Text 2 The un’s activities

Promoting International Peace and Security

The opening words of the UN Charter dedicate the organization to saving "suc­ceeding generations from the scourge of war, which... has brought untold sorrow to mankind." The UN attempts to fulfill this goal by creating norms against violence, by providing debate as an alternative to fighting, by intervening diplomatically to avert the outbreak of warfare or to help restore peace once violence occurs, by insti­tuting diplomatic and economic sanctions, by dispatching UN military forces to repel aggression or to act as a buffer between warring countries, and by promoting arms control and disarmament.

Creating Norms Against Violence One way that the United Nations helps promote international peace and security is by creating norms against aggression and other forms of violence. To accomplish this, the UN works in such areas as promoting the concept of nuclear nonproliferation through the Inter­national Atomic Energy Agency, limiting chemical and biological weapons, and pro­moting rules for the restrained conduct of war when it occurs.

Countries that sign the Charter pledge to accept the principle "that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest" and further agree to "refrain in their international relations from the threat or the use of force except in self-defense." Reaffirming the Charter's ideas, the UN have condemned Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, Serbian aggression against its neighbors, and other such actions. These denunciations and the slowly developing norm against aggression have not halted violence, but they have created an increasing onus on countries that strike the first blow. When, for example, the United States decided in 1989 to depose the regime of Panama's strongman, General Manuel Noriega, it acted unilaterally. Noriega was toppled, but Washington's action was condemned by both the UN and the OAS. Five years later, Washington again decided to overthrow the regime of a small country to its south. But before U.S. troops landed in Haiti, Washington took care to win UN support for its action.

Providing a Debate Alternative A second peace-enhancing role for the United Nations is serving as a passive forum in which members pub­licly air their points of view and privately negotiate their differences. The UN thus acts like a safety valve, or perhaps a sound stage where the world drama can be played out without the dire consequences that could occur if another "shooting locale" were chosen. This grand-debate approach to peace involves denouncing your opponents, defending your actions, trying to influence world opinion, and winning symbolic victories.

Diplomatic Intervention. The UN also regularly plays a direсt role in assisting and encouraging countries to settle their disputes peacefully. Ideally this occurs before hostilities, but it can take place even after fighting has started. The United Nations performs the following functions: (1) Inquiry: Fact-finding by neutral investigators; (2) Good Offices: Encouraging parties to negotiate; acting as a neutral setting for negotiations; (3) Mediation: Making suggestions about possible solutions; acting as an intermediary between two parties; (4) Arbitration: Using a special panel to find a solution that all parties agree in advance to accept; and (5) Adjudication: Submitting disputes to an international court such as the ICJ. These activities do not often capture the headlines, but they are a vital part of maintaining or restoring the peace.

It is possible, even probable, that renewed fighting between Iraq and the United States was averted in early 1998 because of Secretary-General Annan's personal mediation and his ability to fashion a solution acceptable to all. According to the UN ambassador at the time,

Sanctions The increased interdependence of the world has heightened the impact of diplomatic and economic sanctions. In recent years, these have been applied by the UN on such countries as Haiti, Iraq, Libya; South Africa, and Yugoslavia. Of course, sanctions are controversial and often do not work. But there have been successes. Sanctions against South Africa helped ease apartheid there; they helped force Iraq to grudgingly give up some of its hidden remaining arms and arms production facilities and to allow UN military inspectors to search for other violations; and they were a factor in finally persuading Yugoslavia to turn over former president Slobodan Milosevic to the UN-sponsored tribunal in The Hague to be tried for war crimes.

Peacekeeping The United Nations additionally has a limited ability to intervene militarily in a dispute. In the UN, this process is often called peacekeeping. It is normally conducted under the auspices of the UNSC, although the UNGA has sometimes authorized action.

Through mid-2000, the United Nations had mounted 55 peacekeeping operations that had utilized about 800,000 military and police personnel from 118 countries. These operations ranged from very lightly armed observer missions, through police forces, to full-fledged military forces. The number of UN peacekeeping operations has risen markedly in the post-cold war era. In early 2002, there were 16 UN peacekeeping forces of varying sizes in the field at locations throughout the world. These forces totaled about 46,000 troops and police.

United Nations peacekeeping seldom involves a stern international enforcer smiting aggressors with powerful blows. Rather, UN peacekeeping is usually a "coming between," a positioning of a neutral force that creates space and is intended to help defuse an explosive situation.

Arms Control and Disarmament The International Atomic Energy Agency, an affiliate of the UN, helps promote and monitor the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. The UN also sponsors numerous conferences on weapons and conflict and has also played an important role in the genesis of the Chemical Weapons Convention and other arms control agreements.

Social, Economic, Environmental, and Other Roles

In addition to maintaining and restoring the peace, the UN engages in a wide variety of other activities. During its early years the United Nations’ emphasis was on security. This concern hasn’t abated, but it has been joined by social, economic, environmental, and other nonmilitary security concerns. This shift has been a result of the ebb and eventual end of the cold war, the growing number of LDCs since the 1960s, realization that the environment is in danger, and changing global values that have brought an increased focus on human and political rights. "Peacekeeping operations claim the headlines," Secretary-General Annan has observed astutely, "but by far the lion's share of our budget and personnel are devoted to the lower-profile work of... helping countries to create jobs and raise standards of living; delivering relief aid to victims of famine, war and natural disasters; protecting refugees; pro­moting literacy; and fighting disease. To most people around the world, this is the face of the United Nations." This effort has recently included the UN's sponsorship of a conference of aid donors to coordinate assistance to rebuild Afghanistan; coordination of the delivery of humanitarian relief to its people; and the repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Afghanis who had fled the country into Pakistan and other neighboring countries.

