“Concerns for the United Nations”;
Introduction
Upon every living souls, one significant thing that we wish upon ourself and the whole nation thoroughly is world peace, indeed. The need for an occurrence of harmony, the relinquishment of every violent acts, conflict behaviours and a complete freedom from fear of violence. Which is why the United Nations are built on the basis of preservation of world peace. United Nations plays a vital role as an intergovernmental organization which demolishes hostility and retribution, always promotes attempts at reconciliation, international relationships, prosperity in matters of social or economic welfare, the establishment of equality, and a working political order that serves the true interests of the whole nation.
In the century prior to the UN's creation, several international treaty organizations and conferences had been formed to regulate conflicts between nations, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. Following the catastrophic loss of life in the First World War, the Paris Peace Conference established the League of Nations maintain harmony between countries.This organization resolved some territorial disputes and created international structures for areas such as postal mail, aviation, and opium control, some of which would later be absorbed into the UN. However, the League lacked representation for colonial peoples (then half the world's population) and significant participation from several major powers, including the US, USSR, Germany, and Japan; it failed to act against the in 1931, the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in 1935, theJapanese invasion of China in 1937, and German expansions under Adolf Hitler that culminated in the Second World War.
The UN has six principal organs: the General Assembly (the main deliberative assembly); the Security Council (for deciding certain resolutions for peace and security); the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) (for promoting international economic and social co-operation and development); the Secretariat (for providing studies, information, and facilities needed by the UN); the International Court of Justice (the primary judicial organ); and the United Nations Trusteeship Council (inactive since 1994). UN System agencies include the World Bank Group, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, UNESCO, and UNICEF. The UN's most prominent officer is the Secretary-General, an office held by South Korean since 2007.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations is a symbol of the Organization's ideals and a spokesman for the interests of the world's peoples, in particular the poor and vulnerable. The current Secretary-General of the UN, and the eighth occupant of the post, is Mr. Ban Ki-moon of the Republic of Korea, who took office on 1 January 2007. The UN Charter describes the Secretary-General as "chief administrative officer" of the Organization.
Even a calm water will experience a shake of turmoil. So, even an organization founded upon peace like the United Nation will surely face a several trials and tribulations in this ardous journey to maintain world peace. Particularly in this revolutionary era we are living in, there ought to rise a dispute, demurrance and complications to every issues out there. Therefore, it is of the Secretary-General's highest authority and perspicaciousity to develop an immensely extraordinary leadership quality which are robust enough to withstand adverse challenges that will constantly arise.
Challenges The United Nations Faces Today
1.1 The Injustice of Oppression
“Oppression”, a three syllable word that conveys a deep and wide meaning of which the state of being subject to unjust treatment or control. Oppression is one of the core challenges that induces the disruption to world’s peace and the whole human justice system, a major issue that United Nation needs to play a big role to vanquish this “disease” from the nation once and for all. How do we expect justice to prevail when the minorities all over the world are still being treated with such prejudice and complete disparage to the basis of inequity? As Simone De Beauvoir states, “All oppression creates a state of war.” So how can we proceed to tackle other humanity issues or even fathom the reality of acquiring peace when the human system itself are not in accordance to what is morally right and fair? Ignorance is the single greatest tool of oppression. Therefore, before I begin to address the ever growing oppression that are imposed upon the minority group throughout the whole world, a tyranny act which we need to get to the roots of before emphasizing the vital role of Secretary-General’s capacity in this substantial affair.
