Igo Essay, Research Paper

“International organizations have been viewed at one extreme, as the

vanguard of an emerging world government and at the other, as an exercise in

futility in fostering cooperation among sovereign states.”1 Whatever they

are recognized as, they must realize that the world that we live in is an

ever-changing one. Not a day goes by where there is not a significant

occurrence, whether it be a new leader in a new country or a war breaking

out in another, something happens and not only do these happenings effect

the country of origin but it effects the entire world. The world is now

interdependent and the role of international governmental organizations

(IGO) such as the United Nations has become very important. This is why the

world is calling for change within these organizations to make them stronger

and more legitimate. Just like all the other IGO’s the United Nations has

been pressured to change. “In July 1997, the Secretary General of the United

Nations reported that the organization (the UN) had become fragmented,

duplicative, and ineffective in some areas; it risked becoming irrelevant if

it did not more effectively carry out its missions.”2 With this in mind, the

United Nations needs to go through a process for this change which includes,

first, the recognition of where the world is headed in the future and what

role the United Nations will play in that world. Second, they need to

establish new missions and goals to suit their role in the new world .

Finally the United Nations needs to have an effective implementation

strategy for these missions and goals. Through these three steps the United

Nations can take step forward in to the new world and make themselves a

stronger and more legitimate IGO for the new millennium and beyond.

The world that we live in today has become a global world. No longer are

we confined by the borders that once hindered communication and commerce

from country to country. Today we are faced with the more important task of

controlling this changing world and maintaining order. The United Nations

must recognize the important areas where they can play a vital role to help

maintain and control. “There have been shifting views in recent years as to

whether the organization should be (and can be) primarily looked to and

relied upon to address war-peace concerns as opposed to other concerns.”3,

Martin Rochester states. The United Nations must look past just simply

their war-peace concerns and concern themselves with other things that

plague the world of today and tomorrow. These things include human rights

and international law. Some long term observable trends exist in today’s

world and they include, the growing diffusion and ambiguity of power. That

is, the movement of power away from superpowers like the United States and

the continued growth of power in places like Japan. Secondly, the growing

fluidity of alignments, including the breaking down of the East-West

conflict as Eastern states move ideologically toward western thought.

Thirdly, the introduction of more intricate patterns of interdependence, no

longer just militarily, but on a variety of concerns. Finally, the growing

role of non state actors which include the private business world and

special interest groups.4 The United Nations must take all of these trends

into consideration to realize that their role in the new millennium will be

to try and be involved in all of this by addressing the concerns of

war-peace relations, human rights concerns, and the issue of international

law while keeping in mind the observable trends that exist in today’s modern

world.

With this new position in mind, the United Nations must determine where it

is appropriate to establish new missions and goals and where the old ones

simply need to be reformed. The main areas of focus will be on concerns of

war-peace relations, human rights concerns and the issues of sustainable

development and international law.

War peace relations are of a central concern to the United Nations and

therefore should be addressed first. “In 1945 the world community

established the United Nations with the explicit purpose of undertaking a

collective responsibility for international peace and security.”5 With this

in mind, the United Nations must consider what their role is in this area in

today’s world. The question that is at the fore front of this argument is

what is the best way to maintain peace.

“Both short- and long-term goals are at stake. In the short term the

UN has to feel its way, one step at a time, learning painfully from

experience… In the long term, a doctrine to govern enforcement actions

will have to be formally or tacitly accepted by the members of the (UN)

Security Council. A UN case law will gradually accumulate that may

make this possible, including some consensus on what constitutes a

threat to peace and how the members should share the the costs, both

military and financial, of dealing with it.”6

The United Nations is still a relatively young organization. Everything

they do is precedent setting in one way or another. Although this is true

they must look forward. The UN needs to draw from the experience that they

do have and start to outline the framework for maintaining international

peace and stability. This ability to create this framework is coming with

the observable trends that were mentioned earlier. The diffusion of power

is integral to the implementation due to the fact that more countries will

have more at stake and will want to be involved. Also the growing role of

non-state actors is of great importance to the introduction of the UN

framework for peace. This is due to the involvement of people other than

governments. While this is all going on the United Nations must keep the

big picture in mind though. So it must be asked, “What price peace? Peace is

always a collective responsibility; however distant a conflict may seem, we

are all affected, and all have an interest, as well as a responsibility in

trying to bring about a more peaceful world.”7 So the United Nations must

keep this in mind while striving to create short and long term goals in the

area of war – peace relations but ultimately the long term goals are of the

most importance.

