What are some of the successes and defeats of the United Nations?

Question

What are some of the successes and defeats of the United Nations?

Answer 1

h**l, you could put a lot on here.  

Successes that I particularly like:

- International human rights treaties like ICCPR, ICESCR, CAT, CRC, CEDAW, and ICERD through the High Commission of Human Rights.  

- The Criminal Tribunals like ICTY and ICTR to prosecute war crimes

- Phasing out of the Trusteeship Council in the 90's

Crappy things:

- The inability to get the United States on board human rights treaties without substantial reservations.  

- The spectacular failures to maintain or inability to create structures for lasting peace in peacekeeping nations like Rwanda and Somalia

Answer 2

For all the bumb raps various people are giving it, you can compare to reality on planet Earth without it, and other organizations like NATO, that got formed after WW II.

There was another international organization formed after WW I called "The League of Nations."  It was unable to stop WW II.  Now we have had some brutal conflicts in addition to WW I and WW II, but we have not had a 3rd all-out war between most of the nations over most of the planet.  How come?  Was it due to the UN, balance of power in Cold War, the fact that there were enough nukes to take humanity to extinction, an act of God?

Answer 3

Its success consists in its continued existence--it is a miracle the US has never woken up and thrown these bums out.

Defeats--everything else they do.

Answer 4

Success- We never had a World War 3, its sole reason for creation

Defeats- Rwanda, Somalia, most low intensity conflicts that it gets involved in

So, we traded a massive war for a bunch of low key ones

Answer 5

Standing ovation to the poster "The Thing."  They are useless bums who should have been disbanded years ago.  Successes - 0   Defeats - 1,000,000,000