The Social Work Dictionary, ed. Robert L. Barker defines oppression as: "The social act of placing severe restrictions on an individual, group or institution. Typically, a government or political organization that is in power places these restrictions formally or covertly on oppressed groups so that they may be exploited and less able to compete with other social groups. The oppressed individual or group is devalued, exploited and deprived of privileges by the individual or group which has more power." (Barker, 2003)
The Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology has an excellent definition of social oppression: "Social oppression is a concept that describes a relationship between groups or categories of between groups or categories of people in which a dominant group benefits from the systematic abuse, exploitation, and injustice directed toward a subordinate group. The relationship between whites and blacks in the United States and South Africa, between social classes in many industrial societies, between men and women in most societies, between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland – all have elements of social oppression in that the organization of social life enables those who dominate to oppress others. Relationships between groups and relationships between groups and social categories, it should not be confused with the oppressive behavior of individuals. A white man may not himself actively participate in oppressive behavior directed at blacks or women, for example, but he nonetheless benefits from the general oppression of blacks and women simply because he is a white man. In this sense, all members of dominant and subordinate categories participate in social oppression regardless of their individual attitudes or behavior. Social oppression becomes institutionalized when its enforcement is so of social life that it is not easily identified as oppression and does not require conscious prejudice or overt acts of discrimination." One of the purposes of the exercise we'll do is to help use better identify the feelings that oppression produces in us and in our clients. (Johnson, 2000b) that it is not easily identified as oppression and does not require conscious prejudice or overt acts of discrimination." One of the purposes of the exercise we'll do is to help use better identify the feelings that oppression produces in us and in our clients. (Johnson, 2000b)
“Oppression refers to relations of domination and exploitation – economic, social and psychologic – between individuals; between social groups and classes within and beyond societies; and, globally, between entire societies. Injustice refers to discriminatory, dehumanizing, and development-inhibiting conditions of living (e.g., unemployment, poverty, homelessness, and lack of health care), imposed by oppressors upon dominated and exploited individuals, social groups, classes and peoples. These conditions will often cause people to turn to social services for help. Oppression seems motivated by an intent to exploit (i.e., benefit disproportionately from the resources, capacities, and productivity of others) and it results typically in disadvantageous, unjust conditions of living for its victims. It serves as a means to enforce exploitation toward the goal of securing advantageous conditions of living for its perpetrators. Justice reflects the absence of exploitation-enforcing oppression.” (Gil, 1994, p. 233).
Oppression (Turner, Singleton and Musick, 1984, cited by Davis (2002): “a situation in which one or more identifiable segments of the population in a social system systematically and successfully act over a prolonged period of time to prevent another identifiable segment, or segments of the population from attaining access to the scarce and valued resources of that system.” (Davis, 2002; Turner, Singleton Jr, & Musick, 1984)
Evidently, it is prominent from the definitions of oppression as stated by various of the denotations that regardless of any facets of any coterie, caucus, cabal, group or even any individuals at all, an act of belittling, subjugating and suppressing people in an unjust manner is considered as oppression. Fundamentally, there are many words that serve as an euphemism for oppression. Oppression is obscured behind many connotative words such as “collateral damage”, “ethnic cleansing” and many more to obscure the harsh reality of the increasing statistic of civilian’s death, brutality of slavery, denied access to basic constitutional guarantees, all resulting from a systematic institutionalized mistreatment of one group over another. If we can’t see and understand something, we have no hope of resisting it. This is where the honorable Secretary General should step in to carry on a scrutinize research on the field of oppression in hope to implement effective ways to prevent the adversity of oppression in every matters possible. He must find a universal antidote to terminate this particular social conundrum.
The suppressing minorities all over the world that are struggling against oppression is the albinos among the Negroid populations of Africa whom are commonly perceived as objects of fear and loathing. Witchcraft performed as part of native religions often results in the murder of human albinos, and to a large extent people afflicted with the disorder are shunned. Suffering from vision problems and sensitivity to the sun, albinos have to endure such a deep burden enough without the extreme discrimination from their fellow humans.
Enterprising people from the Indian sub-continent have emigrated to Africa and worked hard to open their own businesses and becoming a shopkeeper class in many areas. Local native Africans loathed the success of these immigrants and at times carry a harshly cold demeanor with violents act toward them, venting their envy and resentment. This backlash against newcomers perceived as making money off the poorer natives is manifested around the world, such as against the Arab, Korean and Indian store owners in American ghettos and the Chinese merchants.
It is hard to believe that the largest single religious denomination in the United States can be an oppressed minority, but of course when you add up all the Protestant denominations (and others) Catholics are greatly outnumbered. Catholics have been targeted by the Ku Klux Klan and in states like West Virginia and Indiana have been attacked and harassed. Only with great controversy was John F. Kennedy elected the first (and only) Catholic president of the US, and only after he made a famous speech announcing his independence politically from the Vatican. Just as Jews and African-Americans, Catholics have been historically excluded from some exclusive clubs and organizations, although in the past few decades laws against religious discrimination and an easing of public bias has somewhat relieved the situation. The fact that many US Catholics were of Irish, Italian, Spanish and Polish descent became part of the prejudice against those groups. There is still tremendous unspoken scorn, fear and disdain for the Roman Catholic church and other countries predominantly Protestant, Communist, Muslim or Buddhist discriminate against either all Christians or Catholics specifically.
