UNO United Nations Organization

Introduction

United Nations (UN), international organization established on October 24, 1945.

The United Nations (UN) was the second multipurpose international organization established in the 20th century that was worldwide in scope and membership.

Its predecessor, the League of Nations, was created by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and disbanded in 1946.

Headquartered in New York City, the UN also has regional offices in Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi.

Its official languages are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.

The United Nations was founded with the mission to maintain world peace, develop good relations between countries, promote cooperation in solving the world’s problems and encourage respect for human rights.

It provides the nations of the world a forum to balance their national interests with the interests of the global whole.

It operates on the voluntary cooperation and participation of its member nations. Nothing can be accomplished without their agreement and participation.

Currently, there are 191 member countries with different social, political, and economic systems. These countries agree to peacefully settle disputes, refrain from threatening or using force against each other, and refuse to help other nations that oppose the U.N.’s mission.

Headquartered in New York City, the U.N. is a separate and independent entity with its own flag, post office, and postage stamps, and its buildings sit on international territory.

24 October has been celebrated as United Nations Day since 1948.

UN Day marks the anniversary of the entry into force in 1945 of the UN Charter.

In 1971, the United Nations General Assembly recommended that the day be observed by Member States as a public holiday.

History And Development

The creation of the U.N. resulted from a long history to promote international cooperation.

Nineteenth-century European philosophers and statesmen like Immanuel Kant had proposed a federation of nations dedicated to protecting the rights of smaller countries caught up in struggles between larger ones. The federation would punish any nation that committed an act of aggression against another.

This idea became a reality after World War I with the establishment of the League of Nations. The League was the brain-child of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and some of the victorious European powers. During its operation from 1920 and 1946, it enjoyed a few notable successes but ultimately faltered when it couldn’t prevent World War II. 4)
Despite the problems encountered by the League of Nations in arbitrating conflict and ensuring international peace and security prior to World War II, the major Allied powers agreed during the war to establish a new global organization to help manage international affairs.

This agreement was first articulated when U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill signed the Atlantic Charter in August 1941.

The name United Nations was originally used to denote the countries allied against Germany, Italy, and Japan. On January 1, 1942, 26 countries signed the Declaration by United Nations, which set forth the war aims of the Allied powers.

The United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union took the lead in designing the new organization and determining its decision-making structure and functions.

The first major step toward the formation of the United Nations was taken August 21–October 7, 1944, at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, a meeting of the diplomatic experts of the Big Three powers plus China (a group often designated the “Big Four”) held at Dumbarton Oaks, an estate in Washington, D.C. Although the four countries agreed on the general purpose, structure, and function of a new world organization, the conference ended amid continuing disagreement over membership and voting.

At the Yalta Conference, a meeting of the Big Three in a Crimean resort city in February 1945, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin laid the basis for charter provisions delimiting the authority of the Security Council.

The Dumbarton Oaks proposals, with modifications from the Yalta Conference, formed the basis of negotiations at the United Nations Conference on International Organization (UNCIO), which convened in San Francisco on April 25, 1945, and produced the final Charter of the United Nations.

The San Francisco conference was attended by representatives of 50 countries from all geographic areas of the world: 9 from Europe, 21 from the Americas, 7 from the Middle East, 2 from East Asia, and 3 from Africa, as well as 1 each from the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (in addition to the Soviet Union itself) and 5 from British Commonwealth countries. Poland, which was not present at the conference, was permitted to become an original member of the UN.

Security Council veto power (among the permanent members) was affirmed, though any member of the General Assembly was able to raise issues for discussion. Other political issues resolved by compromise were the role of the organization in the promotion of economic and social welfare; the status of colonial areas and the distribution of trusteeships; the status of regional and defense arrangements; and Great Power dominance versus the equality of states. The UN Charter was unanimously adopted and signed on June 26 and promulgated on October 24, 1945.

Principles

The purposes, principles, and organization of the United Nations are outlined in the Charter.

The essential principles underlying the purposes and functions of the organization are listed in Article 2 and include the following:

the UN is based on the sovereign equality of its members;

disputes are to be settled by peaceful means;

members are to refrain from the threat or use of force in contravention of the purposes of the UN;

each member must assist the organization in any enforcement actions it takes under the Charter;

and states that are not members of the organization are required to act in accordance with these principles insofar as it is necessary to maintain international peace and security.

