United Nations Pros and Cons to Helping People Live Better Lives

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The United Nations is one institute of global governance which was established on the 24th of October 1951 with the aim of keeping peace throughout the world, developing friendly relations between nations and working with member states to help people "live better lives" by eliminating poverty, disease and illiteracy in the world and encouraging respect for each other's rights and freedoms. The UN was set up to reflect the power structures that emerged out of the second world war, hence the permanent members of the security council are the USA, UK, Russia, France and China. Each of these nations has power of veto over the decisions of the Security Council and in recent years this has greatly reduced the power of the UN to fulfill its own goals. One of the UN's main aims is the maintenance of international peace and security in accordance with the UN charter, and this is mainly the field of the security council. As such the ability of the UN to successfully fulfill this goal has been largely overshadowed by members of the big five applying the power of veto in accordance with there national interests. When these members of the big 5 use there power of veto in such a way it undermines the power of the UN to maintain international peace and security as the UN cannot act on issues it should be called upon to resolve. One example of this is the civil war in Syria. As Russia, one of the members of the big 5, is closely allied with the Assad regime, and it's only Mediterranean naval base is situated in Syria, it has used its power of veto to block any UN involvement in Syria. This is regardless of the fact that the civil war does pose threats to international peace and security, such as becoming a breeding ground for terrorist groups s... ... middle of paper ... ..., North and South Sudan are still at odds over the separation and independence of the south from the north in 2011 and in Israel and Palestine there has been ongoing low levels of fighting since 1967 when Israel absorbed Palestine into their nation all of which the UN seems powerless to stop. The UN has had its greatest success achieving aims in areas not associated with international peace and security such as eradicating polio in Africa or helping disaster struck nations. This is because the UN has been able to operate in response to these issues through means such as the General Assembly which is less influenced by the national interests of the big five nations. This has allowed the UN to circumnavigate the power of veto of these nations which has restricted UN interventions in response to threats to international peace and security, as seen in Crimea or Syria.

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