Kurdish people understandably wonder how many other ethnic groups have gotten their own country in recent years and they get ignored. In Turkey and Iraq the Kurds are treated like captive people and insurrections are put down harshly. Left wondering what hit them when George H. W. Bush encouraged them to revolt from Iraq in 1991 and the US failed to supply the expected assistance, the Kurds were once again beaten back into submission. Apparently pressure from Turkey, a US Nato ally, keeps the US from orchestrating a Kurdish state on the Iraq-Turkey border.
Laws are one thing, but practices are another. Native American populations were given “reservations” to exist on land a fraction of the size of their original territory, usually with a minimum of resources (as apparent at the time of drawing the borders) and poorly suited for farming and animal harvesting. Ill will toward the scorned and defeated native people of North America remain up to this day, as witnessed by the insensitivity to the persistent clinging to racist sports names like the Cleveland Indians (with their Chief Wahoo), Washington Redskins, and Atlanta Braves.
Palestinians in Israel do not have 100% of the rights and privileges of Jewish citizens. Israelis seem to think Palestinians have a homeland, and that it should be Jordan, but Jordanians think differently. Most other Arab countries do not welcome Palestinians and allow them to work low class jobs in service industries.
These oppression issues do not just end there. In fact, oppression is rampant in every corners of the world. We shall not underestimate the obliterating power of oppression as it is the beginning to many other predicaments that exudes demolition to a harmoniously peaceful era. If we take a moment to zoom the world to a microscopic view, we can actually discern the past catastrophic events from the 9/11 World Trade Center attack to the most recent Istanbul suicide bombing, all is a result of malign oppression of people with dissenting beliefs, cultures and opinions. Conjecturally, terrorism which is also a prime challenge hat needs to be of paramount importance for the United Nation to unravel is highly associated to oppression.
1.2 Malignancy of Terrorism
Pragmatically, for the third time since the Israeli operation in Gaza began, rockets and terrorist instruments were discovered inside a United Nations building. After the first discovery, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) gave the rockets to the relevant local authorities—Hamas. The second time, UNRWA immediately evacuated all staff from the premises, and thus was “unable to confirm the precise number of rockets.” Hamas was then allowed to retake possession of the rockets.
Subsequently, three IDF soldiers were killed by an explosion from a booby-trapped UNRWA building. According to IDF’s Gaza Division Commander Brig. Gen. Micky Edelstein, “They [Hamas] blow [up] the UNRWA clinic on our troops.” This was a health clinic, linked to a series of terror tunnels leading into Israel’s sovereign territory.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. The phrase halted there, but UNRWA hasn’t. It is thoroughly inconceivable that UNRWA officials did not know about large stores of rockets filling rooms in their schools and clinics. But even if one were to make the intellectual leap to give them the benefit of the doubt, there is no way they didn’t notice terrorists installing bombs in their walls. Drills make noise, but unfortunately the world didn’t.
After each of these three cases, the world’s pro-peace community should have been up in arms. The United Nations, according to its charter, was established “to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace.” Apparently, it’s too much to ask for the UN to remove threats to peace from its own buildings. Instead, the world’s “pro-peace” community has continued to condemn Israel, using the UN as its conduit. Just last week the UN Human Rights Council called for another investigation into the purported human rights violations of the Israelis in Gaza. In their resolution, which reads more like a lynching than a call for peace, not once does the body mention Hamas, a non-state, terrorist actor that has used the United Nations and its resources to more effectively inflict terror.
Also recently, seemingly unbeknownst to the world’s foremost body on human rights, several thousand Christians in Iraq were forced to convert, pay taxes, or die in Iraq; hundreds of civilians were brutally murdered in Syria; and reports confirmed that the Russian government provided the means for terrorists to shoot down a commercial airliner.
Since 2006, when the Human Rights Council was redesigned in an attempt to rid itself of its historical anti-Israel slant, it has issued 103 resolutions, more than half of which were aimed against the State of Israel. Of the special sessions called for by the Council, one-third have been specifically directed at Israel. Not one resolution has condemned Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, Boko Haram, or a variety of other terrorist organizations around the world.
Even worse, not a single resolution, nor even a single word has been uttered in the chamber about abuses for which the UN itself has been responsible. Time and again, human rights organizations around the world have documented rabid cases of sexual and violent misconduct by UN Peacekeeping Forces in volatile regions. The recent cases involving UNRWA’s rampant cooperation with Hamas’ rocket fire, which even the Palestinian Ambassador to the UNHRC stated constituted “war crimes,” has gone without official condemnation. Only increased suffering will result from a Human Rights Council whose member-states sponsor terrorism, permit institutionalized slavery, persecute minorities, and routinely torture and execute political dissidents. Within a culture that would never criticize its own member-states, it is no surprise that the Council refuses to condemn its own member institutions—but that doesn’t make it any less disappointing. This further proves to provoke United Nation’s capacity to preserve the peace and security of the world in a turmoil state.
