Problems Faced by UN Peacekeepers to Maintain World Peace.

Essay by wiseguy_akhileshHigh School, 10th gradeA-, June 2003

download word file, 2 pages 3.0 2 reviews

Downloaded 87 times

The United Nations officially came into existence on 24 October 1945, when the UN Charter was authorized by a majority of the 51 Member countries. The main purpose of the United Nations is to bring all nations of the world together to work for peace and development, based on the principles of justice, human dignity and the well being of all people. However, the UN peacekeepers have to face many problems in order to maintain world peace such as, non-agreeing members of Security Council, high maintenance cost, unwillingness of the members to intervene in another nations problem.

In 1956, the UN created a peacekeeping force and the Security Council was appointed its head. The Security Council consists of five permanent and ten non-permanent members. Any permanent member of the Security Council has the power to veto any decision on peacekeeping operation, thus preventing a peacekeeping operation. There are many struggles going on between the members of the Security Council, which usually causes disagreements between the members.

For instance US and Russia, they have many unsolved political matters that are causing tension between these two nations. Both Russia and US don't get along very well which also affects the decisions they have to make as the permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Maintaining peace in the world is certainly very expensive. A regular budget of UN amounts approx. around $1.26 billion, which does not cover any peacekeeping missions. The cost for UN peacekeeping is contributed by all its member nations. In order to be fair to every member of the UN organization each members contribution is calculated based on its share of the world economy. The UN is currently having a financial crisis. Many of its members have not paid their share of money because they are poor or...