Essay/Term paper: United nations

Essay, term paper, research paper:  College Papers

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.