1.3 Scourge of War
Steering clear from the scourge of war also serve as a hefty challenge to United Nation. As a crucial council to preserve international peace and security, the seemingly perpetual war in this era will be a complication to UN’s world peace mission.
In Africa, the catastrophe unfolding in Somalia symbolizes some of peacekeeping's most abject failures. Twenty years, two U.N. peacekeeping missions, and one laborious African Union peacekeeping mission have done nothing to restore peace and stability to the Horn of Africa or to alleviate humanitarian crises there. Years of consternation over Somali pirates has shifted to impotent concern over a devastating famine exacerbated by decades of civil war.
What does the current state of affairs tell us about the nature of U.N. peacekeeping? Why, after more than six decades, is its legitimacy still debated regularly in the halls of the U.N. headquarters in New York City? Undoubtedly, U.N. peacekeeping has restored peace and brought prosperity to millions of inhabitants in conflict zones around the globe. Yet, expanding expectations for peacekeeping have strained the resources and mechanisms of the United Nations. Operational overstretch, shifting definitions of what peacekeeping should entail, and diminishing contributions (linked to a weakened global economy) are only the most recent obstacles to a function that has long tested the limits of the United Nations.
In 1945, delegates from 50 nations met in San Francisco to draft a charter for a new international collective security organization determined "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war." Since 1948, the United Nations (and its now 193 members) has conducted 67 peacekeeping operations from Central America to Southeast Asia. For the vast majority of devastated populations around the world, the United Nations has become synonymous with peacekeeping. Yet, nowhere in the 111 articles that comprise the United Nations Charter can the word "peacekeeping" be found.
While not consciously chosen, "peacekeeping" operations arose from the UN's driving commitment to avoid the "scourge of war." The all-important justification for this peacekeeping function resides in Chapter VII of the charter, which stipulates that Security Council can authorize military action to safeguard international peace and security and respond to regional instability resulting from aggressive attacks on the sovereignty of member states. The United Nations, like many collective security alliances, was created in response to the last great threat to peace and security, in this case the two world wars. As such, the United Nations was built to respond to interstate conflicts (between two or more recognized states) and to safeguard the sovereignty of its member states. In order to avoid the inertness that plagued its predecessor, the League of Nations, the U.N. was endowed with rather robust enforcement protocols.
Despite its focus on safeguarding international peace and security, the United Nations was not constructed to confront the type of intrastate conflicts (between groups and peoples within a single recognized state) that almost exclusively dominate its peacekeeping agenda today.Very soon after the United Nations' founding, Cold War tensions complicated decision-making under Article 43. Since any one of the Security Council's Permanent Five (P-5) can exercise veto rights in defense of broader geopolitical agendas, the ability of the U.N. to speak in a unified voice when authorizing military action has often proved difficult—especially as the Cold War animosity between the United States and the Soviet Union crystallized.
Despite these challenges, the United Nations confronted threats to peace and security with military action far more effectively than the League of Nations before it. In so doing, however, it was forced to develop "peacekeeping" within the parameters laid out in Chapter VII's passages on military operations. In the nearly two decades since the United Nations ventured into second-generation peacekeeping in both Bosnia and Somalia, the organization has come to recognize the limitations of its approach to peacekeeping. Still haunted by the memories of UNOSOM and conscious of a mixed record of peacekeeping elsewhere in Africa (perhaps most notably in Rwanda), the United Nations has repeatedly refused to deploy a third peacekeeping mission to Somalia.Yet as this crisis continues to unfold, the United Nations must reflect upon its own commitment to the principle of peacekeeping and determine whether an appropriate strategy exists that can responsibly and effectively balance its ideal of saving the world from the "scourge of war" with the realities on the ground in these conflict zones.