Article 2 also stipulates a basic long-standing norm that the organization shall not intervene in matters considered within the domestic jurisdiction of any state.

Although this was a major limitation on UN action, over time the line between international and domestic jurisdiction has become blurred.

Membership

New members are admitted to the UN on the recommendation of the Security Council and by a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly.

Following worldwide decolonization from 1955 to 1960, 40 new members were admitted, and by the end of the 1970s there were about 150 members of the UN.

Another significant increase occurred after 1989–90 when many former Soviet republics gained their independence.
By the early 21st century the UN comprised nearly 190 member states.

Principal organs

The United Nations has six principal organs: the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Secretariat.

General Assembly

The only body in which all UN members are represented, the General Assembly exercises deliberative, supervisory, financial, and elective functions relating to any matter within the scope of the UN Charter.

Its primary role, however, is to discuss issues and make recommendations, though it has no power to enforce its resolutions or to compel state action.

Other functions include admitting new members; selecting members of the Economic and Social Council, the non permanent members of the Security Council, and the Trusteeship Council; supervising the activities of the other UN organs, from which the Assembly receives reports; and participating in the election of judges to the International Court of Justice and the selection of the secretary-general.

Decisions usually are reached by a simple majority vote. On important questions, however—such as the admission of new members, budgetary matters, and peace and security issues—a two-thirds majority is required.

The Assembly convenes annually and in special sessions, electing a new president each year from among five regional groups of states.

At the beginning of each regular session, the Assembly also holds a general debate, in which all members may participate and raise any issue of international concern.

Most work, however, is delegated to six main committees: (1) Disarmament and International Security, (2) Economic and Financial, (3) Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural, (4) Special Political and Decolonization, (5) Administrative and Budgetary, and (6) Legal.

Security Council

The UN Charter assigns to the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.

The Security Council originally consisted of 11 members—five permanent and six nonpermanent—elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms.

An amendment to the UN Charter in 1965 increased the council’s membership to 15, including the original five permanent members plus 10 non permanent members.

Among the permanent members, the People’s Republic of China replaced the Republic of China (Taiwan) in 1971, and the Russian Federation succeeded the Soviet Union in 1991.

After the unification of Germany, debate over the council’s composition again arose, and Germany, India, and Japan each applied for permanent council seats.

The non permanent members are chosen to achieve equitable regional representation, five members coming from Africa or Asia, one from eastern Europe, two from Latin America, and two from western Europe or other areas.

Five of the 10 non permanent members are elected each year by the General Assembly for two-year terms, and five retire each year. The presidency is held by each member in rotation for a period of one month.

Each Security Council member is entitled to one vote.

On all “procedural” matters—the definition of which is sometimes in dispute—decisions by the council are made by an affirmative vote of any nine of its members. Substantive matters, such as the investigation of a dispute or the application of sanctions, also require nine affirmative votes, including those of the five permanent members holding veto power. In practice, however, a permanent member may abstain without impairing the validity of the decision.

A vote on whether a matter is procedural or substantive is itself a substantive question. Because the Security Council is required to function continuously, each member is represented at all times at the UN’s headquarters in New York City.

Any country—even if it is not a member of the UN—may bring a dispute to which it is a party to the attention of the Security Council. When there is a complaint, the council first explores the possibility of a peaceful resolution.

International peacekeeping forces may be authorized to keep warring parties apart pending further negotiations.

If the council finds that there is a real threat to the peace, a breach of the peace, or an act of aggression (as defined by Article 39 of the UN Charter), it may call upon UN members to apply diplomatic or economic sanctions.

If these methods prove inadequate, the UN Charter allows the Security Council to take military action against the offending country.

During the Cold War, continual disagreement between the United States and the Soviet Union coupled with the veto power of the Security Council’s permanent members made the Security Council an ineffective institution.

Since the late 1980s, however, the council’s power and prestige have grown. Between 1987 and 2000 it authorized more peacekeeping operations than at any previous time.

The use of the veto has declined dramatically, though disagreements among permanent members of the Security Council—most notably in 2003 over the use of military force against Iraq—have occasionally undermined the council’s effectiveness. To achieve consensus, comparatively informal meetings are held in private among the council’s permanent members, a practice that has been criticized by non permanent members of the Security Council.

