United Nations Essay Research Paper The League

United Nations Essay, Research Paper

The League of Nations now called the United Nations was founded in

1919. The League of Nations was composed shortly after the first world

war in order to prevent any more wars. The League of Nations collapsed

in 1939. On January 1 of 1942 United Nations was born. During WWII,

26 nations joined their forces to continue fighting against the Axis

Powers. The United Nations Charter was drawn up by representatives of

51 nations and signed on June 26, 1945. The United Nations was

officially born on October 24, 1945 when the Charter was authorized by

China, USSR, France, UK, USA and many other nations. The United

Nations has three primary goals; to achieve and maintain world peace,

to promote and develop good relations among all nations and to work

together with other nations on solving economic, social, cultural and

humanitarian problems. Many other functions are done by the UN, they

protect human rights, fight epidemics, poverty and famine, deliver aid

in form of food, clot! hes and medicine. They provide monetary loans

to developing countries through the World Bank to help them achieve

their goals. The UN is composed of six major branches. General

Assembly, The Security Council, Economic and Social Council, The

Trusteeship Council, The International Court of Justice and the

Secretariat. Each has a specific function in the smooth working of the

United Nations. The major reason why UN was formed is to promote and

ensure world peace. They accomplish this by helping nations settle

their disputes, deter conflicts and stop fighting. The United Nations

is an organization that is involved in promotion of world peace. Many

diplomatic actions are taken by the group to put and end to war and

armed conflicts. The UN has an Agenda for Peace which can be separated

into four groups. The four groups are: Preventive Diplomacy,

Peacemaking, Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding. Preventive Diplomacy

tires to put and end to a conflict by getting the two nations to

compromise before the conflict becomes violent. Peacemaking also tries

to resolve the conflict diplomatically but after the bout becomes

violent. Peacemaking tries to get the involved nations to cease-fire.

Peacekeeping comes into play once cease-fire is established. UN

peacekeeping forces come in to make sure that cease- fire is honoured

and help to conclude the conflict. Peace building is the last stage

thatpromotes peace and order by raising social structures, governments

and legal systems. Peacemaking and Peacekeeping are two most important

and crucial! stages after an armed conflict occurred. It is one of

the UN greatest problems to decide when one stage ends and the other

begins. In some cases the UN was to slow to react and the weaker

nations have suffered enormous consequences. The United Nations have

carried out more than 40 peacekeeping missions since 1948. About 750

000 soldiers have served for the UN and more than 1 500 have lost their

lives. In 1994 the UN helped to resolve a conflict in Guatemala,

Central America. The UN ended a conflict which lasted 35 years and

claimed over 100 000 people. In Europe the United Nations have also

played a big role as peacekeepers. The UN was involved in bringing

peace to former Yugoslavia and its surrounding nations. From 1992 to

1995 UN peacekeepers were working on bringing peace to Bosnia,

Herzegovina, Croatia and Macedonia. These actions in Europe surely

prevented a war between the nations involved. From time to time the UN

fails to bring aid and peace to needing nations. One of the biggest

problems for the UN is the time factor. It often takes time for the UN

to decide weather or it is necessary for them to step in and assume

control. The UN has to make sure that when they get involved in the

conflict it will be solved fairly quickly and that the costs of such

intervention will not be to high for them as well as the nations

involved. The United Nations do not want to get involved in a conflict

which will take a long time to resolve. Such conflicts require large

amounts of money, resources and human energy. The UN has a hard time

to decide which conflicts they should intervene in and which ! they

should not. This causes a problem because any conflict can cause a

major war. “The achievement of the peacekeeping force for ^minor’

conflicts is also very important. ^Minor’ wars are not ^minor’ to those

caught up in them. The peacekeeping force may also prevent a conflict

from spreading and becoming a major war.” In recent times the UN is

by many people considered to be a peacekeeping organization. This in

fact cannot be avoided because of the job that the UN has. To the

world wide public the UN is viewed as a world army, coming in as

mercenaries whenever the higher powers call upon them. This is in part

because of the way that the media shows them. Whenever there is a

conflict the media shows armed man in their armed vehicles patrolling

certain areas. The public then perceives the UN to be just an another

army. What the media does not cover is the ongoing negotiations

between the UN and the involved nations. The public does not realize

that armed enforcement by the UN is the last way of defense. UN is a

very powerful organization that helps many countries that are in need.

In many occasions the UN is required to step into a nation and solve

its problems because they are not capable of! doing it themselves. In

my opinion the UN is not given enough credit for what they do. Their

actions have surely prevented a world war III to occur at one time or

another. Many times the UN has failed to keep the peace, but it

remained in the heart of the problem and helped the nations involved

resolve their problems. The UN has been involved in many small

conflicts which could have evolved to a bigger bout if not for their

intervention. The United Nations is a great organization which works

hard on making sure that there is peace on earth.