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Essay on United Nations Organisation (UNO)
Essay Contents:
- Essay on the Origin of United Nations Organisation (UNO)
- Essay on the Objects and Principles of UNO
- Essay on the Membership of the UNO
- Essay on the Organs of the United Nations Organisation (UNO)
- Essay on the Works and Achievements of UNO
- Essay on the Difference between League of Nations and United Nations Organisation
- Essay on Shortcomings of the UNO
Essay # 1. Origin of the United Nations Organisation (UNO):
It was the Atlantic Charter of 1941 which guaranteed the principle of equality of states and their freedom to choose any form of government that can be considered the origin of the UNO. In 1942 the representatives of twenty-six countries put their signatures to the United Nations Declaration drawn on the lines of Atlantic Charter.
The United Nations Charter was drawn up by the representatives of fifty countries at san Francisco in June 1945 on the basis of the proposals worked out by England, the USA, Russia and China at Dumbarton Oaks in 1944. The UNO was formally brought into existence on 24 October 1945.
Essay # 2. Objects and Principles of the UNO:
The UNO aims at four objectives.
These are:
(i) to maintain peace and security all over the world;
(ii) to develop friendly relations among the nations of the world;
(iii) to promote the social and economic progress of the world;
(iv) to offer a common centre for mobilisation of world opinion and actions.
The UNO is based on the following seven principles:
1. It is based on the sovereign equality of all its members;
2. All member states are required to have good faith in discharging the obligations enjoined on them;
3. All disputes of the world are to be settled peacefully;
4. All member states will eschew violence or force in settling international problems;
5. No non-member state will be allowed to be a danger or threat to international peace and security;
6. The UNO will not interfere in the domestic affair of any state and
7. All member-states will be under an obligation to assist the UNO in any action taken by it according to its.
The UNO came to replace the League of Nations, which fell through with the outbreak of the Second World War. It was set up to maintain world peace and punish the aggressor and promote economic, social and cultural cooperation among the states through the specific machinery and for the settlement of international disputes. It was destined to be an improvement over the League of Nations.
So, Dr S. Radhkrishnan rightly said:
“After the First World War we set up the League of Nations, but it failed on account of our nationalist obsessions. After the Second World War we set up the United Nations Organisation with the objective of maintaining peace by removing the causes of international tension and creating an internal order based on justice and tolerance.”
Essay # 3. Membership of the UNO:
The UNO’s membership is thrown open to all countries which believe in peace in the world and accept the principles ingrained in the Charter of the UNO. It is for the UNO to certify that such willing countries are sincere in carrying out the obligations. There are two kinds of members.
Those states which signed the on 26 June 1946 are called the original members. Other members who are desirous of entering the club can become members by a resolution adopted by the General Assembly and on the recommendations of the Security Council.
It is the Security Council that can recommend for the suspension or removal of a state; and the General Assembly can carry it out by a resolution. The Security Council can restore a suspended or an expelled member. At present there are 159 members in the UNO.
Essay # 4. Organs of the United Nations Organisation (UNO):
The UNO has six organs, namely- (1) The General Assembly; (2) The Security Council; (3) The Economic and Social Council; (4) The Trusteeship Council; (5) The International Court of Justice and (6) The Secretariat. We may discuss them one by one.
1. The General Assembly:
All member states of the UNO are members of the General Assembly. It meets once a year. There is also a provision for a special session of the Assembly if circumstances so require. It discusses, reviews, supervises and criticises the works of the UNO as a whole. It recommends measures for the observance of the international peace and security.
It looks after the economic and social cooperation in the globe and adopts international conventions. It studies and recommends progressive international law. It admits new members and expels the erring ones. It appoints a number of members in various organs of the UNO.
2. The Security Council:
The Security Council is more dominant than the General Assembly since this is the executive organ of the UNO. Its sessions are more frequent than those of the Assembly. It has five permanent members, namely England, France, the USA, the former USSR and China.
The non-permanent members are elected by the General Assembly for a term of two years by a system of rotation. Each member has one vote. Every permanent member of the Council has the power of veto.
The Security Council has wide powers. It can recommend the admission of any member in the UNO. It can recommend expulsion or suspension of any member. It elects in consonance with the General Assembly the judges in the International Court of Justice and on its recommendation the General Assembly appoints the Secretary-General.
For the regulation of armaments it seconds its reports to the General Assembly. It supervises the Trust Territories. Whenever there is a spark that may set the earth on blaze, the Council immediately holds discussion to extinguish the fire. It calls upon the warring parties to settle the dispute through negotiations.
3. The Economic and Social Council:
This organ has eighteen members elected by the General Assembly. One-third of the members retire after every three years. All decisions of the Council are taken by majority votes of the members present and voting.
I
t endeavours to promote:
(i) Higher standards of living, full employment and conditions of economic and social progress and development;
(ii) International, cultural and educational cooperation;
(iii) Solution of international economic, social, health and related matters;
(iv) Universal respect for and observance of human rights, fundamental freedom, etc.
