Un Failure

Tope Oyerinde
Mr. S. Thomas
CHY 4U1
Dec 19th 2012
The United Nations Mandate and its Future As long as civilizations have existed on the Earth the issue of war and peace has always been at the forefront of how different cultures and societies interact with one another. As warfare became more advanced technologically, the ability to cause more death and devastation increased exponentially. Never was this more evident than at the aftermath of World War Two; with over 60 million people dead in its wake World War Two was the single most deadly military conflict in history. Borne out of this conflict the major victors of the war and world leaders came to the consensus that humanity could not sustain another mass conflict. To prevent another mass global conflict the United Nations was established as the international organization that would be committed to world peace and universal cooperation. Over the years the United Nations has played important role in international relations and diplomacy. Since its establishment the main purpose for the United Nations (U.N.) has been to diplomatically resolve disagreement between nations before conflicts escalate and to safe guard human rights and dignity globally. Unfortunately, the U.N. has consistently failed to live up to its mandate and will continue to do so because of its blatant failures to prevent genocides, its inability to resolve conflicts and the its dysfunctional structuring that enables the permanent Security Council to dominate the dominate the organization.
Following the end of World War II, there was a general consensus around the leaders main victors in the war and other countries that the world could simply not withstand another global conflict and that an effective international body needed to be created to ensure world peace. On 25 April 1945, the UN Conference on International Organization began in San Francisco, attended by 50 governments whose goal was drafting a charter for the United Nations Charter. The Charter way ratified on June 26th 1945 and consolidated the United Nations as the world’s prominent international organization. In light of the central principle of universal human rights that the United Nations advocated, it was determined to draft a document to highlight this aims. At this end the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was conceived. The Declaration of Human Rights in tandem with the United Nations Charter are two of the central documents of the United Nations.
Despite its implicit commitment to prevent all forms of Genocide human rights as stated in its mandate; it is generally agreed that the United Nation’s has had a less than admirable record on preventing incidence of genocide and ethnic cleansing. After the war the United Nations made strides in cementing its adopting global human rights protocols and a large part of that was drafting Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, but it has had little success in stopping major acts of genocide since its inception. Two incidences that highlight the United Nations failure to intervene in actions of genocide were the Srebrenica Massacre in Bosnia, and the Rwandan genocide. In 1991 Bosnia had declared its independence from Yugoslavia. Years of conflict followed between Bosnia and the Yugoslavia and Yugoslavia. In 1993 the U.N security council passed a resolution that dictated that the small (Bosnian) town of Srebrenica a safe area and stationed 400 Dutch Peacekeepers there to ensure that no conflict was to occur there. Arms were taken away from the Bosnian troops but the Yugoslavian contingent was still armed and had already mobilized and surrounded Srebrenica. The city was captured by 1995 and the more than 8000 Bosnian Muslims (mostly men) were murdered by Yugoslavian Forces. Scores of Bosnian Muslims evacuated from Srebrenica and were killed in mass executions. In 1999, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan submitted his report on the Fall of Srebrenica. In it, he acknowledged that the international community as a whole had to accept its share of responsibility for its response to the ethnic cleansing campaign that culminated in the murder of some 7,000 unarmed civilians from the town designated by the Security Council as a "safe area”. In a statement in 2005 former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan remarked, “As I wrote in my report in 1999, we made serious errors of judgement, rooted in a philosophy of impartiality and non-violence which, however admirable, was unsuited to the conflict in Bosnia. That is why, as I also wrote, ‘the tragedy of Srebrenica will haunt our history forever.’”. Former Secretary Annan’s word could not have been further from the truth. For many Bosnians there is still a form of resentment against the U.N for its abandonment of the people of Srebrenica and Bosnia as a whole.
Similarly to Srebrenica the United Nations failure to act in a time of danger resulted in the severity of the Rwandan Genocide. The Rwandan Genocide lasted 100 days and resulted in the death of over nearly a million people. In the lead up to the genocide the UN had been monitoring a ceasefire a ceasefire agreement between the Tutsi rebels and the Hutu Rwandan Government in late 1993, the mission was called UNAMIR (United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda). Unknown to many the time elements in the Hutu Rwandan government had been planning mass murders of the Tutsi minority. Once the General Romeo Dallaire, the UN commander of the mission in Rwanda, became aware of this he made numerous attempts to heighten the UN troop strength in Rwanda. On the onset of the genocide he had initial contingent of 2500 peacekeeping under his command and this troops which was later reduced to almost nothing by the Belgium withdrawing its troops from the mission. Dallaire made numerous attempts to strengthen the U.N’s presence in Rwanda but all his requests for help were refuted due the unwillingness of his superiors to interfere in in the conflict and the rigid U.N bureaucracy that prevented attention of the genocide from reaching the top of the U.N hierarchy. General Daillare witnessed the slaughter of countless innocent people and had to live with the fact that he had to power stop this but was prevented from doing so by his superiors in the U.N. In retrospect of his time in Rwanda Dallaire has been quoted saying, “I spent most of my time fighting the heavy mechanical UN system with all its stupidity… Seeing to the most immediate needs stopped us from seeing what was reserved for us in the future,”. The UN’s roles in these two horrible incidents were wholly indicative of its failure to take an affirmative action in the face of mass murder. Rwanda and Bosnia were two of the worst examples of the UN inaction. Gerard Prunier, a scholar Africa and journalist even defined the UNAMIR mission as, “the powerless UN ‘military’ force which watched the genocide without being allowed to lift a finger”. Although the United Nations came into these two zones of conflict with good intentions the fact that as an organization it was not ready to assess and adequately handle the realities of each conflict revealed a deep flaw in its peacekeeping strategy. Had the UN taken a side in each of these conflicts and rallied international support for the campaign these crimes against humanity could have been averted. If the U.N does not reform its peacekeeping approach from an “idealistic” tactic of taking bipartisan approach in future many more incidences of genocide may follow in the future.
