The Success Of The Un Post 1945
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Whilst the United Nations (U.N) has indeed succeeded as the world’s most dominant multilateral organization, its reign since 1945 has not been without its faults and failures. Many elements of the U.N, such as the Security Council and the right of its permanent members to veto, are heavily scrutinized by the �international community.’ Further issues such as logistics make access to effective action extremely limited. Despite the negative aspects of the U.N such actions have been coupled with numerous, successive interventions and increased global awareness of international issues .
When looking at the weaknesses of the U.N it is hard to look past the inequality in states influence. The Security Council is made up of 15 member states. The 15 member states are made up of five permanent members and 10 temporary states that rotate on a bi-annual system. The five permanent members of the Security Council are; Russia, Britain, China France and The U.S.A. These Five states enjoy access to the power of veto. This allows them to block procedural issues that may reflect their own states national interest, which of course would detract from the idea of internationalism, which underpins the U.N and its visions. An example of National interest conflicting with U.N ideals could be seen from the U.N response to the Darfur crisis that broke out in 2003. Critics suggested that the security councils response time was hindered greatly by veto empowered states worried about there various individual interests. Of particular notability was China’s reluctance because of significant oil interests.
The Security Council further depicts a state of inequality in terms of geographical representation. Europe has three representatives, Asia one and North America one. This means that South America, Africa, and the Middle East are not represented in permanent form on the security council. This questions the legitimacy of the distribution of power on the Security Council. Given the current climate of the middle east’s relations with the �west’ one must ask the diplomatic sense in the middle east not being represented and thus disadvantaged by not being on the security council.
Logistics are yet another avenue that significantly slows the process