Debate: Value of the United Nations

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Does the United Nations have good value in the world or is it irrelevant and worthless?

Background and context

After the League of Nations failed to prevent World War II, it was decided to create a new international body called the United Nations. The United Nations focuses on Peacekeeping/Security - In the 1960s, the United Nations helped successfully restore a broken Republic of Congo to a stable state by suppressing a rebellion and defeating foreign invading troops. In Namibia, Cambodia, El Salvador, and Mozambique, the UN helped dismantle the corrupt governments there and helped install a new democratic system. The operations were all successful, thanks in part to the willingness of the people in those countries to help.

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Relic: Is the UN able to enforce regulations, restrictions, etc.?

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Yes

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No

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Values: Does the UN stand for the right values?

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Yes

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No

• The U.N's actions are not morally acceptable. According to the UN itself, Sudan's government is directly responsible for "displacement, starvation, and killing of civilians, looting and burning of villages, abductions and rape." Yet Sudan remains an integral member nation of the U.N. Libya and Syria have been known sponsors of international terrorism for over three decades, yet no act has been made to counter this terrorism. Sierra Leone, another country voted in, has been recently denounced by the UN for committing "abuses of human rights…with impunity, atrocities against civilians, including executions, mutilations, abductions, arbitrary detention, forced labor, looting, and killings of journalists. Yet the U.N. continues to grant membership to these nations.

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Effectivity: Can the UN work effectively?

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Yes

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No

• The U.N. has been extremely ineffective in the past. [1] "Despite its grand commitment to end threats to human security, such as interstate war, genocide, famine, internal war, disease and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the U.N. has been surprisingly unsuccessful at achieving these ends. Genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and, most recently, Sudan have continued relentlessly, despite the most earnest attempts of the U.N. to cajole its member states to act. The U.N. has not stopped North Korea's attempts at creating a nuclear arsenal, nor has it prevented India and Pakistan from testing their own nuclear weapons. Iran's Holocaust-denying president is well on his way to developing fissionable material, regardless of their referral to the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency."

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Is there a better way to tackle burning issues of the world than by involving the UN?

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Yes

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No

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See also

• Debate: U.S. Withdrawal From the United Nations
• Debate: UN responsibility to protect civilians
• Debate: Intervention to prevent failed states
• Debate: International military intervention in Darfur
• Debate: Foreign intervention in African affairs
• Debate: UN obligation to intervene against genocide
• Debate: Sanctioning Zimbabwe?
• Debate: Is NATO a relic?
• Debate: United Nations Standing Army

External links and resources

• Open Democracy: "Is the U.N. obsolete?", April 17, 2003
• International Military Forums: "Topic: is the UN obsolete?"
• Live From Brussels: "UN obsolete?", September 16, 2002
• Serious Debate: Resolved, that the United Nations is obsolete.