Elaine
Hang
Professor
Shirk
International
Relations
9
November 2015
Real Talk with the Daily Show
In
this video, Daily Show correspondent
Jordan Klepper successfully highlights the difficulties members have with the United
Nation’s ineffectiveness. Criticism of the United Nations usually centers
around the UN’s inability to enact its resolutions and handle international
conflicts. Other criticisms focus on the privileges of the permanent members of
the Security Council.
In
the beginning, Jon Stewart sets the stage for criticisms of the United Nation’s
inability to solve global issue; or in other words, do its job. He turns it to
Jordan Klepper, who interviews General Assembly members and get their opinions
on the whether or not the UN is effective. Of course, the diplomats he
interviewed in the first portion suggest that the UN is not an organization
that works on issue, but rather a place where members pay lip-service to ideas.
Klepper
goes on to playing the blame game with more members of the General Assembly. The
blame game reveals the resentment members have with one another over the UN’s
lack of progress in terms of getting resolutions passed and taking initiative
on them. It also highlights the frustrations members have with the Security
Council, which is the body that oversees the agenda and priorities of the UN.
The Security Council, according to some of the interviewees, is incapable of
handling international crises in Syria, Ukraine, and Africa. That results from
infighting among the members of the Security Council, more specifically the
permanent members who have veto power–China, France, Russia, the Unites
Kingdom, and the United States.
In
an interview with a representative of the UN, Klepper subtly criticizes that
fact that the UN’s strongest move is to “encourage.” The United Nations does
not have the capability to enforce its resolutions. Since most of its resources
come from its members’ contribution, the UN does not have a sustainable force
that actively fulfills orders. This may be because some members do not want the
UN to have that capability. They do not want the UN, which is heavily
influenced by the desires of the permanent members of the Security Council, to
infringe on their sovereignty.
These
critiques are not new. Not only have there been papers and articles written
about them, but there are also many people who are involved with the United
Nations who share the sentiment.
Unfortunately,
reforming the United Nations to be more “efficient” or “successful” at
achieving its goals is extremely difficult. Among many other complicated
factors, the permanent members of the Security Council (the only UN members
with a veto power) do not want to change the system. They would like to keep
their privileges and assert their power over other members in order to fulfill
their own goals. There would be additional opposition from UN members who benefit
from the current system as contributors of resources. They have more status, power,
and prestige over the other non-permanent members of the United Nations. Overall,
any proposed changes to the structure of United Nations (which includes
upending it and replacing it with a “World Buddies!” program) can face
opposition because, in the large body of members, there will be a number of
whom will want to maintain the status quo.
Elaine,
ReplyDeleteTo you then is the problem with the UN or with the nature of international politics? Can an "effective" UN be created in these conditions?
I talked about this some in my post, but I think that blaming the security council for major problems going on Syria, Ukraine, and Africa is unfair. The issues going on in those places are simply too big for one body of the UN to handle, let alone the entire UN itself. It is unrealistic that the security council could gather the financial and military means to resolve these issues. Not only that, but the issues go beyond the means of a peacekeeping body. They have to do with unstable governments in a couple cases, and major political problems that will take a long time to solve.
ReplyDeleteSince you view the United Nations as being held in a deadlock by permanent state members, what would you think about the possibility of another international political forum being created? As you argue, the United Nations is already on shaky ground. The organization’s legitimacy is questionable. If smaller, less powerful nations create a separate council with legitimized governing power, would not the more powerful nations have less influence on foreign policy?
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