One Decade into the 21st Century - Assignment Example

One Decade into the 21st Century 1. One decade into the 21st century, the earth’s physical and biological systems are threatened more than ever. Global environment situation is bleak and is progressively getting worse spurred by factors mostly tied to human activity. World population is on a sharp rise, it already reached 6 billion and is predicted to grow another 50% to 9 billion by the middle of the century. One third of world population lacks fresh water, cities around the planet are affected by pollution caused by greenhouse gases, surface temperature of the earth is on the rise too. At the same time, and because of these changes, earth’s species of plants and animals are, in many cases, on the path of extinction. ( Vig and Axelrod) Based on these figures it is not hard to conclude that the human impact on the biosphere will be one of the main issues of our century. Human civilization needed two hundred years to become fully aware of the problem. Industrial revolution, started in the 18th century, produced great improvements in the life of human race. Unfortunately, those improvements came at a great price. On our way to technological developments we forgot the fact that natural resources are not unlimited, we conquered nature in the name of progress, we took and took whatever possible and gave back very little. Today, global environment is a clear consequence of those activities. In the last half century, as awareness of the problem grew, humans began to ask questions and act. The global environmental movement, luckily, is growing and in that context we find Professor John McCormick, British political scientist, working hard through World Wide Fund for Nature, International Institute for Environment and Development and, also, through his scholarly work. His involvement in the global environmentalism was immense as he called for rediscovery of the lost relation between humans and the nature. As a part of the “human awakening”, one of the key new terms is global civil society. As described by People Centered Development Forum on their website, global civil society is “a social expression of the awakening of an authentic planetary culture grounded in the spiritual values and social experience of hundreds of millions of people. “ (www.pcdf.org) Simply put, global civil society is transcending cultures and state borders, it is a movement based in individual beliefs and it has one goal- to cure the relationship between our planet and us. In the meantime, and especially after Rio Conference of 1992, the debate is raging on ways how to resolve issues in global environment. Traditionally, realism and liberalism are two major theories. Realists claim that the world is an anarchic collection of states and, thus, any efforts put out in this regard will have to come from that level. Liberlaism, on the other hand, says that states are primary actors on the world scene, but also, that international cooperation has reached new heights and , therefore, there is a need for international approach on the issue of environment. 2. There is a clear relation between population growth, immigration and national security. In fact, all three are intertwined closely and form a circle that keeps repeating itself more and more. As earth population is growing rapidly, especially in developing world and countries like India and many in Africa, immigration grows too. Countries with highest growth population rates, usually over 3%, traditionally are the poorest in the world, lacking resources and not offering normal living for its citizens. In these circumstances, many of the young citizens of those countries are looking for ways to better their lives and turn their eyes toward western developed world. Also, in many of those parts of the world, there are wars that displace thousands and force them to look elsewhere for a new start. Western developed countries in North America and Europe have been fighting immigration battles for decades now. In many instances, that immigration is illegal, people that immigrate there have no documents, they are hard to track down and, certainly, pose numerous problems for economy, as well as national security. In the United States, illegal immigration from Mexico is an issue that raises political debates and is, often times, very controversial. In western Europe immigrants from Africa and Asia create similar problems. Along with economic problems that require additional money from governments of countries in the western developed part of the planet, a new problems connected to national security arose in the last couple of decades. The examples of 9/11 in the case of America and constant security scares in European countries like Spain, Germany or France, brought out new questions. All of terrorists involved in 9/11 managed to bypass security and come into the country legally and were, then, able to carry out their destructive plans. The similar situations occurred in Spain with Moroccan immigrants, in France with more of Northern Africans and in the U.K. with immigrants from Pakistan. It is impossible not to see that all of the terrorists were young and that clearly proves that the youth bulge in developing countries can affect national security and economy in developed states. It is predicted that the human population will continue growing at a rapid rate toward the middle of 21st century. The main growth will be in the developing world of Africa, Asia and Latin America, as European countries, at the same time, have negative growth rates. Chances for improvements in the life of citizens of developing world, as of now, are not great. Therefore, immigration from there into western Europe and North Azmerica will continue and likely will become more and more complicated. In that light, fighting immigration, especially illegal one, will be one of the main agenda items for the United States and European Union. The overall security of our planet will be leaning