The Problem with the UN

The United Nations (UN) has been striving for international peace and order for over 60 years. With the turn of the century came a turn in the challenges that the UN faced in maintaining peace and order. These challenges include sovereignty and the responsibility members of the UN have in maintaining peace and order; the ever-changing nature of threats to world peace; the Security Council; and funds all of which I discuss in detail in this essay.

Sovereignty poses as a challenge to the UN in that the very essence of sovereignty compromises the international environment that the UN attempts to obtain. Sovereignty remains essential to international relations in that sovereign states make up the components of the international environment and without them, the “international community vanishes into a global empire” (Bantz, Baird and Cassimatis 2005:261). Sovereignty, while indispensable to the international environment, (Bantz, Baird and Cassimatis 2005: 261) also poses as a threat to international order. Sovereignty, recognised and honoured by the UN in the Charter, allows states to be “[the] supreme authority domestically and independent internationally” (Baylis, Smith 2005: 780). The UN gives sovereign states the right to act without the restraint of a higher authority but at the same time attempts to maintain international order. In doing this, the sovereign rights of member nations are compromised in that complete international independence and freedom of external constraints is limited in an endeavor to maintain peace.

However, signing the UN Charter also calls for a responsibility to act within the best interests of international peace and order (United Nations 2004:21). In a report by the Secretary General’s High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change it is said these international responsibilities are not always acknowledged by states (2004:22). In such circumstances, it is necessary for “a portion of those responsibilities [to be] taken up by the international community (United Nations 2004:22). The challenge facing the UN lies in the question of the relationship between sovereign states and their responsibility in maintaining international order. The UN attempts to recognize and honour sovereignty to the extent that states do not cause harm to international order, at which point states that are seen to be violating these responsibilities are denied their right to sovereignty. While honouring the sovereignty that allows states to act as they wish the UN is concurrently attempting to maintain a peaceful and ordered international environment that compromises the sovereign rights of states.

Furthermore, sovereignty gives an extent of independence that states are often reluctant to sacrifice. The UN faces the challenge of unwillingness from some members to participate in complete collective security (United Nations 2004:12). Members of the UN are self-interested states (Arthur Muhlen-Schulte 2007:131) that participate in the UN not entirely for global good, but for “the pursuit of national interests” (Alison Broinowski 2006:120). Members who are reluctant to provide complete commitment to the cause of UN pose a challenge in maintaining peace and order because, more than ever before, no State can stand wholly alone. Collective strategies, collective institutions and a sense of collective responsibility are indispensable (United Nations 2004: 12).