The United Nations No Longer Fulfills Its Mission

The United Nations no longer fulfils its mission. Discuss.

The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental global organization that works to promote international co-operation and peacekeeping among nations. It was established on the 24th of October in 1945 following the catastrophic effects of World War 2, in order to prevent similar conflicts in the future. At its founding the UN had 51 member states, but at present there are 193 members, with only Palestine and Vatican City excluded. The main mission of the United Nations since it was founded has been to promote peace and international cooperation. However, now that the UN is much larger and better funded, with many individual organisations that focus on specific issues such as UNESCO and UNICEF, the mission of the UN has become a lot broader in relation to specific issues, such as poverty and women’s rights etc. However, the main objectives of the UN can be summed up by five general points; maintaining peace and international security, promoting sustainable development, protecting human rights, upholding international law, and providing humanitarian aid and peacekeeping support in areas of conflict or disaster. Personally, I believe that the UN so far has been relatively successful in working on these five main objectives that they have. In comparison to the League of Nations (The UN’s predecessor), the UN’s impact has been leaps and bounds more successful, and is a lot more well established globally than the League of Nations ever was. It’s inevitable that conflicts will break out, and so it’s unrealistic for anyone to expect the UN to prevent all conflict around the world (even though that is their main goal). However, that is not to say that they no longer fulfil their mission as the UN still has made a large impact on shaping the world today, especially in developing countries.