As mentioned previously, since its establishment in 1945 the U.N has committed itself to pursuing the prevention of war and conflict through dialogue and diplomacy. However, according to the University of Michigan 's "Correlates of War" project over 200 hundred armed conflicts have taken place since 1945. The end of World War Two established the emergence the Soviet Union and the United States as rival super powers and ushered in the Cold War. It is general knowledge among historical academia that a fairly large part of these Cold war conflicts were proxy conflicts between the Soviet Union and the United States of America. Consequentially, one can simply surmise that the United Nations did not have the ability to go against the will of what were two of the most powerful nations in the world at the time. In lieu of this it would be much more sensible to examine a much more recent example of the United Nations inability to prevent conflict, the example being The Iraq war.
The Iraq War was a conflict that started in 2003 which involved the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the United States with assistance from the United Kingdom, and a coalition of several other countries. The United States claimed that the main rationale for the war was to disarm Iraq of its “weapons of mass destruction”. The U.N security Councils released multiple resolutions to perform inspections in Iraq to locate the weapons of mass destruction. After UN inspections it was determined that no weapons of mass destruction were found. In response, United States claimed that Iraq had covered up its weapons and proceeded to Invade on without declaring war or any UN approval May 2003. The United Nations inability to intervene in Iraq was another of many failures to stop conflict. Despite the opposition in the U.N the invasion was conducted without United Nations ' approval and was hence a violation of international law. On the issue of the U.N failure Professor Thomas Cushman writes: “For the most part critics have focused almost exclusively on the shaky case for pre-emptive war, while at the same time ignoring the failure of the United Nations to uphold its own resolutions or the principles of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.”. The United Nations lack of action in the events leading into Iraq was showed a weakness in principle and its near subservience to the will of powerful nations like the United States.
Of the many deficiencies the UN possesses the most disabling is the composition and structure of the organization. The UN consists of five major organs: the General Assembly, the Security Council, The Economic and Social Council, the International Court of Justice and The Secretariat. Of these five the two most important and well known are the General Assembly and the Security Council. The General Assembly is composed representatives of all member states, is the UN 's central deliberative body, empowered to discuss and make recommendations on any subject falling within the scope of the charter itself. It also approves the UN 's budgetary measures and determines—alone or with the Security Council-part of the composition of the other main organs, including the Security Council. The Security Council on the other is the final UN authority on issues of peacekeeping, conflict and human rights issues. It consists of total 15 members, out of which 5 members are permanent and the remaining 10 members are non-permanent. China, France, Russia, UK and USA are the permanent members who were given these positions in 1945. The non-permanent members are elected by the General Assembly for 2 years from among the member states. Each of the 5 permanent members of the Council holds the ability to veto any measure that they do not support. Any matter supported by the majority of the members fails to be carried through if negative vote is cast by any of -the permanent members. This has drawn criticism in international circles. Other nations protest that it gives power to powerful nations to pursue their own agendas and consolidate their positions of power in the world order. In reference to the veto policy Dr. Patrick Dixon writes “The current powers of veto are anti-democratic and smack of nineteenth tyranny, held as they are by very few supremely powerful, wealthy nations.”. Dr. Dixon’s analysis rings true primarily because China, France, The United States, The United Kingdom and Russia maintain the status as the most powerful nations on the planet and each country used the veto in past to further their own interests. Despite calls for a change in this policy it is currently apparent that the Security Council will remain the same for the foreseeable future because of the rejection of proposals for it to change.
Summarily, it can be believed the United Nations is respected as an international organization and possesses a mandate that is foundational principles of human rights and dignity that are revered by many nations worldwide. Unfortunately, the U.N. has consistently failed to live up to its mandate and will continue to do so because of its blatant failures to prevent genocides, its inability to resolve conflicts and the dysfunctional structure unless reforms are made on the organization as a whole. There are many conflicting ideals about what kinds of reforms need to be made and how reforms would be made. However the fact remains that the effectiveness of the U.N will cannot be improved if motions are immediately put forward. In conclusion the future of the United Nations is best summarised be summarised in this quote by world peace advocate and journalist Norman Cousins, “The If the United Nations is to survive, those who represent it must bolster it, those who advocate it must submit to it, and those who believe in it must fight for it.”

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