4. The Trusteeship Council:
It is an organ to deal with the territories held in trust by the UNO and is an improvement over the mandate system of the League of Nations. The Council has three types of members, namely the countries that administer the Trust Territories, the permanent members of the Security Council and some other members elected by the General Assembly for a period of three years. It looks after the matters relating to the trust territories.
The Council has a supervising control over the administration by the administering states. It is entrusted with the duty to promote the welfare and advancement of the dependent people and their progressive development towards self-government.
It has to ensure their just treatment and protection against any abuse or maladministration. It studies the reports submitted by the administering states on the economic, social and educational conditions in the trust territories and then sends recommendations to the General Assembly.
5. The International Court of Justice:
This organ is a successor to the Permanent Court of International Justice under the League of Nations. Like the League’s Court, this court also sits permanently at the Hague in Holland. It consists of fifteen judges elected by the General Assembly and the Security Council separately.
Its function is to settle legally the disputes referred to it by the General Assembly or the Security Council. The judges are those who are eminent Jurists in their own countries. So they represent different legal systems of the world. The decisions of the court are enforced by the Security Council.
6. The Secretariat:
The Secretariat is the administrative department of the UNO. There the most important person is the Secretary-General who is the mouthpiece of the UNO. He is elected for a term of five years. He maintains liasion between different agencies of the UNO. He prepares the agenda of the General Assembly and the Security Council.
He has to send an annual report to the General Assembly. Below the Secretary-General there are wide-ranging staff. The seat of the Secretariat is in New York. The member states are required to contribute towards the maintenance of the Secretariat.
Essay # 5. Works and Achievements of the UNO:
In diffusing the international tension and in the maintenance of the peace and security of the world, the UNO did some marvellous jobs.
In the first place, the UNO promptly came to diffuse the tension that mounted between Indonesia and the Netherlands. It is through the mediation of the UNO that Indonesia could attain her independence from the Netherlands. Thus the Republic of Indonesia came as a new nation in the map of the world. This was no mean achievement for the UNO.
In the second place, a war-like situation prevailed in Iran, Syria and Lebanon, because foreign troops had taken control of these countries and the self-government of these nations were jeopardized. The situation was saved, by the timely intervention of the UNO, which secured the independence of these states. This was another glorious record of the UNO.
In the third place, the performance of the UNO in Palestine in 1948 was definitely commendable. It set up a Truce Commission in April 1948 and this Commission intervened when the war broke out. Finally, in 1949 an agreement for armistice was reached through the mediation of the Commission. Moreover, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees did a lot of good service in the Middle East.
In the fourth place, the UNO played a vigorous role in the civil war in Greece which was engineered by the foreign powers in that country. The UNO’s efforts were crowned with success by removing the foreign dangers from Greece and resolving the civil war there. The same efforts succeeded in freeing Morocco and Tunisia from the domination of France.
In the fifth place, when the Indo-Pak crisis reached the point of war over the Pakistani raids in Kashmir in October 1947, the UNO intervened and ordered for a ceasefire and did a very useful job. The same good zeal was exhibited by it when Pakistan attacked India in 1965 and 1971. In all the three occasions the UNO came as the impartial umpire to restore peace over Kashmir. It did what could be the best under the circumstances.
In the sixth place, the UNO did a formidable task in tackling the Korean War which began in 1950. North Korea, that had attacked South Korea, was pulled out by the UNO army under the command of General Douglas MacArthur. The ceasefire was followed by permanent peace in the region.
In the seventh place, it was a testing time for the UNO when Israel invaded the United Arab Republic in 1956 to be followed by an Anglo-French aggression on the Suez Canal. The war cloud began to lurk when the USSR, in protest against the Anglo-French aggression, threatened to join the issue. It is through the tireless mediation of the UNO that a real war was averted and the aggressors had to vacate the Suez Canal.
The Arab-Israel conflict again came to the surface in 1967 and 1973 and in these two occasions also the UNO did not allow the friction to get into a conflagration.
In the eighth place, the UNO played a useful role in condemning the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia and the American tutelage over Vietnam. It has also adopted numerous resolutions condemning the vexed apartheid issue in South Africa.
On 2 August 1990 Iraq forcibly occupied Kuwait. By a series of resolutions passed in August 1990, the UNO Security Council called upon the member states to impose economic sanctions against Iraq and on 30 November 1990 the Security Council sent ultimatum to Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait by 15 January 1991. When Iraq ignored the ultimatum, on 16 January 1991 the USA and England on behalf of the UNO bombarded Iraq. Finally, Iraq saw reason and decided to pull out from Kuwait in April 1992.
When Libya refused to hand over two Libyans suspected of blowing up an American airliner in Scotland in 1988, the UNO in April 1992 imposed economic sanctions against Libya and brought pressure on her to hand over the two air-blowers.
