What is your opinion of the UN

[karamazovmm]

What do you think of the UN? About all of its works, ranging from social, to military, political, climate, and so on.

Do you think the possibility of essence that is UN to be followed by more countries?

This is a very wide scope, civility is a must

[Farnan]

Things the UN does good:

Election Monitoring
Peacekeeping (not Peacemaking, and when there is a flexible mandate)
As a forum between nations
And as a Third Party.
Authorizing Peacemaking for clear "good" operations (such as Afghanistan) using third parties (like the ISAF or Gulf War Coalition).

It should stick to those tasks.

[B.Kaiser]

Things the UN does good:

Election Monitoring
Peacekeeping (not Peacemaking, and when there is a flexible mandate)
As a forum between nations
And as a Third Party.
Authorizing Peacemaking for clear "good" operations (such as Afghanistan) using third parties (like the ISAF or Gulf War Coalition).

It should stick to those tasks.

I couldn't agree more. As BushBush pointed out, the problem with the UN is that is often blamed for failing to become something it was never intended to be, such as some kind of 'world government'. It's plurality adds much to the legitimacy of its decisions, but also makes it neigh impossible get a mandate for, for example, humanitarian interventions, such as in Kosovo (where European nations and the US invaded after failing to obtain a UN mandate). That might actually be a good topic for another thread. Can countries invade other nations on humanitarian grounds, quoting 'universal values' to legitimise their assault? Europeans did it in Kosovo, probably without an external agenda. But the Russians also used the same rationale when their tanks crossed the Georgian border.

Firstly the human rights council needs to be reformed any human rights council that could have Libya as a member is not worth anything. A new style similar to the secruity council is needed a council of a number of countries that have shown themselves to be paragons of human rights.

But who is to decide what countries do and do not qualify for what? Should undemocratic countries be banned? But what if people prefer the leadership of their tribal elders over a democratic government? Banning nations would inevitably sap the international support for the UN.

[Captain Blackadder]

I couldn't agree more. As BushBush pointed out, the problem with the UN is that is often blamed for failing to become something it was never intended to be, such as some kind of 'world government'. It's plurality adds much to the legitimacy of its decisions, but also makes it neigh impossible get a mandate for, for example, humanitarian interventions, such as in Kosovo (where European nations and the US invaded after failing to obtain a UN mandate). That might actually be a good topic for another thread. Can countries invade other nations on humanitarian grounds, quoting 'universal values' to legitimise their assault? Europeans did it in Kosovo, probably without an external agenda. But the Russians also used the same rationale when their tanks crossed the Georgian border.

But who is to decide what countries do and do not qualify for what? Should undemocratic countries be banned? But what if people prefer the leadership of their tribal elders over a democratic government? Banning nations would inevitably sap the international support for the UN.

I think there are many nations that can outright be stopped from joining the human rights council because all the other countries in the world know that they do not care about them. For example does anyone think that Saudi Arabia is a haven of human rights? No thus banning them from joining the human rights council will not cause the sapping of support because even Saudi Arabia will say they do not care about human rights. A permanate council of free countries would be far better and would make what they say more meaningfull and not just a whole round of bash Israel/middle east affair that it currently is.

who is gonna do the missions? which country has the political will to send troops to die in a foreign civil war and genocide? Politicians love to talk and blame the UN but UN is not a government and it has no army. It's easy to say "well give them more mandate" but who will give UN the tools?

I am aware of that so I say that countries have to walk the walk and send in the troops when needed. So my second reform was not really aimed at the UN but at the countries that make it up.

[knight of virtue and valor]

the UN is the dumbest thing in the history of international alliances.

[Stavroforos]

The UN is pretty great, but there needs to be some reform of the way the Security Council works, or in other words get rid of the superfluous members and add more relevant ones.

[Il-Principe]

The UN is pretty great, but there needs to be some reform of the way the Security Council works, or in other words get rid of the superfluous members and add more relevant ones.

