UN SPECIALIZED AGENCIES

UN Specialized Agencies

[Name of the Institute]

UN Specialized Agencies

Introduction

The United Nations is a forum where countries may discuss common problems and strive for peaceful solutions. It was born after the experience of World War II. The headquarters are located in New York City. The organization is the pivotal international body in the world today to address concerns of the nations of the world: security, social justice, public health, and international business. It is difficult to ascertain who first conceived of the concept of an international body of independent states that used diplomacy first and submitted some national sovereignty for the purpose of world peace (Fasulo, 2003, pp.123). Before the United Nations, various regional alliances and mutual defense pacts were created to assist international diplomacy. The modern United Nations offers the world's first fully operational attempt at international cooperation and offers the possibility of working for positive peace—not just the absence of violence (negative peace), but the promotion of economic development and social justice leading to a positive sense of peace (Kant, 2003, pp.74).

The current United Nations charter was signed on June 26, 1945, and the United States Senate approved the treaty on July 28. The need for the United Nations became clear because of the two World Wars of the 20th century. After World War I, a League of Nations was established, but it lacked power to act because member nations refused to cede it real power. As a result, the League was powerless to meet the needs of the emerging threats during the late 1920s. Yielding sovereignty to international organizations still remains as the leading obstacle to success (Roberts, 1994, pp.32).

Discussion

To improve on the flaws of the League of Nations, the modern United Nations began with three principal organizational units to promote its mission of securing negative peace (the absence of armed conflict) and the promotion of positive peace (economic development and justice). To secure negative peace, the Security Council was founded with the power to send United Nations troops to a region to quell unrest or to stop aggression. The Security Council was originally formed with 11 members (five permanent and six rotating). The first real test of this came during the Korean crisis in which the northern parts of the country attacked the south (Schlesinger, 2003, pp.45). The UN Security Council stepped in and sent troops to the region (thanks largely to the USSR's boycott of the vote). Over time, the Security Council has intervened many times since its inception.

The one major difficulty of the Security Council is that the five permanent members (the Republic of China, France, the USSR [now the Russian Federation], Great Britain, and the United States) all have vetoes. This makes controversial action difficult. For example, during the Cold War, it would have been very hard to authorize an action that either the United States or the Soviet Union opposed (unless one party absented itself from the voting). Since these two superpowers seemed to have contradictory stands on most issues, it ...