How well does the UN manage global peace and security

Southern Cross University Lismore, Australia

How well does the UN manage global peace and security

by

Gisela Schneider

Table of Contents

Introduction  2

Critical evaluation of the UN’s management of global peace and security 3

Conclusion  10

References 11

INTRODUCTION

The United Nations (UN) was established in 1945 by the five victory powers of World War II - China, France, the United Kingdom, The United States of America and the former Soviet Union to maintain the post-war peace. Its Charter was drawn up by representatives of fifty countries and ratified by the original and permanent members. According to Article 1 of the Charter, the UN’s primary purpose is “to maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace”¹. Today, 191 states are members of the global organization and subscribe themselves to the UN Charter to share the responsibility for international peace and security.

The Charter established six principle organs, of which the Security Council is the most important with the primary responsibility to settle different kinds of conflicts to maintain the global peace and security. While other organs make recommendations to governments, the Council alone has the power to take decisions and initiate actions including the use of force, which Member States are obligated under the Charter to carry out. The Security Councils consists of 15 Member States: the five permanent ones, which can veto any draft resolution on substantive matters reflecting the assumption that the major powers would act together to provide collective global security, and ten non-permanent members elected for two-year periods. When a complaint concerning a threat to peace is brought before it, the Council usually recommends the parties several peace-making methods like negotiation, investigation or mediation to reach agreement by peaceful means. When a dispute gets worse or leads to fighting it is empowered to call for cease-fires, order economic sanctions, and even authorize military action against an aggressor on behalf of the UN. One tool for maintaining international peace and security not embodied in the Charter is the use of peacekeeping forces to prevent existing dispute from reigniting “using force only in self-defence, and operating in a neutral and impartial way with the consent of the parties to disputes”². Unfortunately, administrative and budgetary constraints limit the UN’s capacity to respond to every serious threat to peace. In addition, UN peacekeeping has in several cases failed to prevent war or armed conflicts. There are many tragic cases were the population had to suffer due to failed missions in conflict zones like in Afghanistan, former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Rwanda and Burundi, but the maybe longest involvement of Peacekeepers not being able to solve the conflict is Cyprus.

In this essay I will demonstrate that UN was and is not able to manage global peace and security at a satisfactory level, as the UN is only as strong as its member states. I argue that in many cases they are not able to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, as the members do not support the UN adequately. Furthermore, even wrong measures are taken. I will fortify my thesis by the example of Cyprus-conflict, where peacekeeping forces were established in 1964 to bring peace. The conflict is still boiling and the UN and Peacekeepers were not able to bring together Greek and Turkish Cypriots to produce a long-term settlement of the conflict. To make this problem understandable, I will first focus on the historical part of the conflict giving a view influenced by legal facts and then go on to latest negotiations between the two sides. I will further show that there are several underlying problems like religious, nationalistic and ethnic feelings used by the leaders which makes it even harder to get to a collective and peaceful solution.

CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE UN’S MANAGEMENT OF GLOBAL PEACE AND SECURITY

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1 “United Nations, Divided World – the UN’s Roles in International Relations”, 1996, p.500.

2 Pugh, in White et.al. 1997, p.135, in Porter & Garbutt, Peace, War and International Politics – Study Guide, 2002.p.121.