How the UN Can Be Effective, and Obstacles Which May Exist in the Way to Its Effectiveness - Case Study Example

UN The current research investigation looks at the question of how effective the United Nations is in its contemporary setting. Definitions of effectiveness are explored from internal and external perspectives, to give an overall picture of the organization as it exists today. The current research does not just look at UN roles in security and peace-keeping, but also considers the history of the organization, its stance on social issues and progress for women and children, and the potential need for sovereign authority of the United Nations, taking into account the full range of the organization’s activities. As internal UN documents themselves state, “We all recognise that the United Nations can and should be an indispensable force driving forward the discourse on human development, by building a global consensus” (Efficient, 2009). To determine whether the UN is truly effective today, one measure considered in the current report is comparing the UN today with the UN’s original goals, to see what has changed over the course of history. The United Nations of today measures its effectiveness by several benchmarks, including but not restricted to its development of a leading role in promoting international goals of sustainable development, its response to natural and man-made disasters such as hurricanes and war refugees, and by looking at how the organization can most effectively mobilize international action on environmental issues. “At the same time, we have also seen how the United Nations work on development and the environment is often fragmented and weak.  Inefficient and ineffective governance and unpredictable funding have too often contributed to incoherent policies” (Efficient, 2009). Although the goals of effectiveness remain, implementation is often also complicated by the duplication of policies, overlap, and the ineffectiveness of the UN acting as a large bureaucracy. Funding is often also a problem. The UN has changed since its inception, and has had to keep up with a growing number of international problems, even as its base of member states has expanded. If the UN is going to act as a positive model for its member states, it needs to show positive change and effectiveness in the present, as a reflection of its inception and original goals. The United Nations was originally set up as an NGO for nations in war to keep their alliances. Problems arose from this situation because previous organizations like the League of Nations had not been effective. Earlier organizations had also failed because they showed themselves to be the victors dividing the spoils after a conflict. The United Nations was set up to maintain peace and cooperation, and it was also set up to enforce peace and human rights (Baylis and Smith, 2001). This entails that the organization has certain powers that are not meant to be threatened by its individual member nations’ hegemonic impulses, which may provide roadblocks to the overall effectiveness of the organization itself. It is an affront to the history of the organization as an institution rewarding and cherishing balance to think of it being sidelined by the unilateral motivations of one of its own member nations. During the Cold War, the UN acted as an agency of international stability, but as time progressed, “Increasingly it dealt with human rights infringements, administrative and economic collapse- rescuing failing states- and helped with elections and with providing humanitarian assistance” (Taylor, 1997). Emerging nations did not have a lot of power in the UN compared to the founders and the five main nations, who had special powers designed to keep balance. With these new nations entering into the equation, situations became more dynamic within the organization as the number of nations increased from fifty to almost two-hundred. The U.N. accordingly turned to issues like the environment and human rights as important issues to tackle and began to try to legislate internationally. This proved difficult to do effectively, since the U.N. was from its onset supposed to be so different from the League of Nations that it suffered from a lack of definitive structure. “The mechanisms of the enforcement of human rights are still in their infancy. Nevertheless, it is certain that out of necessity no less than out of realism, a palpable concern for the advancement of human rights is here to stay” (Claude and Weston, 2006). The UN wanted to make peace, and one of the most powerful function of the UN remained the security council. If the members agreed, the security council could be called upon to enforce peace. But this only happened if the governments chose to use the UN: the organization itself did not have its own power, as it sort of revolved around the powers of its members, who had to agree for anything to happen. The U.N. is operating in a multi-polar world order much as it has been seen to operate since the Cold War. As mentioned above, the UN is about more currently than its security council and peacekeeping operations. It also sets international humanitarian standards of conduct to provide a model for its member states. For example, the most important right given to children in the UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child), but not accorded to children in the United States, is the right for childcare to working parents (Convention, 2009). So many people in America who are living in poverty are kept there, simply because there is no one to take care of the kids when they go to work. Daycare is expensive, and not everyone can afford it. And yet the government does nothing. This makes the US look backwards compared to some other international countries. Shaming members is arguably ineffective. The UN has also played an important role in developing humanitarian standards of gender equality among member states. Some see this as a purely historical issue. Others see that increasing status in the workplace and increasing equality in the workplace are different issues for different socio-economic classes as well as different members states, as well as women’s roles within and outside of the household being divided along economic and even cultural lines that are sometimes not seen clearly from the perspective of the middle-class women’s movement. These movements are seen to have had a great deal of influence over the increasingly international scope of Women in Development as it is evinced in the United Nations and other agencies, many of them NGOs, which ascribe to what generally