Hi, everyone. I'm trying to understand how the UN failed in Iraq and am trying to decide which side I'm on. So... I'm looking for some basic articles about the United Nations' role in the world today. I'd like one or two that are clearly in favor of the UN, and one or two that are clearly opposed to it. Does anyone know of any good pros/cons articles about the UN?

UN Organizational Chart

The UN has many functions in addition to providing 'peace keepers' and a worldwide opinion arena.

They provide international flight standards, enable international mail to exist, combat diseases like SARs through the World Health Organization. The WTO, World Trade Organization, is a part of the UN.

Quote by NImN
"The WTO, World Trade Organization, is a part of the UN.

I think you will find that it isn't part of the U.N. Many people believe that it is trying to do the very opposite of what the U.N. is trying to do.

Please check the link and you will find that the WTO is listed under the Economic and Social functions.

It is a very common error to think the UN is only about political discord.

Please note that the WTO is listed on the chart as a "Related Oganization." It is not a part of the UN, it just works with the UN (sometimes).

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Originally posted by notinmyname:
Please check the link and you will find that the WTO is listed under the Economic and Social functions.

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The WTO is linked by a "dashed line" on the organization chart under the heading related organizations. My understanding is that it is an entirely separate entity with its own membership and policies.

Yeah - what methos said!

"pro" arguments

I can't find many of these online, but maybe I'm not "googling" properly. The United Nations Website may be its own best defender. Further, remember that 191 nations have determined that it is in their best interest to be U.N. members. To me, when it operates best, the U.N. serves as a forum for understanding and agreement among member nations to settle their disputes without violent conflict.

"con" arguments

Anti-U.N. Articles By Various Authors

my mistake then.


The international monetary fund certainly is, as well as the World bank.

No problem, nimn. Thanks for the organizational chart - it may well prove useful in future discussions.

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Originally posted by Sarai:
Hi, everyone. I'm trying to understand how the UN failed in Iraq and am trying to decide which side I'm on. So... I'm looking for some basic articles about the United Nations' role in the world today. I'd like one or two that are clearly in favor of the UN, and one or two that are clearly opposed to it. Does anyone know of any good pros/cons articles about the UN?

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Probably the best thing to do is to try and understand why the UN was created, what it's supposed to do, and what kinds of thing limit it's ability to do what it was established for.

The UN charter, http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/index.html , is probably the best place to start. The fundamental purpose of the UN is to prevent war. Towards that end, the promotion of basic human rights and the promotion of world-wide health, education and economic progress have been discovered to be important.

The UN was established as a successor to the post-world war I League of Nations. Although it did a lot of good work, the League of Nations failed to prevent several nations from exercising imperial ambitions, particularly Japan, Italy and Germany, and ultimately the collision of those new imperial powers with the existing imperial powers of France, the UK, the US and Russia brought the world to war again, despite the existence of the League.

Accordingly, the UN was given more in the way of "teeth" to enforce it's resolutions, the ability to impose sanctions, and even to intervene militarily if it saw fit. Still, no nation was willing to surrender very much sovereignty to an international body, so the ability of the UN to prevent war is still limited, and will almost certainly remain so. This became evident when they tried, unsuccessfully, to prevent a certain recent invasion.

Alan Moore

Thanks everyone.

I've continued looking for exactly the type of information that I want. I haven't found it, but I thought I'd share a couple of articles that I'm trudging through to try to understand the current mess.

This article argues that "One thing the current Iraq crisis has made clear is that a grand experiment of the twentieth century--the attempt to impose binding international law on the use of force--has failed."

This one argues the opposite.

They're both from www.foreignaffairs.org. I just thought I'd share in case anyone else out there is similarly trying to sort this out.

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Originally posted by Sarai:
Thanks everyone.

I've continued looking for exactly the type of information that I want. I haven't found it, but I thought I'd share a couple of articles that I'm trudging through to try to understand the current mess.

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20030501faessay11217/michael-j-glennon/why-the-security-council-failed.html argues that "One thing the current Iraq crisis has made clear is that a grand experiment of the twentieth century--the attempt to impose binding international law on the use of force--has failed."

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20030701faresponse82417/edward-c-luck/stayin-alive-the-rumors-of-the-un-s-death-have-been-exaggerated.html argues the opposite.

They're both from http://www.foreignaffairs.org. I just thought I'd share in case anyone else out there is similarly trying to sort this out.

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Thanks for those links. It seems to me that the United Nations failure was not in Iraq -- in Iraq, the UN did what it was supposed to do, successfully. Rather the United Nations failure was in not restraining the US from invading Iraq. There they failed their job rather badly.

Alan Moore