Lastly, the UNO perhaps has been playing a greater role in the upliftment of the social, economic and educational standard of the world through its specialised agencies like the UNESCO, WHO, ILO, IMF, etc. to make the world safe for prosperity. This is something unprecedented in the history of mankind.
Unlike the League of Nations which failed to prevent a world war, the UNO has succeeded in keeping the world distant from another world war. This is the biggest achievement of the UNO. Although the UNO might not be successful to satisfy all countries of the world in obtaining collective security of the world, it is still doing a lot of good things for mankind.
The UNO is the last hope of the existing world since it provides a forum, at which all the nations of the world can assemble and iron out their differences. Had there been no UNO, the world would have been politically, economically and intellectually poorer today. It is the best thing that the world can have under the circumstances.
It is the ultimate pole-star of mankind to guide through the troubled waters of international politics. It is for the benefit of mankind to hope that the UNO will go from strength to strength in the days ahead
of the twentieth century.
Essay # 6. Difference between League of Nations and United Nations Organisation:
There are several points of difference between the League of Nations and the UNO. In the first place, the UNO is more broad-based than the League. The League had no such members like the USA and the USSR who represent the capitalist and the socialist bloc of powers.
The League was rather the mask of the imperialist powers, particularly during the last phase of its existence. So the League was more interested to upkeep the imperialist designs and tilted always in favour of imperialist interests. Moreover, Asia and Africa, that represent the third world of the developing countries, were practically excluded from the League. But the Afro-Asian interest is a prominent factor in the UNO.
Communist China, a vast county with world’s largest population was excluded as a member of the League. But she has been given representation in the UNO. With her admission the UNO became truly global with all sections of the world included in the international organisation.
In the second place, the machinery of the League was clogged by the system of consensus of decision in the Council. What was worse was that even a small country, by exercising veto, could block the decisions or steps for the general welfare of the world.
The most glaring example of this type happened when the League Council could not go ahead with the resolution condemning the Fascist Italy’s aggression in Spain, since a small country like Portugal upset all love’s labour by her veto against the resolution of the League.
This is not possible in the UNO where all decisions are adopted by a unanimity of the five big powers who are the permanent members of the Security Council. Here no small power acting as the puppet of an imperialist boss can undo the welfare measure and peace programmes of the world organisation.
Thus now there is no hide-and-seek game. The responsibility of the peace of the globe is a concern of both the socialist and capitalist blocs of power. And they have been discharging it very effectively.
In the third place, the League was plagued by the absence of an army of its own. It is for this reason that whenever disputes arose threatening the world peace, it looked helpless and proved a mute spectator. It could not hold back the aggressor or punish the erring country because, in order to do that, a strong army was necessary.
But the UNO has made up that deficiency by raising an army of its own by the contribution of the member countries. This army is not under the control or command of the member states but under the control and command of the UNO.
In the fourth place, the social and economic functions of the League were intermingled with the political programme. This is not the case in the UNO. The social and economic bodies of the UNO are kept totally separate from the political or legal ones. It is for all these advantages that the UNO has not gone in the way of League.
Essay # 7. Shortcomings of the UNO:
The UNO is handicapped by some inherent shortcomings. Its improvement over the League of Nations is more technical than real. First, the UNO believes in the theory of sovereign equality of all states, big or small.
This being the case, a vast country like India is equated with Grenada which is a tiny state with very negligible population. This over-simplification of the concept of equality is not always justifiable or acceptable. An elephant and an ant cannot have the same position or status.
Secondly, the UNO instead of being a forum for international peace and security has been degenerated into an international debating club. There the members talk more than work. The resolutions and recommendations of the different bodies of the UNO are more academic than practical.
Thirdly, the veto power given to the big five permanent members is a serious snag in the mechanism of the UNO. All effective steps towards the preservation of world peace can be brought to a naught by a single negative dose of the veto. If one of the big powers is an aggressor or supporter of such aggression, no good will come out from the deliberations of the Security Council. The result will be a deadlock or stalemate in the functioning of the world body.
Fourthly, the UNO is not a universal body but an instrument of two principal blocs of power, namely the American bloc and the Communist bloc. The peace of the world is secondary, the power games between these two camps are of pre-eminent position. It is, therefore, small wonder that the interest of the Asian and African countries or the developing world take a back seat in the world organisation. These countries are compelled to swallow the bitter pill because their protests are not heard of. They have to accept the measures of the UNO against their own will and have to very often sacrifice their principles.
Fifthly, the UNO has made a departure from its avowed task of peaceful settlement of all disputes with its own force where necessary. With the onset of the cold war it has become rather a collective military instrument for use against the aggressor nation.
The result is that it has deviated from its role of mediation and peaceful settlement and has taken to the method of collective security. This too has not been adhered to all along. The collective security was the anxiety of the UNO in Korea, but it was not applied in Guatemala. So the UNO is very often devoid of any principle of its own.