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Introduction
Whether the United Nations is agreed or disagreed with, praised or criticized, the fact
remains that it is the only truly global organization in the history of mankind. Given the
importance of that organization, or rather of what it represents, this paper intends to shed some
light on its successes and failures. The paper comprises two parts: the first part presents a short
review of the successes and failures of the United Nations from the perspectives of two
renowned writers; Boutros Boutros Ghali, former UN Secretary and Jussi M. Hanhimaki, Ph.D.
Professor of International History and Politics in Finland. Due to the limitation of space, this
paper shall only focus on some of the successes and failures discussed by the two writers. The
second part is a glossary of the core terms used in UN documents with 500 entries categorized by
topic and extracted from various UN documents. In assessing the successes and failures of the United Nations, the paper begins with a
brief history of the organization, then it attempts to answer two main questions about the UN:
How far has the UN lived to the expectations of its founders? Despite ongoing criticism of the
organization, why does its membership expands constantly? To answer such questions, the paper
moves to the four pledges that were taken in the UN Charter and concludes with how far the UN
succeeded in fulfilling them.
organizations for dealing with specific issues. However, it was not until the 20 th century that the
League of Nations, the predecessor of the United Nations was formed.
Amid the bloody world of 1918, president Woodrow Wilson outlined his idea of the
League of Nations. He, along with many other world leaders, had high hopes in an international
organization that had the power to settle international disputes before they escalate to a state of
war. However, the Senate voted against this idea and the country never joined the League.
The League of Nations started its operations in Geneva, Switzerland 1920 and was
dominated by France, Great Britain Japan and Italy. Its General Assembly constituted of twenty
eight members, mostly from Europe and Latin America. The League achieved limited success at
the beginning of its work as it settled a number of international territorial disputes. But shortly
after that, its weaknesses were revealed. In addition to the absence of the United States, Japan
and Italy simply walked out of the League when they didn't like its decisions, while the Soviet
Union was the only member to be expelled from the League. A series of aggressive acts and
attacks by the four permanent members followed and the League was paralyzed towards them. It
couldn't command the super powers or apply sanctions. Eventually, it was the League of Nations'
failure to prevent the breakout of World War II that wrote its end.
The World War II was a true global conflict between the so-called Grand Alliance headed
by (the US, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union) against axis powers (Germany, Italy and Japan).
This world war transformed the world, as unions collapsed, and superpowers emerged at the cost
of the blood of about 72 million people! The establishment of the United Nations was, therefore,
urgently called for by the US president Roosevelt during the last years of war. Major powers
responded and the drafting of the UN Charter began in 1941. They were trying not to repeat the
sins of the past, so they offered the founders permanent membership as an incentive for them not
to simply walk a way of the organization as Japan had previously done. The Permanent Five
were China, France, Great Britain, the US and the USSR. The UN was also intended to be
involved in key areas of world affairs: military security, economic and social development, and
the upholding of human rights and international justice.
As the delegates of fifty-one nations arrived for the first series of meetings in London in
January 1946, the general atmosphere of international relations was already deteriorating. The
Cold War was on the doorstep, further shaping the roles of the newly formed United Nations.
Internal conflict between the two superpower: the USA and the USSR was aggravating over
which countries should be accepted in the UN. Being a peace-loving state (a requirement
stated by the UN Charter) clearly did not suffice as a qualification. The end result was a
deadlock: after 1950 no new members were added for five years.
Although the Cold War profoundly affected the UNs effectiveness in its first decade,
there were a number of positive developments as well, most significant of which was the 1948
adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Additionally, in 1948, the UN sent its
first peace observers to the Middle East where armistice agreements were mediated between the
new state of Israel and its Arab neighbors. In the meantime, the UN was active in dealing with
the needs of World War II European refugees, resulting eventually in the creation of the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1950. Another important event that brought the US and
the Soviet Union accidently on the same side was the crisis of the Suez Canal. After the Egyptian
Leader Gamal Abdul Nasser declared the nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956, an alliance
formed by Britain, France and Israel directed a military hit against Egypt. Both the Americans
and Soviets voted in favor of a resolution calling for the immediate withdrawal of foreign troops
from Egypt.
"This era of global challenges leaves no choice but cooperation at the global level" (Annan, UN
Secretary General, 2001 as cited in M.Hanhimaki, 2008). However, these high-minded ideals
were far from realized.
The UN membership has largely increased, its budget jumped from USD 2.6 billion to
roughly USD 20 billion. It witnessed an explosion in the number of peace operations for peace
building and peace keeping and the cost of these operations grew tenfold. At the meantime, the
UN was almost hyperactive in its presentation of numerous ambitious undertakings and plans,
based on countless studies and conferences. This hyperactivity was almost crystallized in 2000,
when the UN unveiled its Millennium Development Program: the 8 Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) to be realized in 2015. These are: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; Achieve
universal primary education; Promote gender equality and empower women; Reduce child
mortality; Improve maternal health; Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; Ensure
environmental sustainability; and Global partnership for development.
Such growth and activism could not, however, mask the harsh realities that the UN faced
in the postCold War era. Despite the explosion in the number of its peace operations, the
organizations failures have outweighed its successes. Although the UN may have succeeded in
the transformation of Namibia to majority rule, for example, it failed in preventing massive
killings in former Yugoslavia or Rwanda. Though the percentage of people living in extreme
poverty in Asia may have declined in the early years of the 20th century, similar numbers had
gone up in Africa.