In addition to several standing and ad hoc committees, the work of the council is facilitated by the Military Staff Committee, sanctions committees for each of the countries under sanctions, peacekeeping forces committees, and an International Tribunals Committee.

Economic and Social Council

Designed to be the UN’s main venue for the discussion of international economic and social issues, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) directs and coordinates the economic, social, humanitarian, and cultural activities of the UN and its specialized agencies.

Established by the UN Charter, ECOSOC is empowered to recommend international action on economic and social issues; promote universal respect for human rights; and work for global cooperation on health, education, and cultural and related areas.

ECOSOC conducts studies; formulates resolutions, recommendations, and conventions for consideration by the General Assembly; and coordinates the activities of various UN programs and specialized agencies. Most of ECOSOC’s work is performed in functional commissions on topics such as human rights, narcotics, population, social development, statistics, the status of women, and science and technology; the council also oversees regional commissions for Europe, Asia and the Pacific, Western Asia, Latin America, and Africa.

The UN Charter authorizes ECOSOC to grant consultative status to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

Three categories of consultative status are recognized: General Category NGOs (formerly category I) include organizations with multiple goals and activities; Special Category NGOs (formerly category II) specialize in certain areas of ECOSOC activities; and Roster NGOs have only an occasional interest in the UN’s activities. Consultative status enables NGOs to attend ECOSOC meetings, issue reports, and occasionally testify at meetings. Since the mid-1990s, measures have been adopted to increase the scope of NGO participation in ECOSOC, in the ad hoc global conferences, and in other UN activities. By the early 21st century, ECOSOC had granted consultative status to more than 2,500 NGOs.

Originally, ECOSOC consisted of representatives from 18 countries, but the Charter was amended in 1965 and in 1974 to increase the number of members to 54.

Members are elected for three-year terms by the General Assembly. Four of the five permanent members of the Security Council—the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union (Russia), and France—have been reelected continually because they provide funding for most of ECOSOC’s budget, which is the largest of any UN subsidiary body. Decisions are taken by simple majority vote.

Trusteeship Council

The Trusteeship Council was designed to supervise the government of trust territories and to lead them to self-government or independence.

The trusteeship system, like the mandate system under the League of Nations, was established on the premise that colonial territories taken from countries defeated in war should not be annexed by the victorious powers but should be administered by a trust country under international supervision until their future status was determined.
Unlike the mandate system, the trusteeship system invited petitions from trust territories on their independence and required periodic international missions to the territories.

In 1945 only 12 League of Nations mandates remained: Nauru, New Guinea, Ruanda-Urundi, Togoland and Cameroon (French administered), Togoland and Cameroon (British administered), the Pacific Islands (Carolines, Marshalls, and Marianas), Western Samoa, South West Africa, Tanganyika, and Palestine. All these mandates became trust territories except South West Africa (now Namibia), which South Africa refused to enter into the trusteeship system.

The Trusteeship Council, which met once each year, consisted of states administering trust territories, permanent members of the Security Council that did not administer trust territories, and other UN members elected by the General Assembly. Each member had one vote, and decisions were taken by a simple majority of those present.

With the independence of Palau, the last remaining trust territory, in 1994, the council terminated its operations.
No longer required to meet annually, the council may meet on the decision of its president or on a request by a majority of its members, by the General Assembly, or by the Security Council.

Since 1994 new roles for the council have been proposed, including administering the global commons (e.g., the seabed and outer space) and serving as a forum for minority and indigenous peoples.

International Court of Justice

The International Court of Justice, commonly known as the World Court, is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, though the court’s origins predate the League of Nations.

The idea for the creation of an international court to arbitrate international disputes arose during an international conference held at The Hague in 1899. This institution was subsumed under the League of Nations in 1919 as the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ) and adopted its present name with the founding of the UN in 1945.

The court’s decisions are binding, and its broad jurisdiction encompasses “all cases which the parties refer to it and all matters specially provided for in the Charter of the United Nations or in treaties and conventions in force.” Most importantly, states may not be parties to a dispute without their consent, though they may accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the court in specified categories of disputes.

The court may give advisory opinions at the request of the General Assembly or the Security Council or at the request of other organs and specialized agencies authorized by the General Assembly. Although the court has successfully arbitrated some cases (e.g., the border dispute between Honduras and El Salvador in 1992), governments have been reluctant to submit sensitive issues, thereby limiting the court’s ability to resolve threats to international peace and security. At times countries also have refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction or the findings of the court.

