Bodies of United Nations - Essay Example

The Mission Filed, Nearly 800,000 People Died, the Hero Rise The United Nations organization was formed in 1945 after the World War II ended. It was formed to ensure that the world became a better place of living for everyone. In other words it was formed to avoid war, killings, injustice and promote peace in all areas of the world. It basically aimed to influence all the countries of the world through economic progress, social security and international law. Presently it has 192 Member states which have to follow the rules laid down by the UN in the general assembly along with 5 permanent states and 10 non permanent states in the Security Council. It also has an Economic and Social council which has 54 members and an international court of justice consisting of fifteen judges. It has a Trusteeship council and a secretariat which are discussed subsequently. The United Nations through its five bodies is helping to maintain international politics in such a way that the whole world remains in peace and harmony. It is basically acting as a judge of politics so that countries do not fight or the populations of the countries do not suffer either financially or physically because of any threat. In order to develop a norm for all the countries international laws are laid down by the United Nations which have to be followed by all the member countries. These international laws are regulated by treaties between the UN and the countries. These treaties are broad as they consider many aspects of the society such as human rights, refugees and border restrictions (United Nations 2010; Varwick 2005). The question now arises as to if the United Nations has remained successful in achieving its objectives or not. This question can be viewed from several perspectives as some would view the role of United Nations to be limited to only the betterment of itself however some would view the UN to be an organization which is working for the betterment in the society. Rwanda Genocide is cited to be one of the failures by the United Nations organization which shows that the UN has not been very successful in achieving its objectives. On the contrary many other successful scenarios of UN can also be analyzed all over the world which shows that they have regulated international politics in such a way that many wars have been avoided. An example of Indo Pak can be cited here which was stopped with the help of UN intervention. This essay would further analyze the bodies of the United Nations and its failure of intervention in the Rwanda genocide along with the success or failures of UN (Barnett 2002; Dallaire & Beardsley 2004). Bodies of United Nations General Assembly The general assembly of the United Nation consists of all the member countries who have signed an accord with it. Representatives from all the member countries are included in the general assembly and it is through their vote that many recommendations are passed by the UN. These recommendations can either be related to peace and security or to the financial budgets (United Nations 2010). Economic and Social Council The Economic and Social Council of the UN organization takes part in the formation of economic and social policies given out by the UN. It also has members in it in which every member has one vote. It is through these votes that several of the economic and social policies are sorted out by the UN (United Nations 2010). International Court of Justice As the name implies it is the court of justice for all the member states of the UN. It is governed by fifteen judges who help to settle legal disputes between states and their armies. Its statute is as per the United Nations Charter which has to be followed by the judges (United Nations 2010). Trusteeship Council The Trusteeship council had a total 11 trust territories which were to be judged by seven member states. Its primary aim was to prepare the territories for independence and self governance in the future. The 11 territories have successfully attained independence and the procedure and rules are still there to follow for any future incident (United Nations 2010). Secretariat The secretariat is the everyday office of the United Nations. It follows a protocol to analyze the processes that other bodies of the UN have implemented. In other words it has a key role in assisting other bodies of the organization so as to make their work more effective and efficient (United Nations 2010). Security Council And lastly the Security Council which is the primary body of UN will be discussed in this essay. The Security Council has a responsibility of monitoring and implementing peace efforts all over the world through which terrorism and security threats are avoided. The innocent killing of people is also managed by the Security Council and it was because of the failure of the Security Council to manage the Rwanda incident that the genocide occurred in the region (United Nations 2010). UN and the Rwanda Genocide The United Nations Security Council played an important role in the failure of the organization in the Rwanda genocide when it did not forward directives to the soldiers to bring an immediate ceasefire between the fighting groups of Hutus and Tutsis. The genocide occurred because of the complete failure of UN as the region of Rwanda had been suffering from trouble since 1918. The trouble began in 1918 when the Belgians took over Rwanda which comprised of two ethnic groups namely Tutsis and Hutus. The Tutsis were less in number than the Hutus but still they were given the leading positions of the state by the Belgian forces. This was the step which created anger amongst the Hutus and they began to react. After Rwanda gained independence from Belgium the Hutus came with a strike on the Tutsis and exiled them from the region making their own president. The Tutsis then formed a militia known as the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). In 1991 the RPF launched an attack on the state of Rwanda killing many Hutus and this led to an organization of army by the state leading to massacres of the people living in the region who were mainly Tutsis. It was in 1993 that a pact was signed under the supervision of UN between the RPF and the state government of Rwanda. It was after this act that UN Security Council had to follow all the happenings of the region but it did not do so even though it was constantly reminded by the commander Romeo Dallaire (Dallaire 2004). In 