How should the UN be reformed to promote international peace and stability in the 21st century?

Essay by seisarahUniversity, Bachelor'sA-, September 2004

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It is true that the United Nations can claim victory to many past notable achievements. Despite this there are numerous critics of the organization who have asserted that the UN's salient purpose of maintaining of international peace and security is gradually being lessened. Accordingly, many of the afore said achievements are being obscured by the overwhelming sentiment that the United Nations is an ineffective institution, that is of little use to the international community, moreover to the 21st century. For the United Nations to survive it must ensure that its future existence narrowly depends upon the underpinning of a durable peace, and for this to occur, the UN must change.

This discussion will attempt to propose reforms that are consistent with aim the promoting of international peace and security, and through such reforms, enhance these objectives. Suggestions include responding to the challenges of globalization by restructuring the internal framework of the UN, specifically the power of Veto.

Also organizational changes that will ensure better representation for the entire democratic community. These suggestions are limited in their scope, as there are many other reform strategies that also seek to improve the UN's role in peacekeeping, however through this narrow examination, we can still recommend a degree of reform required to safeguard peace and security in the 21st century.

The veto and secretive behavior of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council are behind much of what is deemed to be currently dysfunctional in the UN, and for peace to be a viable objective this is a reform that is possibly one of the most important. In its beginnings, the Security Council was never intended as democratic institution. Chapter 5 of the UN Charter established a Council that would be dominated by the five Great Powers victors of World...