The UN - Effective or not?

DeletedUser

Guest
This cropped up a bit in the international aid thread and seemed quite interesting, so thought we needed a thread on it.

Is the UN an effective organisation? Would we be better making changes to it or abolishing it altogether? Its certainly had its problems in the past, but is it improving?
 

DeletedUser

Guest
I'm pretty "certainly has its problems" is a fairly obscene euphemism.

The organization swore to prevent genocide from ever occurring again after the Holocaust occurred when it adopted the UDHR in 1952, there's been about 7 or 8 genocides of comparable scale since.

Its failed its biggest self appointed mandate.
Its showed its inability to enforce its stated principles and as of this year, executing homosexuals for bing homosexual is no longer a crime according to the UN.
 
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DeletedUser

Guest
I'm pretty "certainly has its problems" is a fairly obscene euphemism.

The organization swore to prevent genocide from ever occurring again after the Holocaust occurred when it adopted the UDHR in 1952, there's been about 7 or 8 genocides of comparable scale since.

Its failed its biggest self appointed mandate.
Its showed its inability to enforce its stated principles and as of this year, executing homosexuals for bing homosexual is no longer a crime according to the UN.

The UN may have failed in some circumstances, but everyone always ignores their successes. Perhaps if there was no UN we'd have had a lot more war and genocide. And lets face it, one of the main reasons for the UN was to prevent big world wars which I'd say its had a pretty good record on (don't go on about the league of nations).

As for the homosexual hate crime thing, the countries who do execute them would carry on anyway regardless of law. I very much doubt that other countries are suddenly going to start taking it up.

However, I do believe that some kind of reform is needed to make it reflect the balance of power in the world a little better and to allow it to a little more influence around the world, as currently its more of a slave to bigger powers. I think it can improve though, it hasn't failed completely.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
I'm with Pervis on this. It could definitely be performing much, much better than it is righ now. However, being the unoffical World Police is a rather lopsided goal that largely depends on the co-operation of everyone and an understanding government of said members.
However, I do believe that some kind of reform is needed to make it reflect the balance of power in the world a little better and to allow it to a little more influence around the world, as currently its more of a slave to bigger powers. I think it can improve though, it hasn't failed completely.
Unlikely to happen. Big powers don't stay at the top by sharing everything they have. Capitalism in politics.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
The UN may have failed in some circumstances, but everyone always ignores their successes. Perhaps if there was no UN we'd have had a lot more war and genocide. And lets face it, one of the main reasons for the UN was to prevent big world wars which I'd say its had a pretty good record on (don't go on about the league of nations).


Perhaps is a theoretical scenario, we do not know that and we certainly don't see the UN preventing genocides anywhere.

What we do know for fact, is that the UN took upon itself a very specifically worded mandate to prevent genocide.
And that it has failed that mandate again and again.


As for the homosexual hate crime thing, the countries who do execute them would carry on anyway regardless of law. I very much doubt that other countries are suddenly going to start taking it up.

The least the UN could do is have the decency to condemn it or consider it to be wrong in their paper resolutions. They do not. Which shows the strength of their convictions regarding human rights.

Their ability to provide or enforce those rights has also been reduced to a laughingstock. See above part about genocide and/or any incident of HR abuse in the world. UN has been unable to or have chosen not to intervene in pretty much every HR disaster in the world right now.

It hasn't failed in "some" circumstances, its pretty hard to find any circumstances it hasn't failed in.
 
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