Keeping the peace Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Keeping the peace - Essay Example The United Nations The purpose of the United Nations is to act as a global governing body through which peace is negotiated and attained. The U.N. has the capacity to help states find peaceful resolutions between nations when there is a dispute or the emergence of a conflict. The ways in which the disputes can be handled through the U.N. include diplomatic settlements, legal decisions, or through third party resolutions in which the dispute is mediated. The concept of non-peaceful means of dispute resolutions is not acceptable under the provisions of belonging to the U.N. According to U.N. Charter 2, section 4, member states are required to settle their disputes through peaceful means in order to continue international peace, security and justice (Ryan, 2000). During the Cold War there was a general disdain for the U.N. by the United States. During the 1980s, this belief in the power of the U.N. for acting on behalf of the world further diminished as the organization could not hold c ontrol over the actions within the Middle East. When Israel invaded southern Lebanon, the United Nations had only a symbolic involvement, the actual withdrawal from Beirut attempted to be negotiated by the Multinational Force which was comprised of the United States, France, and Italy. This failed as the United States began to bomb opposing forces of the Lebanese government. The lesson that should have been learned was one of impartial roles of those who are intended to seek peace between two forces that are in dispute (Ryan, 2000). During the Malvinas/Falklands conflict, the same sort of impartiality was ignored as the British and United States refused to accept peace that did not include the withdrawal of Argentinian forces. Other regions of the world in which the U.N. had little effect upon the establishment of peace were during the Iran/Iraq war, the conflict in Cypress and in the Western Sahara, as well as in Central America. Trying to keep peace in Afghanistan has been histori cally difficult for the U. N (Ryan, 2000). In 1994, Luard and Heater (1994) were asking the question as to whether or not the experiment that is the U.N. had failed. Part of the answer that they provide is that the U.N. holds its principles even though it has not always been able to convince various nations to follow their advice in keeping conflicts to a peaceful negotiation rather than deteriorating into war. However, they did conclude that the U.N. had contributed little in any way that was meaningful to creating peace within the world in the previous years which would include the 1980s (Luard & Heater, 1994). The question then becomes based upon the real purpose that the U.N. can hold in the world if it has no real powers either through persuasion or through law to support the overall peaceful existence between states in the world. Where the U.N. fails, however, other operations that are more closely tied to the states in question have had greater success as they work out the di sputes for which they represent. World Peace Organizations Some of the world peace organizations that have had success in