Indeed. France, UK and Russia have a permanent seat only for historical reasons. I propose kicking France and UK out and letting Germany and Japan in. Maybe also an extended circle with voting powers, but no veto right, should be established. Their members could be Brazil, India and the UK.

[Stavroforos]

Indeed. France, UK and Russia have a permanent seat only for historical reasons. I propose kicking France and UK out and letting Germany and Japan in. Maybe also an extended circle with voting powers, but no veto right, should be established. Their members could be Brazil, India and the UK.

The problem I see with that is that you're kicking out EU members and replacing them with another EU member. There can't be just one European nation in the Council, IMO.

[Tiberios]

The problem I see with that is that you're kicking out EU members and replacing them with another EU member. There can't be just one European nation in the Council, IMO.

Why? why must there be no EU members in the in Council as permanent members

[Manco]

Indeed. France, UK and Russia have a permanent seat only for historical reasons. I propose kicking France and UK out and letting Germany and Japan in. Maybe also an extended circle with voting powers, but no veto right, should be established. Their members could be Brazil, India and the UK.

Let's ignore that France, the Uk and Russia are still the most powerful countries after the US and China, shall we?

[roy34543]

Let's ignore that France, the Uk and Russia are still the most powerful countries after the US and China, shall we?

Economically or politically?
Politically the UK and Russia are not that strong.
Economically your far off, Japan is still third. and this place called germany is stronger then france (and is fourth , btw by a significant amount)
Im of the opinion economic weight is almost as strong as political weight when your talkign abotu the top, but even if you disagree, shouldnt India be up tthere somewhere? giant population and a giant growth rate.

[Boer]

The UN attempts to undertake a lot of good action, and accomplishes some of them, but it is easy for one country on the security council to completely stop any action. The UN can only accomplish what "everyone" wants it to do, and often it gets caught up in squabbling between member nations with opposing political interests. Still, while it may not be as efficient as some would like and it does miss opportunity to do more good, I don't see how it does any actual harm.

[Agisilaos]

i think that it does some good things but the problem is that mostly it follows any USA decision so it is under control and not a free organization the last decade (if not even more).

[motiv-8]

The UN is very good at doing what it is designed to do, which is a very limited number of things, and very poor at doing what it is not meant to do. Shocking.

[Tiberius Tosi]

It does a little good, not much, if any, bad. No reason to think it should be disbanded, no reason to think it should control the world.

[bushbush]

it has done a great job in preventing great power wars. However, people are expecting too much of UN, especially on humanitarian intervention, which was not a designed function of UN.

[Big War Bird]

The UN is a world body populated by bureaucrats from virtually every county. And since a hefty portion of those countries are dictatorships, theocracies, kleptocracies, monarchies and uncategorized miscreants, so is the UN.

[bushbush]

The UN is a world body populated by bureaucrats from virtually every county. And since a hefty portion of those countries are dictatorships, theocracies, kleptocracies, monarchies and uncategorized miscreants, so is the UN.

if you don't include those cuontries, you will end up with league of nations. It is unrealistic to think you can exclude countries with different world views while forcing them to accept decisions made by you!

[CtrlAltDe1337]

The UN is like my small dog. It has a big mouth but no muscle to back its decisions. Consequently, the UN is worthless. The only things it can enforce are things that the nations already agree on. And if they already agree, why do we need the UN? I'm sick of hearing of "UN resolutions" that do absolutely nothing.

[bushbush]

The UN is like my small dog. It has a big mouth but no muscle to back its decisions. Consequently, the UN is worthless. The only things it can enforce are things that the nations already agree on. And if they already agree, why do we need the UN? I'm sick of hearing of "UN resolutions" that do absolutely nothing.

actually what did you expect? UN is made of countries. UN decision has to be backed up by countries' political wills.

that's the problem with most ppl here. THey are ignorant of what UN does and have unrealistic expectations. UN is not worthless. It feeds millions of refugees around the world and keeps big powers from fighting each other. The problem is a lot of issues today were not what UN was designed to fix when it was set up after ww2.