The Issues Of The United Nations Essay

The goal of the United Nations, when formed was to “maintain international peace and security and commit to economic and social development. (Fomerand, Jacques)” As one

Fact: UN peacekeepers abandoned their posts in Bosnia and up to 200,000 Muslim men, women, and children were murdered(Jacobson) Fact: UN peacekeepers

Later the peacekeeping forces brought about cease-fires in Central America and the Iran-Iraq War. As a safeguard they kept forces there to make sure that peace continued. After a few failures in Africa, the United Nations learned that by sending a force that is too small and not very intimidating, peace will crumble. The largest peacekeeping mission ever undertaken by the United Nations was the civil war between Bosnia and Herzegovina, after Yugoslavia broke up. On numerous occasions the United Nations underestimated the forces needed and failed the campaign. Since that failure in Bosnia, the United Nations has refused help to any other nations requesting assistance. (United Nations 2)

This New York Times article covers the reasoning behind the U.N.’s failure to put an end to the Bosnian genocide. Up until 1995, the U.S. refused to intervene in the genocide taking place in Bosnia. The American government refused sending in their own troops and also vetoed Security Council draft resolutions to increase the number of UN peacekeepers. The American foreign policy toward Bosnia changed in 1995 due to new evidence of the atrocities being committed in Bosnia. This evidence was becoming common knowledge to the public and the United States’ lack of action was becoming an embarrassment. Because their inaction would make America look bad, this gave them no choice but to interfere in

Thesis: The role of the United Nations has changed from being primarily an international peacekeeping force to primarily a humanitarian organization.

The process of reforming the United Nations (UN) has been a highly debatable issue among the international community. Since the initial signing of the UN Charter in 1945, the world has changed dramatically as the UN is trying to regulate a forum that assesses and deals with global issues while also struggling to unite all 193 member states of the UN when some states have been seen to have conflicting ideas and personal agendas (Teng, 2003, pp. 2-3). This essay is targeted to highlight what I feel are the most pressing arguments for UN reform amongst the international community. This will be done by highlighting the problems and ongoing issues surrounding the lack of representation and P5 power of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC),

Throughout the period of war, an ethnic cleansing named the Bosnian Genocide occurred mainly against the Muslims, Croats and more whom were innocent and defenceless civilians. The Bosnian Genocide was carried out by the Yugoslav People’s Army and Serbs who wanted to create a pure Serbian ethnic state free of non-Serbians. With the ongoing war happening, the crisis could not be settled within Bosnia-Herzegovina when each group had different interests that entangled with one and the other. International aid was needed to provide peacekeeping and humanitarian relief was needed in order to stop the problems that occurred within the state.

For a mission to be peacekeeping, the UN needs to be invited by at least one side, and more commonly two. The forces on a peacekeeping mission are usually lightly armed in order to prevent them from acting aggressively, while also confirming its role as a peacekeeper that is neutral. The main role of the peacekeepers is to act as a buffer and report when a country violates a ceasefire. The peacekeeping force enters after the conflict has started and its mission is to fulfill the mandate provided by the council. Lately peacekeeping missions have focused more on aid and state building rather than just preventing conflict. Recently there have been calls for the UN to move from peacekeeping to peace enforcement in some situations. Peace enforcement usually requires a larger, better, and heavier equipped force that won’t just keep the peace, but enforce it if it has too. With peace enforcement, the UN would like to stop more conflicts before they start because the threat of a large UN force being called in might make some countries question going on the offensive in a war. For a peace enforcement mission to be successful, the orders and mandate given must be very clear to the troops so that they can respond in war in real time and not be held up in bureaucracy. Peace enforcement also doesn’t require the force to be impartial or to find the aggressor, but to work in the most efficient way possible to end the fighting.

Prior to the outbreak of the genocide in April 1994, the United Nations had established the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda. UNAMIR forces consistent of just over 2,000 personnel, and was responsible for the supervision the transition from war to peace. Their responsibilities included ‘monitoring the ceasefire, assisting with demobilisation and mine clearance, and encouraging the facilitation of political and social conditions that would allow a transitional government to take control.1

The topic of the United Nations’ (UN) interventions has been a source of heated dispute by scholars since their intervention in the Korea War in 1951. However there are interventions that garner more controversy than others. The tragedies of the Rwandan Genocide and the Bosnian Genocide have been hailed as some of the greatest failures in the United Nations peacekeeping and intervention missions. The Rwandan and Bosnian genocides brought around a deep, introspective critique within the UN on its role in the prevention of genocides and the protection of citizens at risk that has ultimately proved inconsequential in effectively addressing more contemporary cases of genocide. After these genocidal incidents, the United Nations published reports

Upon its withdrawal in 1995, the UN left Somalia in mostly the same state it was in in 1992. The mission created the idea in future involvements not to cross the “Mogadishu line” from peacekeeping to war-fighting (Clarke). UNOSOM 2 also suffered 154 fatalities as well as major problems stemming from the complexity of its mandate and command and control issues, confusion over the appropriate rules of engagement (RoE), lack of effective intelligence gathering capabilities, and the huge challenges involved in a predominantly military mission being tasked with inherently political goals

This could have been one of the reasons why there was a large amount of humanitarian intervention in Bosnia. (Snow, 2008) The United Nations (UN), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the United States (US) all made multiple attempts at intervention in Bosnia. A large number of them were not completely successful. The war ended when with a peace agreement mediated by the US.

“Give War a Chance” is an article written by the American economist, historian and military strategist Edward Nicolae Luttwak in 1999, in the American magazine Foreign Affairs. It make an easily understandable “buzz”, since its main assumption is that most kind of peacekeeping or humanitarian operations are, in an objective point of view, a bad thing for the peace, and that it tends, paradoxically, to slower its establishment. We will analyze here the main hypothesis that Luttwak is developing among the article, the first one being the destruction of the legitimacy usually accorded to peacekeeping operations, led by the UN or by other military organizations, and the second one being the obstacle to a durable peace establishment, created

“ Here is a task truly of, by and for the world, one that should rally nations. The nature of this task however, must be clearly understood; only then can suitable means for accomplishing it be formulated, only then can the role that the United Nations could and should play be appreciated” ( Wilcox/Haviland, 29). There are many international organizations that have been talked about throughout this semester. One of the most important ones is The United Nations. The United Nations was established October 24, 1945, and has since then been impacting the country. The United Nations main purpose according to the lecture notes is “ to provide a global additional structure through which states can sometimes settle conflicts with less reliance on the use of force , for whole purpose of the United Nations is to provide the globe a forum by which countries may settle disputes through this forum peacefully as opposed to relying on a force which has been the case historically” ( Kopalyan, Module 8). Thus meaning The United Nations was set up to handle problems peacefully rather than going to war to try and solve problems. “Powerful economic as well as political forces are at work to bring about a growing integration of the world community, and the United Nations and its related agencies are uniquely fitted to assist in the task” (Wilcox/Haviland,45). This was some of the reason that the United Nations was created.

The United Nations, with its rigid moral and political limitations against force, has become a benchmark of peace and a social achievement of modern times. From war torn Europe, the United Nations developed from five major powers with an initial goal to prevent the spread of warfare through peaceful means and to establish and maintain fundamental human rights. Through the past fifty years, this organization has broadened its horizons with auxiliary organizations from peace keeping missions to humanitarian aid, to economic development. However, in a modern example of ethnic cleansing, the UN faces new a new role as a bystander as its power is bypassed by NATO forces. The UN, however, promises to be an