The Reforms of the United Nations - Essay Example

? United Nations: Reforms With the human population surging ahead at a phenomenal pace, the needs of the people and their associated aspects are emerging and increasing day by day. Therefore, presence of a body is imperative that could take care of these needs and fulfill them. One such body exists with the name of United Nations1. United Nations is an intercontinental corporation that carries on its shoulders the responsibilities to look after social and economic growth, protection, judiciary activities, and civil rights of the humankind. It comprises of 192 member countries across the globe, with its headquarters in New York. The existence of United Nations dates back to World War II with the objectives to unite all the countries of the universe in order to work in correlation with tranquility and harmony, which must consist on the ideology of fair dealing, respect of humanity, and fulfillment of the fundamental rights of the people2. United Nations aimed to bring the countries closer so that they can work in coordination to develop friendly relations and address the common issues with gravity. The working of the assembly is not restricted to the decisions of any monarch, thus, every county possess the same and equal rights to give their opinions and viewpoints in any discussion happening in the general assembly of the United Nations3. A global body formed in early 1900s, known to be the League of Nations was the key stakeholder to sustain equanimity and placidity in the world, as well as maintaining the coordination amongst the global community. This parent body proved to be flourishing with 58 members across the globe with the prime motive to encourage and endorse worldwide collaboration in order to bring the world under one roof through unity and peace. With the increasing power and control of the Axis Powers over the world, the League got an alarming sign and its success started to fade and declined slowly, thus, resulting in the Second World War. During the World War II, United Nations came to an existence with an official announcement in order to bring the counties in association to each other. Initially, the UN consisted of 51 member countries, which then rose to 192 members at a later stage4. United Nations came under development with a goal to alleviate poverty and raise the living standards of the masses on global basis. It also determined to raise the literacy rate and abate the spread of diseases and environmental degradation to make the world a better place to live. United Nations aimed to support and cushion the under developed countries to lift their economies, build up the social sector and back them to move ahead towards success5. To achieve these objectives, UN designed a set of values, which the member countries were to abide by. United Nations strictly abhorred the violence and tyranny, instead they promoted calm and diplomatic methods to solve the problems, and therefore, member countries came under expectation to settle down rivalries and sensitive matters with serenity. UN made an obligation on all the members to comply with the agreements made between them, and the parent body did not participate in any government activity or personal matter of the member state6. The working of UN depends upon five subdivisions. The first division is the UN General Assembly, whose prime job is to maintain the standards of its guidelines and procedures and always have a room for improvements through suggestions. The assembly has a president who comes under appointment from its member states. The second subdivision is the UN Security Council, which has the right to penalize the member countries if they do not follow the rules and regulations that comes under development by the assembly, they also have the decision making power during any sort of disagreements between the member states. Therefore, it comes under consideration as the strongest amongst all the other branches7. The third branch is the International Court of Justice, which is mainly accountable for the legal and official affair within UN. The next branch is the Economic and Social Council, that helps and support the assembly for the improvement and progress in economic and social facets as the names suggests. The last subdivision is the Secretariat, who keeps and maintains the data, material and the key findings of the researches by UN and provides the data to the other branches whenever required8. Ever since the establishment of the UN, the activities have remained multifaceted covering all the aspects of political, financial, economic, legal, and social. Despite of all the policies and aims, UN is not completely successful in accomplishing the organizations’ objectives. This is because the command of the dominant countries has left an indelible imprint on the formation of the organization, regardless of the truth that the universe has revolutionized9. The underperformance of the UN towards achieving its goals was because of the chaos and commotion that occurred within the branches of the UN. By the twenty first century, UN was gradually becoming ineffective and worthless, as it was not able to meets its goals and was not able to tackle the increasing number of problems and coercions. In the last decade, the world faced innumerable security issues, which came under ignorance by UN, leading to its loss in popularity. UN lost its reliability after the failure in coping up with the security issue in Iraq. Rather than supporting growth and development by providing efficient security measures, the Security Council turned out to act as a hurdle10. Even the studies revealed the fact that a big faction of the population thought that UN is no more performing in a way it had expected to perform. This perception reflects that UN is in constant need to streamline its structure by reforming its policies, and agreements in order to achieve its original targets. With the advancement in technology and invention of sophisticated weaponry, UN should make itself capable of keeping an eye on the production and usage of these destructive elements so that unwanted mishaps can come under prevention. UN should take the responsibility for providing efficient security to superpowers as well as the third world nations11. UN should make amendments in their policies