The development of the UN was replete with challenges and frustrations as an
international body trying to deal with complex issues such as international and human security,
post-conflict management, human rights, and social and economic development. This can
partially be attributed to the impossible hybrid structure of the UN.
Sometimes, as in Sudans Darfur region, their arrival was delayed while genocide progressed
(M.Hanhimaki, 2008).
The UNs second goal was to highlight the importance of human rights and respect for
international law. To accomplish this objective, treaties, declarations, and legal instruments
multiplied. The most important of these documents was undoubtedly the 1948 Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. Others were added to the human rights canon in the 1960s, thus
producing the International Bill of Rights. By the twenty-first century, the Human Rights
Council, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and other bodies were busily reporting
abuses around the world, while the International Criminal Court and special tribunals were
prosecuting the worst human rights abusers at The Hague.
But the capacity of these bodies to implement some form of universal jurisdiction
remains limited as the High Commissioner and the Council, for example, cannot give orders
to sovereign states. The special rapporteurs who investigate abuses on behalf of the international
community have to be invited by the host government that, in many cases, is the very same
government that is being investigated. All too often deadlock has been the end result.
Finally, the UN pledged to promote social and economic progress .To accomplish this,
such institutions as the World Banklinked to but not technically part of the UN systemwere
set up to assist countries in need of assistance. By the 1960s, as the UNs membership was rising
with the proliferation of newly independent and often underdeveloped countries (mainly from
Africa), the organization responded by creating additional structures, of which the UN
Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the UN Development Program (UNDP)
are probably the best known.
Two problems, still evident today, emerged as early as the 1960s. On the one hand, there
was no agreement on how to promote progress. For example, because the World Bank has been
funded mainly by the United States, its policies have been heavily influenced by Washington.
But the United States was, for more than four decades, engaged in fighting the Cold War and
promoting capitalism over communism as the correct way to organize economic life. In that
context, development aid often, too often, became a political tool unrelated to the real problems
of real people in the developing world.
Add to this a number of other elementscorruption, interagency competition, and lack
of resourcesand the reasons why development aid has not been a resounding success become
clearer. Indeed, the so-called Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) unveiled in 2000 called
for halving global poverty rates by 2015. By July 7, 2007the UNs official halfway point for
meeting this targetit seemed that Asian countries were on track toward meeting this goal. But
sub-Saharan Africa was lagging far behind its targets. It is no accident that the current UN
Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, has followed in his successors footsteps in calling for the rich
countries to get serious about development aid.
Conclusion
The United Nations has achieved a lot and have yet much more to achieve and the
shortcomings of the organization itself, inadequate mandates, insufficient financial and material
resources, the failure of Member states to fulfill their obligations or take on new responsibilities all represent a catalyst for criticism. Healthy criticism, however, is an indispensible support for
the UN in its efforts to revitalize the international system (Ghali, 1995). The United Nations may
not have lived up to all the ambitions of its founders, yet the fact remains clear: it is the only
organization that represents the interests of the entire world. As Lodge succinctly put it in 1954:
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"This organization is created to prevent you from going to hell. It isnt created to take you to
heaven." (Lodge, 1945, as cited in M.Hanhimaki, 2008). Another fact can not be ignored either;
there is an impossibly wide gap between the organization's ambitions, and its actual capacities.
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UN Core Terms
English Arabic
Main Bodies
Economic and Social Council
General Assembly
International Court of Justice
Secretariat
Secretary-General
Security Council
Trusteeship Council
United Nations International Children's
Emergency Fund (UNICEF)
UN Charter
Acts of aggression
Admission to membership
Affirmative vote
Breach of peace
Enforcement action
Exhibition of full powers
International machinery
Peace-loving states
Procedural matters
Regular session
Self-determination right
Sovereign equality
Statute
Territorial integrity
The five permanent members
United Nations Conference on International
Organization
12
13
)(
14
.
/
)"
("
Treaties
15
16
Destruction
Convention on the Prohibition of the Use,
Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti
Personnel Mines and on their Destruction
Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities
Credentials
Custodian of the treaty
Customary international law
Date of effect
Declarations
17
18
( )
Resolutions
Ad hoc
Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF)
Afghanistan National Development Strategy
(ANDS)
African Union-Regional Task Force
Agencies
Allied Democratic Forces (ADF(
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)
Ammunition
Anti-money laundering
Arabian Peninsula
Arms embargo
Arms Trade Treaty
Asset freeze
Asset Recovery Law
Attacks
19
20
21
22
Non-interference
North Atlantic Treaty Organizations (NATO)
Notifications
( )
23
24
Travel ban
Trilateral Summit
UN Integrated Peacebuilding Office in the
Central African Republic (BINUCA)
United Nations/African Union Hybrid
Operation in Darfur (UNAMID)
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References
M.Hanhimaki, J. (2008). The United Nations: A very Short Introduction. New York, USA.
Oxford University Press.
Ghali, B.B. (1995). Confronting New Challenges: Annual Report on the work of the
organization. New York, USA. United Nations Department of Public Information.
Development and MDGs (n.d). Retrieved from the United Nations Website:
https://unp.un.org/Default.aspx
Security Council Resolutions (2014). Retrieved from the United Nations Website:
http://www.un.org/en/sc/documents/resolutions/index.shtml
Treaty Book (2012). The Treaty Section of the Office of the Legal affairs. New York, USA.
United Nations Publications.
UN Charter (n.d). Retrieved from United Nations Website:
https://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/