United Nations: Failure of Success? With Reason.?

Question

Reasons are required with your opinion. Failure or Success in terms of HUMAN RIGHTS and PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS only.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Failure:

At the conclusion of every large scale conflict, leaders have attempted to put into place an arrangement that would prevent another such occurrence. Following large scale conflicts thoroughly discredited, or destroyed outright, many such arrangements, such as the Concert of Europe designed by Metternich to prevent a recurrence of Napoleonic ambition or the League of Nations with the end of the Great War (WWI).

Lessons were learned from each iteration. The Concert was focused wholly on French aggression and failed when the epicenter was located elsewhere (Germany). The League was toothless from its inception and never enjoyed the support of the US, the nation that had conceived it. The destruction of each was woven into the causes of the following crisis. In several respects they were the first casualties of the succeeding war.

With the end of World War II, the United Nations was formed with the goal of preventing war in general and the promotion of collective security. It was not designed to be toothless. Prevention of war, it was recognized was a case of deliberately setting the bar too high: recognition of an unachievable ideal for which we must strive anyway. The practical focus was on collective security.

And it worked; for a time. Korea was the test and while the outcome was not completely satisfactory it was a success. Many are not aware that the Korean War was not a US war. It was a UN war. As has been typical, the US provided the lion's share of men and materiel. But something happened afterward.

The UN became convinced that war itself was irredeemable and repugnant. That nothing could justify war. The UN support of the 1991 Gulf War was an aberration in the organization's history since 1953 and the conculsion of that conflict was just as incomplete as teh Korean War's had been, due to too narrowly defined goals and, to be fair, an acquiescence to policital realities of those situations.

The forgoten truth is that UN is supposed to be a warmaking body. That's how it was designed. It was an acknowledgement that nations who are not acting in good faith with their neighbors, such as Japan with respect to China in 1931, might not act in good faith with the UN itself, such as Japan with the League of Nations in 1933.

Peace was the carrot and war was the stick..

There is a certain underlying reality to human relations which is very disturbing to many when it is articulated. Strength, or force if you will, is the basis of law and all human interaction down to the interpersonal level.

If you own a house, what constitutes that "ownership?" At its very base, you own anything only so far as you can successfully defend the claim to ownership. In modern society we have evolved many structures, and customs that allow us to defend our claims at a variety of levels before having to resort to the physical. It's a facade that allows us to cover over the visceral reality and a necessary function for civilization. It's the reason we have police departments. It's the reason that authority in any form at any level exists.

And it extends, as I have said to all levels of human relations. Why does one child in a school classroom get picked on by others? It's because he appears to be weak or unable to defend himself, or even just unwilling to do so.

This is the same cause that impel nations to aggression against a neighbor and it can be badly mangled in its articulation and understanding. Germany actually claimed that Poland was at fault for Germany's 1939 invasion of that country; that Poland had not maintained a sufficient strength to prevent an invasion. This is a gross abuse of the principle.

The seeds of the UN's destruction are sown in the counter-terror conflict. The organization was long ago hijacked by the pernicious philosophy that nothing is worth a war. The Global War on Terror is a global conflict. It should be overseen by a global body, but we only have one of those and it has long ago proved itself untrustworthy, and recently, impotent.

The UN will only be a force for good (or for anything for that matter) when it is willing to be a force as it was designed to be. It is not anow and I don't believe it can be reformed to do so.

The sick, sad and sorry thing about this situation is that this time around the lesson learned was abandoned. The UN will have failed for a betrayal of philosophy based in the same lesson that it was supposed to correct from its own originating conflict; war may have to be the means to prevent war and peace must sometimes be compelled.

Answer 2

failure

because america wont listen to them so no one else does

a world democracy may vote against our best interest

why in the h**l did they not go into burma when democracy was so close....

Answer 3

I won't say failure but, honestly, they haven't been entirely successful.

The peacekeeping operations in my lifetime seem to have done very well (in the Balkans, etc).  However, with concern to human rights, there's a problem.  Places that are massively successful economically get a pass.  For example, China is in the UN Security Council.  They have veto power.  They also have a whole slew of annual Human Rights violations that just kind of go away.

But honestly, what's the alternative?  Nothing?

Answer 4

• Failure to prevent the 1994 Rwandan genocide, which resulted in the killings of nearly a million people, due to the refusal of security council members to approve any military action.

• Failure by MONUC (UNSC Resolution 1291) to effectively intervene during the Second Congo War, which claimed nearly five million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), 1998-2002, and in carrying out and distributing humanitarian aid.

• Failure to intervene in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, despite the fact that the UN designated Srebrenica a "safe haven" for refugees and assigned 600 Dutch peacekeepers to protect it.

• Failure to successfully deliver food to starving people in Somalia; the food was instead usually seized by local warlords. A U.S./UN attempt to apprehend the warlords seizing these shipments resulted in the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu.

• Failure to implement the provisions of UN Security Council Resolutions 1559 and 1701 calling for disarmament of Lebanese paramilitary groups such as Fatah and Hezbollah.

• Sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers. In December 2004, during the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo, at least 68 cases of alleged rape, prostitution and pedophilia and more than 150 other allegations have been uncovered by UN investigators, all perpetrated by UN peacekeepers, specifically ones from Pakistan, Uruguay, Morocco, Tunisia, South Africa and Nepal. Peacekeepers from three of those nations are also accused of obstructing the investigation.[

• Also, a French UN logistics expert in Congo was charged of rape and child pornography in the same month. The BBC reported that young girls were abducted and raped by UN peacekeepers in Port-au-Prince. Similar accusations have been made in Liberia and in Sudan.

Answer 5

giant failure , to many genocides unanswered while the leaders of the un get rich on bribes.

Answer 6

Failure.

Tibet, Israel/Palestine.

The underlying principle of the U.N. was to make geopolitical lines more than just imaginary, everything else was tacked on.

If you can, find an old encyclopedia..there is not as much 'spin' in the old stuff.

Answer 7

failure, because they couldn't stop Megalomaniac Nero George Walter Bush from doing wherever the h**l he wanted, breaking all sorts of international agreements and laws.

Answer 8

Why do you limit your discussion to those two categories?

Wouldn't the UNs success in eradicating small pox, creating international mail, defining internet protocols, maritime law and coordinating the caring for and relocation of millions of refugees every year count?

As far as the two areas you do seem interested in

Human Rights - established the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - the first global definition and acceptance of human rights.

Peacekeeping - the nuclear non-proliferation treaty that has seen only one signatory ever proven to have breached it (North Korea)

Most of the Peacekeeping responsibilities of the UN fall to the security council. If you believe this has been innefective perhaps you should look at the permanent member that has used its veto more often than the other 4 permanent members combined (ie the USA).

Answer 9

The United Nations is a Joke and Failure because they are unable or unwilling to enforce their resolutions.

Answer 10

United Nations is a success a little bit because countries receives aid from it and gets assistance on matters concerning education, culture, science and others.  However, on the aspect of being a world government, it was ignored by countries particularly regarding security matter such as the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Answer 11

an organization is only as good as its members and if they are selfish and greedy do you think they really care about human rights? all this hoopla about being a peace seeking organization and seeking rights for all people and enforcement of those rights are just a propaganda tool to get people to want the un to take over controls of all governments in pursuit of world government controled by bankers.

RRRRR