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FAILURE OF UN Failure to prevent the 1994 Rwandan genocide, which resulted in the killings of nearly a million people, due to the refusal of security council members to approve any military action. ??? Failure by MONUC (UNSC Resolution 1291) to effectively intervene during the Second Congo War, which claimed nearly five million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), 1998-2002, and in carrying out and distributing humanitarian aid. Failure to intervene in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, despite the fact that the UN designated Srebrenica a “safe haven” for refugees and assigned 600 Dutch peacekeepers to protect it. ??? Failure to successfully deliver food to starving people in Somalia; the food was instead usually seized by local warlords. A U. S. /UN attempt to apprehend the warlords seizing these shipments resulted in the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu. ??? Failure to implement the provisions of UN Security Council Resolutions 1559 and 1701 calling for disarmament of Lebanese paramilitary groups such as Fatah and Hezbollah. Sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers. In December 2004, during the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo, at least 68 cases of alleged rape, prostitution and pedophilia and more than 150 other allegations have been uncovered by UN investigators, all perpetrated by UN peacekeepers, specifically ones from Pakistan, Uruguay, Morocco, Tunisia, South Africa and Nepal. Peacekeepers from three of those nations are also accused of obstructing the investigation. [ ??? Also, a French UN logistics expert in Congo was charged of rape and child pornography in the same month.
The BBC reported that young girls were abducted and raped by UN peacekeepers in Port-au-Prince. Similar accusations have been made in Liberia and in Sudan. Yes. Almost everyone agrees that the UN ought to be reformed. The difference is just what type of reforms are needed. Security Council- the SC permanent 5 members who have veto power (P5) are a throwback from 1945, and no longer represent the power distribution in the world. Countries like France and the UK are pretty much minor actors in international security, while countries like Germany, Japan, India, and Brazil have grown more powerful economically and militarily.
So there is some talk of reforming the P5 to represent today’s world, and naturally UK and France are a bit upset about it. Human Rights- it was a bit of a shock that countries who have abhorrent human rights records sit on the human rights committee. This has pretty much crippled UN initiatives in human rights. Corruption- while the Kofi-Annan (Food for Oil) incident was really not as widespread as the media made it out to be, there still exists the problem of accountability in the UN. Regional Organizations- since 1945, the world has developed many regional associations which do what the UN does, except better.
The EU is in Europe, CIS in Eastern Europe, SCO in East Asia, ASEAN in Southeast Asia, SAARC for the Indian subcontinent, AU for Africa, and OAS in Latin America all take care of matters like the UN. So these organizations should be integrated (not absorbed) into the UN framework. You really can’t just get rid of the UN. It may fail at regulating power politics (like the war in Iraq), but the UN is helpful in many other more subtle areas (like international maritime law, trade, postal service, etc).