to overreach its powers, and pretends to be an independent force in international politics, the United Nations will surely fail in maintaining any kind of world peace and stability† (Holmes, 1993, p. 1). Moving ahead we witness a similar remark made by O’Brien (2003) that â€Å"The United Nations was conceived by the United States 60 years ago to express, embody and extend American ideals†; yet there is another observation by Goff (2003) that the United Nations is only as strong as is the will of the states which run it: â€Å"The United Nations system relies on the collective will of all its members. It is these member states that set its priorities. The United Nations cannot act without their consent. It falls, therefore, upon us all to make the United Nations relevant in todays world† (2003, p. 1). Frankly speaking, In practice the United Nation has not developed as was first imagined initially it was composed mainly of the Allies of World War II, largely European major countries, , and nations of the Americas and Commonwealth countries. It was imagine as an organization of â€Å"peace-loving† nations, who were uniting to stop future aggression and for other humanitarian reasons. However, Close cooperation among members was predicted; and the Security Council especially was predicted to work in relative unanimity. Hopes for necessary accord were soon crashed by the frictions of the â€Å"cold war†, which impacted the functioning of both the Security Council and other UN organs. The United Nation has played a comparatively secondary role in the most world crises, including 1973; the Pakistan-India War of 1971; the Afghanistan war and Vietnam Israeli-Arab Wars of 1967. However in the very begging of 1970s the united nation amplified its activity in the development of less dominant countries. (Schuijt, 2005) â€Å"Even as the U. N. is called on to tackle enormous problems like ethnic, state and religious conflicts and sustainable use of natural resources, the organization reflects the imbalance of power that exists between powerful and weak nations† (Schuijt, 2005) Certainly, it would be true to say that some dominant countries are using the United Nations as a vehicle for their own interest and rule over the world. David Shorr cited the great example on this thing in â€Å"world have the UN they deserve by saying that the â€Å"The UN is only as strong or as week as governments want it to be. Member states should stop using the UN as a â€Å"scapegoat† for governments’ failure to achieve international consensus. The UN cannot change on its own; the responsibility lies with governments to implement reform in the best interest of the UN†. (Shorr, 2006) Many developing countries’ leaders opine that the UN in every aspect discriminates between developing and non-developing countries. Moreover, the UN is playing a dual role for different countries in every aspect, whether politics, social norms, safety, security etc. for instance, Bahamas continues to emphasize the need for bigger and more comprehensive discussion of globalization and its effects on the well-being of concerned commonwealths, with the United Nations given a role in solving these issues. Further they quoted that, we have continuously expressed dangerous concerns over certain decisions by the United Nations or its organs that were not coherent with the aims and intentions of the Charter. However, nothing was done to right the wrong. When errors are discovered, it becomes our obligation to correct them. They further emphasized, that UN should go over the legal political basis of its own undertakings in the period of 1950s and 1960s in relation to the cardinal rights of our Melanesian sisters and brothers in the Asia-Pacific region, especially in West Papua and the UN must not in this â€Å"The United Nations cannot and must not, in this new millennium, carry on to turn a blind eye on its own past failures, which has led UN to three long, agonizing decades of injustice, tragedy and guerrilla warfare in West Papua. It is morally, politically and legally wrong to do so. The Organization has competent bodies, such as the Special Committee on decolonization or the International Court of Justice, which should look into the matter. The Netherlands -– the former colonial Power –- should recognize its share of the responsibility in helping to resolve the situation of West Papua in a peaceful and transparent manner. †(World Leaders Adopt, 2000) But on the other hand, developing countries member like the US and UK deploring this fact that they are using the UN for their own interests and they also believe that being a powerful member of the UN they have to offset things in an news paper article published in June 16,2005 in Los Angles Times US put US reforms first and declared that â€Å"United States — a veto-holding member of the council along with Britain, France, Russia and China — believes that a bigger group would not necessarily be better†. (Farley, 2005) Another example is the Republic of Paula who surely believes that the UN will strive hard to embrace the remaining non-member nations around the globe. And in this aspect, they hope that the UN will change his rigorous attitude towards developing countries. Besides this, they are confident that these goals at a certain extent are achievable like through the help of 2000 UN reforms. They further disclosed the facts that, â€Å"The United Nations has enabled smaller, developing and least developed countries, such as my own, to contribute to world peace in our own albeit small way. Whilst there have been measurable benefits from membership of the Organization, it also has the positive scope to deliver much more equitable changes†. (World Leaders Adopt, 2000) United Nations’ Reforms However, after 2000 the United Nations met severe criticism for its operations and seemingly dependence over the United States of America. Moreover, there were issues of better managing the in-organization matters such as security, funding, and so on. Thus, a series of reform episodes started making its place in the pages of United Nations’ history. It was expedited after the Iraq invasion by the United States of America as the â€Å"oil-for-food† became the household phrase of international politics. For