on that fight heavily. It already does. 3. The United Nations founded in the post WWII circumstances is a global, international organization that includes all the countries of the world, with the main goal of achieving equality and fair treatment of all people. UN has many purposes and institutions, each one with specific area of interest. UNICEF for example deals with issues of children of the world, UNESCO is about science, education and culture, and so on. UN has its general assembly and , also Security Council made up of 5 permanent members ( US, UK, China, France and Russia) and 10 other members that rotate every two years. Security Council is charged with maintaining international peace and security. The whole UN is based on the collective will of its members and is grounded in democratic principles. On the other hand, European Union includes 27 European countries and is therefore regional. Also, different from UN, EU is concerned more with economic issues and binding of its member states. EU operates with common currency Euro. While UN has no way to force its members to obey its decisions, EU has mechanisms in place to do so. Also, UN do not have pretensions of creating one world unified government, and EU strives to create one Europe. Purposes and principles of the UN are laid out in the UN Charter. The Charter says that the main purpose of the UN is to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character and, finally, to be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations. All of the above is to be conducted according to principles of sovereign equality of all its Members and, for the most part, according to peaceful resolution of problems. (www.un.org) I think that United Nations are theoretically a good effort to achieve good things in our world. I don’t see any danger in its existence and I don’t believe that UN is a form of one world government. Quite contrary, my opinion is that the idea of global government resides in a realm of multinational corporations and international financial institutions. I see UN as an example of a democratic forum where countries that do not practice democracy at local levels, can learn about it at international level. Many of UN institutions have honorable and worthwhile principles and help change the imbalance between developed and developing world. Also, I believe that peace-keeping efforts of the UN saved many lives and contributed to stopping of armed conflicts around the world. 4. Conflict between North and South Korea began in 1950. The war between two Korean states was a direct result of the political division of Korea by agreement of the victorious Allies at the conclusion of the Pacific War. North Korea, according to the agreement, was to be under influence of China and Soviet Union, while the southern part was to remain in the sphere of the United States. The division proved to be fateful for the Korean peninsula for years to come and into today. The problems began when in 1948 communist government was installed in the North. In 1950 North Korea attacked the south and the war began. The conflict lasted for three years, and it ended after numerous offensives and counter-offensives with a truce that set the official border between two countries at the 38th parallel. Ever since, the peninsula remains unstable and from time to time the world witnesses issues arising. Most recently the communist government in the North was under pressure from the UN and world’s influential countries to stop with their production of nuclear weapons. The major players in this conflict are certainly the United States and China. A little changed since the 1950’s, as the US is still backing South Korea and its democratic government and China supporting more or less publicly the communist North. The US is very much involved in the conflict and is trying to push for changes in Korea. Currently, the US is trying to do so through 6 party talks between two Korean states, Japan, China and Russia. The talks mainly are aimed to stop North Korean nuclear program but in the bigger picture the ultimate goal is to find a peaceful resolution to the security concerns in that part of the world. Three competing perspectives on international relations offer insight on the conflict- realism, liberalism and globalization. According to realists the region is now ready to be a scene of classical great-power rivalry. Involvement of the US, China and Russia might signal that, especially when we account for geopolitics and the fact that North Korea borders both Russia and China. On the other hand, liberalism sees the situation in Korea as a place of great-power cooperation. The belief here is that China does not really support North Korean communists that much and is therefore more open for negotiations and compromises. North Korea is seen as surprisingly resilient and, contrary to the notion that it is the weakest of the six nations engaged, in a way dictating force in peace talks. (Armstrong 168) Overall, problems on Korean peninsula changed very little since 1950’s. North and South are still divided along lines of government types, South having a democracy, North being a communist dictatorship. It seems that the conflict will continue in the years to come, especially since it became more complicated by North Korean nuclear development program. The resolution of the conflict will depend on outside mediation where the US, China, Japan and Russia, along with the UN, will play key roles. Works Cited Charles Armstrong. “ Korea at the center: dynamics of regionalism in Northeast Asia. “ 2006. New York: M.E. Sharp Inc. Norman Vig and Regina Axelrod. “ The Global Environment: Institutions, Law, and Policy.” 2005. Washington: CQ Press People Centered Development Forum. “About People Centered Development Forum” www.pcdf.org http://www.pcdf.org/about.htm The United Nations. “ The Charter of the United Nations.” www.un.org http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/chapter1.shtml Read More