It’s 24th October and the World is celebrating 76th year of United Nations. United Nation Organisation (UNO) was established today in the year 1945, after the World War 2.
The main purpose of United Nations is defined as ‘’maintaining world peace and global security’. Prior to UN, another organisation called “The League of Nations” was formed after the first Word War but failed, clearly. The sole task of such organisations is to not let another world war happen. So far, we can assume that United Nations is successful because the third World War hasn’t happened (yet), but I believe that’s too vague to call a success.
“We can achieve what others can’t, but success is never guaranteed. We have, built up an impressive record of peacekeeping achievements over more than 70 years of our existence, including winning the Nobel Peace Prize,” reads United Nations’ website.
There are not one, not two but multiple incidences where United Nations has failed in their objectives of peacekeeping, overcoming humanitarian crisis and avoiding wars.
On their 76th establishment year, let me cite five of the most recent failures of United Nations:
1. COVID19 Outbreak
The coronavirus that has claimed nearly 5 million lives has underscored the failure of the United Nations.On Dec. 31, 2019, Chinese authorities alerted the World Health Organization of pneumonia cases in Wuhan (China) with an unknown cause.On Jan. 21, 2020, WHO confirms human-to-human transmission of the virus. The total number of cases is now 222, including infections among health-care workers.Yet, on Jan 23, 2020, WHO’s director-general decides to NOT declare the 2019-nCoV outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
So far, no action or steps have been to prevent any “outbreak”, nor China was asked to stop their international flight and other gateways through which the Virus was still emitting.On Jan. 30, 2020, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus “finally” declares the 2019-nCoV outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. Yet, no further effective guidelines were released. Total confirmed cases (only) in China on the day of this declaration was made was 9,692, with 213 deaths. It was the lack of vision, urgency and expertise of World Health Organisation (and its leaders) who made the entire world suffer from the deadly outbreak of COVID19, which, a timely action and understanding could have avoided the extent of the pandemic.In September, 2020, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “The pandemic is a clear test of international cooperation – a test we have essentially failed.”
This isn't the first time when UN has harmed those they intended to help (unknowingly perhaps). UN aid workers from Nepal were identified as the source of a cholera outbreak which killed over 10,000 Haitians and sickened hundreds of thousands more. Yet the UN claimed diplomatic immunity and refused to provide compensation. Six years after the outbreak again, by which point more than 9,000 Haitians had already perished, then-Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon finally admitted the UN's culpability in the outbreak, saying he was “profoundly sorry”.
2. Peacekeeping
“Peacekeeping is seen as both one of the UN's successes and failures,” says Dr Jonathan Symons of Macquarie University, Australia.
No one is unaware of what horrors the state of Afghanistan has gone through lately and still continuing. A terrorist organisation taking over the government, defying all the humanitarian laws & international protocols and now building up from scratch to create “diplomatic” relations with the rest of the world ‘with the help of UN’ of course.Rwandan Civil War (1994), Srebrenica Massacre (1995), Iraq Invasion (2011), Syrian Civil War (still on), South Sudan Civil War (still on), Myanmar Ethnic Cleansing (still on); these are some of the most violent history of modern world, killing over a billion citizens of the world, where UN stood helpless and unhelpful.
3. Palestine-Israel issue & Kashmir issue
Palestine and Kashmir are two of the longest-running failures of the UN to resolve disputed lands. Palestine and Israel are in conflict ever since the creation of both the republics, which has resulted in over 70,000 human lives.Kashmir issue seems to be everlasting land dispute case where states of India, Pakistan and China are still in conflict over the possession and ownership of vast strategic landmasses of Central Asia.Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict is also one of the most recent ones where UN yet again failed to intervene with any solid solution.
4. Refugee Crisis
Myanmar, China, Syria and the list is ever going. No matter how much UN claims to serve, the ‘refugee crisis’ is never served enough. The fact that such situations arise shows multi-level failure of the UN; where they 'let it happen' in the first place.
5. Climate Change
Don’t bet on the UN to fix climate change – it’s failed for 30 years.
In a report by The Conversation, they wrote, “The scientist who had warned that climate change was upon us in 1988 – James Hansen – called the Paris Agreement a fraud, and since 2015, many nations are failing to meet their Paris commitments. Even if they did, global average temperature rise this century would be far in excess of the two degrees above pre-industrial levels that the deal is supposed to ensure. The US pulled out of the Paris agreement in June 2017. A clear pattern has emerged.
We have seen the UN’s inability to deal with crises from the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, to civil conflict in Syria, and the failure of the Security Council to adopt a COVID-19 resolution calling for ceasefires in conflict zones and a co-operative international response to the pandemic.The UN administration is not primarily to blame for these failures; rather, the problem is the great powers – in the case of COVID-19, China and the US – refusing to co-operate.