For example, when Nicaragua sued the United States in the court in 1984 for mining its harbours, the court found in favour of Nicaragua, but the United States refused to accept the court’s decision.

The 15 judges of the court are elected by the General Assembly and the Security Council voting independently. No two judges may be nationals of the same state, and the judges are to represent a cross section of the major legal systems of the world. Judges serve nine-year terms and are eligible for reelection. The seat of the World Court is The Hague.

Secretariat

The secretary-general, the principal administrative officer of the United Nations, is elected for a five-year renewable term by a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly and by the recommendation of the Security Council and the approval of its permanent members.

Secretaries-general usually have come from small, neutral countries.

The secretary-general serves as the chief administrative officer at all meetings and carries out any functions that those organs entrust to the Secretariat; he also oversees the preparation of the UN’s budget.
The secretary-general has important political functions, being charged with bringing before the organization any matter that threatens international peace and security. Both the chief spokesperson for the UN and the UN’s most visible and authoritative figure in world affairs, the secretary-general often serves as a high-level negotiator.

Attesting to the importance of the post, two secretaries-general have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace: Dag Hammarskjöld in 1961 and Kofi Annan, co-recipient with the UN, in 2001.

The Secretariat influences the work of the United Nations to a much greater degree than indicated in the UN Charter.

It is responsible for preparing numerous reports, studies, and investigations, in addition to the major tasks of translating, interpreting, providing services for large numbers of meetings, and other work.

Under the Charter, the staff is to be recruited mainly on the basis of merit, though there has been a conscious effort to recruit individuals from different geographic regions. Some members of the Secretariat are engaged on permanent contracts, but others serve on temporary assignment from their national governments.

In both cases, they must take an oath of loyalty to the United Nations and are not permitted to receive instructions from member governments.

The influence of the Secretariat can be attributed to the fact that some 9,000 people on its staff are permanent experts and international civil servants rather than political appointees of member states.
The Secretariat is based in New York, Geneva, Vienna, Nairobi (Kenya), and other locales. It has been criticized frequently for poor administrative practices—though it has made persistent efforts to increase the efficiency of its operations—as well as for a lack of neutrality.

The secretary-general of the United Nations is sometimes described as a “secular pope”. The position is imbued with moral authority; the holder watches over an enormous flock, but he has no instruments of hard power.

UN Achievements

During its 60-year history, the U.N. has achieved many remarkable accomplishments in fulfilling it goals.

The U.N. has peacefully negotiated 172 peace settlements that have ended regional conflicts and is credited with participation in over 300 international treaties on topics as varied as human rights conventions to agreements on the use of outer space and the oceans.

The U.N. has been involved in every major war and international crisis since its inception and has served as a catalyst for the prevention of others. It authorized the international coalitions that fought in the Korean War (1950-53) and the Persian Gulf War (1991). It provided a forum for mediation in the Arab Israeli conflict resulting in numerous peace accords and keeping the conflict localized to the Middle East.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the U.N. was used as a podium by the United States to challenge the Soviet Union’s placement of nuclear missiles in Cuba. The embarrassment of public indictment was instrumental in forcing the Soviets to remove the missiles. U.N. military forces (provided by member states) have conducted over 35 peacekeeping missions providing security and reducing armed conflict.

In 1988, the U.N. Peace-Keeping Forces received the Nobel Prize for Peace. The U.N. has also set up war crimes tribunals to try war criminals in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

The U.N. has also made great strides in raising the consciousness of human rights beginning with the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” adopted by the General Assembly in 1948. The U.N. Commission on Human Rights through its investigations and technical assistance in promoting free and fair elections has helped many countries in the transition to democracy. The U.N.’s intense attention to specific human rights abuses helped end apartheid in South Africa. In its humanitarian efforts, more than 30 million refugees fleeing war, persecution, or famine have received aid from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. The International Court of Justice has helped settle numerous international disputes involving territorial issues, hostage-taking and economic rights.