Another major concern for the United Nations is their role in the human

rights battle. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “Whereas

recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights

of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and

peace in the world.”8 The argument surrounding human rights is just what

role the United Nation plays in setting them. The question, of course, is

if not the United Nations then who will create these rights? Should it be

left to the independent countries to set rights for their peoples or should

the United Nations seek to make this a universal right? Shirley Farlinger

writes, “Does the UN have to wait until leaders discover how a civilized,

just and peaceful global society could benefit everyone? Or should the UN

lead the way? I believe that a reformed United Nations and an energized,

gender-equal civil society can transform society and restore the Earth.”9

This is very true, the United Nations should set their goals and missions to

be a leader in this field. With the power that the United Nations yield

they should use it constructively to gain rights for all. This plan also

addresses the overriding trends that are occurring in the world today. With

the diffusion of power and the growing fluidity of alignments the world is

looking to a central source for human rights and the United Nations would be

able to create these rights and police them fairly.

The United Nations must also address the issue of international law. “The

challenge is to ensure that international law remains sensitive to the

changing international scene and relevant to all those whom it seeks to

serve.”10 The United Nations has already started to get themselves involved

in international law practices. The period between 1990 – 1999 was declared

“The United Nations Decade of International Law. Four purposes were set out

for the decade and they were.

(1) The promotion of the acceptance of and respect for the principles of

international law;

(2) The promotion of means and methods for the peaceful settlement of

disputes between states, including resort to and full respect for the

International Court of Justice;

(3) The encouragement of the progressive development of international law

and its codification; and

(4) The encouragement of the teaching, study, dissemination and wider

appreciation of international law.11

These purposes that were set at the beginning of “The United Nations Decade

of International Law” should carry on today. The United Nations need to

take this framework that they have developed and see its strengths and

weaknesses. Once these are determined they need to exploit their strengths

and seek to address the weaknesses. Many of the same goals are still very

important to the issues surrounding International law and the role that the

United Nations plays within it. These purposes for the United Nations

involvement in international law also address some of the observable trends

that were mentioned earlier. The purposes address the trend of the growing

fluidity of alignments and the increase in the intricate patterns of

interdependence. Both of these trends call for some standardization in the

field of International Law. The United Nations role is just not to create

this international law but it is also to police and interpret it so as to

maintain a lawful and interdependent world.

An implementation schedule for the new missions and goals the United

Nations have concerning war-peace relations, human rights problems and the

issue of international law needs to be created swiftly. This is not without

issue itself though. Although the United Nations would like to address these

issues as quickly as they can, not everyone agrees on everything concerning

them. The most prevalent issue is United Nation’s funding.

“The UN funding problem is complex. There long has been talk of

creating independent revenue streams for the UN that go well beyond

UN gift shop receipts and other autonomous funding mechanisms that

now account for less than 5 percent of the organization’s finances…

However, there remains tremendous resistance to theses schemes,

especially among the major donors, so that national governments no

doubt will continue to be relied upon as the UN’s chief revenue source”12

Obviously without funding it is difficult for the UN to go ahead and start

with a schedule for implementation of these new goals and missions. The

funding issue is not the only issue either. There are other plans for

funding as well; one calls for the involvement of private interest groups.

This plan recognizes the observable trend of the growing role of non-state

actors. “While states are the central actors, the twentieth century has

seen a very significant meshing of activity by private interest groups with

the processes of intergovermental bodies”13 The entire organizational

environment is in question. “When an organization’s environment is in as

much flux as the UN’s strategic planning is particularly difficult.”14

Implementation of the new goals and missions put forth in this paper face

many barriers but the need to address them needs to be at the fore front of

the United Nations concerns. Effectively the plan of action for the UN

should be to solve their funding issues and organizational environment

issues first and then to put in place their new missions and goals as

efficiently as they can. The need for efficiency is paramount because of all

of the observable trends that continue to occur.

United Nations reform must occur rapidly and efficiently, in order to make

the United Nations stronger and more legitimate. This need is derived from

the rapidly changing world that surrounds us today. This reform can

accomplished by following three steps. The first is to recognize where the

world is headed and what the United Nations role is in it. The second step

is to establish new missions and goals to suit their role in the new world.

Finally the United Nations must find an effective implementation schedule

for these missions and goals. The observable trends all suggest that the

United Nations is and will be an integral part of the world that we know and

that we will know, this is why it is so important to make the it stronger

and more legitimate.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anstee, Margaret. “What Price Peace? — And United Nations Reform.”, Round

Table Issue 346 (April 1998): 227-234.

Bennett, LeRoy A. International Organizations Principles and Issues 5th

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Fawcett, Eric and Hanna Newcombe. United Nations Reform. Toronto: University

of Toronto Press, 1995.

Hinton Jr, Henry L. “United Nations Reform Initiatives”, FDCH Government

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Organization of Peace. The United Nations and Human Rights. 18th report.

Dobbs Ferry New York: Oceana Publications, Inc. 1968.

Plano, Jack C and Robert E. Riggs. The United Nations International

Organization and World Politics. Belmont California: Wadsworth Publishing

Company, 1994.

Rochester, Martin J. Waiting for the Millennium. Columbia South Carolina:

University of South Carolina Press. 1993.