It would be impossible to list here, much less fully describe, the broad range of endeavors in which the UN is involved. Suffice it to say that it covers most of the issues that humans address at all levels of government.

Economic Development The United Nations De­velopment Program (UNDP), the World Bank work to improve the economic well-being of those who are deprived because of their location in an LDC, gender, or some other cause. The UNDP alone supports more than 5,000 projects globally with a budget of $1.3 billion. The UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) focuses on the betterment of women in LDCs.

Human Rights Beginning with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the UN has actively pro­moted dozens of agreements on political, civil, economic, social, and cultural rights. The UN Commission on Human Rights has used its power of investigation and its ability to issue reports to expose abuses of human rights and to create pressure on the abusers through a process that one scholar has termed the "mobilization of shame". Currently, for example, the UN is at the heart of the global effort to free the estimated 250 million children who are forced to work instead of being sent to school, and to eliminate other abuses that mock the meaning of childhood.

Environment Beginning with the UN Conference on Environment and Development (dubbed the Earth Summit) in 1992, the UN has sponsored several global meetings on the environment. These have resulted in the initiation of programs that will slow down, stop, or begin to reverse the degradation of the envi­ronment.

International Law and Norms An important and increasing role of the UN is defining and expanding international law and international norms of cooperation. International courts help establish legal precedent. Also, the signatories to the UN Charter incur obligations to obey the principles of these documents. Over 300 such treaties have been negotiated through the UN's auspices.

Quality of Human Existence More than 30 million refugees from war, famine, and other dangers have been fed, given shelter, and otherwise assisted through the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Independence Yet another role of the UN has been to encourage national self-determination. The UN Trusteeship Council once monitored numerous colonial dependencies, but the wave of independence in recent decades steadily lessened its number of charges. Then, in October 1994, the United States and Palau notified the council that, as Kuniwo Nakamura, Palau's president, put it, "We have made our own decision that we are ready to embark on the journey of independence with con­fidence." Inasmuch as Palau was the last trust territory, the announcement meant that the Trusteeship Council's mission was fulfilled and, while it continues to exist technically, it no longer meets.

Evaluating the UN and its future

The United Nations has existed for more than fifty years. Most other IGOs are even younger. Have they succeeded? The answer depends on your standard of evaluation.

Ultimate goals are one standard. Article 1 of the UN Charter sets out lofty goals such as maintaining peace and security and solving economic, social, cultural, and humanitarian problems. Clearly, the world is still beset by violent conflicts and by ongoing economic and social misery. Thus, from the perspective of meeting ultimate goals, it is easy to be skeptical about what the UN has accomplished.

One has to ask, however, whether the meeting of ultimate goals is a reasonable standard.

Progress is a second standard by which to evaluate the UN. The question is whether the world is better off for its presence? That is the standard Kofi Annan appeals for when he implores people to "Judge us rightly... by the relief and refuge that we provide to the poor, to the hungry, the sick and threatened: the peoples of the world whom the United Nations exists to serve." Between its 40^th and 50^th anniversaries, the United Nations surpassed all previous marks in terms of numbers of simultaneous peacekeeping missions, peacekeeping troops deployed, and other international security efforts. During the 1990s alone, the UN sponsored 12 conferences on such diverse topics as the environment²⁵, women's issues²⁶, and food²⁷. This activity has continued apace, with conferences on racism²⁸, aging²⁹, and sus­tainable development³⁰. These meetings have all focused attention on global problem; and have made some contribution to advancing our knowledge and to enhancing our attempts to deal seriously with a wide range of economic, social, and environ­mental global challenges. Moreover, the people of the world tend to recognize these contributions. A survey of people in many countries around the world found that 60% of the respondents evaluated the UN as "very" or "somewhat" satisfactory. More than 80% of respondents in Africa, the world's most troubled region, gave the UN positive marks. Thus, by the standard of progress, the UN has made a contribution.

What is possible is a third standard by which to evaluate the UN. Insofar as the UN does not meet our expectations, we need to ask whether it is a flaw of the organization or the product of the unwillingness of member-states to live up to the standards that countries accept when they ratify the Charter. Simply paying their assessments regularly and on time is one thing more countries could do. The UN will also work better if countries try to make it effective.

Whether alternatives exist is a fourth standard by which to evaluate the. One must also ask, If not the UN and other international organizations, then what? Can the warring, uncaring world continue unchanged in the face of nuclear weapons, persistent poverty, an exploding population, periodic mass star­vation, continued widespread human rights violations, resource depletion, and envi­ronmental degradation? Somehow the world has survived these plagues, but one of the realities is that we are hurtling toward our destiny at an ever-increasing, now exponential speed. In a rapidly changing system, doing things the old way may be inadequate and may even take us down a road that, although familiar, will lead the world to cataclysm. This returns us to the question, If not the UN, then what? In reply, there may be considerable truth in the view of the British ambassador to the UN that "it's the UN, with all its warts, or it's the law of the jungle."

To repeat an important point, the UN is, in the end, only what we make it. It does possess some independence, but it is limited. Mostly its successes and failures reflect the willingness or disinclination of member-countries to cooperate and use them to further joint efforts.

Whether that occurs is uncertain. What is clear is that critics of the UN are too often narrowly negative. They disparage the organization without noting its contributions or suggesting improvements. The UN holds one hope for the future, and those who would denigrate it should make other, positive suggestions rather than implicitly advocate maintenance of the status quo.

Comprehension