and guidelines to set what procedures can come under adoption to act against those government bodies who believe in achieving their motives through violent and terrorist activities. History shows that Security Council of United Nations did not put in any effort to resolve the sensitive and critical security matters between its members at the time of conflicts. It remained inactive in the past at the time of Cold War between U.S. and the Soviet Union, as well as at the time of attack on Iraq. Although, UN was powerful enough to implement its plans to resolve the mentioned security concerns, it did not pay heat to the immense need of the resolution. UN needs to focus on the alterations and modification of its organizational structures and give equal rights and importance to all member state whether it is an affluent nation or an underdeveloped country. In addition, UN should abridge the drift between the members in order to attain the harmony12. Presently, U.S. is providing biggest proportion of capital to UN to fund their needs. However, this is a biased behavior and other members should equally participate in contributing the wealth to the UN. By having a fair treatment with all the members, the probability for smaller member nations will increase to get a chance for having a larger share of benefit in the upcoming years. The article related to defense in the present Charter of the UN states that all the member countries have equivalent rights to have a self-defense for themselves in the case of attack. However, the countries that are well armed can easily defend themselves as compared to those that have a weak self-defense system13. UN should look into this matter as in case of armed attack one needs to fight back to protect its land and people, therefore, UN should amend their Charter in a way that the condition of the legal use of armed forces would reform in a broad perspective. UN needs to make its governance more efficient, effective, and economical by modernizing its working structure and should not depend only on the funds from the US government as it impose burden on the U.S. economy. United States has played a significant and major role in providing funds to the UN since the time it came into existence. However, the proportion of the Americans citizens working in the UN is very less as compared to the percentage of the total funds given by U.S. High officials in UN forms bureaucracy in order to boost their control and oppose the members maintaining the operations and procedures. In this context, a reform would be highly beneficial, where all the member nations, whether developed or under developed should make the contribution of a share of money so that all nations can enjoy the same outcomes. In order to overcome the problem of emerging bureaucracy, UN must take measures for making sure that officials are performing their task in a way that they come under expectation to do14. Human rights violation comes under notice in every corner of the world whether it is child labor, child marriages, discrimination, human trafficking, or prostitution. UN is unable to combat and curb this enormity15. UN should deal with the matter of human rights with focus and determination. It is appalling to notice that UN has complacently taken the matter of human rights. Out of 192 member countries, few are famous for the incidents of human rights violation. By accepting such countries as its member, UN is depicting a reflection that it has no responsibility in punishing the abusers. This encourages the terrorist groups to carry out their activities of massive destruction16. UN should take initiative in making policies where membership criteria is set up on strict and firm basis. No such country can be a member that encourages terrorism and creation of destructive weaponry; and those existing members that are already into these activities should come under termination. UN currently faced a situation where the governments and non-government organizations exploited it for their own favors and needs, which lead to un-sustained and sporadic funding of the UN institutions such as UNESCO. Therefore, the need for reforming is present, where UN should not impose the obligation of funding on all the members of its assembly17. United Nations is an organization that has the access to all the parts of the world. Although the establishment of this organization was in order to bring bits and pieces of the world under one roof, it was not able to cope up with all the goals and objectives mentioned in the charter that it possessed. Initially, it came under recognition for its performance and made dramatic effects on the lives of human beings with a perspective to make the universe a better place to live with unity and peace amongst all beings. UN over many years, have worked on several aspects including eliminating discriminations, humanitarian rights, social and economic development and counter terrorism and many more. However, it has worked on various issues, some global enormities including security concerns have not been resolved yet due to which reformation of UN charter is required. Some suggest that increasing the number of members in the Security Council will solve the problem, but many think that this is no solution; in fact, it may worsen the situation18. As the officials on higher authority forms bureaucracy, hence, no Secretary General should come under appointment to serve for more than five years. To make all the officials accountable for their actions, UN should make it mandatory for its branches to release an annual report. In addition, auditors should carry out an external audit of UN in order to create an upper hand on the officials so that they work with honesty and dignity. Works Cited Bookmiller, Kirsten Nakjavani. The United Nations. Chelsea House, 2008. Hanhimaki, Jussi M. The United Nations: a very short introduction. Oxford University Press, 2008. Ross, Alf. Constitution of the United Nations: Analysis of Structure and Function. The Lawbook Exchange Ltd, 2008. Sutterlin, James S. The United Nations and the maintenance of international security. Greenwood Publishing Group Inc, 2003. Tarsitano, Frank. United Nation. Gareth Stevens Pub, 2003.   United Nations. Dept. of Public Information. United Nations today. 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