Resolved: The United Nations should be abolished

Today I hope to advocate the United Nations in world politics. During the course of this debate, I’ll focus on one clear misconception that is unfortunately endemic with how people view the United Nations, that the primary tool and goal of the UN is found in war. The United Nations, contrary to being a tool for warfare, is a tool for negotiation among countries, emphasising and producing nation-building policies and systems, and promoting the general welfare of civilians inside populations, thereby helping as many people as possible. None of this requires warfare – military force is almost always a worse choice of action, and certainly ought to be the very last resort in every situation. Instead, the UN achieves its goals through peaceful means, granting sovereignty to each nation to facilitate international peace and co-operation. The UN General Assembly To quickly address my opponent’s point that the majority of nations do not support the goals established in the charter, this of course is simply false. The closest he comes to evidence for this is that there was a moment of silence for the passing of Kim Jong Il. This is of course nonsensical: other than North Korea being but one country, many nations including “United States, European Union members, Japan, and several other countries”[1]. Moreover, those who did take part, such as Al-Nasser of Qatar said he did so as it “was protocol”[2]. Of course, my opponent picks the worst example he can find: why not Chavez?[3] Or the fact there was none for Havel, who brought Czechoslavakia peacefully from communism to democracy?[4] The reason why there are minutes of silence for leaders, including those we do not like, is that despite what my opponent is trying to lead us to believe, we live in a world where there are no rules of how nations interact with one another, no police force to restrain them. This includes the United Nations. The role of the UN is to help placate countries and allow us to co-operate so we can gradually move towards liberty, and not strong arm countries into falling in line with the UN goals. This is because the world is made up of many ideologies, factions, and viewpoints. We seem to forget this living in our vast countries that we are in fact small. The southern hemisphere, feeling the full effects of what war and ‘Western intervention’ can do, are cynical of all attempts to intervene from militaries to corporations. Chinese and Asian cultures with a heavy culture of family support is contradicted by American individualism, which in turn is contradicted by the social democracy in many Western nations. The problem of pollution for MEDCs is contradicted by those vying for growth in developing nations. The United Nations, by stating one needs two thirds support, avoids upsetting any ideology in particular while facilitating international diplomacy. Thus, not only does the general assembly facilitate the existence of an international agreement to promoting the populace, but it also does so in a manner that no nation can do unilaterally: it creates an unbiased field for nations to discuss issues, and therefore is of a great benefit in what is otherwise a hostile partisan world torn into pieces by ideology. The Success of Peacekeeping Of course, some peacekeeping efforts have been problematic. However, the peacekeeping missions are not imperialist war machines which my opponent seems to be alluding as their goal. Instead, they are to watch and advise nations, as up until the 20th century the massive global consensus was one of supreme sovereignty of nations. Moreover, if they intervened everywhere atrocities were saw to take place, they would soon be intervening in our own nations to correct alleged “crimes”. The EU for example has repeatedly intervenes as of late in the UK’s affairs, and all it has done is angered the population and politicians[5]. However, the UN has taken many steps to improve its peacekeeping abroad. Kofi Annan in 2000 stated “if humanitarian intervention is indeed an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebenica – to gross and systematic violations of human rights that offend every precept of our common humanity?”[6] There have been many problems of unilateral intervention: the most clear being in Somalia. A UN-led intervention was highly successful originally, but when the US led forces expanded their mandate to wage war against military leaders, the misconceived war led to “Black Hawk Down” debacles, and the Mogadishu effect. The Mogadishu effect is how nations became fearful, especially in multinational interventions, to contribute heavily – though to properly invest may be a better phrase – in the nation-building and protection of a country where its people are dying in droves. Rwanda suffered heavily from the Mogadishu effect, where all other nations failed to intervene despite Romeo Dallaire in charge of Rwanda’s UN mission making passionate cases on a daily basis, suffering from post-traumatic stress and repeated attempts at suicide[7] after the hell he went through trying everything to remedy the situation. Kofi Annan states repeatedly a scarifying sense of personal responsibility to make sure a Rwanda never happened again[8]. To claim they simply did not care and did “absolutely nothing but stand by” is not just false, but downright insulting to the extreme effort the men went to in order to protect a vast population completely understaffed and completely without support. And this is my key point: without support. Where was the United States? The UK? France? Russia? China? No nation would intervene in this atrocity, and as Kofi Annan stated: “we are no stronger than our member states”8. Without the UN, the atrocity would have been worse. Dallaire is accredited with saving over 30,000 lives alone with only 600 men at his command in Rwanda, and with five thousand claimed to be able to stop the crisis entirely[9]. Yet no nation intervened. My opponent is blaming the lack of support by member states on the UN, when in fact it is the member states at fault. Without the UN, this problem would not be resolved. Yet would it be resolved with the UN? The Responsibility to Protect The R2P began as a concept in 2001, after the Mogadishu effect causing the death of millions being too large a burden to ignore. Though interventions such as in Timor-Leste were on the whole successful[10] and similarly Kosovo[11], major successes have come in the 21st century now we are more willing to bring in a peacekeeping operation. The Responsibility to Protect is the key ideological underlining of UN intervention: we have a duty to protect the lives of people from genocide, mass rape, and atrocities of this nature. If this is found too extensive, then the UN of course fails. However, desiring to stop these crimes, the purpose of the 21st century UN alongside facilitating negotiations among nations, stands. I’ll conclude by pointing out the success of the UN peacekeeping operations. The key section is peacekeeping: its goal is to defend newly found peace and build nations. RAND studies show time and time again the UN are successful, moreso than e.g. the US[12], more effective and more efficient. “The UN spends 3 in one year on all nineteen of these missions about what it costs the United States for one month’s operation in Iraq”[13]. The UN is extremely effective at its role both peacekeeping and in creating a space for diplomacy. With that in mind I pass over to my opponent. [1] http://tinyurl.com... [2] http://tinyurl.com... [3] http://tinyurl.com... [4] http://tinyurl.com... [5] http://tinyurl.com... [6] Kofi Annan, Millennium Report of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, 2000 [7] http://tinyurl.com... [8] http://tinyurl.com... [9] Gareth Evans, The Responsibility to Protect [10] http://tinyurl.com... [11] http://tinyurl.com... [12] The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-building by RAND, and [13] http://tinyurl.com...