What alternatives are there to the United Nations?

Question

The United Nations consistently fails to fulfill its obligations and promises. If the U.N. were to be replaced, what sort of organization should take it is place?

Answer 1

I don't think it is necessary to replace United Nations. However, reforming the organisation is crucially needed.  

Reformation within UN is needed especially the position and exclusive right of the permanent security council state members: China, French, UK, Russia, and USA. The Council seated five permanent members who were originally drawn from the victorious powers after World War II. They have special yet highly exclusive right to veto any decisions in regards to peace and security. A negative vote, or veto, by a permanent member prevents adoption of a proposal, even if it has received the required number of affirmative votes. This veto power is criticised as one veto from any of the "Big Five" (Russia, China, the United States, the United Kingdom and France) can halt any possible action the Council may take. One nation's objection, rather than the opinions of a majority of nations, may cripple any possible UN armed or diplomatic response to a crisis.

Besides of veto power issue, you can see how much power of these big five in UN by the way they acknowledge UN official languages and refuse to hire people at professional (P) levels if they don't speak second UN languages. You can see  that almost UN jobs advertising for professional level (decision maker) requires capabilities to speak at least two UN official languages. Meanwhile not all citizens of UN state members could speak the UN official languages. Learning second or third languages in developing countries could be an expensive thing to do unlike in developed countries. Therefore, I don't think UN have staffs at decision making levels that really represent its state members.

Answer 2

None, unless a new organization was created

Answer 3

I don't think you can "replace" the U.N.  Despite it's weaknesses, it has its strengths and fulfills functions that other international bodies cannot.  I think the UN is always going to exist.

It's not realistic to expect the UN to do everything...and I don't think they claim that they can do so.  At least the vast majority of international leaders have a forum to meet and dialog and prevent conflict to an extent.

Organizers, politicians, ngo's, etc need to operate on every level:  internationally, nationally, regionally, locally.  The UN is one major body that complements all the rest in a unique way.

Answer 4

Your going to have to be more specific. The "United Nations" refers to a forum, made up of a a loose group of initiatives, with each acting rather independently:

-- the Security Council (which is the only body that can pass binding resolutions) and has just five permanent members, any one of which can veto *any* proposal, no matter how much support

-- the General Assembly, which is just a discussion forum, with no power at all

-- the Secretariat, which is really just a group of spokespersons (the UN Secretary General, etc.), though they sometimes step into a negotiation role.

-- the many independent UN agencies (UNICEF, UNIFEM, UNDP, WHO, WFP, etc.) which each have many successes between them, but don't usually work together. To do away with these agencies would be a huge disaster.

There's more, but those are the main ones.

You probably mean the Security Council, since that's the group most people see as the most ineffective (most people do not want the General Assembly to have any power, because that would be too close to a "world government). The Security Council should definitely be replaced or completely revamped. There needs to be more permanent members, and there needs to be different criteria for choosing those members (right now, there's no criteria -- there are no options to change or add to the permanent members).

Also, IMO, Peace Keepers should be identified by the individual countries they represent, rather than under a "UN Banner" -- they hide behind that when they misbehave, and things would be very different if, instead, they were identified as "military forces from <<name of country>>."

Answer 5

there will be no alternative to UN. it exists since 1945, untill today, there a groups of countries who have their own organization. but the oldest and the most important is that one. it is divided in so many different branches (éducation, agricultural, defense, economics, atomic energy,woman, children, drug, refugies?...) this is a story of a lot a lot of money and big countries give more money for the functionnement, then they tend to control, it goes on bilion of bilion of dollars. I do not see any alternativ. somewhere it is not bad, but , incompetent in some part...