1993 an army was sent by the UN to check on the implementation of the accord by both parties and this was commanded by the hero Romeo Dallaire. In 1994 Dallaire saw a large massacre happening in Rwanda as the Hutus were equipping their militia. It was then that Dallaire informed the Security Council of possible threats but all these warnings were ignored. In April 1994 the president of Hutu was shot dead and this led to a widespread massacre killing many Tutsis along with Hutus. The numbers of the people dead have been pronounced to be more than 800,000. It was in May 17 1994 that the UN recognized the event as a genocide and thereby deployed 2500 troops in Rwanda to stop the killings. The RPF took over the state of Rwanda and declared a ceasefire in July 1994 (Sangster & MacMillan 2004; Barnett 2002; Dallaire 2004). Even though the genocide occurred and killings spread after the withdrawal of the forces from Rwanda, Dallaire did not lose hope and tried to save the citizens of Rwanda. The Tutsis were the main target of the armies in Rwanda and thus Dallaire used his forces from other member states like India, Canada, Nigeria and Ghana to avoid their killings. It is maintained that through the actions of Dallaire around 32,000 of the Tutsis were not harmed by the forces. It is because of his brave actions that Dallaire is still known to be the hero from the Rwanda genocide (Dallaire 2004). The genocide was a great failure for the United Nations as it was under their supervision that the accord was signed between the two ethnic tribes. However after the killing of 10 Belgian soldiers the UN backed off from their track and this gave a worst condition to the whole genocide. The UN has ever since admitted its mistake in preventing the genocide of Rwanda and sort out its policies to further prevent any such genocide from happening in the future. The UN changed its stance on many issues after the genocide happened and many of its senior leaders were seen to state that they learned a lot from the genocide (United Nations 2010). Richard Holbrooke an ambassador of UN stated "The prevention of another round of genocidal violence in central Africa is one of the core elements of US policy in the Great Lakes, and is one of the United Nations' greatest challenges" (BBC News 2000). It can clearly be seen that the UN Security Council after the genocide got more particular about warnings. It sought out its policies in such a way that future incidents occurring all over the world could be avoided. The policies which were taken by UN regarding the war on Afghanistan can be cited here which have served to be purposeful in decreasing the terrorism rate in the world. The UN Security Council urged all its member countries to follow the rules as laid down by Resolution 1267. The resolution clearly stated that all the member countries had to freeze the accounts of any person who was being controlled by the Taliban or the state had to freeze all the accounts which somehow belonged to the Taliban. This is an example of one Act by the UN which clearly shows that an attempt is being made the prevent terrorism in the world (Emilio 2004). Similarly a war between the third world countries of India and Pakistan was ended by the intervention of the UN in 1965 which prevented bloodshed of the individuals from both the countries (Mahmud 2002). However it can be still noticed that at many instances the UN has failed to provide a platform for peace for the whole world. In the Cold War it was seen that the UN almost became inactive because of the veto powers used by the member states of the organization. It is here that one wonders that there is still room for improvement in the UN structure..The other bodies of UN have seen to play a rather efficient role in their performance as they do not have to take much into consideration. Health policies have been enacted by these bodies which are seen in many third world countries of the world. However the Security Council can be said to be lacking in many areas (Leffler et al 2009). Improvements in the UN body Many improvements can be made to the UN Security Council which failed on the instance of Rwanda. Rwanda genocide occurred primarily because of the faults committed by the members of the organization. In other instances such as Cold War the organization almost became inactive in counteracting the issues surrounding the world peace. The Security Council can be improved by further segmenting it into small divisions. This can help every division to emphasize on specific locations of the world which are sensitive. The power should still lie with the Secretary of UN but the divisions should be keeping the Secretary aware with every possibility of Security breach in their perimeters. These segmental compartments can help in the division of labor by the organization and hence it can work effectively and improve its graph of success. Moreover the UN can also open up new bodies which can check upon the progress of the divisions which are formed. All these factors together can help avoid a situation like Rwanda in the future. The efforts of Dallaire are still praised all over the world and he is presently working as a human rights activist. The Rwanda genocide could have been avoided if the hero was given orders by the UN. The UN has proved to be successful in some instances but further improvement is needed in the bodies (United Nations 2010; Barnett 2002). References Ahmed, Mahmud. Illusion of Victory: A Military History of the Indo-Pak War-1965. Karachi: Lexicon Publishers, 2002. Print. Barnett, Michael N. Eyewitness to a Genocide: The United Nations and Rwanda. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002. Print. Cardenas, Emilio J. "The United Nations Security Council's Quest for Effectiveness." Michigan Journal of International Law. 25.4 (2004): 1341. Print. Dallaire, Romeo L. G. E. N, and Brent M. A. J. O. R. Beardsley. Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda. Toronto: Vintige Canada, 2004. Print. Gareis, Sven, and Johannes Varwick. The United Nations: An Introduction. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Print. Jennifer MacMillan and Emily Sangster. Dallaire discusses Rwandan genocide. The Journal Queens University. 2004. Leffler, Melvyn P, and Odd A. Westad. The Cambridge History of the Cold War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Print. United Nations Official Website 2010 UN admits Rwanda genocide failure. BBC News 2000. Read More