The United Nations expanded the function of peacekeeping to meet the challenges of a post-Cold War landscape. As peacekeeping increasingly responded to internal conflicts and civil wars, the political, economic, social, and security functions became more complex and required greater participation by a broad array of international and regional organizations. All of this occurred in an increasingly interconnected world. As the number of U.N. peacekeeping missions exploded over the past two decades, so did the attention they received. What happens in one theater of operation is no longer isolated and peacekeepers' actions in one mission can impact their effectiveness in another. The recent political and refugee crisis in the Cȏte d'Ivoire not only strained the capacity of it mission there (UNOCI), but also threatened to jeopardize the activities of the neighboring United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL). Peacekeeping successes and failures no longer exist in a vacuum. The seemingly endless cycle of peacekeeping missions has led to operational overstretch and a weariness among member states for a process that resembles a game of "Whack-A-Mole." The world is an obstinately violent place and particularly in light of the global financial crisis, member states are inclined to downgrade their commitment to peacekeeping operations.As U.N. peacekeeping has become ever more robust, it has often committed to doing more with less—a condition that does not seem likely to change in the foreseeable future. What then is the role of U.N. peacekeeping for the coming decade?The answer may lie somewhere between first- and second-generation peacekeeping: an approach that continues to stress an international commitment to conflict resolution, but is less invasive, expensive, and drawn-out. For this to work, the United Nations must continue to nurture the capabilities within its network of agencies. It must also ensure the willingness of member states and regional organizations to commit to a coherent peacekeeping agenda. The limited success in South Sudan offers some hope, but the Cȏte d'Ivoire and Somalia continue to offer cautionary tales. The United Nations is most certainly justified in not rushing into another poorly conceived and uninvited peacekeeping mission in Somalia. There is no commitment to peace by the various parties to the conflict and therefore no basis for peacekeeping.
Nevertheless, there is an image the U.N. member states must safeguard. If the international community waits too long to intervene, as it was perceived to do in Bosnia, it runs the risk of delegitimizing the peacekeeping function and alienating the very people it needs to build conditions for a self-enforcing and sustainable peace.
The Secretary General of United Nations must make a conscious reassessment of goals and capabilities in the 21st century—before taking the next leap forward. He must make the uprising challenges mentioned of paramount importance to be tackled with before moving on to others making peace and justice as the top aspects in every matter for the creation and delivery of strong sustainable nation. The Secretary General could finally assure of a culmination by always standing by the principle of the main notion is not to have a magnificent high-tech military weapons or splendidly brilliant war strategies, but the smartest move to make is to put an end to oppression, terrorism and war altogether whilst promoting the grand idea of World Peace.
The Proper Role of The Secretary-General of The United Nations
At the time the United Nations (UN) was established in 1945, the UN Charter described the secretary-general broadly as the "chief administrative officer." Beyond that, the type of leader needed, how to select the candidate, and the person's length of tenure were left open to interpretation, writes Brian Urquhart, former undersecretary-general, in an article for Foreign Affairs. The UN website stipulates that the secretary-general be "equal parts diplomat and advocate, civil servant and CEO." These guidelines also require that the secretary-general uphold the values of the UN, even at the risk of challenging member states. In the book Secretary or General, Simon Chesterman and Thomas M. Franck say the person in the post is sometimes treated as "an errand boy and punching bag," expected to be at once an independent political force and a public servant.
Despite the broad and vague requirements of the job, some informal norms are observed in appointments for the post. Secretary-generals usually come from countries considered small- to medium-sized neutral powers, are career diplomats, and serve no more than two five-year terms. Regional rotation is observed, with nationals of the five permanent members of the Security Council which are the United States, China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom–ineligible.
Equal parts diplomat and advocate, civil servant and CEO, the Secretary-General is a symbol of United Nations ideals and a spokesperson for the interests of the world's peoples, in particular the poor and vulnerable among them. The current Secretary-General, and the eighth occupant of the post, is Mr. Ban Ki-moon of the Republic of Korea, who took office on 1 January 2007.
The Charter describes the Secretary-General as "chief administrative officer" of the Organization, who shall act in that capacity and perform "such other functions as are entrusted" to him or her by the Security Council, General Assembly, Economic and Social Council and other United Nations organs. The Charter also empowers the Secretary-General to "bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security". These guidelines both define the powers of the office and grant it considerable scope for action. The Secretary-General would fail if he did not take careful account of the concerns of Member States, but he must also uphold the values and moral authority of the United Nations, and speak and act for peace, even at the risk, from time to time, of challenging or disagreeing with those same Member States.
That creative tension accompanies the Secretary-General through day-to-day work that includes attendance at sessions of United Nations bodies; consultations with world leaders, government officials, and others; and worldwide travel intended to keep him in touch with the peoples of the Organization's Member States and informed about the vast array of issues of international concern that are on the Organization's agenda. Each year, the Secretary-General issues a report on the work of the United Nations that appraises its activities and outlines future priorities. The Secretary-General is also Chairman of the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB), which brings together the Executive Heads of all UN funds, programmes and specialized agencies twice a year in order to further coordination and cooperation in the entire range of substantive and management issues facing the United Nations System.