The United Nations (UN) is an international organisation formed following the conclusion of the Second World War to ensure that such a conflict would never reoccur. It consists of 193 Member States who are tasked with promoting international cooperation and tackling issues confronting humanity.
Since its inception, the UN has had numerous successes in areas such as peacekeeping, war crime prosecution and global healthcare, however as of recently it has been perceived in a negative light due to inaction in countries such as Rwanda, Sri Lanka and Syria, and has been labelled by many as a “failed institution”.
So does the world really need the UN? The short answer is yes.
In affirming the need for the UN, it is important to establish the core aims of the organisation. Since its inception, the UN has had three primary objectives established by the UN Charter; often referred to as the ‘three pillars’ of the institution: secure international peace, eliminate poverty and protect human rights, which they believe are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. Today, these ‘three pillars’ encompass a multitude of issues such as sustainable development, global healthcare, international terrorism, gender equality and education.
Contrary to popular belief and despite the monumental asks of the Charter, the UN has had significant success in all three of the aforementioned areas which, in turn, has shaped the world we live in today.
In its aim to achieve international peace and security, the UN has had success. Since 1945, the organisation has facilitated the negotiation of more than 170 peace settlements that have brought an end to regional conflicts and has run 67 peacekeeping missions to ensure that conflict zones remain stable during a ceasefire, to help end a conflict and to prevent one from re-emerging.
While we often hear about its failures, the UN Security Council (UNSC), considered by some to be its most important and influential organ, has also spearheaded progress on international peace and security. UNSC resolutions facilitated securing the environment for humanitarian relief to be delivered to Somalia in 1992, created a multinational force to restore the democratically-elected government in Haiti and authorised the use of force to protect civilians in Libya in 2011.
The most visible area of the UN’s work in its efforts to achieve international peace and security is its peacekeeping. UN peacekeeping forces are deployed to increasingly volatile regions such as the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, where they are challenged with tasks such as enforcing peace settlements, protecting civilians, and building sustainable peace.
Since the first peacekeeping mission in 1948, 3,718 men and women have lost their lives whilst working to protect those of others, however their sacrifice has not been in vain. UN peacekeeping missions have assisted in securing self-sustaining peace in dozens of countries such as El Salvador, Mozambique, Namibia and Tajikistan; emphasising the importance of the UN in a day and age when conflict is widespread.
An area of the UN’s work that is often overlooked is its contribution towards the elimination of poverty internationally. The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), which is the world’s largest humanitarian agency, provides food to approximately 90 million people in 80 countries every year and between 1981 and 1990, over a billion people were given access to safe drinking water for the first time in their lives.
In their effort to educate people to eradicate poverty, UN education programmes have increased the literacy rate of women in developing countries from 36 per cent to 79 per cent in a little over 30 years leading to increased employability for women and gender equality in the developing world.
The UN’s Global Polio Eradication Initiative was another successful campaign which achieved a 99.8 per cent decrease in annual cases of polio in 14 years, leaving all but four countries polio-free.
To develop and aid rural regions, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) have worked with people in poverty-stricken regions, providing them with micro-loans and grants for agricultural work that not only provides them with food but also alleviates their poverty; and since 1977 they have aided over 430 million impoverished people.
In 2015, the UN adopted the Sustainable Development Goals, which set targets such as zero poverty, affordable and clean energy, and reduced inequalities for the next 15 years.
Evidently, the UN’s work towards the eradication of poverty has contributed outstandingly to the progress of society into what it is today and it can be argued that without the support provided by the organisation the world may not have achieved what it has since the conclusion of the Second World War.
The protection and promotion of the rights given to every human being regardless of distinction is arguably the greatest duty of the UN. The UN has created a comprehensive system of international conventions and sub-bodies to establish and protect human rights, with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as their foundation.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), for instance, is the most important human rights treaty for children which covers a spectrum of rights ranging from political and economic to social and cultural. And organs such as the UN Refugee Agency have aided over 50 million refugees fleeing persecution and violence in their home countries.
To monitor the human rights records of UN Member States, governments agreed to create the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in 2005. The UNHRC is charged with overlooking the protection of human rights of all Member States with the assistance of independent experts. It uses dialogue, peer review, capacity building and technical assistance to ensure that all 193 members of the UN meet their human rights obligations.
If accused of the most heinous crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and war crimes, individuals are referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC). In 2009, the ICC prosecuted Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir for his campaign of murder, rape and deportation and in 2012, the Court found Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga guilty of recruiting and using child soldiers.
The UN has been a stalwart protector of human rights and without the legislation and organs of the organisation dedicated to the protection of humanity, the world’s human rights record may be harrowingly worse than it is today.
It is true that at times the UN has been indecisive when action was necessary, however it is also evident that without the assistance provided by the UN in areas such as peacekeeping, food distribution and war crime prosecution, the international environment would not be as prosperous as it is today.
In conclusion, the work the UN does in promoting the need for and maintaining a secure international society in which peace, progress and humanity are given precedence is paramount in creating the world we all want to live in; which is why, now, in a time when internal conflict, impoverishment and human rights violations are widespread, we need the UN more so than ever