The United Nations An Achievement Of Modern

The United Nations: An Achievement Of Modern Times Essay, Research Paper

The United Nations, with its rigid moral and political limitations against force, has become a benchmark of peace and a social achievement of modern times. From war torn Europe, the United Nations developed from five major powers with an initial goal to prevent the spread of warfare through peaceful means and to establish and maintain fundamental human rights. Through the past fifty years, this organization has broadened its horizons with auxiliary organizations from peace keeping missions to humanitarian aid, to economic development. However, in a modern example of ethnic cleansing, the UN faces new a new role as a bystander as its power is bypassed by NATO forces. The UN, however, promises to be an organization of the future with its origins rooted deeply in the histories of nations, both big and small. The United Nations began as a symbol of power and peace. Its goals remain set for peace, and consequently, it will remain to be such a figure.

Its beginnings were anything but humble. In 1947, following the end of the Second World War, five major powers of the time, England, Russia, China, France, and the United States pioneered an institution to safeguard the peace of the world. Based on Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points peace proposal, submitted to congress January 8, 1918 (Patterson, UN, 10) a “general association of nations to guarantee political independence and secure borders for great and small powers alike” (Patterson, UN, 11) was needed to prevent future wars. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Wilson’s idea of peace was accepted by a ravaged Europe and the last of his Fourteen Points, that an alliance: the League of Nations, must be formed. This last point was added to the Treaty of Versailles (Patterson, UN, 12) and became the first step in forming what is now the United Nations. However, the League, once secure used its representatives’ power and presence as a threat, but did not follow through with such threats when major opposition arose. For example, in the 1930s, the League of Nations “possessed neither the will nor the means to stop them [fascist dictators in Italy, Germany, and Japan]” (Patterson, UN, 14). Although this organization did little to prevent the Second World War in 1939, it did pave the way for humanitarian aid efforts to refugees and helped to resolve a number of border disputes before the war.

Following the second of the World Wars, the League of Nations was replaced by the modern United Nations. This organization’s aims were similar to their predecessor’s, to maintain harmony through settling border disputes and to offer humanitarian aid wherever necessary, but the UN’s charter states further that tolerance and equality is necessary in peace:

The Purposes of the United nations are:

1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and internal law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;

2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;

3. To achieve international cooperation in solving internal problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion (Charter, 1).

On June 25, 1945 the United Nations Charter was signed, setting the framework for economic, social and political reform (Patterson, UN, 20) By October 24, 1945,

the United Nations had become an official organization. Two months later, by December 27, the UN Charter had 51 signatures, making it a new world power with the ultimate aim for peace and humanitarian efforts. The preamble to the Charter of the United Nations states:

We the peoples of the United Nations [are] determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from the treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, and for these ends to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and to ensure the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save the common interest, and to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples (Charter, 1).

From its noble beginnings, the League of Nations, major world power’s backing and 51 initial signatures endorsing the organization’s goals, th