Is the United Nations a success or failure?

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David Jacobs

is the un a success

or failure?

The UN was established in 1945. The United Nations was set-up to take over The League of Nations, an organisation also conceived during similar circumstances during the First World War.  The League of Nations (LON) in 1919 was brought about under the Treaty of Versailles "to promote international cooperation and to achieve peace and security." The UN adopted a similar idea, to ensure World Peace, and to establish the economic, social and political foundations. The UN has fifteen member states. Five of them are; Great Britain (GB), China (CH), United States (US), France (FR) and Russia (RIA). These five have permanent membership and have the right to Veto. (Which the French and Russians are threatening to use at the moment, concerning the attack on Iraq). The UN is multipurpose organisation boasting six principle organs. They are; Security Council (SC), General Assembly (GA), Secretariat (SEC), Economic and Social Council (ESC), Trusteeship (TRU), and the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The SC, and GA are looked upon as the most important organs of the UN. The ICJ tends to be an organ that is publicised frequently as a key failure of the UN. But how much of a failure is the UN?

The UN has had success with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB). IMF opened in 1948. It had set itself three major aims. These were; to avoid the 1930’s (Wall street Crash-depression), quick money and advice to ailing economies, and initially to the market economies, then to the ex-colonies. So far these aims have been successfully maintained and has been a gain to the world. The WB was founded in 1945, to provide loans to governments for economic developments. So on the surface it looks as though these two UN agencies are helping the world’s economic stability, but infact they are making the Global North economically stronger, and placing the Global South (third world) in even more debt and ever more reliant on the Global North. This could be argued due to the extortionate rates that the countries have to pay back to these two organisations, and to borrow from the IMF, a country has to implement the economic policies that are laid down by the IMF. So infact the two (IMF and WB) could be claimed to be a form of Neo-Colonialism.

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Other agencies that the UN has had success in are, The UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). UNESCO promotes basic literature, which enables over fifteen million people without access to other educational facilities, to read and write.  WHO’s objective is “ the attainment by all citizens of the world of a level of health that will permit them to lead a socially and economically productive life.” Some of the agencies most successful work has been; assisting health service, clinics to advise family planning and child nutrition, it’s helped train medical staff and ...

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