example, President Bush’s frequently quoted remark â€Å"America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country† is something that reminds us of the absolute power days when slavery was practiced. (Schaefer and B. Kim, 2004) Thus, all these mayhem led people such as Annan to come up with some solid say that would, at least on the surface, guarantee the impartial role of the United Nations in the world and the through some solid reforms. As such Annan came up with the three major areas that needed to be redefined for the better operations of the United Nations. These were: development, security, and human right. These opened up for the public in the year 2005 and â€Å"The secretary general’s report [was] based on tow earlier studies. One was done by the committee he appointed [in 2004] to propose U. N. reforms. The second study was about how to meet goals set five years ago for reducing world poverty in half by twenty fifteen. † (Gollust, 2005) Nonetheless, by seeing the US 2000 reforms one can easily understand that the US government uses the UN for their own countries political interests to a certain extent, it is believed that America and some other dominant countries being a Vito power uses UN as a scapegoat. But on the other hand American denies these facts in a news paper article â€Å"George Mitchell, a former U. S. Senate majority leader and a co-chairman of the Task Force on the United Nations, which was created by the U. S. Congress, said he had encountered objections to American sponsorship of the reforms and had tried to combat them. Its wrong to think that reform is a favor done for the U. S. , he said. I make the argument to countries that their long-range interest is served by supporting this. While we have indicated that this is an American priority that is a conclusion that they ought to be reaching for themselves. † (Hoge, 2005) Moreover, 22nd Meeting of Chairmen/Coordinators of the Group of 77 held in Geneva in 7-9 july 1997, the chirman said that â€Å"The United Nations must carry out its mandated, comprehensive role in the economic and social areas. This includes policy analysis, consensus building, policy formulation and coordination, and delivery of technical assistance to developing countries† (22nd Meeting of Chairmen, 1997) This is an area for more study, to see the Iran ongoing nuclear scenario one would easily conceive the role of the UN in Iran nuclear technology. In this regard, The Irani government countinously accusing the UN. â€Å"Ahmadinejad said while giving interview in CBC News in Sep 19, 2006 they were transparent, peaceful and under the watchful eye of United Nations inspectors. He questioned why his country was being denied its own nuclear program when others have not†. (CBC News, 2006) In January 1992, Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt assumed as the UN’s first post-Cold War Secretary General under the enormous pressure from the US and also from the lobby groups like the ICC (International Chamber of Commerce), he instantly set to work reforming the secretariat and annihilating programs that drew the acutest corporate warned by his advisors that the IMF and world bank based in Washington DC and under big influence by the United States treasury had a comparative degree of advantage over the united nation in the both macro and micro economic policy domain and that the united nation lose creditability if it for some reason did not scale back its efforts in this area. The UN secretary general’s official believes that the â€Å"UN â€Å"must change or die† and that it must reach out to â€Å"new actors† in a globalizing world, beyond the nation-state members†. (Paine, 2000) Conclusion The United Nations must abandon the double-standard and come up with the peaceful solutions to maintain the security and peace, combat problems such as environmental degradation, diseases and terrorism and guarantee a dialogue among nations. â€Å"The developing countries should be helped to reduce their foreign debt. Throughout its history, the United Nations has achieved enormous successes, including the solution of various conflicts throughout the world†. (World Leaders Adopt, 2000) In the end, I would like to say that it would be good for the world that the UN must abandon double standards between dominant and developing countries and should come up with peaceful solution for the sake both world security and safety. The first duty of the UN should assure all countries in terrorism, disease, environmental degradation and so on. Obviously, the developing countries should be giving sufficient help in unburden their foreign debts. The duty of the United Nations is to promote and develop like Somalia and other African regions. The United Nations should provide equality guarantee to underdeveloped in terms of every thing human rights to politics. References 22nd Meeting of Chairmen/Coordinators of the Group of 77 Chapters Geneva, 7-9 July 1997, Statement Of Principles on UN reform Brett D. Schaefer and Anthony B. Kim (July 9, 2004). Forging Freedom Coalitions to Promote U. S. Priorities in the United Nations CBBC Newsround | UNITED NATIONS | What is the UN? http://news. bbc. co. uk/cbbcnews/hi/find_out/guides/world/united_nations/newsid_1721000/1721851. stm Accessed, April 18, 2007 CBC News UN being abused by West: Iranian PM (Tuesday, September 19, 2006) David Shorr, March 7, 2006 World Leaders Have the UN they Deserve Ellen Paine (October 2000), The Road to the Global Compact: Corporate Power And The Battle Over global public policy at the united Nations John Gerard Ruggie (2003). The United Nations and Globalization: Patterns and Limits of Institutional Adaptation. Global Governance, 9(3), 301+ Kim R. Holmes (1993). New world disorder: A critique of the United Nations. Journal of International Affairs, 46(2), 323-340. Columbia University School of International Public Affairs Martin Schuijt (November 29, 2005). The Mother of All Coalitions. (November 30, 2005). Inter Press Service Maggie Farley, News paper article, Los Angeles Times (June 16, 2005), US Puts UN Reform First, Official Says Press Release: (8 September 2000). World Leaders Adopt ‘United Nations Millennium Declaration’ At Conclusion of Extraordinary Three-Day Summit