Since the end of the Cold War, the U.N. has become increasingly involved in providing humanitarian assistance and promoting improvements in the health of the world’s peoples. In addition to providing relief for humanitarian crises caused by international conflicts, the U.N. can also respond to emergencies caused by natural disasters such as floods and hurricanes. On a proactive level, the World Health Organization (WHO) and other U.N. affiliated groups have eliminated smallpox and are actively pursuing a battle against AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria around the world. The WHO played a significant role in diagnosing and containing the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003. U.N. programs, like the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have saved and enriched the lives of the world’s children through immunization programs for polio, tetanus, measles, whooping cough, diphtheria and tuberculosis. The lives of over 3 million children a year have been saved.

The U.N. operates under the principle that promoting economic and social development will help bring about lasting world peace. The United Nations Development Program provides economic assistance through expert advice, training, and limited equipment to developing countries.

The U.N. Development Program coordinates all the U.N. efforts in developing nations and has had success in part because it is not perceived as an outside group threatening a developing countries’ authority or degenerating it to colonial rule.

In addition to promoting workers rights and the right to organize and bargain for better pay and working conditions, the U.N. has also played a significant role in improving agricultural techniques and increasing crop yields in Asia, Africa, and South America. The U.N. has also helped developing nations obtain funding projects through the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, also known as the World Bank. A related U.N. agency, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) promotes international cooperation on monetary issues and encourages stable exchange rates among nations.

The U.N. has an impressive record of resolving many international conflicts. U.N. peacekeepers have, since 1945, undertaken over 60 field missions and negotiated 172 peaceful settlements that ended regional conflicts. Right now, peacekeepers are in 20 hot spots around the world trying to save lives and avert wars.

The U.N. also fought for the liberation of countries that have been under colonial rule for over 450 years. Eighty nations and more than 750 million people have since been freed from colonialism.

The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights empowered the U.N. to act as custodian for the protection of human rights, discrimination against women, children’s rights, torture, missing persons and arbitrary detention that was occurring in many countries.

Moreover, the U.N. and its specialised agencies are engaged in enhancing all aspects of human life, including education, health, poverty reduction, the rights of women and children, and climate change.

As a result, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded 12 times to the U.N., its specialised agencies, programmes and staff. This included an award in 1988 to the U.N. Peacekeeping Forces, and in 2001 to the U.N. and its secretary-general, Kofi Annan.

The U.N. defined, codified and expanded the realm of international law, governing the legal responsibilities of States in their conduct with each other, and their treatment of individuals within State boundaries. More than 560 multilateral treaties on human rights, refugees, disarmament, trade, oceans, outer space, etc. encompassing all aspects of international affairs were negotiated by the U.N.

The U.N. has made progress with its eight Millennium Development Goals, which will be followed by 17 Sustainable Development Goals to enhance social, environmental and economic progress by 2030. But it could not stop the United States from abandoning the Kyoto Protocol, ignoring the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, repudiating the Biological Weapons Convention, and repealing the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

Guaranteeing Sovereign Territorial integrity to weaker states

Justice: Prosecutions of Charles Taylor and Slobodan Milosevic The Liberian and Serbian leaders were both prosecuted for war crimes by tribunals set up by the United Nations, with Taylor sentenced to 50 years’ imprisonment. Milosevic died of a heart attack before a verdict was reached.

Ending famine The world is an unequal place, with large parts beset by poverty and hunger, and thousands still die of malnourishment every year. But as with war, the numbers have fallen from the 20th century, when more than 70 million died from famine. Again, intervention by the UN’s World Food Programme, Food and Agriculture Organisation, and UN-sponsored emergency aid management can take some of the credit.

Checking Nuclear Arms Proliferation Never before in history have countries voluntarily decided to give up weapons because they were too efficient. South Africa did this at the end of apartheid, and Kazakhstan when the Soviet Union fell apart. A number of other countries have committed to ending nuclear weapon research programmes and submit to inspections by the UN International Atomic Energy Agency.

Services in Economic and Social Sector

Provision of succor and relief in times of crises

Efforts for fighting Poverty and Hunger

Initiatives against Gender/ Domestic violence and Child Abuse; Empowering women

Help to Refugees and Asylum-Seekers

Humanitarian Assistance to War-Torn Regions and Backward areas in developing societies

Educational Cultural Exchanges

Successes of UN Peacekeepers

Sierra Leone The UN peacekeeping force that operated in Sierra Leone from 1999 to 2005 is hailed as a success. It was created to help implement a peace agreement after the country’s devastating civil war. The then secretary general Ban Ki-Moon officially closed the UN offices in Freetown in 2014, declaring a “successful conclusion” to the organisations work in helping to bring peace to the country, calling it a “triumph for the people of Sierra Leone” after what had been a decade of warfare.

