What Is the Purpose of the Un and Is It Fit for Purpose

School of Government and International Affairs.

International Security and Interdependence.

What is the purpose of the UN and is it ‘fit for purpose’?

The UN Charter served not only as a replacement to Woodrow Wilson’s ‘powerless and in-efficient’ League of Nations but moreover, it signalled a new hope in which the ‘shared a struggle against Nazism’ would ‘promote international cooperation and to achieve peace and security.’ In order to effectively analyse this question I will assess whether the UN is ‘fit for purpose’ in terms of efficiency. We will analyse the UN’s premise of human security supervised by the UN Security Council, peace keeping and peace. Moreover, we will assess whether ECOSOC and the UN’s subsidiary bodies fulfil their tasks in protecting human rights, providing efficient humanitarian assistance and promoting social and economic development. However, the latter part of this essay will delve into the UN’s complex financial predicaments heavily exacerbated by the processes of globalisation and regionalism which ‘fundamentally erode the U.N’s ability to govern’. Whilst the UN is the ‘organisation turned to in extremis for help’, serious reform is required to combat deep-seated areas of inefficiency.

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is arguably the most powerful council in the UN. The Charter lists that the ‘maintenance of international peace and security is the primary purpose’ of the UNSC and given that the post Cold- War era signalled a shift from state security in the international system to ‘human security from an international society perspective’.The efficiency of the UNSC has come under increasing focus from academics. Brian Urquhart focuses on UNSC’s successful placement of ‘safe-heavens’, ‘no-fly zones’ and a UN guard force in an effort to protect the Kurdish population from Saddam Hussein’s military jets during the Gulf War. He believes they were effective in acting as a forceful ‘deterrent to future aggressors in the...