devolves into the worldview of a western middle-class being pressed onto the rest of the world in terms of a singular or standardized gender dynamic with attendant notions of right and wrong that may not always be applicable in the more-complicated global sense, thus leading to a decrease in potential effectiveness. As mentioned above, from a historical perspective, as time went on, the membership in the United Nations increased as new nations became de-colonized and joined the organization. “The original membership list of the UN was a compilation of the actual participants in the anti-Axis coalition in World War II, states which were willing to adhere nominally to that grouping, and other entities which were admitted to that company as the result of political bargaining among the leading powers” (Claude 88). Emerging nations did not have a whole lot of power in the UN compared to the founders and the five main nations, who had special powers because of their might and size. With these new nations entering into the equation, things became more complicated as the number of nations increased from fifty to almost two-hundred. During this time, it was almost like it couldn’t cohere because it was afraid that if it did so, some country or another would be offended somehow. The UN wanted to make peace, and therefore was well-suited for problems like human rights and the environment, which became an increasing problem as the modern age continued (Baylis and Smith, 2001). Still, though, even through all of this, the main and most powerful function of the UN remained the security council. If the members agreed, the security council could be called upon to enforce peace where conditions were rough. But, as mentioned above, this situation only happened if the governments chose to use the UN: the organization itself did not have its own power, as it sort of revolved around the powers of its members, who had to agree for anything to happen. The United Nations does not have any sort of sovereign authority, or the kind of authority that an individual nation has, and this is a present severe limitation to its effectiveness as an organization. This is something that does not have to change if the UN establishes its own permanent military force. The organization could continue as it had before, with limited powers of legislation and more of a spirit of increasing solidarity and communication between nations. And in terms of its non-military activities, “The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) maintains that Asia and Eastern Europe offer the most positive foreign direct investment (FDI) prospects through 2008. Supachai Panitchpakdi, secretary-general of UNCTAD, said the findings suggest that countries need to seize the investment opportunities but must also pay attention to the quality of FDI” (Thuermer, 2006). Taking power away from the international organization and replacing it with national interests would greatly impinge the speed and efficiency with which the United Nations is able to respond to and deal with world problems, as it would weaken the organization considerably. Detracting from the power of the United Nations, which is precarious as it is, could even make the organization powerless and irrelevant. As it is, the U.N. does not have enough power: as one editorial states, “It simply cannot eliminate the danger Saddam poses to United States and to the world” (Kristol and Kagan, 2002). Although the United Nations has worked effectively in the past, its future may be threatened by an extensive sense of increasing U.S. hegemony and reaction. Besides valuing influence over power, the current United nations also values individuals over states, as is displayed in the focus on universal codes of human rights by the UN. This balance could also be maintained if the UN were to have a greater sense of responsibility and power that could heighten its role as a protector. “The involvement of the United Nations in protection was clearly illustrated by the few actions of enforcement, such as the action in Kuwait in the early 1990s” (Taylor, 1997). People should not assume that if UN has a greater amount of power, it will become something other than what it essentially is, which is an organization that is committed to keeping peace and building humanitarian awareness among its member states and others. Currently, overall, UN effectiveness is limited by many factors, including disagreements among member states and lack of funding, in addition to slow bureaucracy. To truly be effective, these obstacles must be eliminated. In conclusion, this report has looked at issues of how the UN can be effective, and obstacles which may exist in the way to its effectiveness. The basic assumption of this research investigation has been that determining the effectiveness of the United Nations can be done in many ways, including measures which seek to compare the UN today with the UN’s original goals, to see what has changed over the course of history. Although the UN was initially set up as a peacekeeping organization, and the Security Council remains a vital part of that organization, the current investigation has also looked at other sides of the UN, as it has grown in scope and membership and has become more of an organization that does not just confront war, but also sets humanitarian standards, responds to natural disasters, and seeks to raise environmental awareness among its member states, which have expanded in recent times (Baylis and Smith, 2001). Overall, many obstacles still exist which make the UN seem ineffective in some regards, despite optimal objectives. However, this is not to say that, in the current environment, the UN could be called ineffective; it is only to say that the UN could stand improvement and reform, to meet the challenge of the future. REFERENCE Baylis, J and S. Smith (2001). The Globalization of World Politics. 3rd edition. Claude, Inis L., Jr. (1984) Swords into Plow Shares: The Problems and Progress of International Organization. New York: McGraw-Hill. Kristol, William, and Robert Kagan (2002). The U.N. Trap? The Weekly Standard. Taylor, Paul (1997). The United Nations and International Organization. The Globalization of World Politics. John Baylis and Steve Smith, eds. Thuermer, K (2006). Global Expansion. http://www.expansionmanagement.com/smo/articleviewer/default.asp?cmd=articledetail&articleid=17711&st=5 Convention on the Rights of the Child (2009). UNCRC. www.unhchr.ch/html/menu.htm. Efficient, effective, and coherent United Nations (2009) http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/dsgsm378.doc.htm Read More