Burundi Burundi is also frequently cited as a success story for the UN peacekeeping operation, helping it recover from decades of ethnic war. Ban Ki-moon hailed Burundi’s “substantial progress, overcoming formidable challenges since the end of the civil war”.

Providing food to 90 million people in over 75 countries

Assisting more than 34 million refugees

Authorizing 71 international peacekeeping missions

Working with 140 nations to minimize climate change

Assisting about 50 countries per year with their elections

Providing vaccinations for 58 percent of children in the world

Helping about 30 million women a year with maternal health efforts

Protecting human rights with 80 treaties and declarations

UN Failures

Not Democratic in itself

Membership of Security Council and Abuse of Veto

Nuclear proliferation goes unabated

The US invasion of Iraq

Palestine Issue / Gaza Offensive / Israel Aggression

Kashmir Issue & Indian Aggression

Failure in Countering Terrorism

World gripped in too many socio-economic and political crises: the UN’s Role negligible

Rapes / Child Abuse Scandal: Rapes-Child Abuse in Congo

America’s undue involvement in internal affairs of states

Deteriorating environmental or climatic issues

Failures in Srebrenica Massacre, Rwanda Genocide, Atrocities committed by the communist regimes, Khmer Rouge

Failure of UN Peacekeepers

Srebrenica

On July 11, 1995, towards the end of Bosnia’s 1992-95 war, Bosnian Serb forces swept into the eastern Srebrenica enclave and executed 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the days that followed, dumping their bodies into pits. It was the worst atrocity in post-Second World War European history. The UN had previously declared the town one of the safe areas, to be “free from any armed attack or any other hostile act”. 600 Dutch infantry were supposed to be protecting thousands of civilians who had taken refuge from earlier Serb offensives in north-eastern Bosnia.

Rwanda

Another major failing of the UN peacekeeping organisation was not doing more to prevent the 1994 Rwandan genocide that left up to one million people dead. A 1999 inquiry found that the UN ignored evidence that the genocide was planned and refused to act once it had started. More than 2,500 UN peacekeepers were withdrawn after the murder of ten Belgian soldiers. In one case, the peacekeeping forces deserted a school where Tutsis were taking shelter – hundreds of people inside were immediately massacred.

Somalia

The UN operation was the first time the peacekeeping force had been used for “humanitarian intervention”. However, the peacekeepers were met with a hostile reception in Mogadishu. 157 of them were killed, including 24 pakistani soldiers and 18 American. The bodies of dead US soldiers were paraded through the streets on the orders of the Somali warlords. When an American Black Hawk helicopter was shot down as part of the Battle of Mogadishu, the US withdrew its troops. In 1995 the UN withdrew all peacekeeping troops. It was described at the time by one UN official as “the greatest failure of the UN in our lifetime”.

Rape and child sex abuse in the Congo

UN peacekeepers were accused of paying women and young girls they were supposed to be protecting for sex and sometimes raping them, in the Democratic Republic of Congo in early 2005. Subsequent reports found there had been similar allegations in countries ranging from Cambodia to Bosnia to Haiti.

Spreading cholera in Haiti

Genome testing showed that the most likely source of the world’s worst recent outbreak of cholera, which swept through Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, was a Nepali peacekeeping force. Although more 700,000 were infected and 8,000 died, the UN claimed immunity from a subsequent lawsuit.

Iraq oil for food programme

This was the programme whereby Iraq could gain relief from international sanctions by selling oil through the UN, which would supervise the delivery of food and medicine with the resulting cash. However, large sums of money were channelled into private pockets through the programme – with some even being used to buy influence at the UN itself. It is regarded as the worst financial scandal in UN history.

Crisis in South Sudan

A U.N. peacekeeping mission, which was established in 2011, was unsuccessful at protecting civilians from death, torture or rape in South Sudan.

Future of UNO

Overhauling the UN

Different schools of thought about its Reformation

Reforms in the Security Council

Fashioning it on Democratic lines

Eradication of Poverty: major task